011: CASE STUDY - How Steve turned $500 into $30,000 in 3 weeks with FB Messenger Bots!

Using your system and ask them for a referral and they send you some and you get another 20 signed contracts for basically 100 new clients. In what time frame?

It was like three weeks maximum. Three weeks. Everything was done. All the campaigns were over.

So you said he was at 460.

Now he's at 580.

Yeah.

So you increased his business 25% with 600 bucks?

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, he's got a you. He is probably getting you something for Christmas.

Probably.

Hey, folks, welcome to another episode of the Roofing Business Partner podcast. As you might have noticed, this is an interview episode, and you do not want to skip or miss this interview because we dropped some bombs of wisdom that would benefit each and every one of you looking to grow your roofing company in 2019. Especially if you've been curious on how to use the Facebook messenger bots feature, which, believe me, has been all the.

Rage lately and has.

It's been something that we've started using in my roofing company. But I am left in absolute awe and envy of the results that Steve Lazell, my guest, pulled off. Steve is a Facebook ad manager who had the same mentor I did for learning Facebook ads, and he just started his agency a year ago and deals specifically with local service businesses. So what we're sharing today is a deep dive into one of his campaigns that he ran for a snow removal company. Now, I know you might be thinking, hey, Adam, this is a show for roofers. Don't stop paying attention. Sometimes the best marketing campaigns can be found by simply looking at similar businesses, but. But different industries. After all, six years ago, all my Facebook ad ideas came from personal trainers because back then it was just diet plans and dog toys advertising on Facebook. There wasn't really anybody doing anything even.

Close to what I was like to local service businesses.

So I'll listen to anyone who turns $600 ad spend into somewhere between 30 and $50,000 revenue. And get this, it was done in three weeks. Plus, it gets even better. This was done in a town with only 10,000 people. And his client's primary business isn't even Snor removal. He sells produce at the farmer's market. This is just a winter business. So, I mean, I know a ton of roofers in Canada and, you know, some in the northern US that would love it if they could spend $600 and basically never have to step on a roof again all winter and instead just ride around in a heated machine pushing snow. So, as you might have also noticed, this episode is late. Without getting too far into the techy details. When Steve and I record this episode, we had an issue with the recording and we lost a chunk of the audio. Now, Steve was very busy this week doing a conference and I owe him a huge thanks, not for taking the time to do this interview, but for also making a second appointment to re.

Record the part that we lost.

So I think we did a pretty good job stitching it together. If any of you can find the exact transition point, I got a special.

Prize for the first listener to figure.

It out and let me know on Facebook. So hit me up there.

But without further ado, let's get into it.

This is the show where you'll learn the mind hacks, strategies and process we use every day to turn everyday roofing companies into the dominating local authority with our ultimate roofer marketing method. You'll also learn how we use Facebook ads to rapidly and affordably scale up business for roofing companies and generate leads on autopilot, putting you in touch with the right customers who pay the right price at the right time. Here's your host, Adam Sand. Now let's get after it.

Okay, so here we are with the roofing business partner podcast once again. And I have Steve Lizelle. He is from eastern Canada in Hawkesbury, so that is a town just on the border with Quebec in New York, Eastern Canada. So he is a Facebook agency owner who he has built an awesome, awesome, awesome campaign that I think you all need to hear about that he actually generated a ton of leads for a snow removal company. And while that's not directly in the roofing niche, I think it's very important for everyone to listen for the simple fact that it really shows that not everything has to be in your industry for you to learn from it. If you'll remember my story, I started out there was no such thing as local service businesses advertising on Facebook and everything I did with my ebook campaign was basically stolen from the personal training and fitness industry. How they would sell an ebook with a diet or a quick workout plan and then they would follow that up with an opportunity or an offer to sell them personal training. I did that same thing with an ebook to sell roofing, and Steve, I think has a very, very good technique that you all could benefit from. So, Steve, thank you so much and welcome to the show.

Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me, man.

Yeah, for sure. So I wanted to quickly talk about one thing that I think not a lot of people are going to know about you, which is that prior to doing this, you were actually a police officer. Is that, right?

Yeah, that's right. I was, I was a police officer up north on the, in northern Quebec, actually on the reserves. I did that for about, about four years. That. I did that.

Four years. Incredible. Well, you know what? It's, it's not easy. It's not easy living up there. And so how do you feel that being a police officer helped you now? Because that's a really pretty, it's a pretty big jump going from a government job, you know, very secure, certainly not very safe, you know, to the comforts of working indoors in your own business. As an entrepreneur, you know, how do you think that helps you or what made you make that jump?

Well, it's a long story, but actually I had to come back for other, like, other related issues. But when I, when I made the switch, I came back down here and I just, I was working a little bit, security and all that. And I was always good with helping people. I was a good talker. And especially when it was coming down to, you know, policing, I was, you know, able to de. Escalate situations pretty quick because I was understanding people really well. And you know, for me, marketing was never really a big, big thing in my life, but I always understood people. And I think, you know, when you do your marketing, understanding your audience is really, really, that's just how I made that jump. Started my agency, I started doing content marketing for a martial arts dojo actually. So that's how I started, basically.

Awesome.

Awesome.

And so I find that to be so interesting because you say things like you're good at helping with people and you're good at talking. And I think that's such an important part of running an agency is your ability to inspire confidence in others as well as to be able to communicate to them and, you know, the benefits of what they're doing and to help work. Because for some people, this is scary. I mean, you're handling their business. When you're an agency owner, you're, you're help, you're, you're basically taking their money in the hopes of providing them some kind of dream that they've been hoping for. And hopefully you're the guy to guide them through that. So it's a lot of managing the emotions, I think.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But I think it, like you say, it really, it relates to marketing and in a way, you know, in a sense, but. And that's, that's why I love it. And you know, I still get to help people. You know, I was helping people when I was a police officer, security and now, you know, I'm still helping people, so that makes it all worthwhile.

Right. So where did you get some experience or some confidence in doing, you know, in helping other companies attract customers?

Well, actually it all started, you know, like I said, I was doing martial arts class and I was doing content marketing for that, for that, my martial arts class, my gym. And so I was just like posting on Facebook a little bit, creating content, showing value and stuff like that. And then another company actually approached, approached us and you know, asked about who was doing all those posts on Facebook and stuff like that. So that's basically, that's basically like how I started. And you know, for like right now, as you know, I'm taking Rick's course. So I, I learned a lot from that, how to approach people. It's, you know, it's very common sense and you need to have a discussion when you're, you're trying to, you know, to sell. You know, we're not trying to sell anymore. Right. We're trying to have a discussion. And I think that's the basic of foundation of our selling point is having a discussion and then that discussion will lead to having a sell maybe later on.

Awesome. So what I, what I kind of heard there was that you're doing the content marketing for the, for the martial arts gym. And in there, you know, you talk about, you know, what kind of content was it? Were you teaching, you know, the reader? Was it just branding, talking about what the unique points are with the gym or were you kind of documenting the daily life inside the facility? Like what kind of content were you putting out there in addition to the flyers?

So we were, yeah, we were like, so yeah, we were doing flyers, but on, we were using Facebook and on Facebook business page and we were creating, well, I was creating like, you know, small videos. So I was actually trying to answer questions, pain points on, you know, the audience before they even ask about, about, about that particular subject. Right. So we were doing like a, you know, 15 second video of a certain technique. We would, you know, post important tips and tricks on, on Brazilian Jiu jitsu, so stuff like that. So just to pretty much, to answer any questions the audience might have before they even, you know, ask us.

I think, personally, I think that's great. I mean, I've never done marketing for a facility like that, but I mean, my first impressions is, you know, it could be an intimidating environment for someone to say, okay, I'm just going to walk in this room with these people who are, you know, kind of experts at Kicking people's asses, and I'm going to go and join them and be a student. And I think that by putting yourselves out there online and being friendly would probably make someone more apt to, you know, kind of show up because it's, it's maybe less intimidating.

It did, it did. And actually, and that was my main focus because, like you say, it was one of the biggest pain point I found. People would not show up because they were, you know, they were, like you say, intimidated. And so I was answering that question. I was mostly concentrating on, you know, how safe that sport is, especially in a dojo, how respectful it is. So it paid off. We got a couple students there from that. But anyways, it was, it was good. Yeah.

And I like what else you said there going back was that, you know, you said it's common sense. And I would say that in a lot of people, especially in, you know, in my audience, the roofing industry, I don't think it, it is necessarily perfect common sense. And not that it's that, you know, my audience's fault, the roofer's fault, that they don't see it that way. But I think that that's, you know, that you must have known that that would work. And I think that's important to actually highlight is the fact that, you know, not everybody knows that that's going to work. But you highlighting all those, highlighting all those things like respect and safety, I mean, those are things that people are looking for when they're trying to understand a business is they're trying to understand what kind of culture is ultimately running the place. And I think that's a key point for any business looking to put themselves out there. So, I mean, is that what made you feel confident that it would work, was that you were understanding your audience of potential customers?

Yeah. And I mean, you know, I didn't have at that time, like a lot of experience in marketing either. Right. So I just said, you know, as a person offering that service, you know, what would my, my audience want from me? What, what kind of questions they would, they would ask and stuff like that. What would they be scared of? So, yeah, that's basically, you know, like I said, common sense and, you know, for, for me to realize that. It took me a long time because I was, you know, thinking, hey, you know, how, how come people don't, don't show up, you know, all that stuff. But I said maybe they just want answers without, without them asking the actual.

Question, you know, and so now that you've got your own Agency is, you know, main niche. Is that what your. Your focus is? Like, are you, who are you doing marketing for now?

So right now we're serving local businesses. We don't have a special, a specific niche right now, just general local businesses and realtors.

And, you know, as we were talking about before on our last call, I believe that, I believe that certainly the realtors are very much part of the local service business because they, you know, nobody sells, nobody who's working in Hawkesbury is going to start selling houses in Edmonton, Alberta, where I'm from, and vice versa. And so it's very much a service that people are offering and being an expert in that market of nearby homes and neighborhoods and schools. So, I mean, I think that, yeah, you're ultimately taking that same kind of empathy and understanding that you had about the dojo and applying it to that. So what made you, you know, we were kind of talking before about, you know, how at first you wanted to serve everyone and now you've gone to this niche. So what is it that you feel is the power of finding a specific kind of group to work with?

So the power of that is because you can actually connect with your audience. Right? And you at one point, like, for me, for local businesses, I really like that because we connect on an emotional level with them. Serving local people is really, they need to feel well taken care of and all that. So for me, that's where it was important to me. And, and also when you niche down and you have an audience that you serve, you can replicate your ideas and stuff, and it's always the same thing. So you don't have to work as hard all the time.

And there's so much genius in that. And I really hope the folks are listening to this one point, which is that exactly what you said. When you have a specific audience or specific type of customer that you, the agency or any business is serving, it allows you to systemize. It allows you to improve your understanding of their unique challenges. And I believe, you know, it's like I said with, say, with roofers, you know, some people are going to like dealing with insurance. Some are going to deal with Bob and Betty the homeowner. Some people only want to deal with people who speak their language. If they're Chinese and they speak really well, Chinese well, then maybe they should have, you know, all their trucks and signs and everything in Mandarin as opposed to in English. And so I think there's a huge amount of genius into, into what you're saying. So I mean, you've, you're you know, as we talked about just in the call before we got started here, you know, how long have you had your agency, you know, take people through that?

Yeah, so, so I started. It's been, it's been a year actually. Like a couple days ago, maybe three or four. Four days ago. So it's been the year that we've been running.

Yeah. Congratulations again. That's awesome. One year anniversary. It's huge. Yeah, I, I wanted people to hear that because you're speaking like and you're doing a lot of things right and I think that's so important for people to know. And so as you mentioned just a few moments ago, you're in Rick's course. So what do you feel the value was of doing a course versus doing everything online? Just reading blogs and kind of going on a self study path.

Well, and you know, you mentioned the word expert and I like that because so like if you take. That's how I started, basically it was online, just researching myself. I've actually learned from that, but I didn't learn the specifics of it and some little details about running the Facebook ads and stuff like that. But when I took Rick's course, it actually helped me out a lot because I learned those specifics that I needed to learn have great results. And when you talk about the expert, Adam, what I did, and I think that's very crucial to everyone that, you know, everyone needs to do is they need to be the expert of their niche. Right. So you need to be the go to person of your niche. So your roofers, you know, they need to be the go to company. So why do I need to be the company? Why people come to us, what do we do differently? And I think that's very powerful.

I totally agree with you. Why is it that, that they should pick this one company amongst the hundred other roofers that are in town? What makes you special? And so much of it comes down to being the expert and exactly what the customer is looking for. You might have to turn some people away, but I think that when you start turning away the wrong people and only start dealing with the right people, you can do better for the right people than you ever would have if you were working for everyone. Trying to help everybody solve every problem.

Absolutely. And you know, right now, as a good example, in my agency, we actually, we screen our clients. So, you know, we're gonna ask like a client intake, so we're gonna ask them specific questions to know exactly if we can for one, help them and two, work in A good relationship with them, and I think that's very important.

Awesome. And so, you know, I think it's a good time to kind of segue into your. Into what you've been doing for this client is this campaign that we want to talk about. So. So tell me a little bit about this client that you've now secured, the one that we're talking about in the example.

So he lives in Hawkesbury, where I'm from. He owns. His original business is actually farmer's market. So during the summertime he has a farmer's market. He grows strawberries and stuff like that. And during the wintertime, he has a snow plowing company. So. Yeah. But his first market is actually farmers market. I love that. Yeah, yeah.

The fact that he's not eat. This isn't even his regular business, you know, so he's not even a snowplow company. This isn't Mr. Plow. That is your customer. This is a farmer. Like, because I tried looking for it, and when I. When I kept trying to find it, eventually I did, and it was a. It was a garden. They're selling produce at the farmer's market and they're advertising. They're advertising snowflake removal. So this isn't even their main business. So how is he. How is he advertising prior to you getting there as a snow removal part?

I guess. Yeah, he was. He was doing. He was. Not really. He didn't have an online presence pretty much. He had a Facebook page. But, you know, on his Facebook page, it was mostly for his farmers market.

Strawberries. Strawberries, of course.

Yeah.

Right. So he was mostly doing, like, flyers, door to door sell a lot of door to. To door sale, actually, and billboards and stuff like that. So he didn't really have a big online presence.

Yeah.

So there wasn't a lot of Facebook ad experience from your customer. So you introduced the concept to him.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So walk me through what your original brainstorming was. You know, as far as creating the campaign. As far as, you know, you're. You're looking at empty slate. He has no advertising for snow removal on Facebook, has no audience on Facebook thinking of him as a snow removal guy. What is your brainstorm as to. Okay, this is what we're going to do, and in 30 or 60 days, this is what we're going to accomplish.

So my plan was actually, you know, because it's a local town, I know that the word spreads out really fast. So I said, how can I make this guy the number one snow removal guy company when, you know, he's not a snow removal company. So it's actually, you know, I said, we, I need to make like we need to make a video of him and blast it with face, like with a. Do a campaign Facebook ad and actually blast it. So this guy gets seen as much as possible. So I want to get his name out there so that people can see. And it was actually a great. It was a timing situation too, because, you know, it was. It was getting cold and all that. So I was saying, you know, we need to get your name out there. People are going to start thinking about, you know, maybe hiring a snow removal company soon and all that. So I said, how could I, how could we do that? And we did a video. The video was actually, I had the idea of. Since it was a local business, I said, why don't you go to a charity location and just grab your cell phone, turn it into the selfie mode and just do a little video and offer, you know, something back to the community.

And this video had no professional product?

No, absolutely not. It was just his. His cell phone. Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah.

And so you're. You, You. He went there and did it. Did a video talking about a charity. So was this an offer that you came up with or did he already have a relationship with them? Like what was. Who came up with that?

He had a little relate with the charity people were. But so I had the idea of the actual, you know, charity going there with his cell phone and making a video. And what we did is I said you could offer back to the community to children and stuff like that. So the offer was actually he would give $50 back to the charity for them to buy snowsuits for kids if someone would sign with his snow plowing services. When we were. Yeah, yeah.

So that was the ad.

So that was. That was actually the ad. Yep. That was him just talking with the charity girl who's in charge there and just explaining that. That he wants to give back to the community, you know, that it's getting cold and he wants to help out children and you know, just to. If someone signs up by clicking on the ad, he would give $50 back to the charity.

So what was the experience of like, with. With getting to him to do that video? It was something I find quite often is that roofers, you know, in my industry, they have a hard time getting in front of the camera and speaking. So is this something he was pretty open to? You know, what were his ex. What was his idea? When you presented that idea, was he Pretty positive.

Yeah, he was, he was. He was actually really good, really good in front of cameras. He didn't really mind. I had to guide him a little bit on, you know, what to say, especially, you know, when it comes to, you know, call to action and stuff like that. I wanted him to have a call to. A little call to action into his video and say, you know, click on this button to register. But he was really good. I didn't have to convince him at all.

Perfect.

And yeah.

So then now you. So now you record this video and you set this up as a video views ad. So you were your objective when you set up the ad in Facebook Ad Manager was that you wanted people to watch the video?

Yeah, that was the main goal. And yeah, so I set up a video objective ad. And.

How about the targeting? Like, how did, how did you make sure that this went in front of the right people? What were your thoughts that? Because 10,000 people is a small neighborhood, for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And when it comes down to that, I was actually trying to narrow down the audience and I said at one point, you know what, I'm actually going to let Facebook's algorithm do the work for me. So I didn't do any targeting. I just used age, age group, location, gender. So that was the only targeting that we did. And I said, I'll let Facebook's algorithm to actually do the work for us because I wanted to get seen as much as possible. Right. So that's what we did. Yeah.

So this was really not even so much a video to generate leads because it sounds to me like you were putting his face in front of the community, showing that he's a local, showing that he supports a local benefit and that he's not just a part. He's just not wanting to take money from the community, but he's putting money back in and he supports that local effort. What were his expectations around getting leads from that video?

Yeah, well, you know, at the beginning when the video was running, he was getting a lot of traction. That video actually got, I think it was like 11,000 views, 13,000 reach, and maybe like 300 shares. So it was really, really good for a small.

That's a lot of shares.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's incredible. And so, and, and so I watched, I watched the video and it's in French. So did you do any French targeting or was that intentional? You know, where did that come from?

So because it's in Hawkesbury, there's people are mostly French. It's about right on the border.

There's like a river and then it's Quebec. So it's basically in Quebec. Yeah, yeah.

So people are mostly French, but they're bilingual. So what I decided to do is, you know, as important as it is, you need to talk to your audience. Right. So I said we'll do the video in French and we'll actually do the subtitles in English. So we're going to have both. But the video is mostly. It is in French.

Yeah, yeah. And so when you would. Was there any kind of, you know, improved performance in the French video versus an English one?

Yeah, so actually we uploaded both because he did. He did do both, and performance wise. Yeah, it was on the French. French video that we had greater success. Yeah.

So you just dropped the English one.

Yeah, so just drop the English one. Absolutely.

And so what was the budget on this video for. On this ad? What was the budget you spent? You gave Facebook to show this video?

Yeah, so it was approximately like a hundred dollars, maybe $110, something around that line. Like 100 bucks.

100 bucks and you get. And you get 114 shares. You don't get, like, that's incredible. So, like, what's that work out to for a view?

I think it was like 2 cents a view or something like that. Like, it's. It was like maybe a pen. It was insane. I don't exactly remember, but yeah.

And people don't get that. People are like, what's the tallest building in Hawksburg? Would you figure, like, if you like, is it a small town, like four, four story building kind of thing?

Probably.

Yeah, I don't think you could stand on top of the tallest building in Hawkesbury with a megaphone and throw flyers off the building and get in front of, what was it, 13 or 11,000 reach?

Yeah, 11,000 views. So 13,000 reach.

Yeah. You couldn't get 114 people to then take that. You couldn't get out. Like, what was it? It was 300. It was 300 shares. You couldn't get 300 of those people to grab that flyer, go hand it to someone else. If you threw it off the top floor of a building, like you, like for a penny. Like you couldn't print the paper for a penny of you.

Yeah, exactly.

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay, so then that video. So now what do you do with that video to help out your actual ad? So you created an audience.

Yeah, so we create an audience. And just to answer your question before Adam, also, like my client for. For his leads, he wanted leads, but he wasn't getting and he was actually getting. He was actually getting not mad, but like, you know, he was wondering a little bit. So I had to sit down with him and, you know, talk him through and say, you know, that video did really, really well. Just, just wait. Right.

So he didn't understand the value of the metrics that he was getting.

He was worried about the leads.

Yes, yes.

Anyway. And he wasn't getting enough. So then you had to have a conversation with him.

Yes, yes. To make him understand that, you know, I said the video did its job and, you know, now we're going to go into making, like, actual offers and targeting those people.

That's so important that, yeah, he had someone there because, I mean, now knowing. Because I know what the performance of the ad was now knowing that, you know, had he let himself get in his own way. Right. And not continue with the campaign because he wasn't getting enough leads off the video, he would have. That would have cost himself. Him quite a bit if he gave up. And so I think that's. And that. So going back to the very beginning, when you talk about, you know, how being a police officer helps you run that agency, helping manage that, that emotional journey for him is ultimately what makes you a great. A great agency to hire, is that you can help inspire that confidence and coach people through that. So, I mean, good for you. And I'm glad you were there for him on that part.

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, it would have probably, you know, he would have probably just let it go and just, you know, it was $100 ad budget. But I mean, what came after that was the most important. Right, Absolutely.

So tell me about what. So tell me about the offer. So you guys ran a Facebook messenger ad. Was it your intention from the very beginning to run a Facebook messenger ad? Or is that something you came up with after the video? Like, was it all part of the plan at the beginning?

No, it wasn't actually. We, because of the first video, so the awareness video that we did, we started to have some messages. People were trying to contact us more also via Facebook messenger on his business page. So at that point I said, hey, like, people are actually like trying to connect here. You know, like they're trying to have a conversation. And so that's where I got the idea of running a Facebook messenger campaign, because, you know, we were a local area and people want to feel welcome, wants to connect. And that was. That was. That's where the idea came from.

Awesome. And so what makes now having run it, what makes. Is that what Makes messenger ads feel so powerful to you is the ability to allow people to feel connected.

Absolutely. Yeah. For me, it's. It's very. Now I run ads a lot for my own agency with Facebook messenger, and I feel that people are feeling really, really connected. And, and you know, you can connect on a, like, emotional level too. Right.

And so now, just so the audience understands what, what do you mean when you say a Messenger ad? Because they might not understand like that they might, they might not have quite a good understanding what that is.

So basically you're gonna handle your. Either your video, your picture, your. Your text on Facebook on the newsfeed, and someone's gonna click on that and it's gonna go directly into your, your Facebook business page. Messenger. Facebook messenger on your business page so people can connect with you.

Awesome. So it'll be in the newsfeed, and then when they click or interact with that ad, it's going to pop open a Messenger, and that's when you can begin communicating with them.

Yes.

Awesome. Okay. And so then now you had to have some kind of offer. So, you know, what was the, what was the offer that you came up with?

So for that campaign, for the messenger campaign, we actually went with a picture. I wanted to test out a picture instead of a video. And so we had. The offer was that we were going to clear their balcony, so their porch stairs, if they would sign up with his snow plowing services for his. For their driveway. For their client's driveway.

See, I love that. Like, I, I heard that when we first chat and, and that, that's so innovative because, you know, most companies are going to be like, you know, you know, we'll do you. We come three times, the fourth times free or, you know, 20% off, you know, and this is, this is an really innovative. So who came up with that? Was that you? Was that him? You know, no, that was, that was.

That was my idea, actually, because I was thinking, you know, again, it comes down to, you know, Marketing 101 is, you know, know your, your custom audience, know your niche, know your, your pain points. And for me, anyways, that was for myself. But I said, you know, when there's. There's snowstorm, where there's snow and I get up in the morning, I don't. First, I don't have time to start plowing or start clearing my porch. And two, I hate it. Right?

Yeah. I just finished shoveling my driveway before we hopped on this call, and the porch is not done and the balcony is not done.

There you go. So you know, so that was. That was. I think that was a pain point that I wanted to test out, especially when, you know, he was. It was already there for the driveway. I said, why not offer that little bit of extra? People will appreciate it, and it shows that you understand your customers and you're really trying to help them out.

And he was receptive to that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Okay, so then. And he wasn't worried about people taking advantage of that, really? How could you take advantage of it? I guess, really? I mean, unless you have the most massive porch in all the town. But I mean, really. So that's not too big a deal. So now in your ad, so what did you guys use? The picture? What kind of call to action did you use? You know, how did you ultimately get people to stop scrolling? I always say you got to have the ability to stop the thumb. Right. Because people are scrolling through, and they got to make them stop the thumb. So how did you do that?

So basically, we had. The picture was a dog. So not. Yeah, it's not any kind of. Of dog. It was a dog with a little toque, scarf, and a shovel.

For my American friends, a toque is a hat.

With a hat. Sorry. There you go. Yeah, so a hat. And, you know, it was just. Just that picture. And then on this beside him was, I think it was three words or two words, in a sense. You know, free. Three words, free, balcony, clearing. And, you know, that was the. The actual image. So the idea behind that was that, you know, to make the reader, like you say, you know, stop. And with those three words, when people see free also. Right. People are most likely to stop and actually look at your. At your ad, at your picture. So that was the actual ad.

Now when they click on the messenger. So when you first set that up, they would click on the messenger, and then is that where your client would ultimately talk to them? Like, how did that. How did that suddenly start to generate leads?

So when we started. When I started running the ad, it took. Not kidding. It took probably like an hour.

Okay, an hour. That's not that long. Okay, perfect. So within an hour, you get a first lead. Awesome. Keep going. Yeah.

Yeah. So at that point, I said, I think we're gonna have something here. Right? I think people are gonna start interacting. And then. So. So people were clicking on that. It was going straight to his Facebook messenger, and it would pop up the Facebook messenger, and then he would start talking to them and try to close the leads. But the more we went, the more leads were coming in. Really Fast and he couldn't keep up.

Not a bad problem to have, but not a good lead.

Not a bad problem. No. So what we did after that is I said, you know, we need to figure out something. So we use something called ManyChat. So that is. It's a platform that you can have. You can build a bot with that. So what we did is I actually built a receptionist for him into his Facebook messenger on his business page. So when people would click on the ad item, it would go straight to messenger. The receptionist would pop out. So her name was Julie. So there was an image of, you know, the fictional Julie.

Yeah.

Which would, you know, welcome the lead. And just to make sure that, you know, the lead doesn't feel lost, it would say, you know, hey, thank you for clicking on the ad to get your free balcony clearing offer. And then, you know, it would ask basic questions. So key questions that we needed from the leads before even my clients speaking to them.

So this is some. I want to unpack that a little bit because you just dropped a whole bunch of awesomeness there. So first thing that happens is you start getting leads. And I really think that this is important for any, you know, anybody in the audience who's looking to either hire an agency or get or run it themselves is that, you know, you were there to. To recognize the problem within a few days or a week and actually start making a correction. I think that's a key point of why you hire someone like yourself is that it's not just your job to know how to flip the switches and set things up, but to actually be there to know, to understand what the problems are, what the challenges are with the campaign, and to adjust and make improvements to help him ultimately deliver on that promise to his customers. So a great job there. The other thing is, you know, when you say this fictional Julie. So this is a. When, you know, this is now someone who's answering, essentially, if you're like a roofing company or a snow removal company, if you were to get people to, you know, call now to get your. To get your free snow clearing, he would have had to pay an actual Julie to sit near a phone and like, minimum wage in Canada is like 15 bucks an hour or something. And so then this real Julie would have to go, hi. Yep. What's your name? What's your phone number? What's your address? Just to do that. That's her whole job would just be that. That would be a $3,000 a month job. And now you've put this. This Julie to this, you know, this, this automatic receptionist from. From manychat into place for him, and it costs him basically nothing.

Yeah, I think it's like, it's what, $10 for. For ManyChat, you know, per month. So. And I think they offer. Offer it for free, actually. Actually, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah. So.

Yeah, so that's huge.

So now what does. So now. So now this customer. So now this Julie, she collects the information. How does this ultimately get to your client?

So all that information gets to my client with so through Messenger. So on his business page, it goes to my client. So, you know, Julie would ask the question, like you said, what's your address? That's what my client wanted. So address, phone number, and, well, name. But the name was coming in usually with the ad, so he would actually go right away and close that lead very, very quickly. So he would go to the location, do an estimate of the driveway, and then come back on Facebook messenger or just send the message directly from his cell phone while he was there. Hey, this is your price for your driveway. Would you like to sign now? I'm right here. Here.

I love this. This is. This is awesome. And I mean, people. I mean, you couldn't get people to open emails like that.

No, absolutely not.

Yeah, this is a, this is a much better way to communicate with clients than if they said, you know, if you said, okay, well, you know, say you don't have. You don't want to hire your, your real Julie to answer the phone. So instead, something would, you know, an ad would typically go to. To a landing page, a click funnel that says, you know. Yeah, enter your name and phone number and email to get your coupon for your free driveway clearing, and one of our people will get back to you right away. You couldn't get them to open the emails. I mean, what percentage of people are actually engaging with this ad once they, Once they click on it and they're in Messenger? It's got to be huge.

Yeah, it's. It's insane. Yeah, it's. It's like probably like 80. 80%, 85%. So, like open rate. So it's. Yeah, it's really good.

Whereas, like, with email, be the inverse. It'd be 50% of people opening. 85% of people ignoring it are spam folders.

Yeah, absolutely. And it also, you know, just to bring it back, it also feels, you know, it's emotional. Right. So you're connecting, and I think that's a very important part, is you're connecting with your, Your, Your. Your lead Your client.

So, and so what was your client's expectation as to where you guys were going to end up with this ad?

So he. So he. He basically wanted me to, you know, break even with. With it with his ad spend and everything. So, you know, I. From that point, I said, okay, well, that's gonna be, you know, it should be okay, because, you know, like, he. We had an ad spend of 500 bucks, like 600 if you count the. The. The awareness video. But. Wow. Yeah. So. But I mean, like, you know, he. Of course he wanted more clients. He. He. He was saying, like, you know, at least 20 clients. He would be very happy with that.

So he'd be very happy at 20. Where'd you get them?

So we got him with the first campaign. We got him to. I think it was like 70. 70 leads. No, sorry, 70 closed clients. But, like, closed clients that he actually closed was 70 clients. And that after we did something else that we can talk about after a little bit, but we actually used Facebook messenger to leverage that and to. So he doesn't have to spend more money and try to get in more clients. And we actually closed more clients doing that particular campaign with Facebook messenger after. But it was 70 clients that he closed within, like, two weeks.

So in two weeks, you guys spent a hundred dollars or, you know, for a period of time, you're running a video. He spent $100 to show him to 11,000 people. 114 people shared to their friends. Simple video recorded with an iPhone. Then you spend about $500 with an expectation of 20 clients. And he'd be happy. You set the limit, you know, at first of 15, you know, to make sure that people understand the scarcity, to make sure the customer is comfortable. Then he wants 20, and in two weeks, you get him 70 closed contracts for snow removal.

Yeah, yeah, that was. That's what happened.

Wow. There are. There are. There are 33 roofers listening to this right now, salivating over that possibility. That is incredible. So I know we discussed earlier that, you know, your client obviously doesn't want to have his personal information all over the Internet, but what does that look like in terms of revenue?

So revenue wise, in the ballpark, he made approximately between 30 to $50,000 in revenue from that campaign.

Wow. So 500 plus 100. And then he turns that into, let's say on the low end, 30. That's coming up around somewhere around 60 times ad spend, right?

Yeah.

So that's incredible. And then you. You kind of alluded to something in that you used Messenger Again, for free. So, I mean, I think I know. I. I think I know what you did, but I'd love to hear how you would. Would explain that and, you know, for the audience.

Yeah, absolutely. So I know that you know exactly what I did. But so basically what we. What. What it came down to is that, you know, we made contact, we closed clients via Facebook messenger, so through our Facebook page, and I said, you know, how could I get him more clients without costing him any more money? And I actually saw within manychat, it doesn't exist. Right, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. But, yeah, so basically, within manychat, you can send a message to subscribers or people who has messaged you during your campaign or whatever. So I sent a broadcast message with another. So I actually sat down with. With my client and say, what would you think about this? So the offer was that we would give. So people that has already signed contracts with him. So within the, like, the 70 leads. So he technically sends 70 messages, but. So people that have signed the contract would get $50 back on their snow removal contract if they. If they refer someone and they sign it like a contract. You get what I'm saying?

Absolutely.

So we. We sent that out there, and, you know, I came up with the idea, and that's what I told my client, and he said, yeah, try it. I'm willing to do that. So. And you have to remember at that point, you already closed, like, 70 leads. Right. So he's like, yeah, you know, give it a try.

Whatever you say, I'm on board.

Pretty much. Pretty much.

So now. So just to kind of make sure I unpack that right for the audience. So because they had already basically interacted with you through this chatbot, the ManyChat tool allows you to then have them just like an email list as a subscriber that you can then reach out to and present them with some other kind of way to help them or to create an offer for you, for the business. Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely, Adam. And, you know, especially as a local business, you know, people wants. Like I said, people wants to feel like they're taken care of. So I found that very personal. Instead of, you know, doing. Collecting emails and stuff like that. So I found that very personal to connect on, like, an emotional level with. With. With his audience. So that's. That's. So that's what we did. We broadcasted a message. We. So we sent out a message, and we didn't say, hey, like, you know, like, you know, get this offer right away. Right. We were, we're very like discreet about it and we just say, hey, you know, we want to thank you again for, you know, signing your contract with us for the snow plowing for this year and would you like to save some more money with us? So they already saved with the, the offer, the, the free porch, balcony clearing. And we asked them the other question. Would you like to save more while using our services? Right.

And so then that promotes a response.

For sure right away. And then, yeah, so that promotes a yes or no. And then they would click yes. And then we were offer, you know, the 50. So we say, hey, we'll give you $50 back on your snow removal if you refer someone. And that campaign actually brought us 20 more clients, closed clients. So 20 more referrals with a cost.

Per lead of pretty much $0. Other than throwing some money, throwing some money towards your already paying clients with money you never would have had or he never would have had as a referral and ultimately building more of that camaraderie or that connection with that with your current client base. It's very, very, very, very smart. And the way that, and I like the way that you use that messenger because you didn't come out straight with some spammy offer. You came out with a question and I would go, I would guess that if you sent that same, that same message or that same offer or inquiry through email, I would guess that your open rate would be somewhere around 15, 10%, maybe 30. Because they're an existing client, they think it's an invoice. But what are you talking about on open rates for messenger right now?

Well, you know, on, on the, I don't exactly remember the percentage, but I think it was like, like 85%.

Almost all.

Yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

Yeah. It's incredible. And so, I mean, I just want to now kind of give everybody the overview of this because this to me is awesome for everybody to hear because there was, you know, there is definitely a lot of skill in what you did, but this isn't going to the crazy outreaches of, you know, offline events and, you know, super custom audiences and fancy dynamic, you know, dynamic ads and all these things. You know, it was a very, it was simple psychology. You're dealing with local people who wanted to be taken care of by another person that's local in their town and knows what they're going through. You identify him as a local authority with a video view ad that costs you $100 to get put in front of 13,000 people, safe to say the 114 people who shared it, they were obviously, you know, really in line with it. Half the, you know, people who watched half that video or more, you then showed them an ad saying, hey, if you sign up now, we're going to do this. We're going to give you this free benefit of doing your porch or your sidewalk or your balcony or whatever. And then if you do our snow removal, that spend is 500 bucks. And that alone was over triple his expectation of 20. You get 70 closed contracts. You set up a free virtual assistant, basically named Julie, who got their name, address, and phone number to collect the information to reach out for them. He goes and does what he would always do, which is go do an estimate, provide a quote, sign the deal. Then on that success, you then reach out to those 70 people using your system and ask them for a referral, and they send you some. And you get another 20 signed contracts for basically 100 new clients. In what timeframe?

Like, within it was like three weeks, maximum. Three weeks. Everything was done. All the campaigns were over.

Now, I don't know much about snow removal, but I know how long it takes for my guy to clear my driveway. And I'm not. I don't have a huge driveway or anything, but, I mean, I think a hundred contracts is pretty much his whole season.

Yeah. Yeah. And Adam, like, I've actually spoke with him not too long ago, and he. I think last year he had like 460 clients, and this year he was at 580.

Wow.

Yeah. So. So he was like, I need. I need help.

So you ink. So you increased his business.

So you said he was at 460.

Now he's at 580.

Yeah.

So you increased his business 25% with 600 bucks?

Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, he's got a. He is probably getting you something for Christmas.

Probably. Anyways, if he hires me again, you know, that's. That's, you know, that's what I like.

And he's not even a snow removal company. It's a. It's a farmer's market. It's a produce group. Incredible.

Yeah. And you have to remember also, you know, it's not. It's not a big audience, you know, like, it's not. It's not a big town. Yeah. So you can definitely do some, you know, really great work with, you know, small towns and local areas.

10,000 people. So if you had any advice for a local service business that's looking to hire an agency, so, you know, maybe they're not in your market or maybe they're, you know, it's not a niche that you serve. You know, knowing what you know now about serving clients and what you've, what's made you successful. What would you tell a roofing company about trying to find and hire a guy who's running an agency?

So what I would tell them is really like, you know, ask questions on how they can help you, you know, their experience in running ads and you know, if they actually run ads for your niche before also and you know, also, you know, seeing results is always fun but really like, you know, I find that if you can connect with someone, really that person will work with you really well and will, you know, will try to get you the best results that you can. The perfect example, Adam was me, my client. We connected really well, you know, and even when he wasn't satisfied at one point I sat down with him. And that's, you know, that's something that we offer is like we'll sit down with you and we'll, we'll talk about it. You know, so we'll, we'll break it down but really make sure that you know, you get someone that really understands your niche and that you, you get along well.

So what I'd like to do now is how can my audience reach out to you for follow up? What is a, where can they find you? What's your agency called? You know, let's get the contact details out there.

Yeah, so my engine, my agency is Lightning Media and so you can reach us at Lightning Dash Media Ca. So that's our website. Facebook is Lightning Media Inc. And Instagram Lightning Media Inc. And actually Adam will have a PDF for you. We'll have something for you, your, your viewers to download at Lightning Media Ca. Forward slash Adam Sander. So your last name.

Perfect. Adam Sand. So that's Lightning.

Sorry.

Lightning Dash Media. Yeah, everybody always gets the Adam Sandler thing. I was actually, I said I was in the military. I was in the Loyal Edmonton Regiment. And so my mail used to come as Private Adam Sand L E R and I had like mailman write jokes on, on my mail.

Yeah.

Canada Post. So but yeah, so that was, that was Lightning Media ca. Adam Sand. So my name so that there. So then you'll get a PDF where these guys can actually see how you built out this campaign and the copy and stuff to use. That's fantastic. Steve. I really don't know what else, what else to say other than great job and you know, welcome to, welcome to the business one year anniversary. You're already winning for clients on a huge, huge scale. I really thank you for coming on the show, man, and I hope this works out great for you and I look forward to hearing more about your success in the future.

Thanks Adam. I appreciate it.

All right man, well we will let you go and we will talk again, I'm sure, for sure.

Take care.

Thanks again boys and girls for listening to that episode. I really do appreciate all the attention, all the comments that you guys send.

Me, all the questions you guys hit.

Me up with on Facebook Messenger. As you can see, this, this was a awesome, awesome interview. I hope you got a ton of value from it. Now, again, a few things that I want to make sure you guys do.

This week is if you guys haven't.

Done so already, make sure you start planning out your marketing campaign for next year. You got a little bit of time before Christmas. It's slow time. Take a little bit of time for yourselves and start mapping out your marketing campaign and your roofing process going forward into 2019.

I'd love to have an any of.

Your questions or success stories around doing just that fact. So please keep me in the loop. Let me know on Facebook Messenger. Hit me up. Roofingbusinesspartner on Facebook thanks again for listening and we'll see you again next time.

Free stuff is the reason you listen to the end and this week's episode is no Exception. Head to roofingbusinesspartner.com and check out this week's show notes to get your freebie bonus. Also, until February 2nd, get our roofer Facebook ad apprenticeship program for only $127. This 18 day program includes over 80 minutes of video instruction done for you. Resources Two guidebooks, a forum to ask Adam all your questions along the way. This should remove any excuse or doubt that you can have your own ads running and generating roofing leads in less than 18 days. Adam spent thousands of dollars to learn this stuff and to give it away for only $127 is the kind of craziness that only happens during a new podcast launch. So go check out the show notes and we'll be here again next week flapping our gums and making you money.