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This is a conversation I had with home service business owners, some just starting, some with up to five to six million dollars of annual revenue, and from a host of different industries, including plumbing, lighting, as well as pressure washing, and some of them have big goals.
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We're going to talk a lot about marketing today, though, specifically getting leads, how to do lead attribution when it comes to ads like Facebook and Google, and where you're losing money if you're spending money on an agency to run your ads for you.
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This is a great episode if you're trying to scale and get more jobs.
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Without any further delay, let's go ahead and roll the tape.
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My name is JC.
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We're on job 405.
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We've got three guys.
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I got a full-time ops manager, a full-time technician, and a part-time technician.
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We do about 6,000 a week top line, and then we take home about 2,000 a week.
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So our profit margins are very healthy.
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I guess my biggest frustration is with the customer complaints.
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And I just saw a post from Mike or from the YouTube talking about like a customer complaining, but my biggest question is more of a grass is greener kind of question.
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And so my big goal, I have a lot of, I'm very impressed by what you've been able to build.
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Like my big goal is to eventually scale it up 50 million a year, you know, and I'm just doing the math in my head.
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And if our average ticket item is $800, for example,
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And I'm just like, okay, if we wanted to really do 50 million a year, we're talking about over 60,000 customers versus if I moved into a service industry like pool building, home building, remodeling, where the average ticket cost is higher to 50,000, 100,000 a year, it'd be a far less amount of customers.
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So I guess my worry is, am I in the wrong industry?
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And do I need to stop putting so much gas into all this?
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And if maybe I'm just wasting my time with such a low ticket item industry.
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Well, you sold 405 jobs for pressure washing.
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How many remodels and new builds have you sold?
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Zip.
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I think you know what I'm going to say.
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So yes, to make $50 million in revenue, which is an arbitrary number, you would have to sell less new builds and remodels.
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Cool.
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Your progress on the way to $50 million is infinitely better with pressure washing.
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And so doing more and better of what you're currently doing will get you there, in my opinion, much better.
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Because you have what 99% of people don't have, and that is traction.
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And to just build on top of that.
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And so it is always easy to get caught up in a different service, a different industry, et cetera.
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But you are already ahead of 99% of people that have never pressure washed another property besides their own.
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So you're already in the top 1% of humans.
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You're exactly in the bottom zero percentile of home builders and remodelers.
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I'm going to go on a limb and say, you don't have a bunch of experience doing that.
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And so I would just stick with what you're doing.
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This is why when I dropped out of medical school, I just kept doing lawns.
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It's the one thing I knew how to do.
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And then just kept doing it over and over and over.
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And 12 years, you wake up and there's something cool.
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There's been plenty of opportunities to jump into other services and opportunities of people offering me partnerships and all the rest of it.
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You're just like, no, this is what we're doing.
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And if you do it long enough and you just constantly focus on improvements, down the road, it looks cool.
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Okay.
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Then I have just one quick follow up and I'll be done.
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How do you guys manage the customer complaints?
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Is it like they just get split into different brackets where one is like, Hey, this was a hundred percent on us.
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And then another one is just like, you could give them a golden brick and they complain there wasn't a handle and it just says what it is.
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Yeah, like you got to triage between the two and figure out, okay, which of these are reasonable customers that have real complaints?
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If those are complaints and they're legitimate, those are your hit list of improvements you need to make, right?
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The reason how you build a defensible business is you have all the edge cases and all the problems solved.
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That's why anyone can spin up a piece of software, but Salesforce somehow is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
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It's because they have had millions and millions of complaints, issues, and bugs that they fixed, right?
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All the edge cases.
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So anyone can go pressure a house, similar to what we just talked about for you.
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Like anyone can go do that.
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You solving all the edge cases over the course of many complaints, issues, customer problems.
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Okay, this job did not work out because of X, Y, and Z operationally.
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We didn't close this job because of the way that someone answered the phone.
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All of those solves, hundreds and thousands of times, builds enterprise value and gets you way ahead of the competition.
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And so that's why many times, it's not just amount of time in your industry, it's amount of number of reps. And so that's why many times,
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And so the amount of times you get a complaint and then you solve that complaint because they are reasonable, that's when you get your one leg up.
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And that's hundreds of thousands of times on your way to, let's just call it 50 million.
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They're in that – in those complaints, there are also going to be people that are unreasonable and those you have to – you have to sift them out.
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You have to be humble enough to realize that most complaints are your fault and you want to synthesize it through the extreme ownership lens first and see, can I actually solve this?
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And sometimes the unreasonable customer is how do I solve this problem by never getting them as a customer in the first place?
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Like, why did they get in?
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That's a system failure.
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Like this person is unreasonable.
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Their complaints are absolutely illogical.
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They're crazy.
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I will never be able to suffice them.
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You still got them as a customer and allowed them inside the funnel.
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How could I create a system that prevents that from happening?
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So every complaint is a problem to be solved, and those complaints solved hundreds of thousands of times that it builds enterprise value.
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Sweet, sweet.
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Thank you very much.
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Like, ultimately, anyone here within two days could build an AI product that looks very similar to HomeWorks in terms of spitting up some software.
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It is the hundreds of thousands of tickets and lines of code of engineers that are on security, database, optimizations, especially on the security side right now.
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That's the reason there's value.
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And so anyone that says, you know, anyone can mow grass, anyone can build a pressure washing company, anyone can build a plumbing company is right.
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But why haven't they built a $50 million business?
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It's because they haven't done it so many times.
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It's solved all the edge cases to make it a seamless experience.
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Hey, this is Connor.
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I do marketing for a company called Brush House Painting and Flooring.
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And there's also a sister company, Brush House Roofing and Gutters.
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We also do siding.
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Ton, our owner, is also on the call with us.
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I believe he's iPhone on the call.
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Yep.
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So, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Tom has been following you for quite a while.
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You're a big inspiration for the company.
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Right now we're doing about 5 million a year in painting and flooring, and we're starting to push on roofing more.
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A lot of Google advertising, Thumbtack, Angie lead sources.
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We're trying to figure out what the best way to bring in leads, the best way to manage Google ads, get our name out, get as many leads as we can in.
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And then on top of that, how to close, how to raise the close rate that we have.
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Cool.
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What's your, what's your percentage right now of direct response versus organic?
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Do you know?
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I'm not sure exactly.
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Tom, do you have any insight on that?
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I'll be honest.
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I'll probably say maybe like 50.
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We've only been in business for about three years.
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So we had extremely fast growth.
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We're probably projected to be $6 million this year into it.
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But it's like, it's hard.
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I don't know if it's like organically or Google's pushing it.
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I would say it's about 50-50 if I had a guess to me.
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Yeah, so like I would really, before I spend a dollar in marketing, I'm always making sure I have lead attribution set up.
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The fortunate part is if you have LSA or you have Google, it's very easy to track where they're coming from and attributing it to Google.
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Same thing for Facebook.
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If you're doing door hangers, using QR codes, for example, allows you to be able to know where this lead actually coming from.
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So you can run reporting on what's working.
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Because if we just are throwing people to the site –
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I will just continually pay advertising companies, whether it be agencies or advertisers themselves, the platforms, and I have no idea what's working.
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And so I would really recommend before spending money on marketing, like make sure you're tracking pixels set up on Facebook.
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Make sure your Google tracking code is set up correctly.
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Making sure you have attribution for every single lead.
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Anyone answering the phone, like instant start.
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started a conversation is like, where'd you hear about us?
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I need to know that for every single customer.
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I would do that because at your scale, if you're gonna go dump a couple hundred thousand dollars in marketing, you could double or triple the output.
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And that's the determining factor of quote, whether or not it works based upon whether or not you even attribute a lead to a specific platform.
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Okay, real quick, if you're not already doing this, you got to.
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And that is every single phone call that comes in, every single web form that comes in, every time someone scans a QR code on a door hanger, you got to put where did that lead come from.
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So in HomeWorks, you can just customize all your lead sources.
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And then every time a lead does come in, you just tell your office person it's got to be filled out.
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I don't care if it's a door hanger or a yard sign or they saw the truck or a Facebook ad or Google ad.
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That's usually the best attribution is just asking the customer, where do you hear about us?
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Whether it be on your form, whether it be on the phone.
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But if you don't do that, you're just getting a bunch of leads and you don't know why.
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And so when you want to grow and you want to put more money into paid ads, you don't know where to put the money.
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Like was it the door hangers that worked?
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Was it the yard signs?
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Were people seeing the trucks?
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Did someone see a billboard?
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You don't know.
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And so if you don't track it, you won't ever be able to pour more fuel on the fire when you want to grow.
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So go to HomeWorks.com.
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Customize what your lead sources are and make sure your admin is actually asking this question on every single inbound lead.
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All right.
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Back to the video.
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We're definitely keeping track of everything, every lead, every source, Google ads, making sure it's set up correctly.
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Do you have the marketing file in front of you, Connor?
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Yeah, I can pull it up right now.
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Because we do track it.
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I just don't have it in front of me.
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Okay, you're cool.
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We track every single lead, every single source, the best of our capabilities.
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Yeah, we have all the pixels set up on Facebook, all the pixels set up on Google.
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But, you know, when people call, and obviously it's not a Google call, so it's not being tracked.
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They're just like, I found you on Google.
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It's more than likely it's some type of SEO or organic.
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We do spend a lot of time on SEO optimization.
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Mm-hmm.
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Just FYI, one quick thing for you, Connor.
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What you might want to do is set up UTM parameters for phone calls.
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So that way, when someone goes from Google and they click call, you can track that and attribute that lead to Google still versus them, say, seeing your truck.
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So you can use a call rail, for example, and be able to get to where the number changes out based upon if they go through Google or they go through an ad.
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And then you can then attribute that even because it's the same thing with us, like 40, 50% of our leads still come from phones.
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And so, yes, we can ask them all day long about lead source.
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But if they're coming from Google or an ad, they can still hit my website and then click call.
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And so if I can change out that number, it gives me more clarity in terms of where that lead actually came from.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, we discussed actually like CallRail before when we were learning, because we had to, we were working with an agency for Google Ads.
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And at the end of last year, it kind of went into a tailspin.
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So we decided to kind of work in-house, reach out to some people in Fiverr, get their suggestions, but a lot of learning ourselves.
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And it's not, you know, performing the best.
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I mean, with Google Ads, do you have any kind of recommendations and knowledge with the, what the best way to set up for local services would be?
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah, the biggest thing is something like the low-hanging fruit.
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I know you're sharing your screen here.
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I can't really see it, to be perfect, honestly.
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If there's something specific, feel free to zoom in, but just FYI.
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Okay, cool.
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You're good.
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So something like the common things with Google is I see people not having good negative keywords.
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Yeah.
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And so you're ranking and getting a whole bunch of clicks and traffic for things that don't actually matter.
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So negative keywords is just ongoing maintenance.
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You can obviously see when someone clicked on a specific keyword, I'm scanning that every week and making sure that I'm not getting clicked for random stuff I don't want to be showing up for.
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So negative keyword management, big thing.
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And then really...
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looking at what the split of how many people are using Google ads to call you versus just clicking on a blue link.
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Because it really determines where I spend my attention.
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So for example, Google ads, we spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on it in Augusta.
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80% of the quote clicks were actually people tapping on call them, like to call us.
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And so being able to have a distinction of, okay, then I should deploy more energy towards my phone agents and in tracking that compared to just like, for example, optimization of my website.
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Yeah, no, that makes sense.
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Thank you.
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I'd say another thing too, Connor, like if Google ads are not something you're super familiar with,
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is you can get like a really good at your scale, like afford to pay a couple, a couple thousand dollars or someone to sit down and go through your ads account and not necessarily be on it with an agency.
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So if it sounds like you guys are bringing in house, that's why you're coming on Connor.
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And so like, you can absolutely go into like up work, get someone who's been doing this for ages, but spend a couple thousand dollars or even say like, Hey, I just want you to like, look at everything we're doing and tell us where we're wrong.
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And then they can dive in a lot deeper.
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Yeah.
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Oh, we already done that.
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Uh, we have a consultant that works with us.
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Uh, he's at the point where like, there's no more optimizations that we could do.
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It's like, it's just our markets are extremely competitive in the field that we're competing in.
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And what's your cost per lead right now from Google?
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Do you know?
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Spell like 300, 400.
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Okay.
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And what's your average ticket?
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7,000.
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Is that horrible?
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Cause you still have a one in 20.
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No, we have a 49% close rate.
213
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Okay.
214
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Yeah.
215
00:13:36.227 --> 00:13:48.954
So like, I think the other thing I would be thinking about is yes, it's expensive, but if you're not tracking the calls from Google ads, I'm not saying you aren't, but if you aren't, and it's like, they're going to your website and then clicking the, and calling your office, and that's not being tracked.
216
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There's a good chance that instead of it being three or $400, it's 250.
217
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What's your thought on like, who cares about,
218
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like tracking everything, my logic is as long as my marketing percentage is below a certain point, like that's, I've always been like under that mentality.
219
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Like I don't care how much I spend on Google or Facebook.
220
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As long as the total cost of my marketing is like seven to 8%, I could care less.
221
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Yeah, I'll be perfectly honest.
222
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What got you to $5 million is that mentality, because that's why you just dump the money into marketing.
223
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What gets you from $5 to $50 is knowing exactly what's working and what's not, so that when you deploy more money towards it, you have better returns.
224
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Because if you had more money right now and we spent it on marketing, we would have a blended average versus being like, hey, I know if I spent $100,000 on this one channel, I would get $3 million.
225
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That unlocks a huge opportunity as you grow and you take more market share.
226
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Yeah, I mean, that's where we're struggling.
227
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This is where we're starting to plateau, and we're getting— It's the most boring part of business.
228
00:14:51.084 --> 00:14:56.071
The most boring part of business where all it matters is really data analytics, clean data.
229
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We're going to synthesize that to make decisions.
230
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But I don't know if you saw the post from – I made this morning on my socials.
231
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We had like a 51% increase in amount of leads year over year for Q1 at Augusta.
232
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That is 100% because all I've been thinking about for the past 14 months is data analytics.
233
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And it's like where is it working?
234
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What's not working?
235
00:15:15.962 --> 00:15:17.223
Okay, move this button.
236
00:15:17.303 --> 00:15:19.304
Okay, this form should be this little bit longer.
237
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Okay, what should this word be on the form?
238
00:15:21.445 --> 00:15:27.032
And so like, not only are we're talking about ads, but there's this other thing called conversion before they even become a lead.
239
00:15:27.292 --> 00:15:31.657
So like getting to your website, like optimizing all those at your scale and size really matters.
240
00:15:31.977 --> 00:15:36.963
It's like everything that Augusta went through the past 12 months of was just all optimization around data.
241
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That was it.
242
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That's all we did.
243
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And so that got 50% extra.
244
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I mean, my background is mergers acquisition, so I appreciate stuff like that, but that's incredible.
245
00:15:46.730 --> 00:15:47.770
It's a lot of work.
246
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I know.
247
00:15:48.910 --> 00:15:49.851
It's so boring, too.
248
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Great job, guys.
249
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You guys are kicking butt.
250
00:15:52.451 --> 00:15:54.492
If you guys have another question, feel free to bring it up.
251
00:15:54.652 --> 00:15:55.572
Daniel, go ahead, Daniel.
252
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Nice guitar selection in the background.
253
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Let's go.
254
00:15:58.600 --> 00:15:59.001
Oh, hi.
255
00:15:59.141 --> 00:15:59.601
Thank you.
256
00:15:59.821 --> 00:16:00.462
I appreciate it.
257
00:16:00.762 --> 00:16:03.044
I just want to start off by saying, Mike, I really appreciate you.
258
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I've been a big fan forever.
259
00:16:04.226 --> 00:16:06.608
I've got your book here and everything.
260
00:16:06.768 --> 00:16:15.116
So I'm starting a, my biggest constraint right now is I'm just opening this business and I need to get my first customer or two or 10.
261
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So I've done everything now.
262
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free at this point.
263
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I have social media up.
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I've got posts.
265
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I've got Google set.
266
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I'm on the map.
267
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I made some door hangers.
268
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I passed a few hundred out at this point, but I just got those in.
269
00:16:33.217 --> 00:16:36.261
So I'm just trying to get some customers.
270
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And then
271
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To be able to, once I show up at their house to give them a quote, I've selected you guys' software so that I can give them that quote, it looks professional, and then I can charge them for a deposit.
272
00:16:50.809 --> 00:16:56.471
That's my main goal right now, and my main constraint is just getting that first customer.
273
00:16:56.691 --> 00:16:59.753
So if you have any advice for me on that, that would be great.
274
00:17:00.806 --> 00:17:06.270
And so, Daniel, just to be clear, when it comes to lighting the core, are you going to new builds?
275
00:17:06.890 --> 00:17:08.271
Are you going to renovations?
276
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Is this residential commercial?
277
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What's your target audience?
278
00:17:11.654 --> 00:17:14.796
My target audience is both residential and commercial.
279
00:17:14.836 --> 00:17:20.440
But what I'm trying to do is around here in Chicago, you only have a few months for landscape lighting.
280
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And so it's really hard to create a business out of that.
281
00:17:23.302 --> 00:17:31.085
So I've taken basically that as well as three other businesses and combined them into one that I think is actually pretty cool.
282
00:17:31.125 --> 00:17:41.309
So we've got the landscape lighting during the summertime, Christmas lighting, and then there's a new emerging business that I don't model that I don't know if you've seen.
283
00:17:41.329 --> 00:17:43.469
It's the Porch Pumpkins, basically.
284
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Yeah.
285
00:17:44.170 --> 00:17:44.370
Oh, yeah.
286
00:17:44.650 --> 00:17:47.511
So that lady's making a million and a half a year.
287
00:17:48.231 --> 00:17:50.032
But that by itself isn't a business.
288
00:17:50.212 --> 00:17:53.034
And Christmas lights is like hard by itself as a business.
289
00:17:53.375 --> 00:17:54.455
All these are too seasonal.
290
00:17:54.475 --> 00:18:03.482
But together, I've created what I'm basically framing as front of house, front concierge is basically a curb appeal.
291
00:18:03.922 --> 00:18:05.963
So it's your business or your home.
292
00:18:06.324 --> 00:18:07.604
And this is for high-end clients.
293
00:18:07.704 --> 00:18:10.586
We're going to make sure the front of your house looks great all the time.
294
00:18:10.987 --> 00:18:12.248
We have a maintenance package.
295
00:18:13.549 --> 00:18:15.390
to keep your landscape lighting looking good.
296
00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:24.617
We give discounts on Christmas lighting and fall decor, but you will always have a beautiful front of business or house, basically.
297
00:18:24.637 --> 00:18:26.078
And then we can do other stuff in between.
298
00:18:26.398 --> 00:18:30.181
And I'm a licensed electrician, so I'm really good with installing landscape lighting.
299
00:18:30.702 --> 00:18:31.742
And I've done a lot of it.
300
00:18:31.782 --> 00:18:34.545
I used to work for a service electrical company.
301
00:18:35.225 --> 00:18:44.632
But I didn't want to start an electrical company because there's too many issues as far as hiring good help and dealing with inspections and things like that.
302
00:18:44.652 --> 00:18:46.634
Whereas landscape lighting is low voltage.
303
00:18:46.654 --> 00:18:48.155
You don't really need a licensed person.
304
00:18:48.175 --> 00:18:49.436
Same with Christmas lighting and all that.
305
00:18:49.456 --> 00:18:50.757
So I can get help.
306
00:18:50.997 --> 00:18:52.658
I can scale this pretty easily.
307
00:18:53.179 --> 00:18:56.061
I just need – but I just started literally last month.
308
00:18:56.101 --> 00:18:56.842
I made the website.
309
00:18:57.082 --> 00:18:57.903
I made the logo.
310
00:18:57.923 --> 00:18:58.963
I made everything myself.
311
00:18:59.144 --> 00:19:01.045
And I just need a customer.
312
00:19:01.105 --> 00:19:07.087
Yeah, so I think the way that this works is going to be having seasonal offers for season specific services.
313
00:19:07.527 --> 00:19:14.129
And so for example, I would look at every single holiday that you can sell into as entry points for customer acquisition.
314
00:19:14.249 --> 00:19:17.290
So for example, Easter, there are people that decor just for Easter.
315
00:19:17.691 --> 00:19:20.211
All your ads are just Easter, Easter, Easter, Easter.
316
00:19:20.652 --> 00:19:21.472
And then it's like, okay,
317
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It's summer break.
318
00:19:23.633 --> 00:19:25.934
Okay, for the kids coming home, whatever it might be.
319
00:19:26.114 --> 00:19:29.935
I would have 10 to 12 of those throughout the entire year that you know you're going to promote against.
320
00:19:30.015 --> 00:19:31.196
Obviously, Christmas is easy.
321
00:19:31.536 --> 00:19:35.138
Obviously, spring is easy for landscape lighting.
322
00:19:35.378 --> 00:19:37.599
I think permanent lighting would be a great move for you.
323
00:19:38.219 --> 00:19:42.840
because permanent lighting allows you to upsell customers like, hey, I'm willing to spend $2,000 on Christmas.
324
00:19:42.860 --> 00:19:44.921
Like, okay, great, can we get you at 6,000?
325
00:19:45.261 --> 00:19:50.262
It's now permanent lighting and you can change it for the color of your favorite sports team.
326
00:19:50.322 --> 00:19:52.923
You can change it for the NFL, you can change it for the college football.
327
00:19:53.223 --> 00:19:58.204
You can program it, you can sell it recurring into getting new packages of lighting systems for them.
328
00:19:58.344 --> 00:20:02.665
I think that it really comes down to the pain at its highest point
329
00:20:03.325 --> 00:20:08.028
is usually where services like in home services we stink at because I'm like, I'm landscaping.
330
00:20:08.108 --> 00:20:09.910
So like I just promote landscaping.
331
00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:13.592
For example, you are in the business of whatever is hot.
332
00:20:13.752 --> 00:20:14.313
You go after.
333
00:20:14.393 --> 00:20:19.156
No one cares about porch pumpkins in the middle of August, but they care a lot about it in October.
334
00:20:19.296 --> 00:20:22.258
And so I would just figure out what each of your seasonal demands are.
335
00:20:22.399 --> 00:20:24.280
So the challenging part with yours, it's very seasonal.
336
00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:26.702
Like you're having like six weeks per promotion.
337
00:20:26.762 --> 00:20:30.104
And then after that's done, you just got to stitch those together throughout the whole year.
338
00:20:30.124 --> 00:20:31.425
So you have an actual business.
339
00:20:31.645 --> 00:20:31.925
Yeah.
340
00:20:32.005 --> 00:20:39.973
You know, and luckily for me, I've, I grew up in the YouTube world so I can make a promotional video like in an hour and it's great, you know, so I don't have to pay for that.
341
00:20:39.993 --> 00:20:41.975
I can just make it happen as it needs to be.
342
00:20:43.816 --> 00:20:46.439
What's the next like date of the year that you think you could sell into?
343
00:20:46.599 --> 00:20:50.202
Well, I'm trying to do landscape lighting at this moment, right.
344
00:20:50.242 --> 00:20:53.145
And promoting that for the next season or two.
345
00:20:53.645 --> 00:20:56.168
And then it would be porch pumpkins and then Christmas decor.
346
00:20:56.749 --> 00:20:57.729
Well, what about July 4th?
347
00:20:57.869 --> 00:21:05.471
Well, you know, I don't really, I'm trying to create packages and I don't want to just do everything for everyone right now because I'm just going to get lost.
348
00:21:05.531 --> 00:21:08.772
So I'm sticking to these three things at the moment, you know?
349
00:21:08.792 --> 00:21:13.954
So right now, if you're not looking for landscape lighting or architectural lighting of some kind,
350
00:21:14.574 --> 00:21:19.637
Um, then I, I'm probably not going to be able to serve you because I just, I, you know, this is also a side job.
351
00:21:19.657 --> 00:21:21.598
I work during, uh, 40 hours a week.
352
00:21:21.638 --> 00:21:24.099
I, I work for a fertilizer company doing marketing.
353
00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:31.103
So, uh, I'm just trying to start this on the side and eventually leave that and just, you know, be a business person and, uh,
354
00:21:31.763 --> 00:21:33.224
I'll put my vote in for this one, Daniel.
355
00:21:33.304 --> 00:21:34.885
I think your skill is marketing.
356
00:21:35.025 --> 00:21:41.289
I don't think it's, I would highly recommend like each entry point, you drive your customer equity costs down dramatically.
357
00:21:41.330 --> 00:21:46.653
If you go sell structural lighting or even landscape lighting, your cost per lead might be a hundred or $200.
358
00:21:46.813 --> 00:21:50.756
If you can go and say, Hey, I'm going to make your property look incredible for July the 4th.
359
00:21:51.096 --> 00:21:52.497
Here's a 3000, a 5,000, a $10,000 package.
360
00:21:54.758 --> 00:21:57.060
That will crush on marketing.
361
00:21:57.560 --> 00:21:58.781
And you get them as entry points.
362
00:21:58.822 --> 00:22:03.706
Now you build this contact database of high net worth of people that you know have discretionary income to spend money.
363
00:22:03.966 --> 00:22:09.611
And you upsell them during your slow season to things that are more permanent, like the permanent lighting, structural lighting, landscape lighting.
364
00:22:09.931 --> 00:22:14.975
But then you get entry points for $30, $40 because it's just the hype of the season.
365
00:22:15.035 --> 00:22:15.255
Sure.
366
00:22:15.676 --> 00:22:15.936
Okay.
367
00:22:16.216 --> 00:22:16.477
Okay.
368
00:22:16.777 --> 00:22:16.917
Okay.
369
00:22:17.097 --> 00:22:18.898
So like if you're like, hey, I'm getting ready.
370
00:22:18.938 --> 00:22:19.619
I got my website.
371
00:22:19.899 --> 00:22:21.920
I just gear everything towards July 4th.
372
00:22:22.060 --> 00:22:23.902
Have your promotions you know you can run.
373
00:22:23.922 --> 00:22:33.808
Because I genuinely believe your customer act wouldn't cost me 10% to 20% of what landscape and structural lighting would be if you just get entry points around the decor side.
374
00:22:34.629 --> 00:22:37.651
And I actually think that's your unique selling proposition is the decor thing.
375
00:22:38.191 --> 00:22:46.913
You get in with the decor and then your back end anchor is the structural and landscape lighting that you can sell in between the hot seasons where you know you get customer acquisition.
376
00:22:46.953 --> 00:22:47.153
Sure.
377
00:22:47.773 --> 00:22:47.973
Sure.
378
00:22:48.133 --> 00:22:48.894
Yeah, I like that.
379
00:22:48.934 --> 00:22:49.494
That sounds good.
380
00:22:49.514 --> 00:22:56.415
And, you know, eventually the goal is to be able to maybe license this package to landscape companies around the country.
381
00:22:57.416 --> 00:23:00.676
That's what I've seen done for other types of services.
382
00:23:00.696 --> 00:23:06.958
So, you know, if I get this down with the systems and then the, you know, eventually all the different inputs, you know,
383
00:23:07.138 --> 00:23:12.461
you know, I could sell the lighting to my, you know, my licensees.
384
00:23:12.501 --> 00:23:12.761
Right.
385
00:23:13.281 --> 00:23:14.602
So that's the goal here.
386
00:23:14.622 --> 00:23:21.205
The thing is to keep in mind is your, your demand curve for porch pumpkins will also flow into your Christmas lights.
387
00:23:22.125 --> 00:23:28.188
And so like we've had owners of us to consider it and some of them do it, but the challenging part is that's also when I can sell Christmas lights.
388
00:23:28.368 --> 00:23:29.870
because I can sell Christmas lights all October.
389
00:23:29.950 --> 00:23:41.587
And so just keep that in mind, because a lot of times people are like, I have two servers, like, no, you could just deploy that same energy towards one of them and get the same output, because now you're focused on just one, and the demand curve is the exact same.
390
00:23:41.627 --> 00:23:43.810
Like October, November, December, same demand curve.
391
00:23:43.931 --> 00:23:44.552
And so I would-
392
00:23:45.032 --> 00:23:45.672
Go ahead.
393
00:23:45.712 --> 00:23:51.474
Oh no, I'm right at the beginning of this and I have like the fork in the road where I could just go lighting, I could do the decor thing.
394
00:23:52.235 --> 00:23:59.417
And I don't know what would be better, but I'm in the Chicago area and there's a lot of people who have money and a lot of companies who have money.
395
00:23:59.437 --> 00:24:01.078
And I think the decor might be fun.
396
00:24:01.098 --> 00:24:05.560
And my wife likes decor and it's named, but company's named after my wife, Mackenzie.
397
00:24:05.580 --> 00:24:11.582
So I don't know, I feel like it would be like a nice homely thing that people would just enjoy and it might be more trendy
398
00:24:12.342 --> 00:24:13.943
than lighting.
399
00:24:14.043 --> 00:24:18.065
I think what was very appealing to me, you look at the core as your entry point.
400
00:24:18.545 --> 00:24:20.346
We look at mowing as our entry point.
401
00:24:21.206 --> 00:24:27.309
And then you look at your upsells into lighting as your anchor during the off season.
402
00:24:27.329 --> 00:24:29.891
And there's going to be three or four of them.
403
00:24:30.011 --> 00:24:34.433
So for example, between Easter and July 4th, that's when you go install a whole bunch of lights.
404
00:24:34.713 --> 00:24:34.953
Right.
405
00:24:35.153 --> 00:24:39.115
And then from July 4th to let's just call it, let's just call it Thanksgiving for the sake of the example.
406
00:24:39.556 --> 00:24:40.716
That's when you install lights.
407
00:24:40.756 --> 00:24:45.239
But then, you know, you have four to six weeks where you're just pounding marketing to get customer acquisition.
408
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:48.380
And all you're trying to do is get a list of people that you don't have a ton of discretionary income.
409
00:24:48.600 --> 00:24:52.823
Because whoever's going to spend three to five grand on decorations, you know they got money.
410
00:24:52.923 --> 00:24:53.163
Right.
411
00:24:53.725 --> 00:24:54.646
Right, right, right.
412
00:24:55.027 --> 00:24:55.968
Yeah, I appreciate it.
413
00:24:55.988 --> 00:24:59.852
And I just got to get my invoice looking good and my quotes looking good.
414
00:24:59.872 --> 00:25:02.816
And then I think I'm set once I get some calls.
415
00:25:03.277 --> 00:25:03.697
Let's go.
416
00:25:03.957 --> 00:25:04.298
Let's go.
417
00:25:04.318 --> 00:25:04.758
Good stuff.
418
00:25:04.919 --> 00:25:05.920
All right, thank you.
419
00:25:06.340 --> 00:25:06.741
You got it.
420
00:25:06.761 --> 00:25:10.225
Did you know that when you join Augusta Lawn Care, you don't just get access to lawns.
421
00:25:10.225 --> 00:25:17.672
lawn care and landscaping, you also get access to AugustaLights.com and all the training and resources required to be able to do holiday lighting.
422
00:25:18.012 --> 00:25:19.774
It's all included in the exact same package.
423
00:25:20.074 --> 00:25:23.798
Go to AugustaLawndCareServices.com slash franchise and check it out today.
424
00:25:23.938 --> 00:25:25.319
Now, back to the video.
425
00:25:25.399 --> 00:25:26.059
Marcus, go ahead.
426
00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:26.420
All right.
427
00:25:26.500 --> 00:25:31.142
I'm in a completely different position from the previous people who were just talking.
428
00:25:31.603 --> 00:25:33.084
I'm just starting out my business.
429
00:25:33.184 --> 00:25:36.926
I'm waiting for one more piece of equipment to come in before I can really start.
430
00:25:37.046 --> 00:25:42.389
My main service will be drain cleaning and camera inspections and any sewage drainage.
431
00:25:42.789 --> 00:25:46.872
I've been in the industry for about five years, so I know how to do pretty much anything plumbing related.
432
00:25:47.152 --> 00:25:50.174
At least from the research I've done, it says that specific, like,
433
00:25:50.734 --> 00:25:52.215
specializing is the way to go.
434
00:25:52.596 --> 00:25:54.717
You're known for this, so people call you for it.
435
00:25:54.757 --> 00:25:57.439
It's kind of your main into the industry.
436
00:25:57.880 --> 00:26:03.784
And like you were mentioning with the lights before, you use that as kind of a jump off point to provide other services to people.
437
00:26:03.985 --> 00:26:04.885
I have a question, Marcus.
438
00:26:05.005 --> 00:26:05.286
Sorry.
439
00:26:05.906 --> 00:26:10.810
If you're going into inspections specifically, are you going to change your name away from plumbing?
440
00:26:11.090 --> 00:26:11.450
No, no.
441
00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:13.192
I'm doing camera inspections.
442
00:26:13.672 --> 00:26:13.912
Okay.
443
00:26:14.032 --> 00:26:15.053
Not inspections.
444
00:26:15.093 --> 00:26:18.756
Inspections is just how to get my foot in the door, basically.
445
00:26:18.896 --> 00:26:20.817
But why would you not name it drain repair?
446
00:26:21.198 --> 00:26:22.038
I'm just, I'm curious.
447
00:26:22.118 --> 00:26:24.920
Because I'm willing to do any plumbing as well.
448
00:26:24.980 --> 00:26:35.908
So if people are willing to call me for water heaters, water supply, gas supply, any repairs in home, you got a water leak in your home, I can also do those services.
449
00:26:35.988 --> 00:26:37.590
So I'm willing to do those services.
450
00:26:37.650 --> 00:26:40.071
The main service that I'll be dealing with, though, is...
451
00:26:40.211 --> 00:26:40.632
Drain repair.
452
00:26:41.132 --> 00:26:41.272
Yeah.
453
00:26:41.512 --> 00:26:41.893
Interesting.
454
00:26:42.053 --> 00:26:42.153
Yeah.
455
00:26:42.173 --> 00:26:44.074
Like, I'm not saying you should do this.
456
00:26:44.214 --> 00:26:46.656
I'm just be very interested in you become the drain repair guy.
457
00:26:46.676 --> 00:26:46.836
Right.
458
00:26:46.876 --> 00:26:53.160
Mostly because if I'm looking, if I have a problem, and I have 50 plumbing companies, if I have a drain issue, like, am I going to contact the plumbers, which some of them might not do that service?
459
00:26:53.180 --> 00:26:54.541
Or am I going to contact the drain repair guy?
460
00:26:54.561 --> 00:26:54.681
Right.
461
00:26:54.701 --> 00:27:05.988
And so I would, I would really, I would, I would really, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would
462
00:27:06.068 --> 00:27:07.890
Like, for example, you could test this very easily.
463
00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:09.912
Change your door hangers, for example.
464
00:27:10.512 --> 00:27:14.256
One of them having the plumbing, one of them saying drain repair, put a couple thousand of each.
465
00:27:14.676 --> 00:27:19.641
I would venture to believe you will double your response rate if it says drain repair in your name.
466
00:27:19.761 --> 00:27:22.364
My question specifically, because I am going to consider that.
467
00:27:22.564 --> 00:27:25.627
Right now, I don't have the funds to print out a whole new set.
468
00:27:25.727 --> 00:27:27.409
So maybe the second time around once I'm...
469
00:27:27.909 --> 00:27:32.051
getting my income back in, I can invest in that essentially.
470
00:27:32.291 --> 00:27:36.753
But I was wondering if you have specific references for good marketing, because that's not my strong suit.
471
00:27:37.214 --> 00:27:42.136
I have a little bit of background in graphic design from high school classes, so it's not much and it's a while ago.
472
00:27:43.016 --> 00:27:47.258
But you were mentioning tracking and various sites, which sites do you recommend?
473
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:55.243
Is there some reference videos you know of that I could get sent to take a look at on how to set that up, et cetera, et cetera.
474
00:27:55.343 --> 00:28:01.867
Right now, the unique thing is you could spin up a website pretty easily on a lot of different sites that looks really good.
475
00:28:02.088 --> 00:28:06.190
I think right now, when you're first getting started, the only thing to care about is getting your first few customers.
476
00:28:06.210 --> 00:28:07.271
Kind of like we were talking about Daniel.
477
00:28:07.671 --> 00:28:09.952
Like, I don't care if you give away inspections for free.
478
00:28:10.412 --> 00:28:11.612
I don't care if it's door hangers.
479
00:28:11.892 --> 00:28:20.954
Like when you have a limited budget specifically to like, we don't have the money to go like, let's go to set up data rails and like do a whole bit of tracking and run Facebook and Google ads.
480
00:28:20.974 --> 00:28:22.435
Like very different in your case.
481
00:28:22.455 --> 00:28:28.156
It's like we need 10 customers and we're going to knock on doors in the areas we know that those services are needed.
482
00:28:28.476 --> 00:28:31.257
We're going to, in my opinion, nail the offer.
483
00:28:31.897 --> 00:28:38.026
And so whether that be a free inspection, whether that be changing the name, like it's still a whole lot easier to change your name now.
484
00:28:38.166 --> 00:28:42.753
If that is the conclusion that increases your conversion by two, like a double.
485
00:28:42.973 --> 00:28:46.058
It's easy to do that now than in, let's just call it even five months.
486
00:28:46.098 --> 00:28:47.480
Once you have a website, you have.
487
00:28:47.700 --> 00:28:49.861
decals on your trucks, like that's a lot harder.
488
00:28:49.881 --> 00:28:59.407
So like I would nail it that first before it's like, like nail the offer, nail the brand, so that when you go put the truck decal on, you know it converts twice as more, like twice as much.
489
00:29:00.687 --> 00:29:06.390
And my strongest recommendation to you is if you're going to specialize, go all in on it.
490
00:29:06.911 --> 00:29:09.832
Because it will allow you to be able to charge way more.
491
00:29:10.052 --> 00:29:14.235
It'll make your marketing advertising way clearer, because people just know what you do.
492
00:29:14.815 --> 00:29:19.057
A plumbing company, I think you change out toilets and do everything else in my house.
493
00:29:19.438 --> 00:29:25.541
If you say you're the drain guy and I have a drainage problem, I'm coming to you over any other plumbing company, even though they could do the service.
494
00:29:25.681 --> 00:29:26.281
I don't know that.
495
00:29:26.721 --> 00:29:30.023
Customers don't know the difference between drain problems and plumbing issues.
496
00:29:30.283 --> 00:29:31.704
They just think they have no idea.
497
00:29:32.184 --> 00:29:35.046
And so I would strongly recommend like nail it before you scale it.
498
00:29:35.246 --> 00:29:43.290
And right now when you're doing hand-to-hand combat, which is door hangers, door knocking, going on Facebook groups that are free, you have the flexibility to move more nimbly versus like –
499
00:29:43.610 --> 00:29:49.593
hey, I want you to get home service web design to build a big site for you and get the cost of that, but also like pictures and graphics.
500
00:29:49.853 --> 00:29:51.153
And then you're going to go put it on your truck.
501
00:29:51.494 --> 00:29:52.994
Now all of a sudden, we can't be as nimble.
502
00:29:53.174 --> 00:29:56.616
And so I would really encourage like nailing it before you scale it.
503
00:29:56.636 --> 00:29:59.877
In this regard, I'd try to nail your branding and your offer.
504
00:30:00.137 --> 00:30:04.479
And then from there, we think about design, website stuff, et cetera.
505
00:30:04.660 --> 00:30:05.020
Okay.
506
00:30:05.040 --> 00:30:05.180
Yeah.
507
00:30:05.340 --> 00:30:11.663
I mean, my website right now is just a landing page to get into homework software and get in contact with me.
508
00:30:11.903 --> 00:30:12.163
So...
509
00:30:12.716 --> 00:30:18.260
Yeah, you could spin up a very basic site, even using a jot form, for example, just to collect information.
510
00:30:18.281 --> 00:30:22.704
A QR code on a doorheader, for example, could go there, just a landing page, like you said.
511
00:30:23.084 --> 00:30:27.448
But I'd be very interested in trying to get as many Google reviews as possible, getting your business profile set up.
512
00:30:27.668 --> 00:30:28.529
That's all free.
513
00:30:28.949 --> 00:30:29.590
That's a good thing.
514
00:30:30.510 --> 00:30:36.335
And whether you are doing free inspections for a review, for example, for all your friends and families, hey, if you just let me do an inspection, let me do an inspection.
515
00:30:36.816 --> 00:30:45.414
give me a review it's free like that's what i'd be really leaning into uh instead of like design all that because you don't even know what works yet yeah yeah fair enough thank you
516
00:30:45.957 --> 00:30:46.417
You got it.
517
00:30:46.557 --> 00:30:48.277
Bob from Denver, Colorado.
518
00:30:48.618 --> 00:30:49.318
Hey there, Mike.
519
00:30:49.358 --> 00:30:50.058
Hi, everybody.
520
00:30:50.078 --> 00:30:52.018
Thanks for doing this again.
521
00:30:52.038 --> 00:30:53.639
Absolutely.
522
00:30:54.459 --> 00:31:01.640
I'm glad that it's a marketing conversation today because that's kind of some of the stuff that I had on my list to chat with you about.
523
00:31:01.980 --> 00:31:15.243
Starting within HomeWorks, we did a text marketing campaign, and we're going to do an email campaign from the folks that were unresponsive to the text campaign.
524
00:31:15.263 --> 00:31:15.403
Mm-hmm.
525
00:31:16.884 --> 00:31:22.327
How we can track in Homeworks the success rate of those campaigns.
526
00:31:22.607 --> 00:31:24.268
Yeah, so there's like five ways you could.
527
00:31:24.388 --> 00:31:27.450
I'd say right now tags is probably still the best.
528
00:31:27.830 --> 00:31:35.035
We just have our – you can just have your texting department, for example, or whoever is managing your texts that are coming in.
529
00:31:35.535 --> 00:31:36.396
They could tag them.
530
00:31:37.276 --> 00:31:44.320
Um, the challenging part is with, with a customer that you sell five times, do you still want that text, that tag propagating in a year?
531
00:31:44.500 --> 00:31:50.163
And so, um, there's no real way to attribute a text to a estimate right now.
532
00:31:50.443 --> 00:31:52.023
There's no like tagging of estimates.
533
00:31:52.504 --> 00:31:54.485
That's really, that would be the ultimate solve here.
534
00:31:55.125 --> 00:31:59.367
Some people have used custom fields though, because you can make custom fields on an estimate, for example.
535
00:32:00.187 --> 00:32:01.068
Um, for example, like.
536
00:32:01.448 --> 00:32:03.269
you know, did this lead come on upsell?
537
00:32:03.289 --> 00:32:06.871
And it's like email, text, outbound phone calls, stuff like that.
538
00:32:07.711 --> 00:32:15.255
But there's no like clean way of like, hey, if they respond to this text message, it automatically just knows that this estimate is gonna be attributed to them.
539
00:32:15.495 --> 00:32:21.638
Also, because a lot of times we in our text messages will give the offer and we're just converting it directly into a job.
540
00:32:21.658 --> 00:32:23.259
We don't even make an estimate many times.
541
00:32:24.019 --> 00:32:26.160
Cause we're saying, hey, it's $99 for this service.
542
00:32:26.280 --> 00:32:26.920
Would you like that?
543
00:32:27.041 --> 00:32:28.041
If yes, let's go.
544
00:32:28.361 --> 00:32:29.542
And we're just putting them on the schedule.
545
00:32:30.122 --> 00:32:33.083
So we don't have any sort of automatic attribution right now.
546
00:32:33.243 --> 00:32:33.763
Gotcha.
547
00:32:34.143 --> 00:32:50.089
And same with like finding like who put us into like using MailChimp, I would get reports of X people unsubscribed, X amount of people hit stop or spam.
548
00:32:50.529 --> 00:32:52.950
But I haven't seen that anywhere in HomeWorks.
549
00:32:53.010 --> 00:32:54.130
Is that correct?
550
00:32:54.631 --> 00:32:55.351
Yeah, great call.
551
00:32:55.391 --> 00:32:57.231
So there's a feature that you can see.
552
00:32:57.291 --> 00:32:58.252
If you go into...
553
00:32:59.283 --> 00:33:05.565
If you go to the support tab at the very bottom, it says like submit feedback and you can see the public board of like where people are submitting new features.
554
00:33:05.945 --> 00:33:08.886
One of them is like more of a campaign level.
555
00:33:08.926 --> 00:33:17.028
So when you send a bulk text or bulk email, being able to know like how many of you actually clicked it, how many people responded, how many people unsubscribed, to your point.
556
00:33:17.708 --> 00:33:23.150
We don't have that level of data yet, kind of like a MailChimp specifically that just does that sending.
557
00:33:24.460 --> 00:33:25.981
Let me see what else I have here.
558
00:33:26.921 --> 00:33:48.213
Marketing with Google has been absolute nightmare for me for where I'm just throwing money out, not having the, you know, I know it's important to keep track of this stuff and it seems like I get it set up and then it, you know, I've now changed to homeworks instead of my previous CRM and I got to reset stuff up and then
559
00:33:48.793 --> 00:33:52.496
We get into these situations where we shut off our campaigns.
560
00:33:52.616 --> 00:33:53.597
We're lawn and sprinkler.
561
00:33:53.617 --> 00:33:55.358
We're shut down for the winter.
562
00:33:55.678 --> 00:34:03.344
And suddenly I'm still getting charged, you know, 500 bucks a month or whatever for Google that we're positive we turned off.
563
00:34:03.404 --> 00:34:05.626
And it comes into this bank dispute nonsense.
564
00:34:05.666 --> 00:34:08.128
And then they won't reload my account.
565
00:34:08.768 --> 00:34:12.191
And then we're always getting calls from, hey, I'm a Google expert.
566
00:34:12.231 --> 00:34:13.332
You should be hiring up.
567
00:34:13.492 --> 00:34:17.794
Where are you on hiring a Google expert?
568
00:34:17.834 --> 00:34:20.855
Is that worth it in an under a million dollar business?
569
00:34:21.095 --> 00:34:22.115
I don't think so.
570
00:34:22.556 --> 00:34:25.377
This is why agencies exist because it's so frustrating.
571
00:34:25.757 --> 00:34:32.079
And it's difficult to make sense of spending $2,000 or $3,000 a month hiring them just to manage your account.
572
00:34:32.260 --> 00:34:38.122
First off, I would say I'd really recommend not making your lead attribution based upon them getting into homeworks.
573
00:34:38.462 --> 00:34:40.863
I would do it based upon on your website.
574
00:34:40.943 --> 00:34:45.124
Mostly for the sake of like if they're an Apple device, a lot of this can get blocked from tracking.
575
00:34:45.284 --> 00:34:49.545
But if they, for example, click on the submit button on an estimate request form, I can track that.
576
00:34:50.065 --> 00:34:51.666
I might be able to also track a thank you page.
577
00:34:51.686 --> 00:34:52.886
That's like the most accurate.
578
00:34:53.306 --> 00:34:55.507
So for example, I like to put my pixels on a thank you page.
579
00:34:55.807 --> 00:35:02.509
So they submit the form, they click submit, and if they hit that thank you page, I know the only way to get to that thank you page is submitting that form.
580
00:35:02.649 --> 00:35:07.350
So I try to not attach it to my CRM at all because a lot of times that is blocked
581
00:35:07.690 --> 00:35:09.793
especially on Apple and iOS stuff.
582
00:35:09.893 --> 00:35:12.157
And it's also much more dependable.
583
00:35:12.357 --> 00:35:19.868
And so that way, once you set up tracking code and have a pixel and it's set up in the footer and the header of that thank you page, I don't have to usually touch it again.
584
00:35:19.888 --> 00:35:21.571
That'd be like my first little thing.
585
00:35:21.791 --> 00:35:22.532
I think in terms of
586
00:35:22.592 --> 00:35:25.193
getting help on this, Bob, I would just go into Upwork.
587
00:35:25.653 --> 00:35:26.874
I'd be looking for a Google expert.
588
00:35:27.174 --> 00:35:32.316
You're going to pay them pretty, like, I don't go under a hundred bucks an hour for these folks because they should know what they're doing.
589
00:35:32.336 --> 00:35:38.518
They should have a lot of experience, but they're going to tell you a lot of things that you can improve, but they're not, not on a retainer.
590
00:35:38.978 --> 00:35:43.460
They're not incentivized to, uh, keep you around paying more.
591
00:35:43.700 --> 00:35:51.223
Like you never want to, in my opinion, I don't want to get in an agency relationship where they're getting a percentage of my ad spend because now they're just incentivized to spend, make me spend more money.
592
00:35:51.383 --> 00:35:59.954
And so I want to be, we were like, hey, I pay you when I'm happy with the results you give me, which is optimize this thing, make sure it's set up correctly.
593
00:35:59.974 --> 00:36:06.021
And if I have problems, you take care of it so I can focus on running my business, not optimizing some stinking keyword with Google.
594
00:36:06.181 --> 00:36:07.703
And so I would lean heavily into that either.
595
00:36:07.823 --> 00:36:08.705
You can go ahead.
596
00:36:08.845 --> 00:36:09.746
That's called Upwork.
597
00:36:10.166 --> 00:36:11.007
Yep, exactly.
598
00:36:11.067 --> 00:36:11.767
You can go on there.
599
00:36:11.927 --> 00:36:12.848
You can create a proposal.
600
00:36:12.868 --> 00:36:14.589
You'll have people that will want to do it.
601
00:36:15.069 --> 00:36:16.590
For this specifically, you'll have hundreds of people.
602
00:36:16.970 --> 00:36:24.475
I'm looking for usually people that have done at least 100 jobs and over $100,000 of revenue through the platform, which narrows it down dramatically.
603
00:36:24.495 --> 00:36:26.956
I don't want someone like on the weekend they're doing ads.
604
00:36:27.016 --> 00:36:27.357
I want them.
605
00:36:27.397 --> 00:36:29.438
This is their job and the freelancer.
606
00:36:29.498 --> 00:36:31.819
And it's nice because they're doing a great job.
607
00:36:32.099 --> 00:36:32.800
I'll hire more.
608
00:36:33.320 --> 00:36:35.602
Hey, let's go ahead and put a couple more hours on.
609
00:36:36.322 --> 00:36:39.284
But if they're not or if there's something wrong, it's really easy to cut them off.
610
00:36:39.384 --> 00:36:39.664
Okay.
611
00:36:39.824 --> 00:36:40.144
All right.
612
00:36:40.224 --> 00:36:42.645
And then on another marketing question.
613
00:36:42.685 --> 00:36:46.327
So the name of our business is Nature's Carpet Lawn and Sprinkler.
614
00:36:46.487 --> 00:36:48.208
We've been around since 99.
615
00:36:49.148 --> 00:36:51.809
Used to stand out a whole lot.
616
00:36:51.949 --> 00:36:55.031
You know, we were around before the Internet was going, basically.
617
00:36:55.551 --> 00:36:57.472
So so just the the.
618
00:36:57.692 --> 00:37:15.558
different name was was good it was beneficial um now we've kind of gone past the carpet throwing people off again but it's a play on words nature's grass is nature's carpet um i've been seeing more of like being very distinct and you've mentioned it earlier today as well with with
619
00:37:15.818 --> 00:37:17.640
what your primary service is.
620
00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:26.808
Do we start separating the name of the business to Nature's Carpet Lawn and a different ad for Nature's Carpet Sprinkler?
621
00:37:27.109 --> 00:37:32.914
Or do we continue running the same track that we're going down, where we're offering both services?
622
00:37:33.114 --> 00:37:34.616
What percentage of your revenue is Sprinkler?
623
00:37:35.176 --> 00:37:35.797
About 60.
624
00:37:36.057 --> 00:37:36.317
Oh, good.
625
00:37:36.377 --> 00:37:36.618
Okay.
626
00:37:37.412 --> 00:37:40.876
I don't think you need to split it because it allows for easy upsells.
627
00:37:40.916 --> 00:37:43.660
This is why we have an S at the end of Augusta Lawn Care Services.
628
00:37:44.260 --> 00:37:47.264
This allows our owners to be able to do a bunch of different stuff if they want to.
629
00:37:47.284 --> 00:37:48.706
It gives them more flexibility.
630
00:37:49.206 --> 00:37:53.972
So I wouldn't split it off mostly because if you have ads running –
631
00:37:54.492 --> 00:38:01.177
and someone doesn't need a sprinkler, but you could also sell them lawns, something related, I don't want to lose that lead, or it's a waste of money.
632
00:38:01.557 --> 00:38:05.980
It also happens that the person that has a lawn could be a sprinkler client.
633
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:14.506
So usually when you go narrow like this, you have to get more narrow with your targeting, especially if you don't have someone that's doing the targeting for you, Bob.
634
00:38:14.786 --> 00:38:23.672
That's when I'd be like, hey, broaden the scope a little bit, say, hey, we do lawn and sprinkler to get customers in the door, and then you can use your upsells to funnel them in the correct way.
635
00:38:23.872 --> 00:38:24.474
Okay.
636
00:38:24.854 --> 00:38:26.558
That's the way we've been doing it.
637
00:38:26.659 --> 00:38:28.082
So thanks for the reassurance.
638
00:38:28.102 --> 00:38:28.503
Hey, it's worked.
639
00:38:28.523 --> 00:38:29.826
You've been around for 27 years.
640
00:38:29.846 --> 00:38:30.247
Let's go.
641
00:38:30.748 --> 00:38:31.409
Thank you.
642
00:38:31.630 --> 00:38:32.532
Yeah, you got it.
643
00:38:32.772 --> 00:38:33.033
Awesome.
644
00:38:33.053 --> 00:38:35.679
Appreciate you all tremendously for supporting what we're doing here at Homeworks.
645
00:38:36.080 --> 00:38:38.345
And I look forward to seeing you guys in and around the community.
646
00:38:38.425 --> 00:38:39.047
So take care.
647
00:38:39.367 --> 00:38:39.648
We'll see you.
1
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This is a conversation I had with home service business owners, some just starting, some with up to five to six million dollars of annual revenue, and from a host of different industries, including plumbing, lighting, as well as pressure washing, and some of them have big goals.
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We're going to talk a lot about marketing today, though, specifically getting leads, how to do lead attribution when it comes to ads like Facebook and Google, and where you're losing money if you're spending money on an agency to run your ads for you.
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This is a great episode if you're trying to scale and get more jobs.
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Without any further delay, let's go ahead and roll the tape.
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My name is JC.
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We're on job 405.
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We've got three guys.
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I got a full-time ops manager, a full-time technician, and a part-time technician.
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We do about 6,000 a week top line, and then we take home about 2,000 a week.
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So our profit margins are very healthy.
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I guess my biggest frustration is with the customer complaints.
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And I just saw a post from Mike or from the YouTube talking about like a customer complaining, but my biggest question is more of a grass is greener kind of question.
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And so my big goal, I have a lot of, I'm very impressed by what you've been able to build.
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Like my big goal is to eventually scale it up 50 million a year, you know, and I'm just doing the math in my head.
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And if our average ticket item is $800, for example,
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And I'm just like, okay, if we wanted to really do 50 million a year, we're talking about over 60,000 customers versus if I moved into a service industry like pool building, home building, remodeling, where the average ticket cost is higher to 50,000, 100,000 a year, it'd be a far less amount of customers.
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So I guess my worry is, am I in the wrong industry?
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And do I need to stop putting so much gas into all this?
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And if maybe I'm just wasting my time with such a low ticket item industry.
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Well, you sold 405 jobs for pressure washing.
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How many remodels and new builds have you sold?
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Zip.
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I think you know what I'm going to say.
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So yes, to make $50 million in revenue, which is an arbitrary number, you would have to sell less new builds and remodels.
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Cool.
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Your progress on the way to $50 million is infinitely better with pressure washing.
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And so doing more and better of what you're currently doing will get you there, in my opinion, much better.
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Because you have what 99% of people don't have, and that is traction.
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And to just build on top of that.
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And so it is always easy to get caught up in a different service, a different industry, et cetera.
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But you are already ahead of 99% of people that have never pressure washed another property besides their own.
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So you're already in the top 1% of humans.
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You're exactly in the bottom zero percentile of home builders and remodelers.
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I'm going to go on a limb and say, you don't have a bunch of experience doing that.
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And so I would just stick with what you're doing.
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This is why when I dropped out of medical school, I just kept doing lawns.
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It's the one thing I knew how to do.
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And then just kept doing it over and over and over.
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And 12 years, you wake up and there's something cool.
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There's been plenty of opportunities to jump into other services and opportunities of people offering me partnerships and all the rest of it.
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You're just like, no, this is what we're doing.
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And if you do it long enough and you just constantly focus on improvements, down the road, it looks cool.
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Okay.
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Then I have just one quick follow up and I'll be done.
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How do you guys manage the customer complaints?
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Is it like they just get split into different brackets where one is like, Hey, this was a hundred percent on us.
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And then another one is just like, you could give them a golden brick and they complain there wasn't a handle and it just says what it is.
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Yeah, like you got to triage between the two and figure out, okay, which of these are reasonable customers that have real complaints?
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If those are complaints and they're legitimate, those are your hit list of improvements you need to make, right?
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The reason how you build a defensible business is you have all the edge cases and all the problems solved.
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That's why anyone can spin up a piece of software, but Salesforce somehow is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
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It's because they have had millions and millions of complaints, issues, and bugs that they fixed, right?
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All the edge cases.
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So anyone can go pressure a house, similar to what we just talked about for you.
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Like anyone can go do that.
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You solving all the edge cases over the course of many complaints, issues, customer problems.
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Okay, this job did not work out because of X, Y, and Z operationally.
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We didn't close this job because of the way that someone answered the phone.
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All of those solves, hundreds and thousands of times, builds enterprise value and gets you way ahead of the competition.
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And so that's why many times, it's not just amount of time in your industry, it's amount of number of reps. And so that's why many times,
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And so the amount of times you get a complaint and then you solve that complaint because they are reasonable, that's when you get your one leg up.
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And that's hundreds of thousands of times on your way to, let's just call it 50 million.
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They're in that – in those complaints, there are also going to be people that are unreasonable and those you have to – you have to sift them out.
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You have to be humble enough to realize that most complaints are your fault and you want to synthesize it through the extreme ownership lens first and see, can I actually solve this?
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And sometimes the unreasonable customer is how do I solve this problem by never getting them as a customer in the first place?
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Like, why did they get in?
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That's a system failure.
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Like this person is unreasonable.
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Their complaints are absolutely illogical.
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They're crazy.
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I will never be able to suffice them.
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You still got them as a customer and allowed them inside the funnel.
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How could I create a system that prevents that from happening?
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So every complaint is a problem to be solved, and those complaints solved hundreds of thousands of times that it builds enterprise value.
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Sweet, sweet.
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Thank you very much.
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Like, ultimately, anyone here within two days could build an AI product that looks very similar to HomeWorks in terms of spitting up some software.
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It is the hundreds of thousands of tickets and lines of code of engineers that are on security, database, optimizations, especially on the security side right now.
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That's the reason there's value.
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And so anyone that says, you know, anyone can mow grass, anyone can build a pressure washing company, anyone can build a plumbing company is right.
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But why haven't they built a $50 million business?
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It's because they haven't done it so many times.
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It's solved all the edge cases to make it a seamless experience.
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Hey, this is Connor.
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I do marketing for a company called Brush House Painting and Flooring.
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And there's also a sister company, Brush House Roofing and Gutters.
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We also do siding.
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Ton, our owner, is also on the call with us.
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I believe he's iPhone on the call.
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Yep.
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So, yeah.
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Yeah.
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Tom has been following you for quite a while.
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You're a big inspiration for the company.
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Right now we're doing about 5 million a year in painting and flooring, and we're starting to push on roofing more.
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A lot of Google advertising, Thumbtack, Angie lead sources.
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We're trying to figure out what the best way to bring in leads, the best way to manage Google ads, get our name out, get as many leads as we can in.
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And then on top of that, how to close, how to raise the close rate that we have.
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Cool.
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What's your, what's your percentage right now of direct response versus organic?
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Do you know?
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I'm not sure exactly.
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Tom, do you have any insight on that?
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I'll be honest.
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I'll probably say maybe like 50.
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We've only been in business for about three years.
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So we had extremely fast growth.
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We're probably projected to be $6 million this year into it.
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But it's like, it's hard.
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I don't know if it's like organically or Google's pushing it.
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I would say it's about 50-50 if I had a guess to me.
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Yeah, so like I would really, before I spend a dollar in marketing, I'm always making sure I have lead attribution set up.
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The fortunate part is if you have LSA or you have Google, it's very easy to track where they're coming from and attributing it to Google.
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Same thing for Facebook.
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If you're doing door hangers, using QR codes, for example, allows you to be able to know where this lead actually coming from.
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So you can run reporting on what's working.
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Because if we just are throwing people to the site –
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I will just continually pay advertising companies, whether it be agencies or advertisers themselves, the platforms, and I have no idea what's working.
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And so I would really recommend before spending money on marketing, like make sure you're tracking pixels set up on Facebook.
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Make sure your Google tracking code is set up correctly.
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Making sure you have attribution for every single lead.
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Anyone answering the phone, like instant start.
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started a conversation is like, where'd you hear about us?
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I need to know that for every single customer.
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I would do that because at your scale, if you're gonna go dump a couple hundred thousand dollars in marketing, you could double or triple the output.
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And that's the determining factor of quote, whether or not it works based upon whether or not you even attribute a lead to a specific platform.
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Okay, real quick, if you're not already doing this, you got to.
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And that is every single phone call that comes in, every single web form that comes in, every time someone scans a QR code on a door hanger, you got to put where did that lead come from.
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So in HomeWorks, you can just customize all your lead sources.
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And then every time a lead does come in, you just tell your office person it's got to be filled out.
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I don't care if it's a door hanger or a yard sign or they saw the truck or a Facebook ad or Google ad.
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That's usually the best attribution is just asking the customer, where do you hear about us?
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Whether it be on your form, whether it be on the phone.
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But if you don't do that, you're just getting a bunch of leads and you don't know why.
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And so when you want to grow and you want to put more money into paid ads, you don't know where to put the money.
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Like was it the door hangers that worked?
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Was it the yard signs?
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Were people seeing the trucks?
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Did someone see a billboard?
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You don't know.
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And so if you don't track it, you won't ever be able to pour more fuel on the fire when you want to grow.
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So go to HomeWorks.com.
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Customize what your lead sources are and make sure your admin is actually asking this question on every single inbound lead.
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All right.
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Back to the video.
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We're definitely keeping track of everything, every lead, every source, Google ads, making sure it's set up correctly.
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Do you have the marketing file in front of you, Connor?
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Yeah, I can pull it up right now.
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Because we do track it.
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I just don't have it in front of me.
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Okay, you're cool.
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We track every single lead, every single source, the best of our capabilities.
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Yeah, we have all the pixels set up on Facebook, all the pixels set up on Google.
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But, you know, when people call, and obviously it's not a Google call, so it's not being tracked.
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They're just like, I found you on Google.
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It's more than likely it's some type of SEO or organic.
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We do spend a lot of time on SEO optimization.
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Mm-hmm.
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Just FYI, one quick thing for you, Connor.
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What you might want to do is set up UTM parameters for phone calls.
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So that way, when someone goes from Google and they click call, you can track that and attribute that lead to Google still versus them, say, seeing your truck.
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So you can use a call rail, for example, and be able to get to where the number changes out based upon if they go through Google or they go through an ad.
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And then you can then attribute that even because it's the same thing with us, like 40, 50% of our leads still come from phones.
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And so, yes, we can ask them all day long about lead source.
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But if they're coming from Google or an ad, they can still hit my website and then click call.
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And so if I can change out that number, it gives me more clarity in terms of where that lead actually came from.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, we discussed actually like CallRail before when we were learning, because we had to, we were working with an agency for Google Ads.
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And at the end of last year, it kind of went into a tailspin.
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So we decided to kind of work in-house, reach out to some people in Fiverr, get their suggestions, but a lot of learning ourselves.
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And it's not, you know, performing the best.
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I mean, with Google Ads, do you have any kind of recommendations and knowledge with the, what the best way to set up for local services would be?
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah, the biggest thing is something like the low-hanging fruit.
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I know you're sharing your screen here.
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I can't really see it, to be perfect, honestly.
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If there's something specific, feel free to zoom in, but just FYI.
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Okay, cool.
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You're good.
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So something like the common things with Google is I see people not having good negative keywords.
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Yeah.
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And so you're ranking and getting a whole bunch of clicks and traffic for things that don't actually matter.
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So negative keywords is just ongoing maintenance.
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You can obviously see when someone clicked on a specific keyword, I'm scanning that every week and making sure that I'm not getting clicked for random stuff I don't want to be showing up for.
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So negative keyword management, big thing.
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And then really...
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looking at what the split of how many people are using Google ads to call you versus just clicking on a blue link.
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Because it really determines where I spend my attention.
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So for example, Google ads, we spend tens of thousands of dollars a month on it in Augusta.
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80% of the quote clicks were actually people tapping on call them, like to call us.
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And so being able to have a distinction of, okay, then I should deploy more energy towards my phone agents and in tracking that compared to just like, for example, optimization of my website.
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Yeah, no, that makes sense.
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Thank you.
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I'd say another thing too, Connor, like if Google ads are not something you're super familiar with,
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is you can get like a really good at your scale, like afford to pay a couple, a couple thousand dollars or someone to sit down and go through your ads account and not necessarily be on it with an agency.
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So if it sounds like you guys are bringing in house, that's why you're coming on Connor.
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And so like, you can absolutely go into like up work, get someone who's been doing this for ages, but spend a couple thousand dollars or even say like, Hey, I just want you to like, look at everything we're doing and tell us where we're wrong.
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And then they can dive in a lot deeper.
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Yeah.
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Oh, we already done that.
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Uh, we have a consultant that works with us.
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Uh, he's at the point where like, there's no more optimizations that we could do.
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It's like, it's just our markets are extremely competitive in the field that we're competing in.
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And what's your cost per lead right now from Google?
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Do you know?
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Spell like 300, 400.
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Okay.
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And what's your average ticket?
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7,000.
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Is that horrible?
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Cause you still have a one in 20.
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No, we have a 49% close rate.
213
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Okay.
214
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Yeah.
215
00:13:36.227 --> 00:13:48.954
So like, I think the other thing I would be thinking about is yes, it's expensive, but if you're not tracking the calls from Google ads, I'm not saying you aren't, but if you aren't, and it's like, they're going to your website and then clicking the, and calling your office, and that's not being tracked.
216
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There's a good chance that instead of it being three or $400, it's 250.
217
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What's your thought on like, who cares about,
218
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like tracking everything, my logic is as long as my marketing percentage is below a certain point, like that's, I've always been like under that mentality.
219
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Like I don't care how much I spend on Google or Facebook.
220
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As long as the total cost of my marketing is like seven to 8%, I could care less.
221
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Yeah, I'll be perfectly honest.
222
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What got you to $5 million is that mentality, because that's why you just dump the money into marketing.
223
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What gets you from $5 to $50 is knowing exactly what's working and what's not, so that when you deploy more money towards it, you have better returns.
224
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Because if you had more money right now and we spent it on marketing, we would have a blended average versus being like, hey, I know if I spent $100,000 on this one channel, I would get $3 million.
225
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That unlocks a huge opportunity as you grow and you take more market share.
226
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Yeah, I mean, that's where we're struggling.
227
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This is where we're starting to plateau, and we're getting— It's the most boring part of business.
228
00:14:51.084 --> 00:14:56.071
The most boring part of business where all it matters is really data analytics, clean data.
229
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We're going to synthesize that to make decisions.
230
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But I don't know if you saw the post from – I made this morning on my socials.
231
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We had like a 51% increase in amount of leads year over year for Q1 at Augusta.
232
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That is 100% because all I've been thinking about for the past 14 months is data analytics.
233
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And it's like where is it working?
234
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What's not working?
235
00:15:15.962 --> 00:15:17.223
Okay, move this button.
236
00:15:17.303 --> 00:15:19.304
Okay, this form should be this little bit longer.
237
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Okay, what should this word be on the form?
238
00:15:21.445 --> 00:15:27.032
And so like, not only are we're talking about ads, but there's this other thing called conversion before they even become a lead.
239
00:15:27.292 --> 00:15:31.657
So like getting to your website, like optimizing all those at your scale and size really matters.
240
00:15:31.977 --> 00:15:36.963
It's like everything that Augusta went through the past 12 months of was just all optimization around data.
241
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That was it.
242
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That's all we did.
243
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And so that got 50% extra.
244
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I mean, my background is mergers acquisition, so I appreciate stuff like that, but that's incredible.
245
00:15:46.730 --> 00:15:47.770
It's a lot of work.
246
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I know.
247
00:15:48.910 --> 00:15:49.851
It's so boring, too.
248
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Great job, guys.
249
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You guys are kicking butt.
250
00:15:52.451 --> 00:15:54.492
If you guys have another question, feel free to bring it up.
251
00:15:54.652 --> 00:15:55.572
Daniel, go ahead, Daniel.
252
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Nice guitar selection in the background.
253
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Let's go.
254
00:15:58.600 --> 00:15:59.001
Oh, hi.
255
00:15:59.141 --> 00:15:59.601
Thank you.
256
00:15:59.821 --> 00:16:00.462
I appreciate it.
257
00:16:00.762 --> 00:16:03.044
I just want to start off by saying, Mike, I really appreciate you.
258
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I've been a big fan forever.
259
00:16:04.226 --> 00:16:06.608
I've got your book here and everything.
260
00:16:06.768 --> 00:16:15.116
So I'm starting a, my biggest constraint right now is I'm just opening this business and I need to get my first customer or two or 10.
261
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So I've done everything now.
262
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free at this point.
263
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I have social media up.
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I've got posts.
265
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I've got Google set.
266
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I'm on the map.
267
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I made some door hangers.
268
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I passed a few hundred out at this point, but I just got those in.
269
00:16:33.217 --> 00:16:36.261
So I'm just trying to get some customers.
270
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And then
271
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To be able to, once I show up at their house to give them a quote, I've selected you guys' software so that I can give them that quote, it looks professional, and then I can charge them for a deposit.
272
00:16:50.809 --> 00:16:56.471
That's my main goal right now, and my main constraint is just getting that first customer.
273
00:16:56.691 --> 00:16:59.753
So if you have any advice for me on that, that would be great.
274
00:17:00.806 --> 00:17:06.270
And so, Daniel, just to be clear, when it comes to lighting the core, are you going to new builds?
275
00:17:06.890 --> 00:17:08.271
Are you going to renovations?
276
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Is this residential commercial?
277
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What's your target audience?
278
00:17:11.654 --> 00:17:14.796
My target audience is both residential and commercial.
279
00:17:14.836 --> 00:17:20.440
But what I'm trying to do is around here in Chicago, you only have a few months for landscape lighting.
280
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And so it's really hard to create a business out of that.
281
00:17:23.302 --> 00:17:31.085
So I've taken basically that as well as three other businesses and combined them into one that I think is actually pretty cool.
282
00:17:31.125 --> 00:17:41.309
So we've got the landscape lighting during the summertime, Christmas lighting, and then there's a new emerging business that I don't model that I don't know if you've seen.
283
00:17:41.329 --> 00:17:43.469
It's the Porch Pumpkins, basically.
284
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Yeah.
285
00:17:44.170 --> 00:17:44.370
Oh, yeah.
286
00:17:44.650 --> 00:17:47.511
So that lady's making a million and a half a year.
287
00:17:48.231 --> 00:17:50.032
But that by itself isn't a business.
288
00:17:50.212 --> 00:17:53.034
And Christmas lights is like hard by itself as a business.
289
00:17:53.375 --> 00:17:54.455
All these are too seasonal.
290
00:17:54.475 --> 00:18:03.482
But together, I've created what I'm basically framing as front of house, front concierge is basically a curb appeal.
291
00:18:03.922 --> 00:18:05.963
So it's your business or your home.
292
00:18:06.324 --> 00:18:07.604
And this is for high-end clients.
293
00:18:07.704 --> 00:18:10.586
We're going to make sure the front of your house looks great all the time.
294
00:18:10.987 --> 00:18:12.248
We have a maintenance package.
295
00:18:13.549 --> 00:18:15.390
to keep your landscape lighting looking good.
296
00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:24.617
We give discounts on Christmas lighting and fall decor, but you will always have a beautiful front of business or house, basically.
297
00:18:24.637 --> 00:18:26.078
And then we can do other stuff in between.
298
00:18:26.398 --> 00:18:30.181
And I'm a licensed electrician, so I'm really good with installing landscape lighting.
299
00:18:30.702 --> 00:18:31.742
And I've done a lot of it.
300
00:18:31.782 --> 00:18:34.545
I used to work for a service electrical company.
301
00:18:35.225 --> 00:18:44.632
But I didn't want to start an electrical company because there's too many issues as far as hiring good help and dealing with inspections and things like that.
302
00:18:44.652 --> 00:18:46.634
Whereas landscape lighting is low voltage.
303
00:18:46.654 --> 00:18:48.155
You don't really need a licensed person.
304
00:18:48.175 --> 00:18:49.436
Same with Christmas lighting and all that.
305
00:18:49.456 --> 00:18:50.757
So I can get help.
306
00:18:50.997 --> 00:18:52.658
I can scale this pretty easily.
307
00:18:53.179 --> 00:18:56.061
I just need – but I just started literally last month.
308
00:18:56.101 --> 00:18:56.842
I made the website.
309
00:18:57.082 --> 00:18:57.903
I made the logo.
310
00:18:57.923 --> 00:18:58.963
I made everything myself.
311
00:18:59.144 --> 00:19:01.045
And I just need a customer.
312
00:19:01.105 --> 00:19:07.087
Yeah, so I think the way that this works is going to be having seasonal offers for season specific services.
313
00:19:07.527 --> 00:19:14.129
And so for example, I would look at every single holiday that you can sell into as entry points for customer acquisition.
314
00:19:14.249 --> 00:19:17.290
So for example, Easter, there are people that decor just for Easter.
315
00:19:17.691 --> 00:19:20.211
All your ads are just Easter, Easter, Easter, Easter.
316
00:19:20.652 --> 00:19:21.472
And then it's like, okay,
317
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It's summer break.
318
00:19:23.633 --> 00:19:25.934
Okay, for the kids coming home, whatever it might be.
319
00:19:26.114 --> 00:19:29.935
I would have 10 to 12 of those throughout the entire year that you know you're going to promote against.
320
00:19:30.015 --> 00:19:31.196
Obviously, Christmas is easy.
321
00:19:31.536 --> 00:19:35.138
Obviously, spring is easy for landscape lighting.
322
00:19:35.378 --> 00:19:37.599
I think permanent lighting would be a great move for you.
323
00:19:38.219 --> 00:19:42.840
because permanent lighting allows you to upsell customers like, hey, I'm willing to spend $2,000 on Christmas.
324
00:19:42.860 --> 00:19:44.921
Like, okay, great, can we get you at 6,000?
325
00:19:45.261 --> 00:19:50.262
It's now permanent lighting and you can change it for the color of your favorite sports team.
326
00:19:50.322 --> 00:19:52.923
You can change it for the NFL, you can change it for the college football.
327
00:19:53.223 --> 00:19:58.204
You can program it, you can sell it recurring into getting new packages of lighting systems for them.
328
00:19:58.344 --> 00:20:02.665
I think that it really comes down to the pain at its highest point
329
00:20:03.325 --> 00:20:08.028
is usually where services like in home services we stink at because I'm like, I'm landscaping.
330
00:20:08.108 --> 00:20:09.910
So like I just promote landscaping.
331
00:20:10.250 --> 00:20:13.592
For example, you are in the business of whatever is hot.
332
00:20:13.752 --> 00:20:14.313
You go after.
333
00:20:14.393 --> 00:20:19.156
No one cares about porch pumpkins in the middle of August, but they care a lot about it in October.
334
00:20:19.296 --> 00:20:22.258
And so I would just figure out what each of your seasonal demands are.
335
00:20:22.399 --> 00:20:24.280
So the challenging part with yours, it's very seasonal.
336
00:20:24.400 --> 00:20:26.702
Like you're having like six weeks per promotion.
337
00:20:26.762 --> 00:20:30.104
And then after that's done, you just got to stitch those together throughout the whole year.
338
00:20:30.124 --> 00:20:31.425
So you have an actual business.
339
00:20:31.645 --> 00:20:31.925
Yeah.
340
00:20:32.005 --> 00:20:39.973
You know, and luckily for me, I've, I grew up in the YouTube world so I can make a promotional video like in an hour and it's great, you know, so I don't have to pay for that.
341
00:20:39.993 --> 00:20:41.975
I can just make it happen as it needs to be.
342
00:20:43.816 --> 00:20:46.439
What's the next like date of the year that you think you could sell into?
343
00:20:46.599 --> 00:20:50.202
Well, I'm trying to do landscape lighting at this moment, right.
344
00:20:50.242 --> 00:20:53.145
And promoting that for the next season or two.
345
00:20:53.645 --> 00:20:56.168
And then it would be porch pumpkins and then Christmas decor.
346
00:20:56.749 --> 00:20:57.729
Well, what about July 4th?
347
00:20:57.869 --> 00:21:05.471
Well, you know, I don't really, I'm trying to create packages and I don't want to just do everything for everyone right now because I'm just going to get lost.
348
00:21:05.531 --> 00:21:08.772
So I'm sticking to these three things at the moment, you know?
349
00:21:08.792 --> 00:21:13.954
So right now, if you're not looking for landscape lighting or architectural lighting of some kind,
350
00:21:14.574 --> 00:21:19.637
Um, then I, I'm probably not going to be able to serve you because I just, I, you know, this is also a side job.
351
00:21:19.657 --> 00:21:21.598
I work during, uh, 40 hours a week.
352
00:21:21.638 --> 00:21:24.099
I, I work for a fertilizer company doing marketing.
353
00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:31.103
So, uh, I'm just trying to start this on the side and eventually leave that and just, you know, be a business person and, uh,
354
00:21:31.763 --> 00:21:33.224
I'll put my vote in for this one, Daniel.
355
00:21:33.304 --> 00:21:34.885
I think your skill is marketing.
356
00:21:35.025 --> 00:21:41.289
I don't think it's, I would highly recommend like each entry point, you drive your customer equity costs down dramatically.
357
00:21:41.330 --> 00:21:46.653
If you go sell structural lighting or even landscape lighting, your cost per lead might be a hundred or $200.
358
00:21:46.813 --> 00:21:50.756
If you can go and say, Hey, I'm going to make your property look incredible for July the 4th.
359
00:21:51.096 --> 00:21:52.497
Here's a 3000, a 5,000, a $10,000 package.
360
00:21:54.758 --> 00:21:57.060
That will crush on marketing.
361
00:21:57.560 --> 00:21:58.781
And you get them as entry points.
362
00:21:58.822 --> 00:22:03.706
Now you build this contact database of high net worth of people that you know have discretionary income to spend money.
363
00:22:03.966 --> 00:22:09.611
And you upsell them during your slow season to things that are more permanent, like the permanent lighting, structural lighting, landscape lighting.
364
00:22:09.931 --> 00:22:14.975
But then you get entry points for $30, $40 because it's just the hype of the season.
365
00:22:15.035 --> 00:22:15.255
Sure.
366
00:22:15.676 --> 00:22:15.936
Okay.
367
00:22:16.216 --> 00:22:16.477
Okay.
368
00:22:16.777 --> 00:22:16.917
Okay.
369
00:22:17.097 --> 00:22:18.898
So like if you're like, hey, I'm getting ready.
370
00:22:18.938 --> 00:22:19.619
I got my website.
371
00:22:19.899 --> 00:22:21.920
I just gear everything towards July 4th.
372
00:22:22.060 --> 00:22:23.902
Have your promotions you know you can run.
373
00:22:23.922 --> 00:22:33.808
Because I genuinely believe your customer act wouldn't cost me 10% to 20% of what landscape and structural lighting would be if you just get entry points around the decor side.
374
00:22:34.629 --> 00:22:37.651
And I actually think that's your unique selling proposition is the decor thing.
375
00:22:38.191 --> 00:22:46.913
You get in with the decor and then your back end anchor is the structural and landscape lighting that you can sell in between the hot seasons where you know you get customer acquisition.
376
00:22:46.953 --> 00:22:47.153
Sure.
377
00:22:47.773 --> 00:22:47.973
Sure.
378
00:22:48.133 --> 00:22:48.894
Yeah, I like that.
379
00:22:48.934 --> 00:22:49.494
That sounds good.
380
00:22:49.514 --> 00:22:56.415
And, you know, eventually the goal is to be able to maybe license this package to landscape companies around the country.
381
00:22:57.416 --> 00:23:00.676
That's what I've seen done for other types of services.
382
00:23:00.696 --> 00:23:06.958
So, you know, if I get this down with the systems and then the, you know, eventually all the different inputs, you know,
383
00:23:07.138 --> 00:23:12.461
you know, I could sell the lighting to my, you know, my licensees.
384
00:23:12.501 --> 00:23:12.761
Right.
385
00:23:13.281 --> 00:23:14.602
So that's the goal here.
386
00:23:14.622 --> 00:23:21.205
The thing is to keep in mind is your, your demand curve for porch pumpkins will also flow into your Christmas lights.
387
00:23:22.125 --> 00:23:28.188
And so like we've had owners of us to consider it and some of them do it, but the challenging part is that's also when I can sell Christmas lights.
388
00:23:28.368 --> 00:23:29.870
because I can sell Christmas lights all October.
389
00:23:29.950 --> 00:23:41.587
And so just keep that in mind, because a lot of times people are like, I have two servers, like, no, you could just deploy that same energy towards one of them and get the same output, because now you're focused on just one, and the demand curve is the exact same.
390
00:23:41.627 --> 00:23:43.810
Like October, November, December, same demand curve.
391
00:23:43.931 --> 00:23:44.552
And so I would-
392
00:23:45.032 --> 00:23:45.672
Go ahead.
393
00:23:45.712 --> 00:23:51.474
Oh no, I'm right at the beginning of this and I have like the fork in the road where I could just go lighting, I could do the decor thing.
394
00:23:52.235 --> 00:23:59.417
And I don't know what would be better, but I'm in the Chicago area and there's a lot of people who have money and a lot of companies who have money.
395
00:23:59.437 --> 00:24:01.078
And I think the decor might be fun.
396
00:24:01.098 --> 00:24:05.560
And my wife likes decor and it's named, but company's named after my wife, Mackenzie.
397
00:24:05.580 --> 00:24:11.582
So I don't know, I feel like it would be like a nice homely thing that people would just enjoy and it might be more trendy
398
00:24:12.342 --> 00:24:13.943
than lighting.
399
00:24:14.043 --> 00:24:18.065
I think what was very appealing to me, you look at the core as your entry point.
400
00:24:18.545 --> 00:24:20.346
We look at mowing as our entry point.
401
00:24:21.206 --> 00:24:27.309
And then you look at your upsells into lighting as your anchor during the off season.
402
00:24:27.329 --> 00:24:29.891
And there's going to be three or four of them.
403
00:24:30.011 --> 00:24:34.433
So for example, between Easter and July 4th, that's when you go install a whole bunch of lights.
404
00:24:34.713 --> 00:24:34.953
Right.
405
00:24:35.153 --> 00:24:39.115
And then from July 4th to let's just call it, let's just call it Thanksgiving for the sake of the example.
406
00:24:39.556 --> 00:24:40.716
That's when you install lights.
407
00:24:40.756 --> 00:24:45.239
But then, you know, you have four to six weeks where you're just pounding marketing to get customer acquisition.
408
00:24:45.319 --> 00:24:48.380
And all you're trying to do is get a list of people that you don't have a ton of discretionary income.
409
00:24:48.600 --> 00:24:52.823
Because whoever's going to spend three to five grand on decorations, you know they got money.
410
00:24:52.923 --> 00:24:53.163
Right.
411
00:24:53.725 --> 00:24:54.646
Right, right, right.
412
00:24:55.027 --> 00:24:55.968
Yeah, I appreciate it.
413
00:24:55.988 --> 00:24:59.852
And I just got to get my invoice looking good and my quotes looking good.
414
00:24:59.872 --> 00:25:02.816
And then I think I'm set once I get some calls.
415
00:25:03.277 --> 00:25:03.697
Let's go.
416
00:25:03.957 --> 00:25:04.298
Let's go.
417
00:25:04.318 --> 00:25:04.758
Good stuff.
418
00:25:04.919 --> 00:25:05.920
All right, thank you.
419
00:25:06.340 --> 00:25:06.741
You got it.
420
00:25:06.761 --> 00:25:10.225
Did you know that when you join Augusta Lawn Care, you don't just get access to lawns.
421
00:25:10.225 --> 00:25:17.672
lawn care and landscaping, you also get access to AugustaLights.com and all the training and resources required to be able to do holiday lighting.
422
00:25:18.012 --> 00:25:19.774
It's all included in the exact same package.
423
00:25:20.074 --> 00:25:23.798
Go to AugustaLawndCareServices.com slash franchise and check it out today.
424
00:25:23.938 --> 00:25:25.319
Now, back to the video.
425
00:25:25.399 --> 00:25:26.059
Marcus, go ahead.
426
00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:26.420
All right.
427
00:25:26.500 --> 00:25:31.142
I'm in a completely different position from the previous people who were just talking.
428
00:25:31.603 --> 00:25:33.084
I'm just starting out my business.
429
00:25:33.184 --> 00:25:36.926
I'm waiting for one more piece of equipment to come in before I can really start.
430
00:25:37.046 --> 00:25:42.389
My main service will be drain cleaning and camera inspections and any sewage drainage.
431
00:25:42.789 --> 00:25:46.872
I've been in the industry for about five years, so I know how to do pretty much anything plumbing related.
432
00:25:47.152 --> 00:25:50.174
At least from the research I've done, it says that specific, like,
433
00:25:50.734 --> 00:25:52.215
specializing is the way to go.
434
00:25:52.596 --> 00:25:54.717
You're known for this, so people call you for it.
435
00:25:54.757 --> 00:25:57.439
It's kind of your main into the industry.
436
00:25:57.880 --> 00:26:03.784
And like you were mentioning with the lights before, you use that as kind of a jump off point to provide other services to people.
437
00:26:03.985 --> 00:26:04.885
I have a question, Marcus.
438
00:26:05.005 --> 00:26:05.286
Sorry.
439
00:26:05.906 --> 00:26:10.810
If you're going into inspections specifically, are you going to change your name away from plumbing?
440
00:26:11.090 --> 00:26:11.450
No, no.
441
00:26:11.490 --> 00:26:13.192
I'm doing camera inspections.
442
00:26:13.672 --> 00:26:13.912
Okay.
443
00:26:14.032 --> 00:26:15.053
Not inspections.
444
00:26:15.093 --> 00:26:18.756
Inspections is just how to get my foot in the door, basically.
445
00:26:18.896 --> 00:26:20.817
But why would you not name it drain repair?
446
00:26:21.198 --> 00:26:22.038
I'm just, I'm curious.
447
00:26:22.118 --> 00:26:24.920
Because I'm willing to do any plumbing as well.
448
00:26:24.980 --> 00:26:35.908
So if people are willing to call me for water heaters, water supply, gas supply, any repairs in home, you got a water leak in your home, I can also do those services.
449
00:26:35.988 --> 00:26:37.590
So I'm willing to do those services.
450
00:26:37.650 --> 00:26:40.071
The main service that I'll be dealing with, though, is...
451
00:26:40.211 --> 00:26:40.632
Drain repair.
452
00:26:41.132 --> 00:26:41.272
Yeah.
453
00:26:41.512 --> 00:26:41.893
Interesting.
454
00:26:42.053 --> 00:26:42.153
Yeah.
455
00:26:42.173 --> 00:26:44.074
Like, I'm not saying you should do this.
456
00:26:44.214 --> 00:26:46.656
I'm just be very interested in you become the drain repair guy.
457
00:26:46.676 --> 00:26:46.836
Right.
458
00:26:46.876 --> 00:26:53.160
Mostly because if I'm looking, if I have a problem, and I have 50 plumbing companies, if I have a drain issue, like, am I going to contact the plumbers, which some of them might not do that service?
459
00:26:53.180 --> 00:26:54.541
Or am I going to contact the drain repair guy?
460
00:26:54.561 --> 00:26:54.681
Right.
461
00:26:54.701 --> 00:27:05.988
And so I would, I would really, I would, I would really, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would
462
00:27:06.068 --> 00:27:07.890
Like, for example, you could test this very easily.
463
00:27:08.190 --> 00:27:09.912
Change your door hangers, for example.
464
00:27:10.512 --> 00:27:14.256
One of them having the plumbing, one of them saying drain repair, put a couple thousand of each.
465
00:27:14.676 --> 00:27:19.641
I would venture to believe you will double your response rate if it says drain repair in your name.
466
00:27:19.761 --> 00:27:22.364
My question specifically, because I am going to consider that.
467
00:27:22.564 --> 00:27:25.627
Right now, I don't have the funds to print out a whole new set.
468
00:27:25.727 --> 00:27:27.409
So maybe the second time around once I'm...
469
00:27:27.909 --> 00:27:32.051
getting my income back in, I can invest in that essentially.
470
00:27:32.291 --> 00:27:36.753
But I was wondering if you have specific references for good marketing, because that's not my strong suit.
471
00:27:37.214 --> 00:27:42.136
I have a little bit of background in graphic design from high school classes, so it's not much and it's a while ago.
472
00:27:43.016 --> 00:27:47.258
But you were mentioning tracking and various sites, which sites do you recommend?
473
00:27:48.839 --> 00:27:55.243
Is there some reference videos you know of that I could get sent to take a look at on how to set that up, et cetera, et cetera.
474
00:27:55.343 --> 00:28:01.867
Right now, the unique thing is you could spin up a website pretty easily on a lot of different sites that looks really good.
475
00:28:02.088 --> 00:28:06.190
I think right now, when you're first getting started, the only thing to care about is getting your first few customers.
476
00:28:06.210 --> 00:28:07.271
Kind of like we were talking about Daniel.
477
00:28:07.671 --> 00:28:09.952
Like, I don't care if you give away inspections for free.
478
00:28:10.412 --> 00:28:11.612
I don't care if it's door hangers.
479
00:28:11.892 --> 00:28:20.954
Like when you have a limited budget specifically to like, we don't have the money to go like, let's go to set up data rails and like do a whole bit of tracking and run Facebook and Google ads.
480
00:28:20.974 --> 00:28:22.435
Like very different in your case.
481
00:28:22.455 --> 00:28:28.156
It's like we need 10 customers and we're going to knock on doors in the areas we know that those services are needed.
482
00:28:28.476 --> 00:28:31.257
We're going to, in my opinion, nail the offer.
483
00:28:31.897 --> 00:28:38.026
And so whether that be a free inspection, whether that be changing the name, like it's still a whole lot easier to change your name now.
484
00:28:38.166 --> 00:28:42.753
If that is the conclusion that increases your conversion by two, like a double.
485
00:28:42.973 --> 00:28:46.058
It's easy to do that now than in, let's just call it even five months.
486
00:28:46.098 --> 00:28:47.480
Once you have a website, you have.
487
00:28:47.700 --> 00:28:49.861
decals on your trucks, like that's a lot harder.
488
00:28:49.881 --> 00:28:59.407
So like I would nail it that first before it's like, like nail the offer, nail the brand, so that when you go put the truck decal on, you know it converts twice as more, like twice as much.
489
00:29:00.687 --> 00:29:06.390
And my strongest recommendation to you is if you're going to specialize, go all in on it.
490
00:29:06.911 --> 00:29:09.832
Because it will allow you to be able to charge way more.
491
00:29:10.052 --> 00:29:14.235
It'll make your marketing advertising way clearer, because people just know what you do.
492
00:29:14.815 --> 00:29:19.057
A plumbing company, I think you change out toilets and do everything else in my house.
493
00:29:19.438 --> 00:29:25.541
If you say you're the drain guy and I have a drainage problem, I'm coming to you over any other plumbing company, even though they could do the service.
494
00:29:25.681 --> 00:29:26.281
I don't know that.
495
00:29:26.721 --> 00:29:30.023
Customers don't know the difference between drain problems and plumbing issues.
496
00:29:30.283 --> 00:29:31.704
They just think they have no idea.
497
00:29:32.184 --> 00:29:35.046
And so I would strongly recommend like nail it before you scale it.
498
00:29:35.246 --> 00:29:43.290
And right now when you're doing hand-to-hand combat, which is door hangers, door knocking, going on Facebook groups that are free, you have the flexibility to move more nimbly versus like –
499
00:29:43.610 --> 00:29:49.593
hey, I want you to get home service web design to build a big site for you and get the cost of that, but also like pictures and graphics.
500
00:29:49.853 --> 00:29:51.153
And then you're going to go put it on your truck.
501
00:29:51.494 --> 00:29:52.994
Now all of a sudden, we can't be as nimble.
502
00:29:53.174 --> 00:29:56.616
And so I would really encourage like nailing it before you scale it.
503
00:29:56.636 --> 00:29:59.877
In this regard, I'd try to nail your branding and your offer.
504
00:30:00.137 --> 00:30:04.479
And then from there, we think about design, website stuff, et cetera.
505
00:30:04.660 --> 00:30:05.020
Okay.
506
00:30:05.040 --> 00:30:05.180
Yeah.
507
00:30:05.340 --> 00:30:11.663
I mean, my website right now is just a landing page to get into homework software and get in contact with me.
508
00:30:11.903 --> 00:30:12.163
So...
509
00:30:12.716 --> 00:30:18.260
Yeah, you could spin up a very basic site, even using a jot form, for example, just to collect information.
510
00:30:18.281 --> 00:30:22.704
A QR code on a doorheader, for example, could go there, just a landing page, like you said.
511
00:30:23.084 --> 00:30:27.448
But I'd be very interested in trying to get as many Google reviews as possible, getting your business profile set up.
512
00:30:27.668 --> 00:30:28.529
That's all free.
513
00:30:28.949 --> 00:30:29.590
That's a good thing.
514
00:30:30.510 --> 00:30:36.335
And whether you are doing free inspections for a review, for example, for all your friends and families, hey, if you just let me do an inspection, let me do an inspection.
515
00:30:36.816 --> 00:30:45.414
give me a review it's free like that's what i'd be really leaning into uh instead of like design all that because you don't even know what works yet yeah yeah fair enough thank you
516
00:30:45.957 --> 00:30:46.417
You got it.
517
00:30:46.557 --> 00:30:48.277
Bob from Denver, Colorado.
518
00:30:48.618 --> 00:30:49.318
Hey there, Mike.
519
00:30:49.358 --> 00:30:50.058
Hi, everybody.
520
00:30:50.078 --> 00:30:52.018
Thanks for doing this again.
521
00:30:52.038 --> 00:30:53.639
Absolutely.
522
00:30:54.459 --> 00:31:01.640
I'm glad that it's a marketing conversation today because that's kind of some of the stuff that I had on my list to chat with you about.
523
00:31:01.980 --> 00:31:15.243
Starting within HomeWorks, we did a text marketing campaign, and we're going to do an email campaign from the folks that were unresponsive to the text campaign.
524
00:31:15.263 --> 00:31:15.403
Mm-hmm.
525
00:31:16.884 --> 00:31:22.327
How we can track in Homeworks the success rate of those campaigns.
526
00:31:22.607 --> 00:31:24.268
Yeah, so there's like five ways you could.
527
00:31:24.388 --> 00:31:27.450
I'd say right now tags is probably still the best.
528
00:31:27.830 --> 00:31:35.035
We just have our – you can just have your texting department, for example, or whoever is managing your texts that are coming in.
529
00:31:35.535 --> 00:31:36.396
They could tag them.
530
00:31:37.276 --> 00:31:44.320
Um, the challenging part is with, with a customer that you sell five times, do you still want that text, that tag propagating in a year?
531
00:31:44.500 --> 00:31:50.163
And so, um, there's no real way to attribute a text to a estimate right now.
532
00:31:50.443 --> 00:31:52.023
There's no like tagging of estimates.
533
00:31:52.504 --> 00:31:54.485
That's really, that would be the ultimate solve here.
534
00:31:55.125 --> 00:31:59.367
Some people have used custom fields though, because you can make custom fields on an estimate, for example.
535
00:32:00.187 --> 00:32:01.068
Um, for example, like.
536
00:32:01.448 --> 00:32:03.269
you know, did this lead come on upsell?
537
00:32:03.289 --> 00:32:06.871
And it's like email, text, outbound phone calls, stuff like that.
538
00:32:07.711 --> 00:32:15.255
But there's no like clean way of like, hey, if they respond to this text message, it automatically just knows that this estimate is gonna be attributed to them.
539
00:32:15.495 --> 00:32:21.638
Also, because a lot of times we in our text messages will give the offer and we're just converting it directly into a job.
540
00:32:21.658 --> 00:32:23.259
We don't even make an estimate many times.
541
00:32:24.019 --> 00:32:26.160
Cause we're saying, hey, it's $99 for this service.
542
00:32:26.280 --> 00:32:26.920
Would you like that?
543
00:32:27.041 --> 00:32:28.041
If yes, let's go.
544
00:32:28.361 --> 00:32:29.542
And we're just putting them on the schedule.
545
00:32:30.122 --> 00:32:33.083
So we don't have any sort of automatic attribution right now.
546
00:32:33.243 --> 00:32:33.763
Gotcha.
547
00:32:34.143 --> 00:32:50.089
And same with like finding like who put us into like using MailChimp, I would get reports of X people unsubscribed, X amount of people hit stop or spam.
548
00:32:50.529 --> 00:32:52.950
But I haven't seen that anywhere in HomeWorks.
549
00:32:53.010 --> 00:32:54.130
Is that correct?
550
00:32:54.631 --> 00:32:55.351
Yeah, great call.
551
00:32:55.391 --> 00:32:57.231
So there's a feature that you can see.
552
00:32:57.291 --> 00:32:58.252
If you go into...
553
00:32:59.283 --> 00:33:05.565
If you go to the support tab at the very bottom, it says like submit feedback and you can see the public board of like where people are submitting new features.
554
00:33:05.945 --> 00:33:08.886
One of them is like more of a campaign level.
555
00:33:08.926 --> 00:33:17.028
So when you send a bulk text or bulk email, being able to know like how many of you actually clicked it, how many people responded, how many people unsubscribed, to your point.
556
00:33:17.708 --> 00:33:23.150
We don't have that level of data yet, kind of like a MailChimp specifically that just does that sending.
557
00:33:24.460 --> 00:33:25.981
Let me see what else I have here.
558
00:33:26.921 --> 00:33:48.213
Marketing with Google has been absolute nightmare for me for where I'm just throwing money out, not having the, you know, I know it's important to keep track of this stuff and it seems like I get it set up and then it, you know, I've now changed to homeworks instead of my previous CRM and I got to reset stuff up and then
559
00:33:48.793 --> 00:33:52.496
We get into these situations where we shut off our campaigns.
560
00:33:52.616 --> 00:33:53.597
We're lawn and sprinkler.
561
00:33:53.617 --> 00:33:55.358
We're shut down for the winter.
562
00:33:55.678 --> 00:34:03.344
And suddenly I'm still getting charged, you know, 500 bucks a month or whatever for Google that we're positive we turned off.
563
00:34:03.404 --> 00:34:05.626
And it comes into this bank dispute nonsense.
564
00:34:05.666 --> 00:34:08.128
And then they won't reload my account.
565
00:34:08.768 --> 00:34:12.191
And then we're always getting calls from, hey, I'm a Google expert.
566
00:34:12.231 --> 00:34:13.332
You should be hiring up.
567
00:34:13.492 --> 00:34:17.794
Where are you on hiring a Google expert?
568
00:34:17.834 --> 00:34:20.855
Is that worth it in an under a million dollar business?
569
00:34:21.095 --> 00:34:22.115
I don't think so.
570
00:34:22.556 --> 00:34:25.377
This is why agencies exist because it's so frustrating.
571
00:34:25.757 --> 00:34:32.079
And it's difficult to make sense of spending $2,000 or $3,000 a month hiring them just to manage your account.
572
00:34:32.260 --> 00:34:38.122
First off, I would say I'd really recommend not making your lead attribution based upon them getting into homeworks.
573
00:34:38.462 --> 00:34:40.863
I would do it based upon on your website.
574
00:34:40.943 --> 00:34:45.124
Mostly for the sake of like if they're an Apple device, a lot of this can get blocked from tracking.
575
00:34:45.284 --> 00:34:49.545
But if they, for example, click on the submit button on an estimate request form, I can track that.
576
00:34:50.065 --> 00:34:51.666
I might be able to also track a thank you page.
577
00:34:51.686 --> 00:34:52.886
That's like the most accurate.
578
00:34:53.306 --> 00:34:55.507
So for example, I like to put my pixels on a thank you page.
579
00:34:55.807 --> 00:35:02.509
So they submit the form, they click submit, and if they hit that thank you page, I know the only way to get to that thank you page is submitting that form.
580
00:35:02.649 --> 00:35:07.350
So I try to not attach it to my CRM at all because a lot of times that is blocked
581
00:35:07.690 --> 00:35:09.793
especially on Apple and iOS stuff.
582
00:35:09.893 --> 00:35:12.157
And it's also much more dependable.
583
00:35:12.357 --> 00:35:19.868
And so that way, once you set up tracking code and have a pixel and it's set up in the footer and the header of that thank you page, I don't have to usually touch it again.
584
00:35:19.888 --> 00:35:21.571
That'd be like my first little thing.
585
00:35:21.791 --> 00:35:22.532
I think in terms of
586
00:35:22.592 --> 00:35:25.193
getting help on this, Bob, I would just go into Upwork.
587
00:35:25.653 --> 00:35:26.874
I'd be looking for a Google expert.
588
00:35:27.174 --> 00:35:32.316
You're going to pay them pretty, like, I don't go under a hundred bucks an hour for these folks because they should know what they're doing.
589
00:35:32.336 --> 00:35:38.518
They should have a lot of experience, but they're going to tell you a lot of things that you can improve, but they're not, not on a retainer.
590
00:35:38.978 --> 00:35:43.460
They're not incentivized to, uh, keep you around paying more.
591
00:35:43.700 --> 00:35:51.223
Like you never want to, in my opinion, I don't want to get in an agency relationship where they're getting a percentage of my ad spend because now they're just incentivized to spend, make me spend more money.
592
00:35:51.383 --> 00:35:59.954
And so I want to be, we were like, hey, I pay you when I'm happy with the results you give me, which is optimize this thing, make sure it's set up correctly.
593
00:35:59.974 --> 00:36:06.021
And if I have problems, you take care of it so I can focus on running my business, not optimizing some stinking keyword with Google.
594
00:36:06.181 --> 00:36:07.703
And so I would lean heavily into that either.
595
00:36:07.823 --> 00:36:08.705
You can go ahead.
596
00:36:08.845 --> 00:36:09.746
That's called Upwork.
597
00:36:10.166 --> 00:36:11.007
Yep, exactly.
598
00:36:11.067 --> 00:36:11.767
You can go on there.
599
00:36:11.927 --> 00:36:12.848
You can create a proposal.
600
00:36:12.868 --> 00:36:14.589
You'll have people that will want to do it.
601
00:36:15.069 --> 00:36:16.590
For this specifically, you'll have hundreds of people.
602
00:36:16.970 --> 00:36:24.475
I'm looking for usually people that have done at least 100 jobs and over $100,000 of revenue through the platform, which narrows it down dramatically.
603
00:36:24.495 --> 00:36:26.956
I don't want someone like on the weekend they're doing ads.
604
00:36:27.016 --> 00:36:27.357
I want them.
605
00:36:27.397 --> 00:36:29.438
This is their job and the freelancer.
606
00:36:29.498 --> 00:36:31.819
And it's nice because they're doing a great job.
607
00:36:32.099 --> 00:36:32.800
I'll hire more.
608
00:36:33.320 --> 00:36:35.602
Hey, let's go ahead and put a couple more hours on.
609
00:36:36.322 --> 00:36:39.284
But if they're not or if there's something wrong, it's really easy to cut them off.
610
00:36:39.384 --> 00:36:39.664
Okay.
611
00:36:39.824 --> 00:36:40.144
All right.
612
00:36:40.224 --> 00:36:42.645
And then on another marketing question.
613
00:36:42.685 --> 00:36:46.327
So the name of our business is Nature's Carpet Lawn and Sprinkler.
614
00:36:46.487 --> 00:36:48.208
We've been around since 99.
615
00:36:49.148 --> 00:36:51.809
Used to stand out a whole lot.
616
00:36:51.949 --> 00:36:55.031
You know, we were around before the Internet was going, basically.
617
00:36:55.551 --> 00:36:57.472
So so just the the.
618
00:36:57.692 --> 00:37:15.558
different name was was good it was beneficial um now we've kind of gone past the carpet throwing people off again but it's a play on words nature's grass is nature's carpet um i've been seeing more of like being very distinct and you've mentioned it earlier today as well with with
619
00:37:15.818 --> 00:37:17.640
what your primary service is.
620
00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:26.808
Do we start separating the name of the business to Nature's Carpet Lawn and a different ad for Nature's Carpet Sprinkler?
621
00:37:27.109 --> 00:37:32.914
Or do we continue running the same track that we're going down, where we're offering both services?
622
00:37:33.114 --> 00:37:34.616
What percentage of your revenue is Sprinkler?
623
00:37:35.176 --> 00:37:35.797
About 60.
624
00:37:36.057 --> 00:37:36.317
Oh, good.
625
00:37:36.377 --> 00:37:36.618
Okay.
626
00:37:37.412 --> 00:37:40.876
I don't think you need to split it because it allows for easy upsells.
627
00:37:40.916 --> 00:37:43.660
This is why we have an S at the end of Augusta Lawn Care Services.
628
00:37:44.260 --> 00:37:47.264
This allows our owners to be able to do a bunch of different stuff if they want to.
629
00:37:47.284 --> 00:37:48.706
It gives them more flexibility.
630
00:37:49.206 --> 00:37:53.972
So I wouldn't split it off mostly because if you have ads running –
631
00:37:54.492 --> 00:38:01.177
and someone doesn't need a sprinkler, but you could also sell them lawns, something related, I don't want to lose that lead, or it's a waste of money.
632
00:38:01.557 --> 00:38:05.980
It also happens that the person that has a lawn could be a sprinkler client.
633
00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:14.506
So usually when you go narrow like this, you have to get more narrow with your targeting, especially if you don't have someone that's doing the targeting for you, Bob.
634
00:38:14.786 --> 00:38:23.672
That's when I'd be like, hey, broaden the scope a little bit, say, hey, we do lawn and sprinkler to get customers in the door, and then you can use your upsells to funnel them in the correct way.
635
00:38:23.872 --> 00:38:24.474
Okay.
636
00:38:24.854 --> 00:38:26.558
That's the way we've been doing it.
637
00:38:26.659 --> 00:38:28.082
So thanks for the reassurance.
638
00:38:28.102 --> 00:38:28.503
Hey, it's worked.
639
00:38:28.523 --> 00:38:29.826
You've been around for 27 years.
640
00:38:29.846 --> 00:38:30.247
Let's go.
641
00:38:30.748 --> 00:38:31.409
Thank you.
642
00:38:31.630 --> 00:38:32.532
Yeah, you got it.
643
00:38:32.772 --> 00:38:33.033
Awesome.
644
00:38:33.053 --> 00:38:35.679
Appreciate you all tremendously for supporting what we're doing here at Homeworks.
645
00:38:36.080 --> 00:38:38.345
And I look forward to seeing you guys in and around the community.
646
00:38:38.425 --> 00:38:39.047
So take care.
647
00:38:39.367 --> 00:38:39.648
We'll see you.
