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The Harsh Truth About Contractor Marketing with Brian Javeline · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:00
Welcome to another great episode of the Contractor Business
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Builder podcast. So what if marketing advice most
0:06
contractors trust is costing them growth?
0:08
Brian Javelin has spent decades helping contractors stop chasing
0:12
leads and start building brands that bring in better clients.
0:16
So today we're joined by Brian Javelin.
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He's the CEO of my online toolbox.com.
0:21
How you doing today, Brian? Doing fantastic.
0:23
Derek, thank you so much for having me today on your podcast.
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Definitely excited to to dive into this.
0:28
You've been there, done that and continue to serve clients
0:33
through, you know, many decades of experience you've built, you
0:35
know, many businesses yourself. What are some of the kind of the
0:38
hard earned lessons that gives you a different perspective from
0:42
maybe some of the newer marketers out there?
0:44
Well, things are changing so fast.
0:47
Just to backtrack it, you are correct.
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It's one year shy of four decades.
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I'm on 39 years with four different businesses.
0:55
And over the years, what I've seen happen and it's continuing
1:00
to happen and, and getting worse, is that people are
1:04
replacing their knowledge of technology for their knowledge
1:10
of marketing in general. So I kind of like equate it to
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just because you know how to use a word processor and you know
1:18
how to use AI to create content, it doesn't make you a writer.
1:22
And a lot of people have somehow adapted to saying, because they
1:26
understand the newest feature of websites or SEO or social media,
1:31
whether it's Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google
1:34
profiles, they target an individual technical feature and
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then tell people that they're in marketing.
1:41
But if you went to say, throw all of that out the window and
1:44
tell me about marketing with a pencil and a piece of paper,
1:48
there's a lot of head scratching because they think of it as a
1:51
trick question, but it's really the only question.
1:53
And So what happens is there's this divergent taking place
1:58
where people will treat me, you know, I'm I'm 60 right now and
2:02
they'll treat me as old school when I tell them no, it is the
2:06
school. The problem is you skip school
2:09
and don't wanna hear it. And that's where when I just was
2:12
speaking at the IBS K BIS and had in a couple of my
2:16
presentations, there were people in their 20s and there were
2:20
people in their 70s. And that difference is so
2:23
massive because the ones that were the 50 sixty 70s, they see
2:27
the marketing principles, but kind of feel lost on the
2:30
technology side. And the younger generation
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masters the technology, but they really won't admit that they
2:37
never took marketing as their foundation to leveraging the
2:41
technology and it and it's this cat and mouse game.
2:44
And that right there is the biggest, what I'd like to say it
2:48
take away is to make sure that people are having a marketing
2:52
strategy before they jump into a technical answer.
2:57
And the technology even me today, I, I asked people, just
3:01
how are you? And sometimes I get a paragraph
3:03
that I could see was done my ChatGPT.
3:06
I know it wasn't them thinking it.
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And I said I didn't need a perfectly, you know, perfectly
3:11
grammatically spell checked answer.
3:13
I just was asking how you were. And then when you amplify that
3:17
with somebody's business story and it was created by someone
3:20
who didn't even know the story in the in the 1st place, that
3:24
challenge is happening while you and I are on this podcast.
3:27
And so a lot of people have to admit it.
3:30
And until they admit that problem, their marketing
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challenges are not going to go away.
3:34
They're just going to get infinitely worse as time passes.
3:37
Yeah, for sure. There's, there's the the
3:40
fundamentals right of, of, of marketing that that aren't going
3:43
to change and you need to get the base right before you start
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adding on these, you know, new technologies and and all these
3:52
things. And it kind of makes everybody a
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bit of an easy shortcut marketer without understanding what the
3:59
important like brand and different processes are for, for
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marketing. So can you maybe tell us a bit
4:04
about what you see contractors getting wrong as far as you
4:09
know, maybe just jumping in with the newest AI and and just using
4:13
it to write everything. What do you like to see at for a
4:15
strong marketing campaign? A lot of times and that you
4:19
brought up a perfect topic because when I go to this show
4:23
at this particular in our industry, the two big players at
4:26
least are the IBS, KBI show for builders, remodelers and a lot
4:30
of other specialty contractors. And I have been going now for 16
4:34
years to that show and I watched the booths come and go with the
4:37
newest marketing of the day in this traditionally A10 by 10 or
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a 10 by 20, both. And it was amazing how many new
4:44
players I saw that they say marketing and they just by
4:49
default throw in AI as a topic. And I just start to laugh
4:54
because they usually have that one to two clients.
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And one of them was probably family related that of course
5:00
the kids sitting in the booth. And I'm not being condescending
5:03
to the kid. I'm just like, you know, he
5:04
joined his father's business and miraculously the father's
5:07
business changed overnight. And I always will tell that that
5:11
the person your father was in business for many years and yes,
5:14
maybe you were a catalyst for it improving.
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But your 30 day fix in changing 51015 years of her reputation,
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you're giving yourself too many stars on your shoulder then you
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think you deserve. And until you repetitively take
5:29
somebody who is behind the 8 ball and redo all of their
5:35
marketing and redoing it, it comes off my tongue easy.
5:38
But to take someone's message and go through all of the years
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of history of all of the garbage, all of the things done
5:47
wrong and bring them out to their best for their new
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marketing launch. It's not an AI answer.
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It's it's a sitting down and kind of like me saying, hey,
5:57
Derek, you know, you seem like a nice guy, but I want to
6:00
introduce you to everybody else who doesn't know you or me.
6:03
And I need you to give me 30 pictures that represent your
6:06
life. I need you to give me one to
6:08
five sentences that support those images.
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And then after I have it, we're gonna package it in a very
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articulated way. But I don't want to explain that
6:17
way until you tell me what's the best of your life.
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And maybe you're going to give me just business topics.
6:24
Maybe you're going to say no, Brian, I had a hard childhood
6:27
and you should see what I did here to get to college and then
6:30
I did this. Or maybe you're a father and we
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need you to know. Are you a family man?
6:34
Because that's a different personality than a singles
6:36
person, whether they want to admit it or not.
6:38
And there's a whole bunch of things that represent Derek that
6:43
I don't want to say a word about how to amplify Derek's story
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until I even know what it is in his, in his heart.
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And it takes a moment and it's painful because you might say,
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Brian, I got 10,000 pictures to choose from.
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I'll be like, wonderful, I'll speak to you next month.
6:58
Start now because it's going to take you time to kind of trim it
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down so I could begin to package the version of Derek the person
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or the version of Derek the business person or both.
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And so a lot of people feel that somehow technology is going to
7:15
give them this shortcut answer to the perfect resume.
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And until you, you can't design the resume until you know what
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is the best of the resume. And so what's happening is, is a
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lot of people don't like to hear that.
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It's painful, but the reality is it is for everybody who's going
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to do it right. And so that is a straightforward
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answer that I tell people, there are many people doing it.
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They're just not doing it right because they don't want to hear
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that it's gonna take them 30 days to get their act together
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before the next person kicks in. So I do have people who will
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say, Brian, I'm sorry that, you know, they'll reach out to us
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for our marketing plan, some type of long term guidance to
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say, oh, that wasn't my objective.
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And I'll tell them, sorry, your objective was wrong.
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Whoever is feeding you this mindset that you're gonna, you
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know, talk to somebody new on a Monday, I'm gonna be all ready
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for you on a Tuesday and we're going to be wrapping this out by
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the end of this particular month or quarter.
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It's a fallacy and so I tell people I'm only looking for the
8:15
one to five year plan, not the get you online at the end of
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3060 days and declare this virtual high 5V.
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It's the what is going to be allowing you to slowly build
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opportunities that maintain consistency through the ups and
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downs of, of a time of seasons, you know, financial up and down,
8:36
but maintaining the brand that it just keeps coming and coming.
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And then they start to get better and better.
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And the residual is one to five years out, not one to five weeks
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out. And if they're not in the right
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mindset, it's just, for me at least as a brand marketer, it's
8:53
just a waste of time because they're trying to create
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something that doesn't exist long-term.
8:57
Yeah, definitely on the same same wavelength there.
9:00
The, the time frames need to be thinking long term.
9:03
And I, I hearing what you're saying there, I feel like it
9:07
equates a bit to you need to do the hard work, which is figuring
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out who you are, what your brand, because as you mentioned,
9:16
compiling the right pictures, the, the right, the messaging,
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all of that sort of thing, which a lot of the time people just
9:23
want to, I want to buy leads or I want to pay for a new website
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or I just wanted, you know, someone to put this in place
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and, and generate a bunch of, of new business for me.
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But that's not really the, the issue or the problem.
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And that's not really what's going to strengthen the business
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long term. So what do you feel is like
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what, what do you look at? You get a new client, they say
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their marketing's working. You've mentioned, you know,
9:47
putting some pictures and finding their story and things
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like that. What is kind of the strategy
9:53
that that you often implement or or key factors that you look?
9:56
At well, there's two separate topics.
10:00
The first is making sure that the build of the Ramada or, or
10:03
the contractor should I say is looking to be the best they
10:07
could be as a starting point. And there is, you said the word
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and I, I wanted to clarify it because you said it was
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difficult. I really don't think it's
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difficult. I think it's just time consuming
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that people don't want to admit to and they usually they'll be
10:22
this, I don't have anytime and then I'll say no, that's all BS.
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You are allocating your time to the wrong things.
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We all have a certain finite time in a week and our in our
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life, it's what are we going to do with that time.
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So to say I don't have any time is a BS thing because the
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marketing sits in front of whatever business direction
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you're going to be going. So if you're not going to make
10:45
time to the direction you're going, it's almost like planning
10:48
a vacation. Well, I don't time the plan.
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OK, where do you wanna go? I don't know.
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So do you go to the airport and just kind of say spin a wheel
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and go to wherever the hell that the next flight is?
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So I tell people you're, you're you stop making up something
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that doesn't exist, at least in the the books of marketing,
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you're gonna have to 1st spend that, that, that, that time.
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And so the, the psyche of doing it right is half the battle, but
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without the excuse, the traditional excuse of I don't
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have time where I've limited time versus no, we're going to
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carve out the correct amount of time to do it.
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Then you will tell everybody else that you don't have time
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for whatever the things are that come after marketing.
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Because if you're not gonna get good customers in 363 months,
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six months and one year later, why bother even looking to stay
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in business? Because you it's go quit and
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take your talents and work for someone else and not have the
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pressure of saying that you're going to be in business because
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there's not a successful business that has not over time
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incorporated marketing as part of every other topic.
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That must be on your mind #1 and #2 after you agree to do it
11:56
correctly, we then have to remember that you have
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competition and we don't know what the bar is until we look at
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the competitors. So you might say I work the
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hardest and I might say, Derek, you work hard, but not the
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hardest. Compared to competitor 1-2 and
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seven, they work harder, but competitive 45, six, they work
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smarter. So these seven people, whether
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you like it or not, are going to be ahead of you while you're
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spending your time telling us how hard you work.
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So what I tell people is you wanna first go to do it right
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then study your competitors and realize if I and I just said 7
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as a lucky number, it wasn't intentional.
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But if the, if you have 7 people, all those 7 competitors
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may be doing better than you, but they, you have to find out
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what is their individual secret sauce or secret sauces and
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combine your awareness of what makes them tick.
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So when we go to do our plan, we leverage the best of the best of
13:04
your competitors. Not everything that your
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competitors are doing needs to be emulated, but certain things
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do. And let me use a case in point,
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because I literally just did this.
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I'm talking marketing plan delivered.
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I'm going away for a little bit and it was just delivered last
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Friday and the guy is in a very tight market.
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He's doing well over 2 million a year, under 3 million and but
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his competitors are all bigger than him and they're all
13:30
established. So everyone's doing well.
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And he was like, Brian, I don't get these companies.
13:35
One of them is their name is everywhere, but they have a
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crappy website just like me. Good point.
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But it made him feel better. And I said, however, after I
13:44
took a moment to study him, that competitor belongs to all of the
13:50
local networking groups. So he has an affinity for
13:53
getting in his car and going to events, and he gets seen by the
13:57
community and he's getting his networking through handshakes.
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There's a lot of people who are allergic to going in their car
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and going to events. Well, until you do it, this guy
14:07
is just going to keep going to event, shaking hands, having a
14:10
beer, having a cocktail, and whatever he's doing.
14:13
That is his addiction. That topic is going to keep him
14:17
in business regardless of what else everybody else does.
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Another competitor also had a crappy website so statistically
14:25
he looks like crap but in the field he tells everyone that he
14:29
gets so many leads online. It took me a little bit to
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figure out after I was just looking at the person.
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The website statistically did suck and it still sucks to this
14:39
day. It is a mishmash of crap
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technically and and from a content perspective.
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But the contractors wife belongs to a mommy and me club on
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Instagram and locally she has all these followers and
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everybody sharing pictures of the babies, blah, blah, blah.
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And every once in a while the husband pops in with the picture
15:00
of the baby. Then she tags his business and
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they go, oh, I need a kitchen, I need a bathroom.
15:05
So this woman is inadvertently driving a few 100 people locally
15:12
to the husband's account. They go to the website.
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They already said, I know you through the wife, you know, club
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and it becomes a deal. But it it's a channel that I
15:23
told the guy, unless you're having a baby and your wife,
15:25
it's gonna form her own baby. You know, mommy and me club and
15:28
have a following. This guy is a benefactor of a a
15:32
separate way of connecting and there's nothing that's going to
15:35
change other than the babies will get older, right?
15:38
And then they nobody cares anymore and you might have to
15:40
figure it out, but who cares? But my point is using those two
15:44
quick topics. I didn't want him to feel that
15:47
these people he admired the Instagram one is easier because
15:52
you could create your own Instagram channel and and try to
15:54
build a following. It may not be as successful with
15:57
the other one, but getting in your car and for him to say, I
15:59
really don't like those events and I told them, you gotta snap
16:02
out of it. You, you just said something and
16:05
said you bowed down to your competitor.
16:07
And I guarantee you he's just another guy showing up in his
16:10
truck, right? Hello.
16:12
Hi, this is what I do. They participate in a little
16:14
problem solving community topics and then someone hands him a
16:17
business card. And I said, so if you're not
16:20
going to do that, stop bitching about the other guy because he's
16:23
going to do it with the without you complaining.
16:25
And so that component of competitive awareness on top of
16:30
the website, some of them are doing real, you know, forgive my
16:33
French, they are doing kick ass jobs.
16:35
And I tell them, hey, if I was this guy, I would give him no,
16:38
no, no comments other than a compliment.
16:40
He's following the rules. He has his website properly
16:44
organized, it's optimized it, it has the images, it has the
16:49
story. And he's doing exactly what I
16:51
would recommend. And maybe he even took my
16:53
classes for all I know, I don't know.
16:54
But I do know he's doing a good job.
16:57
So even though you're calling it your competitor, I still have to
17:01
acknowledge when your competitor has woken up and said I am going
17:06
to market my business correctly without caring about the newest
17:10
my online toolbox client of the day.
17:12
And so this is where like anything, you know, I'm a
17:15
Panthers fan, you know, Florida Panthers hockey.
17:18
Well, we've been to the, you know, we were at the Stanley Cup
17:21
three years ago, We won the last two years and now we're
17:24
struggling to possibly be in last place.
17:27
Well, we could only complain about the last three.
17:29
Here's where champs, champs, champs, right?
17:31
And I'm making a point. I'm still a fan and they had a
17:34
lot of injuries, but that's their excuse this year.
17:36
A lot of injuries, right? They could only say Stanley Cup
17:40
champions and and being number one and being at the bottom
17:43
changes like that for many different factors.
17:45
And that's why people need to be open minded to getting better
17:50
themselves and simultaneously open minded to looking at their
17:56
competitors objectively and not in an adversarial because
18:00
they're your competitor. You know, I'm great, he sucks.
18:03
I heard this, you heard that. And I go get past that and try
18:06
to find the best of your competitors and leverage that
18:11
knowledge to build it into your plan.
18:13
Comma then do something about it.
18:15
Don't just say, you know, I learned, but no, no, no, I'm not
18:18
going to events. Well, why did you hire me?
18:20
You know what you know, other than me saying you can go to an
18:23
event and I guarantee your competitor is going to be with a
18:25
smile. Oh, nice to meet you.
18:27
But he's a little pissed off because now people in the room
18:29
have two people to talk to, not one, right?
18:32
Yeah, lots of lots of insights there.
18:33
And it's a testament to your experience that it's, it's not
18:37
all just about how Peter website looks or the latest AI, you
18:40
know, copywriting you're doing on your content.
18:42
There are these these methods where people are generating
18:46
leads very locally and instruction being such a local
18:49
type of business. I like what you said about the
18:51
Instagram. I had client who they had an
18:53
admin person who was part of one of these mom groups for the
18:57
local community and very similar thing where it would just come
19:01
up someone's like wanting to do a renovation.
19:03
You're asking who's a good builder.
19:05
And they were generating consistent leads just by one of
19:08
their staff members being on one of these these mom groups of the
19:12
local community. Now for those clients who are,
19:15
we've got lots of leads, but there's a lot of tire kickers.
19:19
I hate going to these sales calls and people aren't buying
19:22
or maybe they want to move up and, and start just doing larger
19:26
projects or certain types of projects.
19:28
How how do you approach getting better quality leads or more
19:32
more aligned leads with with a company over just like more
19:36
leads but the quality of the leads, how do you improve that?
19:39
Well, the first thing is people need to define what is quality,
19:44
right? We all, I mean, me, I get phone
19:46
calls that too. I look at it and I answer the
19:48
phone and go what the you know, I say the F word in my head
19:51
going obviously this person has no idea who I am or the company
19:55
and took even less time just Googling it to say, wow, he
20:00
didn't deserve to even call me, right?
20:02
I mean, I look at it as a child doesn't go to a BMW.
20:05
Dealership on a tricycle and say do you happen to have bikes
20:08
right there's just something that says no.
20:10
And then the guy looking for the cheapest Kia, not the Kia I'm
20:13
not demeaning Kia they don't walk into the top of the line
20:17
you know BMW dealership and say I'd like to see the best car you
20:21
have knowing that the the financial difference is a lot.
20:23
So when even when it happens to me, I get perplexed because I
20:27
realized the consumer was so far away that now I realize I have
20:32
to take a moment to just be diplomatic in getting rid of
20:35
them because they didn't even have the intellect to have a
20:38
general idea of the door they were walking into.
20:41
That's not my ideal client. And I have enough friends,
20:44
Derek. So I tell people when I politely
20:47
get rid of someone, I'm not mean, but I say, so great to
20:50
talk to you. Let me send you something that's
20:52
a quick package. Look at that.
20:54
You got some free stuff, you got some pricing.
20:56
And once you look at it, get back to me, 95% just disappear
21:00
into the wind. But for contractors, they need
21:03
to define what is quality and let me go with the easier and
21:08
work to the harder. The easier is to target
21:11
geography. Everybody has this perception of
21:15
what will make an ideal location to go to.
21:18
But we all can't look at a map and just say, you know, 10 miles
21:22
north is better than 20 miles South because in certain areas,
21:26
you know, getting on the highway, 20 miles South is
21:29
literally less than 15 minutes. But 10 miles north might be this
21:32
little desert town, you know, with trailers. 20 miles South
21:35
could be the up and coming community being built, half
21:38
million dollar homes. So I tell people, take a moment
21:42
and look at your site, look at your profiles and does it
21:46
clearly identify the perfect places that where you want to go
21:51
as a starting point. Because if a consumer doesn't
21:54
know, they're just going to call and say, hey, do you work here?
21:57
They don't know. So you got a call.
22:00
And if they don't know and Google doesn't know and all of
22:02
the AI search engines don't know, they just filter someone
22:05
to say, hey, you're in the state of whatever.
22:08
I'm in the state of whatever, let's just see if there's a
22:10
match. But it's a wasted time that
22:12
that's just the starting point. But then as we get towards what
22:16
you do, a lot of people, I will joke with them and say, so tell
22:20
me, what do you do? I'm in construction.
22:22
Oh, really? Great.
22:23
Because I'm looking for a new, you know, warehouse.
22:26
No, I don't do warehouses. I work in residential.
22:28
Haha. OK, so you're not in
22:31
construction. You're in residential
22:33
construction. So can you build me a home?
22:35
Oh no, I do remodeling. Haha.
22:37
So now you're not even in construction anymore.
22:39
Let's get that word out of your mind because you inadvertently
22:43
misled me to my perception of the word construction.
22:47
So when you say to people going forward that you're in the
22:51
industry, it's better to say you're in the home remodeling or
22:54
the residential remodeling to kind of keep narrowing it down.
22:58
And oh, so how do you know you, how do you do basements?
23:01
Oh, we don't have basements in Florida.
23:03
Oht you didn't say that. So what do you do?
23:05
Kitchens, basements, whole, I mean kitchens, bathrooms, whole
23:08
home remodeling, but nothing exterior.
23:10
And I get them into a mindset to say, don't take for granted
23:14
what's in your head because what's in your head as the
23:18
seller is different than what's in my head as the potential
23:21
buyer. And the more you get clearer in
23:25
projecting what you do, the better people will be
23:28
gravitating to when they're looking for something specific.
23:32
And also getting rid of the tire kickers that may not have really
23:35
been tire kickers. I tell people sometimes tire
23:38
kickers were created by us, that we were not clear.
23:41
And just like me, tell me about yourself.
23:43
I'm like, hell no. I I have enough on the website
23:45
right now. Why am I repeating what's
23:47
already there? So, but my point is, is that
23:50
it's still a mistake on my part. I don't look at it as the
23:53
consumers mistake. So we need to keep narrowing
23:59
down what it is you want. So as time goes by, we're never
24:04
even me after all these years and how good I am, I still get
24:07
tire kickers. So what's good enough for the
24:09
goose is good enough for the gander.
24:11
But it is very little to be fair, the what is not for me is
24:15
such a minor distraction that I kind of use it as education of
24:20
what did I do wrong because I don't have many to begin with.
24:23
So I try to figure out how did you find me online?
24:26
Well, no kidding. But where were you?
24:28
Because maybe when they answer, it allows me to figure out that
24:32
they went to God knows where from God knows when.
24:35
And that wasn't updated from five years ago, like that type
24:37
of thing. But I I blame myself and tell
24:40
the people that the tire kicker is because of you, not because
24:44
of them. Once they know that you're the
24:46
BMW dealership servicing these four towns and it's crystal and
24:50
the lights are in neon and it says, I do these five cars for
24:54
this price range and this area, people start to adapt on it.
24:58
And it doesn't mean that a person still not going to wander
25:01
in loss to your front door, but it's going to get less and less.
25:04
So it all begins with the home page.
25:08
What is that top image? What is the opening sentences
25:12
that say, what do you stand for? You don't need to say I'm the
25:16
best in construction because that is not what you stand for.
25:18
You need to say, you know, we specifically do large whole home
25:22
remodeling projects or we do quick one day bathrooms.
25:27
That's another popular thing. Some people do one day, 2 day
25:30
bathrooms and they're targeting that market.
25:33
But you don't want to say bathroom remodeling, You don't
25:36
want to say luxury bathroom remodeling if you're doing a one
25:39
day, 2 day bathroom upgrade type of thing.
25:41
And so all of those definitions of clearly articulating what and
25:48
where you want and who are the people you've done it before and
25:52
maintaining an image that supports that allows these
25:55
quality leads to keep coming in. And unfortunately, the bad part
25:59
of this is it does take some time.
26:01
It's not a magic wand topic. It's a cleansing yourself up.
26:06
You and I, you, you know, people can't see us at the moment.
26:09
Maybe they're listening to a podcast.
26:11
We both, you know, I, I think I'm a good looking guy.
26:13
You're a good looking guy. But if I just said, hey, Derek,
26:15
you know, I'm married. So.
26:17
But if I made a point and said, hey, Derek, we were both single,
26:20
I'm gonna meet you after work and let's go.
26:22
Let's just go meet some women after work.
26:24
OK, fine. And if I didn't say anything
26:26
else and just showed up after work and you're still in your
26:29
genes and your boots and you know, everything from a work day
26:32
and you're, you're thinking you're going to a, you know, a
26:34
bar, like to watch a game with a beer and maybe meet a girl.
26:38
And then I come in a suit and you're like, what the hell are
26:40
you doing? I'm like, oh, I'm going to a
26:42
wine bar. And you're like, you didn't tell
26:43
me. I'm like, haha, no, you didn't
26:46
ask. Or maybe you assumed either way,
26:48
you might be a good, better looking guy, right?
26:52
But when we walk in and the women see somebody in a suit and
26:55
then they see you looking like you just rolled out of bed,
26:58
there's a chance that the woman might gravitate more towards the
27:01
guy who looks a little bit more presentable, possibly a little
27:04
bit more wealthier, not struggling.
27:06
And all of these topics all based on your limited knowledge
27:10
of you didn't know the direction of where we were going.
27:13
Not the same Derek. Not the same Brian.
27:16
I just cleaned up and put on a suit and you didn't, right?
27:19
And maybe you put on a suit and now all the girls go to you.
27:21
But my point is, this is all marketing.
27:24
It's all unawareness of who you are, what you need to do to
27:28
clean up and how to dress the part of where you're going.
27:31
And, and of course I'm dumbing it down for this conversation,
27:35
but it all in business is the same thing.
27:37
Go look at your top home page right this second.
27:40
Does that first image represent the best of who you are for the
27:45
next phone call in the afternoon?
27:47
And if the answer is no, fix it. Then go to the next page.
27:51
People might say, well, Brian, I don't know which page to go.
27:53
Good point. Well, for free, go to Google
27:55
Analytics and just find out what's your second most visited
27:58
page and clean up that page. And and all of that stuff
28:01
becomes so like head scratching. And it's like, really?
28:04
That's it. I go, yeah.
28:05
I mean, of course the home page, it's easy.
28:07
That could represent 20 to 80% of visitors, depending on how
28:12
you market. Why wouldn't you have the cover
28:14
of the book be crisp? And when people say, well, we're
28:18
thinking and planning and strategizing, I just wanna stick
28:20
my hand through the damn computer and slap him in the
28:22
face and go think about it today.
28:25
Organize yourself tomorrow. Get it live next week because
28:28
the prospect who's coming in in the following week doesn't give
28:31
a shit. Excuse my French just doesn't
28:34
care, right? They don't care.
28:36
Fix it. Make yourself look good.
28:38
Go clean yourself up and it and it, all of those little steps
28:42
allow us to go to that long term direction to the more quality.
28:46
And if you don't take the baby steps to get there, you're going
28:48
to get a lot of more. But when more becomes a pain in
28:52
the ass, you really don't wanna avoid leads because they're,
28:55
they're a distraction. You, you really wanna treat a
28:59
lead as a true opportunity to grow your company.
29:02
And if you're not in that mindset, then you're just going
29:04
to be working harder. And there's not a person on the
29:06
planet who can't work harder, you know, just work more hours
29:09
and, and, and hope that you're going to get a residual.
29:12
Yeah. Thanks for clarifying all of
29:14
that. And I really like what you said
29:16
about at the end of the day, if you're getting the wrong types
29:19
of clients or too many tire kickers or the, you know, sales
29:22
process just sputters out, you have to be accountable for it.
29:26
What are, you know, what message are you putting out there?
29:28
Are you unclear about what services you're providing or
29:30
which areas? And, and the the better you can
29:33
make it look, the more clear you can get, the the better fit
29:36
you're going to, you're going to ultimately get from the leads
29:38
that are coming in now. Can you share with us some
29:40
specifics about client that you've worked with?
29:43
I know you've worked with many, many clients, but specifics as
29:47
far as like kind of where they started, some of the advice you
29:50
gave them and what you implemented to help them go from
29:54
you, the lackluster marketing to something refined and, and
29:59
working well for them to, to grow their business.
30:00
Yeah, it's actually a really good question.
30:02
But and it when I was at the show, I do, you are correct,
30:06
there is hundreds that I could use.
30:09
But what I'd rather do is be as extremely current and relevant
30:14
to when I was at the IBS KBI show, I had three different
30:18
presentations and one of them, which was rather popular, was
30:23
teaching people. And I wish I had the title here
30:25
in front of me, but the the title was lowering your
30:30
marketing percentage as you grow.
30:33
And you have to listen to what I said because I didn't say spend
30:36
less money. I said lowering your marketing
30:40
percentage allocation as you grow.
30:43
So if in year 1 you have 5%, I'm just making an even number and
30:48
in year 2 you go down to 3%. Depending on where you're going,
30:53
you still may financially be spending more money year to
30:57
year, but as a percentage of the income statement, you actually
31:02
spend less money getting to the next direction you're going to.
31:07
And the only way to do that is to then project long term
31:11
success stories. And that's my gig.
31:12
Long term, nothing like what happened from 30 to 60 to 90
31:15
days because you really never know if it's going to stick
31:17
around. So I had three particular
31:20
accounts and forgive me, I just got to think, OK, one is called.
31:23
All three of these alive by the way.
31:25
So just to make a .1 is called out in construction.
31:29
The other one is called Mass Builders.
31:31
I know there's multiple mass builders.
31:33
So this Mass Builders is in Virginia and then another one
31:36
called Turnkey in Texas. Now the diversity of the three,
31:40
one is a $2,000,000 company, the other is a $3,000,000 company,
31:44
and the other is an $8 million company.
31:46
All of them five years ago were small.
31:49
Over five years ago were smaller than the numbers I just said.
31:52
But they had one thing in common that people were paying
31:56
attention to. When I was showing the
31:57
financials, all three of them were spending between 2 and 2
32:03
1/2% Max of their income to go from that 2 million to 8
32:09
million. And using the 8 million company
32:11
to be specific, he was just under 2% to be at 8 million.
32:16
And I had a quote UN quote marketing agency call him to
32:21
explain to him how they could help him grow.
32:23
And when he just said how much money should I allocate, they
32:26
asked him about his sales. He said I'm 8 million.
32:28
And then they said, well, if you allocate between 3 and 5%, you
32:33
could do XY and Z. And he said, let's be simple.
32:37
Why am I giving you an extra 100 to $200,000 to get to a place I
32:41
don't know where I already know where I am with an extra 100 to
32:46
2. I'd rather just travel the world
32:47
at the end of the year, guaranteed.
32:49
And because you're, you're, you're asking me to just throw a
32:52
percentage at you, but you're not really asking me what's the
32:56
next step on where to go long term.
32:58
And right there, those success stories of those three
33:02
companies, they're very diversified between remodeling,
33:05
remodeling and a builder and just the builder just to make a
33:08
point of the diversity, they all spent the same time over five
33:14
years ago to plant the foundation to the success today.
33:18
So when I get to brag about it, it simply didn't happen
33:21
overnight and they didn't have aspirations for it to happen
33:25
overnight. And even if they did, it
33:26
wouldn't have been me because I wouldn't be able to provide it.
33:28
So it would have been like, it's like meeting truth and truth and
33:32
doing it correctly. And that's where you know, what
33:36
I love about this industry is and without coming across
33:39
condescendingly, it's only contractors.
33:41
This is not top tier companies competing with each other.
33:46
It's field level competition. So it's really doesn't take much
33:51
to get ahead, but it takes the effort and saying to raise your
33:55
hand to say I'm going to do it correctly, consistently is
33:59
something I can't guarantee. I could just ask for it, but I
34:02
really don't know. You know, I'm turning 61.
34:05
I started the gym when I was in college. 40 years later, I still
34:08
go to the gym. My membership is, is not a
34:11
membership to look good. It's a membership to live
34:13
healthy, you know, But I pay the membership and they lose money
34:18
on me because I go all the time. Other people buy a membership
34:21
and, you know, I never see them again.
34:22
New Year's, you know, New Year's resolutions, they just sign up
34:25
like mad dogs and then they just don't go.
34:27
But they don't realize the secret was the determination to
34:31
do something and making sure you continuously do it regardless of
34:36
the time of day. I have ups, I have downs.
34:38
There's the same economic cycles that everybody else faces.
34:42
You go to follow my online toolbox.
34:44
I'm up to over 400 weekly quick tips.
34:47
That was through COVID, that was through my cancer, that was
34:52
through my vacations, that was through my blah, blah, blah.
34:55
It doesn't matter. But I'm a marketing machine that
34:58
just doesn't. When I stop doing my weekly
35:01
quick tips, that's because I'm dead.
35:03
That's it. I tell people, and if I can't do
35:05
it myself, why would I ask anybody else to do it?
35:08
And I'm not telling people I'm perfect.
35:10
There are times I do my quickly quick tip 3 days earlier because
35:14
I'm gonna be away the following week or maybe three to five days
35:16
later. But the point is, nobody's
35:18
missing me. It just keeps going and going
35:20
and going and as soon as I come back, I hit the enter key and
35:23
go, damn it. My marketing fell behind by 5
35:26
days. It's not like I got penalized,
35:28
but I didn't let it become two weeks.
35:31
I didn't let it become three weeks.
35:33
And if you start to let it become that weeks that turned
35:36
into months that turn into quarters, then you just don't
35:39
listen to Derek, don't listen to Brian.
35:41
Just go do something else. Just, you know, it's smarter to
35:44
take save your time and just go do something that makes your
35:46
money. And not trying to sugarcoat what
35:49
is required to build a successful business, you know,
35:52
and, and so those three companies are just examples.
35:56
But you know what, it's funny, just to add on, I have an
35:59
Instagram channel and it, it's easy to find my online toolbox
36:03
every week. The featured project, this
36:05
featured project is not for my ego.
36:08
It's actually for me to support the companies in the industry
36:12
that are just keeping their marketing going.
36:14
And we do show a lot of cool projects, but they're really
36:18
cool marketing projects. The people take a project, we
36:22
guide them to the web page and there's this whole pattern of,
36:25
oh, look at the story, look at the way it was documented, not
36:29
just on the website. You can go to their Facebook
36:32
profile, their Instagram profile, their YouTube profile,
36:35
their Google profile, and it's not identical, but it's this
36:39
message that just keeps going in a consistent manner and it just
36:44
keeps going and going. So when people say, wow, that's
36:47
a lot of featured projects, I go good, That's the point.
36:49
Not my feature. I mean, I'm helping them.
36:51
Don't get me wrong. I'm helping them behind the
36:53
scenes in consulting and guidance, but I can't get people
36:57
to give me their pictures. I can't give people to give me
36:59
their videos. I can't force them to give me
37:01
descriptions. Not, not the ones that I could
37:03
generate through a tool, The ones that say, Hey, Derek, the
37:06
remodeler, you know, when I look at that countertop, is it quartz
37:09
or marble? I don't know, right.
37:12
I don't know about the load bearing wall that you took down
37:14
that you didn't. If you didn't share with me the
37:16
before image, how would I know? I didn't know about the termite
37:19
destruction on the wood underneath the sub flooring and
37:22
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when you give me that stuff,
37:24
all of a sudden these landing pages look so personalized, so
37:29
informative. And then when you go to Google
37:31
ABC remodeling in whatever city, USA, and then they're sitting on
37:35
Page 1, two or three where they're in, you know, Chachi BT
37:39
or Gemini or whatever it is. And then they go, wow, Brian,
37:42
what did you do? I go, I set the foundation.
37:45
I didn't do a magic wand. They think that somehow that I
37:48
have this ABC trick that I keep in my pocket.
37:51
And the trick is the continuity doing it as good as possible.
37:56
You know, anybody here listening to us could go, and this is what
37:59
happens with the younger generation.
38:01
So before you do, don't try to impress me.
38:03
If you're listening, they'll go to my website and go, hey,
38:06
Brian, you know, you call yourself this smart Brandon
38:09
Bassador and marketing genius. Your H3 tags are missing.
38:13
I know it. I'm not a dummy.
38:15
I'm fairly well aware that they're missing.
38:17
But guess what? I have so much other stuff going
38:19
on that's giving me activity through the next year or two.
38:22
I don't care. And, and, but it's my
38:24
competitive awareness on how I position for where I'm going
38:28
that allows me not to be glued to my damn website discussing
38:32
every little thing that could be optimized when I can't prove
38:35
it's going to help me grow my business.
38:38
And, and so that awareness on my Instagram channel are showing
38:43
off these companies that they are very good at what they do.
38:46
They're just better at marketing than their competitors.
38:49
And that's a very big thing that is a differentiator.
38:52
And, and I have a backlog of years of projects.
38:56
I just can't post them quick enough and they just keep going
38:58
and going. But I, I have that there to
39:01
stimulate other contractors to know that if a contractor could
39:06
do it, you could do it too. But I can't make you do it.
39:09
I could just bring the horse to the water and say, look at this
39:12
beautiful crystal Clear Lake drink, please.
39:14
And if they don't, whatever, you know.
39:17
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
39:18
Marketing's not, you know, not a one and done.
39:20
It's, it's an ongoing commitment, if you will, to
39:23
developing relationships, making upgrades, seeing what the
39:26
competition is doing. And and I like how you mentioned
39:30
consistency across all of the the different channels.
39:33
And so it, it's resonating with people no matter where they're
39:36
finding you and and what's going on.
39:38
So, so now, Brian, what's the best way for people to connect?
39:41
Do you learn more about you, your marketing?
39:43
I know you've got some educational content as well.
39:46
How should people approach? That there there's a couple of
39:49
ways let's start with the freak that always seems to be the the
39:52
hit at the beginning. The Instagram channel is for
39:55
free, ongoing motivation on a weekly basis of other
40:00
contractors and how they're implementing their marketing
40:04
efforts on a consistent basis. On Facebook for free or YouTube,
40:10
we have a weekly. Quick tip that takes topics and
40:14
they keep coming and coming where there's some topic that we
40:18
always like to use a real example of, hey, here's what's
40:23
going on, here's a quick tip, gotta go goodbye and move on.
40:27
So YouTube and YouTube and Facebook for weekly quick tips,
40:30
Instagram for weekly featured projects for ongoing motivation
40:34
to how the field is doing it. We have classes, basic and
40:38
advanced, rather inexpensive, where the basic is teaching
40:42
people all of the foundational topics on how to build their
40:46
brand, mostly towards the website, not 100%, but mostly
40:51
towards the website. The advanced class is taking
40:55
that knowledge and then surrounding it with everything
40:59
external to the website from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
41:02
YouTube, Google Profile, and many other topics.
41:06
So the moon, I mean, I'm sorry, the sun is your website and all
41:09
of the planets and everything else rotating is the advanced
41:13
side in simplistic terms. And then only if somebody is a
41:17
student of at least the basic class, we're willing to
41:20
entertain having a, a marketing engagement relationship where
41:24
we'll help them build a plan that they could implement on
41:27
their own or implement with one of many different resources that
41:31
were associated with. But we kind of like an
41:34
architect, we helped build the plan before we discuss who the
41:38
builder is going to be type of thing.
41:39
And so the plan is with no prejudice towards who the
41:44
builder is, but we really need to make sure that the owner
41:47
could package themselves so strongly that by the time they
41:52
speak to any programmer, whoever that programmer may be or agency
41:56
may be, there's a clear articulation of what they do,
42:00
where they do it, and the arsenal of content that's one
42:03
click away in a folder that someone can see it all without
42:07
being told, oh, it's coming. We just want to say nowhere
42:11
ready. And that's a painful topic, by
42:14
the way. It really is for people to say
42:16
no, no, I already have a programmer.
42:18
I'm like, great, but I don't even want to talk to him because
42:21
I don't wanna build their coming with a crane to work on my empty
42:25
lot when I never even drew floor plans.
42:28
There's no need to know. And once they admit it, it's a
42:31
small percentage, but when they look at all of those featured
42:35
projects on Instagram, all those companies all did the same
42:39
thing. They just simply built it,
42:40
right? Great.
42:41
So we'll put some links in the description of this video audio
42:44
wherever you're checking it out from to the website, your social
42:49
profiles as mentioned. So go click through there, get
42:52
some of the free tips and and courses.
42:54
Thanks so much, Brian, for coming on here and and sharing
42:57
all your marketing wisdom with all the the builders and
43:00
contractors out there. Thank you so much, Derek.
43:03
It's great having you and I hope you and all your listeners have
43:07
a fantastic year.