One Intense Hour of Training Podcast

[Music] this episode of The Busy marketer is brought to you by marketing recap the live interactive show that brings you the latest news from the world of digital marketing each Thursday you can watch this fun and informative show live on Google+ and YouTube and interact with the Roundtable during a simultaneous Twitter chat #m cap can't make the live show listen to past episodes by subscribing to the marketing recap podcast on iTunes and Stitcher learn more about the show and sign up for news and show updates at marketing recap.com [Music] what happened during that year is we went from doing between $ 1.5 million to $2 million a year to doing less than half a million dollars a year but we suffered absolutely zero loss in profit we actually wow made the exact same amount and it was at that point that was kind of like a GameChanger moment where I realized things came together and I and from there I reconcentrated all my energy from 2008 and up and then we started to climb back up even during the midst of one of the greatest depressions that we've seen in my generation Stan genetic is no stranger to focus in fact the story he's telling is about what amounts to rebranding his Excavating and landscaping company moving from a multi-million doll will do everything business to a more efficient Specialty Company it's all about Focus you're listening to season two of The Busy marketer podcast this is the show that offers advice and inspiration for digital marketers in all industries from Real World marketers like you together we cut through the Clutter and focus on the important tasks to help you be better marketer for your business I'm your host 17-year digital marketing veteran BJ joining me today is my special guest Stan genetic welcome to the show Stan PJ how you doing buddy I'm doing fabulous today let's talk about Stan a little bit Stan grew up in the country and has been working in the excavation and Landscaping industry since he was 13 don't tell the Department of Labor he moved to the twin Ci's metropolitan area and paid his way through college the only way he knew how by running a landscaping crew Stan quickly built this up from nothing into one of the largest specialty companies in the Midwest and has now refocused his energy into helping others do the same Stan is a fellow podcaster he runs the landscape business pro podcast a program dedicated to finding experts from around the world and bringing their knowledge to help contractors everywhere Build a Better Business Stan again welcome to the show BJ thank you for having me on today appreciate it absolutely why don't you get us started by telling us a little bit more about your company and how you grew it to become the business that it is today well BJ I started out growing up uh like you said back in the country basically started with nothing and built it up to running you know five Crews we probably were doing at our Peak somewhere just under $2 million a year and I realized at that point that the it really wasn't about the size of the company as it the most important thing was about the margins in the company and so in 2007 BJ I actually made a conscious effort I sat down with my main guys in my organization and I said we're going to shrink the company by about 50% and everybody looked at me like I was crazy and they're like what are you talking about I says our quality isn't there anymore our profit margins are suffering we're all over the board we need to refine our business process and of course this happened to be is just not a sheer luck BJ had absolutely nothing to do with being able to predict the upcoming economic downturn that was going to collapse a lot of companies in 2008 um so just by sheer luck we we scaled down by 50% and then uh the economy helped us scale down by another 10 or 15% beyond that so so we actually shrunk a little more than what we wanted to but it really was a blessing in disguise and I Stan went on to tell me about how difficult of a decision it was the thought of taking your company from 2 million in sales each year to less than half that would be terrifying for most companies but for him it was a about efficiency and reputation and like you heard at the beginning of the episode his company's profits were exactly the same so what does that get you we were able to still concentrate gain profits and build a company up and keep it stronger while other companies were collapsing around us so you focused on your core areas of expertise I did I called it specialized diversification the being the Jack of all trades and master of two okay you know the typical scenario is jack of all trades master of none and that works exceedingly well in our industry where when you're in landscaping Contracting Excavating I don't care what kind of Tradesman or craftsman that you are you have to be able to do just about everything but what I say is you need to focus on two areas and dominate those areas excellent excellent well let's talk about how you've taken the lessons that you've learned and you've started to help other businesses I love it J so you had a story can you tell us a little bit about your story about your neighbor absolutely so my folks have a neighbor his name is Mark and he is a great guy he does so much for my family that you know I can never repay him but he has his own landscape business and I'm pretty sure he does everything for himself there are so many people out there that have a truck a trailer and some equipment and are competing for the same business so what advice would you give to people like Mark to help them out and help them stand out from the crowd I abely absolutely love that question BJ establish credibility you can make yourself look like a company that's been around for three years and you may have only been in existence for three days there's simple tools that many people don't understand but have a huge impact in the customer's perception it's not about what you think is the owner of the company it's about what your customer perceives you to be the first thing I'm going to tell you is the simplest thing get Incorporated get your LL C or your INC now we don't care about the legal ramifications although there's many benefits to being Incorporated really what you're searching for is those three little letters behind your name okay those three letters i n c or LLC have instant verification that you're a company you're an established business that's been around for a while when you're lacking those names you leave the impression that you're a mom or a pop organization and there's nothing wrong with that but if you're trying to gain the notoriety that comes with it establishing credibility quickly that is one of the simplest easiest things to do so you want to look like you're a legitimate business rather than maybe A step above the 15-year-old who's using his daddy's weed eater exactly another way to establish credibility BJ is to borrow credibility and so there are companies out there that've been around forever and ever Better Business Bureau is one of them become a member of the Better Business Bureau now there is a fee to that and I consider becoming a member of the Better Business Bureau not only a step toward establishing credibility but it is also part of the advertising campaign that contractors can participate in but what happens is when you become a member of the Better Business Bureau you're allowed to use their logo you're allowed to use that logo which everybody recognizes as an authority in the market you're allowed to stick that stamp everywhere you go you know Stan as a matter of fact I was just having a conversation with a a friend uh he's looking at rebuilding his website and he's trying to step it up in the industry now he is actually very wellknown in the area he's not a landscaper not in the contract business his website you know he's been around since 1994 so he is very well established in the community and he's looking to expand out and I looked and I was like if you look at the Better Business bureau's website you have an A+ rating flaunt it you know we need to get that out there so yeah I can absolutely agree with jumping in and getting some credibility from the Better Business Bureau social influence the Better Business Bureau is part of that key component you don't you got to look good to everybody else and then new people coming in will go hey these 100,000 people or however many people I don't care if it's a 100 in your local neighborhood or these thousand within the of County area they all think this guy is the bomb diggity and if they are backing this guy then there must be that level of trust so the Better Business Bureau helps establish that another one is your local Chamber of Commerce that's another great resource you can use and they often times remember it's not just about the resources and connections you can make there but this is part of borrowing credibility from other organizations when you become a member of a different organization you borrow their Authority in the marketplace this is third party validation exactly and and you can attach that to your websites as well you know a website really isn't a website unless it has some social proof to it PJ you know whether that's a Facebook fan page attached to it a a LinkedIn profile all those little tiny what do you call them postmarks in the side of a website you're the you're the media Market master I I do landscaping for a living those tags of social proof are important to establishing your credibility one of the nice things about Facebook is that it allows people to if you're established as a location business it allows people to go in there and actually rate your business which is another form of validation that you can use so if we're going to get down go down that path of Facebook versus website you really got to have a great website I'm sure everybody that's tuning in to your program knows that BJ but one of the things I'd like to do is I'd like to set that website up as here's my storefront and then here's my my Facebook connection where I can upload instantly new information without going through a web developer without going through a web host without going through a web programmer hey here's here's my my pictures of the day even if I'm out in the field hey check out this before and here's what I'm doing right now and tomorrow I'm going to post new updates and you can actually kind of have a live interaction with people as they follow along it's an incredible format to keeping people up to date minute by minute day by day what are your thoughts on visual mediums like using uh Instagram or Pinterest or something like that that's awesome because I have no thoughts on those I surprise question I honestly don't know anything about it it's on my radar screen but doing you know I got to focus on what I do very well and so I can't do too many things and think I'm going to be very good at them one of the things things that I do like to do is uh YouTube videos I found those to be hyper impactful customers love seeing jobs even if you're not the best at the YouTube videos customers just love that it's easy to link up to uh you know send a link to your customers here's how we did it um and use those YouTube videos as well as it just has a huge impact on search engine optimization let's back up a little bit since um since you're talking about YouTube videos you've kind of made a name for yourself with your YouTube video and uh sort of set an industry standard with the uh pool demolition well you know BJ it's it's was um a lesson uh long time coming so it really is not the best videos I found that um you know although they're they're you know not professionally done I get the information across and that's really what people are looking for if they really want a high quality program they'll turn on ABC or MBC they're not going to go to YouTube but when they need the information and they need to know that you can complete the project it's an awesome way to go hey here I am doing it right now here's what I know about it here it is in process and here it is all wrapped up let's focus on our our guy Mark so what kind of videos if he was going to try to incorporate YouTube videos what sort of videos would you recommend he create before and after let let's focus on here I am coming into the job site use some personality use some Charisma in it don't be a talking head that is very monotone and hold the camera at one angle you know what let your personality come through people love personality and when you show your personality they kind of get an idea of who they're going to be dealing with when you show up at the job it's a great way to get them more comfortable with your company and you often times if you can do a video and you can do it very well sometimes the job will be sold before you even show up they'll be convinced just through the information that you relate on your website about your Authority in the market and a lot of times it's less about price especially when it comes to Contracting Craftsman Tradesmen landscapers people that do what we do and it's about making the customer feel comfortable they don't know what's going on they don't have a clue how to do these things they want somebody they can believe in and often times Tradesmen are not very good at dealing with people they specialize on just doing phenomenal work just I'm the best at what I do but I don't know how to treat the customer like that instead I'm going to tell you treat the customer like they're the absolute best thing and even if you're only mediocre at your work they're going to love you for making them feel special what sort of equipment do you use when you're shooting video I use iPhone any special mics or do you just use the onboard I use the onboard mic I like I said I am in my infancy with learning YouTube videos I wish I had some great insight for you I have a friend Keith calfest from the landscape employee trap he shoots some phenomenal videos and I've actually literally learned everything I know about videos just by watching his videos and um it's just all about personality and just trying to relate a message and and connecting with your AI audience you're absolutely right when the content is valuable to the customer to the viewer then they're willing to overlook the fact that it may not be professionally shot video they know that the what you're showing them is important information to them you know this is what I'm looking for I'm looking to do this sort of work to my yard you know we talked about the the pool removal things uh it could be creating building a fire pit or you know uh creating I mean you're again you're the landscape guy so you you kind of helped me out the different types of projects that people would want to have but think about what's going on in your area think about your area regionally I was actually lucky enough to be on Stan's podcast where we talked about Facebook a little bit and one of the things that really popped in my head when we were talking is that you know in my area where I live in the eastern part of North Carolina everybody has centipede grass and it's I hate the stuff personally but for some reason it's always there everybody's got it and it would be nice to know the best ways to care for it you know and show me based on my area how I need to care for it because the way I care for grass in eastern North Carolina is completely different than somebody who's carrying for grass in Maine or Minnesota right exactly now BJ not everybody's going to feel comfortable in front of a camera in fact few people really are you got to have a little bit of a narcissistic element to you I believe but that's part of the fun which makes each and every one of us unique but a picture literally says a th000 words pop your eye candy up on your website and if you want to talk about centipede grass show a yard with a before picture just infested with centipede grass just a picture just boom boom and then do bullet points don't inundate the people on your website with this long text it's like a dry documentary that you got to read through what you really want to do is you want the bullet points here's the five big points how you how you correct centipede grph and then have an after picture of the same yard where you have actually done this boom you're an instant Authority another way to gain that credibility BJ is to become a member of Angie's List now one of the things that Angie's List will they they hype this up and I want to be very clear to people just getting into it contractors who may not understand the process but there is a clear process with Angie's List and you need to be aware of it yes you cannot pay to be on Angie's List okay you just can't but as soon as somebody anybody don't do it yourself but as soon as any of your customers give you I think it's two reviews on Angie's List you're in their system and you're on their radar screen and what that means is if you're the contractor your phone's going to be going dinging from the Angie list Representatives wanting you to advertise on Angie's List Angie's List is a multi-millionaire probably I don't know don't quote me on that but I'm guessing she is because as a contractor that has two reviews you now have the option to advertise on Angie's List and it can be powerful or it can be a flop but be careful be ready when those service people call or sales people call from Angie's List to to ask you if you want to optimize and that's kind what they do and I'm doing air I'm doing air quotes here right now BJ I can imagine it when you want to optimize your listing on Angie's List that what they do is they take your reviews and whether you got one or two then they pull out maybe maybe here maybe this is literally how they can do it this guy was awesome at botching up my job so what they'll do is they'll and that s doesn't sound like a very good review right right but they'll highlight in giant letters this guy was awesome if you pay them enough money and then they'll put in little tiny letters at botching up and then big letters my job okay so um it's a it's a little bit I I'm not going to be the one to say you know hey I think it could be done better but if you're getting that gist then that's the way many contractors in the industry feel and when I say be prepared when they call you get ready to put on your negotiating hat here's my personal story about Angie's List um I was actually really against advertising on this medium and I sat down with a tree company that's local in the neighborhood and he told me that's the only way he gets work W okay that that's he gets work no other way than through Angie list I'm like well all right next time they call me I'll negotiate but it goes against my principles to pay for advertising on something that you're not supposed to be able to pay to get on Angie's List but there's a difference there can't pay to get on it but once you're there boy they'll bleed you dry so and I want contractors out there to know this so they can be prepared when it comes to the negotiating part of it the opening round of negotiations with Angie's List was I got the phone call I'm driving down 494 in uh the twin City's metropolitan area um I'm really you know I'm not in a very good mood because I know that I need to do this but it's kind of against my core principles he the salesperson offers me to advertise on Angie's List at $33,000 a year oh my gosh okay and I laughed and I said and in my in my mind I'm like this conversation's not going to go very far so let's have some fun with it so in my cocky way that I can oftentimes be unfortunately I said okay okay take that number divide it by half and then take that number and divide it by half and then take that number and divide it by half and then take that number and divide it by half and then maybe we'll talk so so so…