The Marketing Strategy Every Contractor Needs

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Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

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Unknown
Oh!

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Speaker 2
welcome everybody to the blue Collar start up, the podcast where hard work meets big ideas. This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies from the front lines of life in the business of the trades.

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Speaker 2
I’m one of your hosts, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media.

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Speaker 3
And I’m your co-host, Derek Foster. They go cleaning systems.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s up? Good work. Let’s get to work. What’s going on, brother?

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Speaker 3
I’m good man. We’re, rolling into a long weekend here. I’m looking forward, to do. Now. We’re taking a little trip with the family this weekend, so looking forward to that. Nice. Yeah. Much needed. It’s been a busy summer, man. I don’t really have, and it’s been crazy, but, all is good and and just grateful that we’re, we’re so busy and.

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Speaker 3
Yeah, all good stuff.

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Speaker 2
All good stuff. Yeah. I’m, Sam, I’m looking forward to that holiday weekend to. Man, we’re, We don’t. I think we’re gonna do a day trip up to camp real quick, do a couple things up there, but, not just relaxing around the farm and enjoying each other’s company. So I’m looking forward to that.

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Speaker 3
Yeah. And and honestly, I was, last night, I was, I was getting caught up on some stuff for the show. And it’s amazing how over the course of, you know, even this past year, we’ve got a lot of people reaching out to us, a lot of folks that, you know, are asking questions, wanting to get involved with the show.

00;01;35;06 – 00;01;49;03
Speaker 3
So it’s really encouraging to see, you know, some of the growth and, and what we’ve seen and how things have gotten. So, yeah, exciting stuff. A lot of great guests coming up, including today’s, will introduce herself. So we don’t butcher.

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Speaker 2
That’s a that’s a great segue, Derek. Yeah, yeah. Krystal Williams from Lemon Seed Marketing. Crystal. Hello. Yeah.

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Speaker 1
I’m great, I’m great. Thanks for having me.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. Crystal. We obviously have a bunch of questions for you. But maybe, start us off. Kind of. Just tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about lemon seed marketing.

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Speaker 1
Absolutely. So I’m actually what I have self-proclaimed myself as a trade baby. So I actually grew up in the industry. So my grandfather, when he retired from the Navy, started our family’s, appliance and refrigeration business. And then he began a true heating and air conditioning company in the mid 70s. My dad bought it from my grandfather. My brother bought it from my dad.

00;02;34;29 – 00;02;51;19
Speaker 1
And I have worked in there for a while. And then I decided that I did not want to do that as a career at the time. In the early. Well, yeah, early 2000, there was not a lot of women in the industry in general other than office managers. And I was like, I have bigger dreams for myself.

00;02;51;19 – 00;03;15;06
Speaker 1
I want to go do marketing. So when I got my degree, went to work for a local Coca-Cola plant here in East Texas, and, began doing marketing with, like, doctor Pepper and Coca-Cola and Monster Energy and all this cool stuff. My brother calls me in 2014 and says, hey, I’m getting ready to buy the business from dad, acquire business about 30 minutes north of us.

00;03;15;09 – 00;03;33;03
Speaker 1
And I want to change our rebrand our company a little bit. What do you think about coming back to work over here? So thankfully, my family has a really good working relationship, so I came back to work with them. We grew the company my brother and I and my dad, pretty much 40% is year over year.

00;03;33;06 – 00;03;58;23
Speaker 1
Good growth in East Texas, 35,000 people in our main market, about 350,000 people. If we drove an hour, and maybe had to count some livestock. But we were really sexist and, we were just growing very rapidly. Looking back now, it was the heyday, of the business and a lot of fun. But then I started just picking up a few people that knew us in the industry, and started doing their marketing for them.

00;03;58;25 – 00;04;22;22
Speaker 1
And before I knew it, I pretty much had 10 or 15 little side hustle clients. And so my brother said, hey, why don’t we make a run at you creating your own business and start doing this fractional marketing, like a fractional marketing department, basically for companies across the United States. And so I was like, you know, let’s do it.

00;04;22;22 – 00;04;49;26
Speaker 1
So my really good friend at the time was a graphic designer, and she was up for the challenge. So she and I worked, joined together, created lemon seed marketing because we’re bright and fresh and fun and zesty and, we are now serving. We’ve probably served over 3 or 400 clients across the country, and Canada, just helping them build out really solid brands and a true marketing strategy.

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Speaker 1
So like, we’re not a digital company, we’re a liaison between the contractor and all of their their entire marketing plan. So it’s a lot of fun and I’ll love every moment of it, because I love helping contractors build family businesses because that’s what I’ve done.

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Speaker 2
So you’ve got that wonderful southern accent. And I was going to ask you where you’re from. We said, East Texas. Do you say bless your heart a lot? I know this.

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Speaker 1
All the time. I’m like, oh, bless them, bless their heart.

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Speaker 2
But it’s one of my favorite things. And I wish I had that southern accent, because I have heard people that I know that have that southern accent and they’re able to completely insult people, but so long as they end and bless your heart, it’s like it makes it okay. It’s the most amazing thing.

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Speaker 1
I said that this morning. I was like, oh, you’re not tracking your numbers. Bless your heart that bless your heart.

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Speaker 2
Oh, I love it. Oh, look, That’s amazing. So, from what I hear you saying, back on topic, Crystal. Sorry. I have good. I have a tendency to do that. So it sounds like. So you’re really focused on strategy? Not so much on on deployment. It’s it’s you’re.

00;05;58;04 – 00;06;26;02
Speaker 1
Is that so? It’s a strategic team and an implementation team. So my team helps we communicate with the vendors. The best way I can describe it is let’s say we’re going to do a like a buyback promotion. So we’re going to promote for the year. Let’s say that we are doing crystal seating and air buyback special. We create the graphics, we create the plan, and then we make sure that that offer is across everything our social media channels, our it’s on our website correctly, it’s in our paid ads.

00;06;26;02 – 00;06;42;04
Speaker 1
It’s in our direct mail that every the same offers. We’re very consistent about putting out our brand in our offers. We create characters, we create icons, we create everything that someone needs. But pretty much our job is to make sure that things get executed correctly.

00;06;42;07 – 00;06;54;19
Speaker 2
Yeah. That’s huge. I think one of the biggest things I see is a lack of brand cohesion across different platforms, and a logo is different here. A banner is different there. And, you know, it doesn’t it’s not good.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Correct. Right. Well you’re working against yourself instead of for yourself.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Can you, can you speak on you know, what that cohesion does for your clients as far as having that across everywhere and looking the same.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. So you know, right now we do not have the pleasure of selling things that people want to buy. Okay. The majority of us are selling things that people must buy or have to buy. And so I think that requires an understanding, a mindset as an owner, that you have to talk about yourself and put your company out there literally year after year after year, because until people need your business, they have no desire to interact with it very much.

00;07;37;09 – 00;07;56;13
Speaker 1
And so that it’s a long term strategy. Again, if we were a boutique or a, you know, a gun store. I live in East Texas. You know, deer feeders were lined up everywhere, right? We would have a lot more just natural interaction. But no one wakes up every day wanting to peruse your website full of backflow preventers and condensers and grills.

00;07;56;17 – 00;08;27;12
Speaker 1
You know, that’s just not what people like to do. But we know that we solve lots of problems. And so what we have to do is every interaction, every eyeball that we get on our brand, our services, they hear our jingle caravans has to compound on one another. And so if they see you one logo over here and the website have a different logo, and you got trucks all wrapped differently, that is fragmenting the ability to compound, and it’s making it it’s making your job a lot harder.

00;08;27;12 – 00;08;46;09
Speaker 1
You’re actually paying more for leads. The less brand recognition you have, the more expensive it is to build the to build the company. And so I spent a lot of time making sure my entire team does that. Everything looks very cohesive. We don’t have to look like a twin every day, but we do have to look like we’re from the same bloodline.

00;08;46;11 – 00;09;09;23
Speaker 1
And so we spend a lot of time, like, you know, for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This is a good example. Maybe we’re going to change the whole brand pink right, for breast cancer awareness. But we’re going to be very, very, very intentional that that is still compounding our brand awareness. So you just got to be you have to be more methodical and intentional about that than just being like, oh, we changed everybody into pink.

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Speaker 1
Like it loses. It loses the steam in all directions. So there’s there’s a lot of thought that has to go into these things.

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Speaker 2
Absolutely. What?

00;09;20;28 – 00;09;40;20
Speaker 3
Mike, I got a question first for Crystal. And, you know, a lot of the guests and folks that we’ve had on the show, you know, that own their own small business, a lot of it is a family name or, you know, their own name that’s put on the brand. Some people on there starting out, I think, kind of contemplate, you know, what do I what do I put for the name of the company?

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Speaker 3
How do I name this? So, you know, long term, it’s catchy. Do you recommend, I guess, how do you recommend somebody that’s new looking to start and name their business? And, you know, what’s the what’s the most important thing to look at rather than just what the name is?

00;09;57;01 – 00;10;21;17
Speaker 1
No. Great, great question. So, you know, the name of my family’s company was earth shattering. It was called Nick Williams Heating, Cooling and Plumbing. Okay. Because that’s just what you did in back in the day. You just named it after yourself. But what’s happened is now it’s hard to make that memorable. Okay. So again, we’ve got something about who we are is disruptive.

00;10;21;17 – 00;10;50;20
Speaker 1
It’s more about uncovering that. So, you know, most people when I say brand, they immediately think truck ramp, truck ramp. And that’s a really important piece. The visual interpretation ever of your brand is important, the logo and things like that. But to your point, the name is one of the biggest mistakes that I see contractors make. I probably talk to 2 or 3 a week that the name of their company is someone’s entire name, J.M. Harrison Heating, Cooling and Plumbing.

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Speaker 1
And I’m like, that is awful. Because remember, and I say this because with all due respect, the name itself is not awful. The name of that being your company name is what’s awful, because people are going to be like, what was the night j p j C Harrison like that’s literally what people are doing. And we do not want our potential clients going to the wild, wild west of the internet and guessing what our name was.

00;11;19;04 – 00;11;44;05
Speaker 1
We need them. We don’t want them. We do not want the hunters identifying the kill, okay? We want them coming directly to us. And so we have to really make sure that our name is memorable. It’s easy to search and it also stands out. I had a company that opened up, where a major university was and then named themselves the name of their town and the name of the university.

00;11;44;07 – 00;12;06;12
Speaker 1
So I literally had to say, your problem is you’re lost between the name of your town and the name of the university. And then there is you. And a lot of people have adopted that. So I live in a little town called dodgeball. It’d be like calling yourself dodgeball, heating and air conditioning. Right? And you’re competing with dodgeball stories, dodgeball, bank, dodgeball, car, carwash, everything.

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Speaker 1
There’s no uniqueness to that. You feel like it is you like, but people are going to use it because it’s double. That is false. That’s false. We can do that. The tagline your hometown trusted carwash. Okay. Your hometown comfort advisors better than we can with you pushing yourself into that corner with your name. So when we’re thinking about names, I’ll be honest.

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Speaker 1
It’s hard to have a name. Now that is unique enough where you can go find it. The social media availability, the URL availability. Right. So I’m a big fan right now of combining words and making some unique names. And also like really thinking outside of the box of some names. But I have a company the other day in their name was, a name that it has nothing to do with what they do now.

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Speaker 1
So let’s, let’s call it like siding, heating and air conditioning. So it’s like siding is a unique name. He’s like, yeah, I used to be a siding company. Yeah. So then you just decided to kick. He’s like, but everybody knows me at that part at that name. And I have to kind of hurt people’s feelings sometimes. I’m Baptist, so I’ll say, like, I’m probably going to step on your toes here, like at church, but know what?

00;13;20;19 – 00;13;43;22
Speaker 1
You are not as well known as you think you are most of the time. We’re. I couldn’t overtake that mentality in six months of good marketing. And so my family’s company, you know, my brother, he is egregious. And so we will greenfield a new a new area within 45 miles of us. And within 12 or 13 months we’re doing over $1 million.

00;13;43;24 – 00;14;17;09
Speaker 1
So we come in there hard and fast, with pretty much a 14 to 15% marketing budget, with a goal to hit $1 million. And we push hard into that market and we don’t let up. And we do that because we know how to brand, and that’s with a sucky name. Okay. And so that naming convention that you use is so important to a leg up on everywhere else when you, when let me see the interviews, people, we do a competitive analysis, to decide, like, you know, what colors are already in the market, what names.

00;14;17;11 – 00;14;38;02
Speaker 1
And guys, I’m going to tell you, 90% of names, if not higher, are last names and first names of businesses. And so right now I’m encouraging everyone like, let’s let’s talk about who you are as a person. And I bet we come up with a unique name that’s just as unique as your last name, but something a lot more memorable.

00;14;38;04 – 00;14;43;03
Speaker 2
It’s interesting because we was it last week, Derek, that we had Stephanie from Anchor Heating and Air on.

00;14;43;03 – 00;14;43;29
Speaker 1
Oh yeah.

00;14;43;29 – 00;15;04;08
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. And you know, she was she’s saying exactly what you just said as far as how they name their company and why they named the anchor. And it was, you know, around everything that you’re saying, like this, there’s a story around this. There’s a story we can build. It’s got, you know, it it helps in our marketing as opposed to it being their last name.

00;15;04;08 – 00;15;12;12
Speaker 2
And, you know, heating and air sounds spot on. And echoed by Stephanie last week. Yeah. Are you familiar with those guys?

00;15;12;15 – 00;15;14;29
Speaker 1
I do I love Stephanie still in the team over there.

00;15;15;03 – 00;15;16;03
Speaker 2
Oh you do it. That’s funny.

00;15;16;03 – 00;15;34;26
Speaker 1
Yes yes yes because I love good branding. You know she’s got her pearl. Promise. Yeah. And that’s where you go deeper. And this was probably one of the pieces of Derrick’s question is, you know, we have to think, my family’s pest control. We just started a pest control company about 16 months ago. My sister runs it.

00;15;34;28 – 00;15;56;07
Speaker 1
And as we were coming up with names, my grandfather, unfortunately, committed suicide in 2014. He got bladder cancer. My grandmother had died a couple of years before. Just sad, lonely. And the devil just tried to win that battle. So my grandfather, unfortunately took his life. So that’s always been a piece of our reality.

00;15;56;09 – 00;16;16;07
Speaker 1
And so we were like, man, we’re starting a pest control business. And so my dad goes, well, you know, like a ladybug, would be a good one. And I was like, okay, ladybugs have spots. My grandfather’s name was Johnny. So we created spot on pest control. And then our mascot’s name is Johnny, because ladybugs are male, by the way.

00;16;16;09 – 00;16;37;23
Speaker 1
And so because Johnny on the spot. So it all just kind of rolled together. And now everything we do, we have. Johnny says we have, we spot we’re able to use that wording and that language again to compliment on who we are versus if it was just Nash Heating and, Nash Pest Control. There’s not a lot there.

00;16;37;23 – 00;16;57;26
Speaker 1
There’s nothing to, like, really grit your teeth into and pull pieces for cool marketing things. But was spot on. Pest control were black and red and yellow. We’ve got a ladybug. We’ve got a Johnny. We’ve got our story about suicide awareness. We’ve got all of these pieces that help us have a more robust opportunity for unique marketing pieces.

00;16;58;02 – 00;17;14;00
Speaker 1
So that’s where I want for contractors. It’s like when you really have you don’t even have to have a mascot, but if you just have a good name, a good tagline, some good colors, there’s it’s so rich in opportunity, for marketing that you would be so surprised.

00;17;14;03 – 00;17;19;07
Speaker 2
Well, that being said, I guess we got to hear the story behind lemon Seed marketing then.

00;17;19;09 – 00;17;40;19
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. So, Emily, I had actually, my brother and I were like, I’ll just make a run at this myself. So. And then I realized I wanted to bring Emily on. So I had named the company Apex Marketing Group, and this is before apex P Group was like, buck wild everywhere. And so I was like, okay, I feel like I take people to the best their marketing could be, which is the top.

00;17;40;19 – 00;17;55;28
Speaker 1
So I did some research with the apex navy blue and gold. So professional. And then I got with Emily and I was like, what do you think? She goes, well, I want to redo the name. I said, okay, let’s go. So we literally sat and just threw out words and she’s like, what do we want to be known as?

00;17;55;28 – 00;18;17;02
Speaker 1
And I said, well, I feel like I bring a lot of energy and joy back to marketing, full of ideas. I try to be like sassy at the same point of professional and, you know, just new ideas and new thoughts, fresh approach. And she’s like, okay, so we’re fresh and we’re zesty and she goes, okay, like a lemon.

00;18;17;02 – 00;18;36;20
Speaker 1
And I was like, sure. And she goes, okay. And then she goes, okay, what else? And I said, well, I just want to like plant the seeds of really building good marketing. Like there’s foundational things that we need that everyone needs to do. And then as we grow and she goes, okay, so we like a seed like a lemon seed.

00;18;36;23 – 00;19;04;27
Speaker 1
And I was like, sure, that’s perfect. And then she is 100% responsible for the design and the color and all that good stuff. My job is strategy. Her job is to make it look good. So that’s how we came up with lemon seed. And then for McWilliams, we got tired of not having something. So my grandfather, when he was in the Navy, they, called him Mac, and he was a, a chief on the Kittyhawk, and they called him Mac was his, like, you know, nickname, I guess.

00;19;04;29 – 00;19;24;25
Speaker 1
And so we got ready to private label equipment, with Goodman. And so we came up with the Armada, which is our private label because it’s a fleet, and Armada is a fleet of warships. So this was our fleet of going to war on your comfort kind of thing. And then we created Sailor Mac that became our mascot.

00;19;24;28 – 00;20;03;16
Speaker 1
Because, again, we needed something with teeth that we could take and adding those mascots for us. We have Johnny on the spot, we have Sailor Mac, and then I own a small part of a roofing company, that has an armadillo. And so Rufus the Armadillo, anywhere they go, they are the hit of the party. So when it comes down to owning community involvement and brand recognition for us, our styles, our personalities, those characters really, land that hit a home run with, top of mind awareness.

00;20;03;18 – 00;20;23;27
Speaker 2
Oh, I think you kind of answered the question I’m about to ask, but I’m going to ask it again because I feel like we should we should unpack it a little bit more. But, well, I’m hearing two things. I’m hearing the importance of mascots. And also it it’s got to be an animal. It can’t be like, you know, I no.

00;20;23;27 – 00;20;25;24
Speaker 1
It can be lots of things. Same for Mac as a person.

00;20;26;01 – 00;20;26;21
Speaker 2
Oh okay.

00;20;26;21 – 00;20;41;12
Speaker 1
That’s true. Yeah. They learn Mac as a person. I have a client in Indianapolis. No. Well, he’s in Hobbs now. Hobbs Bob. Indiana. But he, he was with us for a while, and I was like, you need to add a mascot. And he was like, no, thank you. I do not want to add a mascot.

00;20;41;14 – 00;21;12;05
Speaker 1
Well, the name of his company is called Perfect Climate. And so in his name is Pat. So I was like, we really need perfect Pat. So finally we we bugged him until he was like, okay, now I think he is like, I don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner. Mascots, what they do. And again, this is not even a if you could see past yourself for a minute, what mascots do is they lower the barrier of entry, the inhibitions for people to interact with your brand in real time.

00;21;12;05 – 00;21;33;09
Speaker 1
So, you know, think about being at a junior college or even a high school football game, basketball game, soccer game where there are all these games. And so it’s another spot on pest control. First down and there’s Johnny the Ladybug. So again, when people need pest control services, do you know what their brain goes back to another spot on pest control.

00;21;33;09 – 00;21;52;17
Speaker 1
First down for East Texas Friday Night lights. Right. And so it makes it easier because you see how it’s not as fun to be like another McWilliams. You know, it’s just not the same kick. That and then kids like you want to know a way to reach parents and grandparents, anything that gives them something for their kids.

00;21;52;23 – 00;22;18;19
Speaker 1
So our mascots always have coloring sheets and stickers and autograph sheets. And again, that’s just a way that is a strategy for really building up your brand awareness in a boots on the ground style of just building relationships in your community. You know, our mascots go read at the library, they go read the daycares. They are the on parade floats because they are the icon for the business.

00;22;18;25 – 00;22;31;21
Speaker 1
That is not everyone’s cup of tea. And it’s not the only successful strategy, but it is definitely a strategy and it really works well in mid rural to mid metro markets.

00;22;31;23 – 00;22;37;29
Speaker 2
Do you think that that applies to all industries or is this something that is trades based.

00;22;38;01 – 00;23;00;18
Speaker 1
It’s a good question. So like I think it makes sense for most home service companies to add. And it doesn’t have to be a mask. It could be also like a an icon, like a check, a heart like you know, like think about college universities. I went to SFA in Nacogdoches, so we asked some jacks. So it’s just creating some things.

00;23;00;20 – 00;23;36;06
Speaker 1
Maybe if you’re a A&M fan, you got the whole hoop thing that they do. It’s just something about your company that people are able to connect to. So would this really work for a restaurant or a boutique or something? Probably not in the same ways, but for any of us that need people to choose our company for a service that then want them to stay on longer for other services, we need something that is impacting the the personal relationship side, that is non salesy and very friendly.

00;23;36;08 – 00;23;56;20
Speaker 1
And right now I think our world is just looking for peaceful and happy things. And so it is really been every client that we’ve ever launched a mascot for has been like, why did we not why did I not do this sooner? And then I still have some that are like, never, it’ll never happen. Quit asking me.

00;23;56;22 – 00;24;00;10
Speaker 1
Most people are afraid I’m going to put them in a mascot suit, but.

00;24;00;12 – 00;24;02;20
Speaker 2
Make a football feel.

00;24;02;25 – 00;24;33;07
Speaker 1
Well, yeah, but lemon C does not have a mascot because a mascot is not so my ideal target market. Or is mostly men that run businesses. Now, remember, in a target market, I will happily and would love to work with women owners. That’s not what I’m saying, but the vast majority of my target market, which all of you should have an identified target market, my target market right now, just for sheer number, is, most of the time it’s going to be a man that owns, contracting business.

00;24;33;09 – 00;24;53;15
Speaker 1
And then ideally, we like for them to be at least $2 million in revenue. So they are not as connected to a lemon mascot right now. If I go to a women’s event. We are huge supporters of women in ECR. I’m on the board there. That would be a perfect place to take a big lemon with a cute straw, right?

00;24;53;15 – 00;25;19;10
Speaker 1
Because women love that crap. We’ll be taking pictures with it and posting it, but I can’t really get a dude to hold a lemon mascot take a picture. So you kind of have to know your audience. But most of us as owner operators are. We need more women to choose our business. The husband’s probably just going to say, yeah, odds are I need you to call the pet com pest control company.

00;25;19;12 – 00;25;32;28
Speaker 1
But unless they’ve built something, most of the time the wife goes, you know, I love that little ladybug. Let me see. Right. That’s literally what happens. And so it’s always interesting for sure where it fits in and where it doesn’t.

00;25;33;01 – 00;25;57;22
Speaker 2
Yeah. When it comes to the strategy side of things, I know every single listener is going to be gone. Okay. What’s the thing that we need to be doing for marketing? Right. Because that’s what everybody wants to know. What’s that one thing? That one magic. That’s silver bullet, right. I tend to think that there is no silver bullet right now in the current marketplace that we’re in, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

00;25;57;28 – 00;26;07;26
Speaker 2
You know, from, home services, trades based business. Is there a thing, the thing they should be doing no matter what or what? What’s your advice there?

00;26;07;28 – 00;26;25;05
Speaker 1
Yeah. So I’ll tell you. This is. You’re right. There’s not a this sexy, funny answer. I’ll tell you really, the silver bullet is consistency with your marketing. Okay, so honestly, if you. I could find five contractors that are successful and line them up, and they would each have a different marketing tactic that is probably driving their business.

00;26;25;05 – 00;26;43;15
Speaker 1
Okay. And those probably change every 6 to 8 months. What was killing it? Google local service ads was killing it for a while. And then all of a sudden one thing happens and now it’s their direct mail. And then another thing happens. And now, more than anything, they have a consistent budget. They’re constantly managing their operational success.

00;26;43;17 – 00;26;57;08
Speaker 1
And we’re not letting off the gas every time the board gets full. So if you’re running a three day dispatch board and you’re like, well, it’s full, let’s turn back all of our marketing, you will not feel the effects of that for about two weeks, and then you’re gonna be like, what the heck happened to our lead flow?

00;26;57;10 – 00;27;19;22
Speaker 1
And so consistency, picking a lane and sticking to it and not getting scared and jumping ship every five minutes, that’s the real silver bullet. But there are still some great things that I would have at the top of my list right now. One of those again, things you all are going to hate for 1000, Alex. Okay, social media is where it’s at right now.

00;27;19;22 – 00;27;48;23
Speaker 1
Content. And again, people are like, I don’t believe it. You don’t have to. Your competition will just run over you. Okay, so because here’s here’s the reality. We we as average consumers are inundated with information. Now, literally ten years ago when I started back at the my family’s company, we were we probably had 7 or 8, streams of how people were coming into the business, yellow phone books.

00;27;48;26 – 00;28;13;15
Speaker 1
They were coming in through a website. They were coming in through maybe an email or something. We had done a yard sign and maybe a direct mail okay referral. But now there is your Facebook, your TikTok, your Instagram, right, your Google business profile, your glossy ads. Then you got PPC ads, your website, your blogs. Right. So all of a sudden now there’s like a hundred ways that people can be coming in.

00;28;13;20 – 00;28;36;02
Speaker 1
So I will tell you, content is king right now because people want you need people experiencing your brand consistently. So make that content, establish you as an authority and say something about who you are. So you’re a Christian based organization that’s veteran owned, and we scream in it from the rooftops, right? Because that’s probably the market that you’re going after.

00;28;36;06 – 00;29;01;04
Speaker 1
And it’s a differentiator if you are very reasonably priced and you know that and you’re intentionally running middle of the road pricing for tune ups and installs or whatever, promote it. Not necessarily being like, hey, I’m not expensive, but promote the affordability of your services. Again, that is done the best way through social media. And, you know, there’s this thing right now called lurker syndrome.

00;29;01;07 – 00;29;25;04
Speaker 1
And so it’s it’s a huge number and I don’t know the exact number. So I’m going to get somewhere close. It’s like 78% of people actively on social media. Never as an ever comment like or share a post. So like like 25% of the actual users of social media are actually. And again, I could be a little off on those, but not by much.

00;29;25;06 – 00;29;51;07
Speaker 1
Are actually engaging and interacting with the post. So now I’ve got to worry about all these lurkers. My dad is 65 and the biggest lurker. He knows everybody’s business. Okay, but do you think he’s ever shared a post, a lack of anything? No, because then everybody beyond to him right that he’s actually looking. And so that’s why I say content I’d say that’s number one.

00;29;51;14 – 00;29;55;13
Speaker 1
Another one is sleeping on your Google business profile.

00;29;55;15 – 00;30;12;19
Speaker 1
So everybody that’s starting off. So if I get a client that’s like just trying to get to $1 million, I’m going to tell them the very first thing I’m going to do is tell you start making social media content and get your Google business profile looking really good. And I don’t care if you have to hand literally go to people’s house and get reviews.

00;30;12;21 – 00;30;38;06
Speaker 1
Start right now getting reviews. Put all your FAQ you ask and answered questions in there. Upload pictures of your people, make sure everything is correct on that Google business profile because we need it to perform like a rock star. And then the third thing I will tell you is I think people need a really strong brand in general and an identity, a true understanding of who their identity is.

00;30;38;09 – 00;31;00;17
Speaker 1
Because if you’re just going out there like I’m just Rics heating and air conditioning, that is great. We don’t really know who Rick is, why we should trust Rick. Nor do we know why Rick has a Camaro as his profile picture. Right? So there’s lots of mistakes that are made there, but then literally, contractors will be flabbergasted out of some.

00;31;00;17 – 00;31;19;13
Speaker 1
Understand why no one calls us. We are we are low on lead count. I’m like, I can’t even find you. Like you’re just literally in a field of a hundred other HVAC companies, like waving your hand and everyone else is waving to some people just have a gigantic flag and you’re down here with your hand, like, pick me, you know?

00;31;19;18 – 00;31;45;03
Speaker 1
And it’s just, it’s you’re you’re definitely headed for an uphill battle without those things. And of course, your digital presence right now really matters. Understanding where I is taking search, you know, eventually, like it is happening right now, but it probably hasn’t made it to the majority of the country. You know, eventually you’re, hey, Alexa, book me a call with my heating and air conditioning company, my thermostats messing up is going to be a thing.

00;31;45;06 – 00;32;03;26
Speaker 1
And if your website and your digital presence is not prepared for that, you’re going to be left behind. So I encourage you to be making slow and strategic investments in your brand that are keeping up with technology. Before you look up and you’ve got to do a major overhaul, just try to maintain pace if you can.

00;32;03;28 – 00;32;27;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting you say that. That’s a lot of the work that we’re trying to do right now with our web clients is trying to help them understand the value of like, hey, we don’t have to spend ten grand right now to do everything, but we need to be making efforts in this direction. Because to your point, if your digital presence isn’t set up for the environment that we’re now in, because I you’re going to lose, you’re going to lose big.

00;32;27;16 – 00;32;29;06
Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s a great point. So where do.

00;32;29;06 – 00;32;41;14
Speaker 3
You see that interaction and engagement with social media going down the road? Do you think people are going to get tired of it at some point and kind of back off, or do you do you think it’s going to continue?

00;32;41;16 – 00;33;04;21
Speaker 1
So one of my employees made this post the other day because we in our town, we have a newspaper that is now delivered to homes in the mailboxes. Okay. And people have lost their mind over the fact that news is coming in the mail and all the rest of us are locked. What do you mean? But I can remember when people were like, oh, newspaper is so dead.

00;33;04;24 – 00;33;26;20
Speaker 1
It is dead. And I’ll be honest, I still think it’s dead to this right now, this moment. Okay. But I think it’s like getting CPR. Okay? Because because I think to your point, Derek, what’s happening is social fatigue will become a thing. And so I say this quite often to about marketing. It’s like sitting down at a game of chess and being really good.

00;33;26;22 – 00;33;50;23
Speaker 1
But then something changes, your your opponent changes and you just can never get up. Right? You can’t ever get up from the game because marketing is always changing. And so right now it is cool. And you social media is where it’s at. Literally, it could become outdated in three months and we need to be ready to go. That’s why marketing is 90% mindset and 10% budget.

00;33;50;25 – 00;34;14;13
Speaker 1
And so when our mindset is set on, okay, I need to be on social because that’s where the people are right now, but I’m watching them trickle over. So like, right now, I would be on TikTok doing recruiting if I was a huge fat company, right? I wouldn’t be focusing my time on my specials. I would be spending more time about like, look how cool of a place we are to work, because I need technicians.

00;34;14;13 – 00;34;32;29
Speaker 1
I need, you know, train CSRs and dispatchers. I need installers. Right. But a while back, people were like, I’m not going to get on TikTok, you know, so everything has a season and comes back around and it’s cool again. It’s just more about the mindset of like, right now, I will tell you, Facebook and Instagram are on the back.

00;34;32;29 – 00;34;43;12
Speaker 1
They’re sliding backwards, right? So for home service companies. But at the same time, TikTok is really growing. But you can go viral on TikTok and I’ll get one lead.

00;34;43;14 – 00;35;06;12
Speaker 1
From the business. Right? Because people aren’t really there. It’s, it’s called social media for a reason, you know, so we’re not really there in our organic content, like in just our everyday posting to generate a lead. We’re there to we call it edutainment. I want to entertain you and educate you at the same time. But social media is very tricky and like, half the world loves it.

00;35;06;12 – 00;35;20;28
Speaker 1
Half the world hates it. So I do think it’s in its peak right now. And we’re going to get more platforms which will spread that out even more. It’ll diluted even more. We just have to stay ready. Ready to pivot.

00;35;21;00 – 00;35;41;07
Speaker 2
Krystal, I also on a newspaper here locally that we love best, and I absolutely love it and people love it. And it’s gotten so much traction in the last, I’d say, a year and a half especially, and, and certainly in the home services category. But, I, I’m, I’m with you. It was definitely dead for a while.

00;35;41;07 – 00;35;53;25
Speaker 2
It’s definitely come back in a huge way. Yes. And I think to your point, right, because there’s so much digital noise and fatigue from people being on devices that sometimes they just want to pick up something and read and.

00;35;54;01 – 00;36;12;29
Speaker 1
The tangibility of it. So our, our little one that launched is called 936 is our area code here. And he launched it and then he does I think this is so smart. He does a daily little show on his social media channel. And so that’s what caught my attention. And I said, I’m loving this for you.

00;36;12;29 – 00;36;39;09
Speaker 1
Like, congratulations. And he’s like, no, it’s been great. And he said, you know, I do social media. And I said, what? I said, you know, he was speaking with me. He said, because I know that I’m still on life support over here, but I’m still I’m getting stronger every single day. So if I can continue to use what is hyper focused on right now, which is social, and keep pushing people to the tangible, eventually I’m going to swing that pendulum back this other direction and I’m literally like, I want a spot.

00;36;39;09 – 00;37;04;24
Speaker 1
I’ve already am. Like, I want to be the sponsor of the weather in the obituary section, or pest control, because, I mean, I pulled out of all newspapers probably five years ago. Just the return was not there. But I’m with you. It is. These are localized hometown feeling papers that have the human interest story, the feel good stuff, the story behind these things.

00;37;04;27 – 00;37;12;19
Speaker 1
It literally is going to I think it’s going to explode with interest because people are getting social fatigue.

00;37;12;21 – 00;37;16;02
Speaker 3
Yeah. 100. Like, what’s the name of the paper? You got to shout it out.

00;37;16;04 – 00;37;40;03
Speaker 2
Oh, buying local is the name of hours you can find that that buying local.us. And that is exactly what we do too. Because to to your point, is we we only publish uplifting stories about local business owners, local people in the community, like, as you said, behind the scenes stuff, things that people might not know about a company and really humanize the business community in the nonprofit community.

00;37;40;03 – 00;37;49;21
Speaker 2
And we you know, I love the feature. Our farmers, as a small farmer myself. So I always try to get those guys in there too. But, yeah, love it.

00;37;49;24 – 00;37;55;22
Speaker 3
So how about you covered some some digital stuff? How about community engagement?

00;37;55;24 – 00;37;59;02
Speaker 1
Crystal is that’s where my heart is.

00;37;59;04 – 00;38;17;04
Speaker 3
Yeah, I, I remember when when I was starting there, there’s so many different things that you can get involved in. It’s hard to pick what’s going to fit, you know, your brand or what’s going to get you recognized. So where do you recommend that new business owner start in terms of community engagement?

00;38;17;07 – 00;38;38;29
Speaker 1
No, no. Great. That so there’s two there’s two veins to this right. One is work in your referral engine okay. So one is like be in our groups or, you know, partner networking groups that are just meant for you to establish yourself as someone else’s voice of authority, as someone else’s referral. So I tell all business owners, go get involved in something.

00;38;39;04 – 00;39;00;04
Speaker 1
A Rotary Club, Alliance club, a chamber group, a bank group, just so you can start talking about your business and being out there. That’s one style of how to get engaged with your community, but the other style that I say, So when I came back to my family’s company in 2014, one of our goals was to be the community supporter.

00;39;00;06 – 00;39;22;00
Speaker 1
We wanted to be known for our generosity and giving back to the community. And so I literally pulled up a calendar, our community calendar for all of our communities. And I was like, how can I be a part of every single piece of this? And then I quickly realized, like, I can’t be a part of everything. So then I started settling down onto what causes were important to us.

00;39;22;02 – 00;39;42;02
Speaker 1
So some of those would be like my grandmother, of the grandfather that actually, passed away from suicide. My grandmother died from Alzheimer’s. Okay. So we actually wrapped one of our vans purple for Alzheimer’s awareness, and we became a presenting sponsor for them. And we drove our vans and we, stood out. We had a walking team.

00;39;42;02 – 00;40;03;26
Speaker 1
We had shirts made. We raise money. We learned all the way in because it naturally meant something to us. So that was helpful. And then also like I just went where the people were. So if I was going after mom’s 35 and older, if there was a kids festival somewhere, I was there and I was given out whatever the tool or the toy of the day was.

00;40;04;02 – 00;40;09;12
Speaker 1
So like, right now, you know, it’s, squishies and things like that. I.

00;40;09;12 – 00;40;10;07
Speaker 3
Know all about them.

00;40;10;11 – 00;40;26;13
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, okay, so they I would get your kids over there at my booth, and while they’re digging around in that squishy thing, I’m like, hey, Derek, who’s your heating and air conditioning company right now? Right. Because I can get the people over there. So what I encourage our clients to do and lemon seed helps build out the strategy.

00;40;26;13 – 00;40;47;07
Speaker 1
So I do this quite often is, hey, what are some causes that are important to you? And a lot of people can come up with 1 or 2 like they had a family member die of, of breast cancer or their dad was a veteran, or they foster children or honestly, they foster dogs or cats or something. So they tend to have a cause that means something to them.

00;40;47;10 – 00;41;09;02
Speaker 1
And I was like, listen, let’s start with that. Start there and let’s get our feet wet with let’s make a connection. How can we support them financially? How can we support them on our social media? So we would say, hey, what about every new member that we get signed up over the next three months, we’re going to donate a 50 pound bag of dog food in the name of our shop dog beanie.

00;41;09;09 – 00;41;33;02
Speaker 1
Okay, to the local animal shelter. So again, is that is that earth shattering? Absolutely not. But what it is, is genuine, raw, and it’s authentic. And our community see that. And then we’re going to be pushing it on our social media. We can add a little line to what our CSR says. Hey Miss Williams, don’t forget, when Jimmy gets out there, he’s probably going to tell you about our membership program right now for the next three months.

00;41;33;02 – 00;41;55;06
Speaker 1
Any time anyone joins our program, not only do you get all those great perks, but we’re donating a 50 pound bag of dog food in your honor to the Humane Society here. So make sure you ask Johnny about that. Right. So we can do lots of things like that that just get the community talking about it. And then at the very end, one of your trucks drives up.

00;41;55;08 – 00;42;16;17
Speaker 1
And even if we have to make it up, okay, and bought ten back ten, 50 pound bags, we’re going to back the truck up to the Humane Society. We’re going to take a little video, and we’re going to show our guys Holland and 50 pound bags of dog food. We’re going to shake hands with the owners. We’re going to take pictures with the dogs, and we’re going to thank our community for supporting the Humane society.

00;42;16;19 – 00;42;37;16
Speaker 1
And so these things don’t require honestly, a ton of time is more is it’s more being intentional about what you’re doing. And it also doesn’t have to be you don’t have to be doing 50 things. You can just be doing 1 or 2 things really, really well. And then spot on my pest control company that my sister and I do, you know, we right now, we are we are.

00;42;37;17 – 00;43;02;07
Speaker 1
Our head is down. So we are everywhere we can afford to be. So all the teachers that go back to school, we were trying to be at those conversations, as they call it here, because we were giving out fly swatter and and gift cards and all kinds of stuff that we could. We were given teacher discounts. We’re building our float for the dive all day, which is a town, the town that we live in were from, has a big, fat one day festival.

00;43;02;07 – 00;43;22;21
Speaker 1
So we’re doing everything we can afford to do in both time and money. Right now, because we’re building a brand like we are actively building a brand, and we refuse to do it only with paid staff. So, you know, there’s a lot of room there for your community side. But I just encourage you to go where the people are, shake hands, kiss babies.

00;43;22;21 – 00;43;40;14
Speaker 1
You probably need a tablecloth with your name on it, but you get at least park a van and get a tent that’s your brand color. And so you can get a custom tent, go get. And if you don’t have a raincoat, you better get white. But do not, you know, just get out there and start somewhere at some events.

00;43;40;16 – 00;43;45;13
Speaker 1
Shaking hands, kissing babies, passing stuff out.

00;43;45;15 – 00;43;58;26
Speaker 2
Love it. Chris, I know, we’re getting short on time, but, you know, if people are interested in lemon seed marketing, they want to talk to you. They love what you’re saying. I love what you’re saying. How do they find you?

00;43;58;28 – 00;44;21;01
Speaker 1
Yeah. So, in true, I’d take my own advice. So in true fashion, on all social media platforms, lemon seed marketing, where? Everywhere you can find me personally, also on LinkedIn and things like that. But lemon seed marketing.com has some of our brand stories on there. And easy way to contact us. And what we do is we just set up a little discovery call.

00;44;21;01 – 00;44;44;19
Speaker 1
It’s completely free. We just talk through, we show you exactly how lemon seed works. You tell us exactly what your marketing needs are, at least what you think they are. And we develop a customized plan for you and we basically become your marketing department. And so we would love to talk to you about that and how it’s more affordable than even hiring one full time employee with half of our experience.

00;44;44;21 – 00;45;02;01
Speaker 1
And so we try to make it as affordable as possible. But at the same time, we know that we bring a good product to the table. So, that but hello, at Lemon Seed marketing.com is also a really simple email to remember, but love to talk to anybody, at any time. So let us know.

00;45;02;04 – 00;45;05;14
Speaker 2
Yeah. Crystal, thanks so much for coming on the show, Klaus.

00;45;05;14 – 00;45;06;16
Speaker 1
Thank you all for having me.

00;45;06;19 – 00;45;08;16
Speaker 3
Thank you. Love the energy.

00;45;08;18 – 00;45;08;26
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;45;09;00 – 00;45;10;09
Speaker 1
Good.

00;45;10;12 – 00;45;12;09
Speaker 2
And the southern accent. Bless your heart.

00;45;12;10 – 00;45;16;20
Speaker 1
Blessing. It can be a lot. It can be a lot.

00;45;16;23 – 00;45;39;02
Speaker 2
Absolutely. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Of course, you can find this episode, all of our episodes at Blue Collar Startup. Dot I o you can also listen to us on Spotify, Apple Rumble, YouTube, and, you know, thank you. Of course, all of our sponsors that help make this show happen and help us to donate money to, tools and tuition, kids and trade schools.

00;45;39;04 – 00;45;44;20
Speaker 2
Appreciate you more than I can say. And, thanks, everybody, for listening. And you’ll hear from us next week.

00;45;44;25 – 00;46;12;25
Speaker 1
And that wraps up another episode of Blue Collar Startup. A big thank you to our sponsors, Five Towers Media, Daigle Cleaning Systems, Daigle Fire Solutions, The Michaels Group, Martin Electric, MLB construction, Pinocchio Construction People, and Catamount Consulting for making this podcast possible. And thank you for tuning in. If you learned something or felt inspired. Connect with us on our website at Blue Collar Startup Bio or email us at hardhat Dot CSU at gmail.com.

00;46;12;25 – 00;46;25;21
Speaker 1
We’d love to hear your questions and topic ideas. Help us spread the word by sharing the show and following us on social media for updates. Until next time, keep on building. Keep on dreaming and keep hustling like your future depends on it.

00;46;25;24 – 00;46;34;27
Unknown
Oh, hey. Oh!

00;46;34;29 – 00;46;36;05
Unknown
Oh!