Marketing SIPS: Contractor Insights
0:01
Importance of Branding and Marketing Strategy
8:18
Maximizing Marketing Strategy Success
Ever wonder why some contractors stall while others soar? Join me, Crystal, as I unravel the mysteries behind successful branding and marketing strategies from my lively hub in Houston, Texas. After days immersed in conversations with local contractors, I've gathered tales of triumph and missteps—like the pitfalls of clinging to lackluster company names and the untapped power of professional branding services. Discover the importance of foundational processes like advertising and PR and learn how these elements can set the stage for long-term success, especially when operations, sales, and marketing work hand in hand.
In an industry as challenging as home services, many businesses throw in the towel too soon. Together, we'll dissect common marketing misconceptions, such as the underestimated power of direct mail, and reveal why a robust strategy trumps standalone tactics. With stories from the field, I'll highlight the critical need for perseverance and innovation, urging you to start with a clear budget and an open mind. As your marketing coach, I'm here to light the path to growth, ensuring you're equipped with not just tactics but a comprehensive roadmap to elevate your brand. Let's sip some lemonade and set a course for your business’s success!
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Speaker 1: 0:01
what's up, lemonheads? Welcome to another episode of from the yellow chair. I am crystal. I'm riding solo today all the way from. I'm actually sitting in this really cool lobby in this hotel in houston, texas, and I've been meeting with contractors for three days now and I just have something to say. I have some opinions to share with you, guys. You may not like it, so if you're one of those that like, don, like your toes stepped on, you might want to scrunch them because let's sip some lemonade, all right. So here's what I've discovered over the past few days.
Speaker 1: 0:46
Most of you know me well enough to know how much I love, absolutely love and adore branding and the importance of foundational processes that get your company ahead of the game and really winning long term. So don't get me wrong I love a good short term strategy, but I really think there's power in the combination of both the short and long-term plan. So many contractors that I've met over the past few days what their goal is always is just running to lead generation. And hey, I get it Like I'm a business owner too. I understand the importance of you know revenue and having money to do something, but, guys, it takes money to make money. It takes. It's really extremely hard to start a business with zero dollars to support your own dreams, your own vision. So we need to do what we need to do to have a solid foundation, so that we're not building a house on a deck of cards that can fall at any moment. You know, some of you like three little pigs one little huff and puff and they're going to blow your whole house down. And we just I have just such a strong passion about helping people understand the importance of marketing, advertising, pr and branding. It is a fun hamster wheel of excitement to sit on, but it also can really wear you down if you don't have a plan and a strategy.
Speaker 1: 2:02
So here I wanted to share with you guys some of the things that people have told me. If you don't have a plan and a strategy. So here I wanted to share with you guys some of the things that people have told me. So I met with a guy who has a terrible name, the name of his company. It's hard to pronounce, it's hard to spell. And I tell him hey, you know you are asking me for my professional advice. The name of your company is not gonna help you be successful. Well, I'm not really willing to change that? Okay, not really willing to change that, okay. Well then, our conversation is probably done, because I'm telling you that you're not going to be set up for success with that and I'm a brand expert Emily is a brand expert, lemon Seed we know how to build brands and we're telling you this is not going to work, this is not going to be successful.
Speaker 1: 2:40
And don't get me wrong, let me talk out of both sides of my mouth here. There have been terrible brands, like logos, that are very successful companies, and I will go on record to say it is not a brand alone that builds successful companies. It is a part of a puzzle. It takes I use the three-legged stool emoji, our emoji example all the time because it takes a combination of operations, sales and marketing for there to be a successful company. So you can get by with an unfortunate brand, but that would mean you're doubling down on all things operation and you're cleaning up your own front porch here, and I really don't feel like that was the case. As a matter of fact, I feel like that this particular client is so stuck in their own opinions of what their brand is and they're stuck to it that they're like I don't care what any of the experts say, I don't care that y'all seen this fail and not be successful.
Speaker 1: 3:33
So my advice to him was this At the end of the day, you can keep your name and you can do what you want to do. It makes your life 10 times harder. It makes your life harder. Can you do it? Absolutely Do. I want to see you be successful, a thousand percent. But what I want to tell you is you are taking the road less traveled. You are taking the hardest road possible to success.
Speaker 1: 3:55
And then the next thing out of your mouth will be like why do these three and four year old companies, why are they already doing $20 million? I want to say hello, because they follow proven, tried and true strategies and then they throw in some guts, some push, some risk, and you know that's that's where success is met. So listen, I've seen fantastic brands fail miserably because of bad operations. It truly is a team effort. It truly is the process of being a great communicator, a listener, an implementer and a leader. And so that was the first thing I came across.
Speaker 1: 4:30
The second thing that I've come across is literally Lemon Seeds' smallest package to work with us is $1,750 a month. $1,750. You get access to three people, not including myself or Emily. So you get a strategist, you get a marketing coordinator, you get a graphic designer. If you're on social media, you get a social media partner or social media content creator. And guys. He looked at me and was like dang 1750. And you know what it reminded me of? I saw this emoji on I am stuck on emojis right now, so excuse me. I saw this meme on TikTok the other day that said people that argue with you over $50 are people that are probably going to be the biggest client struggle.
Speaker 1: 5:13
So again, I want to be very clear that I'm not hating on the contractor that's struggling for cash flow. That's not where I'm coming from. Where I'm coming from is when people don't place any value on the importance of a consistent coach on the marketing side of your business. You know some of you pay more than in that and, just like you know fitness training and nutrition coaching and things like that, and it's the same thing. Like you've got to, you've got to understand what you're getting in that package. You've got to understand what it takes to run the marketing of your company and, honestly, there is a lot of power in a strategy first approach. Some people just start out with well, I got a website, and I'm like fantastic, what's your strategy? Well, what did your digital company tell you their strategy was? I don't know, I don't make my meetings and so I get it.
Speaker 1: 6:03
I want to say this, though, that when you are the first person that wants to balk at pricing, you know there is something to be said for trusting the process. And when you trust the processes, it's not easy, folks. It's not easy to do anything that's worth winning at. You know, it is scary. Sometimes it's trivial, sometimes like how are we going to measure success? I mean, and sometimes I've had to tell people you know you're going to go three months with limited marketing before you're like okay, I'm starting to see this come around, because marketing is a long-term game.
Speaker 1: 6:35
If you're looking for a quick logo design, go look on Fiverr. You're going to get what you pay for, right. But you need something quick, go look there. Limit Seed does not brand people to just give you a logo. We want to help you create a true holistic, total brand, and those things can't be done cheap. We want to do them at expert level, at professional level. So you know I can just get on my soapbox about this.
Speaker 1: 6:58
Guy was so offended that our services were that. But then the next thing out of his mouth but I don't know what to do about my website company and I don't know how to follow all this AI stuff. And I want to do direct mail but my logo is not any good and I don't know what creative messaging to have. And I want to say, yeah, so my team knows all of those things, but you're not willing to trust the process and you're not willing to be risky. A better statement to me would have been you know what? I'm not financially prepared to do that yet, but let me start working on getting financially prepared to do that so I'm not here to again. I've been in your shoes where you don't have a lot of cash, but what my point is here is it's all about making the preparations to be successful.
Speaker 1: 7:41
You know, many of you know how passionate I am about my relationship with Christ and the Lord and I'm a devout Christian. You know my pastor was talking one time about tithing, you know, and like giving giving money to keep the church in operation and giving money to missions and things like that, which we have a very modest church with modest salaries and things like that. We want to give back a lot to our community and to help people come to know the Lord in that situation. But you know, one of the things he said is it's not about tithing right now, it's about preparing to tithe. Are you doing what it takes to prepare yourself, to get ready? So no, january might not be the month where you start, but you know what might start it is come March. You're ready because you are financially preparing for that. So that was one thing I discovered.
Speaker 1: 8:18
The other thing I discovered from contractors at this show well and honestly, from every show is just the straight up. I've already tried that and it didn't work out of things. Well, you know, I thought about rebranding, but I don't think it's going to make that big of a difference. Okay, well, I've already done direct mail. It didn't work. Well then, when I started asking pressing questions, I was like come to find out it's not as clear cut as they thought it was. So the first thing I say is oh, you've tried direct mail? Tell me about that. Yeah, I sent a postcard out one time to about 400 people and nobody called. Yeah, so you have no brand, you have no social media presence, you've done nothing before and you sent one card one time. Yeah, no one called, because no one knows you.
Speaker 1: 9:02
Direct mail performs exponentially better when you are hustling on other aspects, other sides of your marketing plan. That's why it's called a marketing plan. That's why you have advertising tactics plural because it takes a holistic approach to get overall success. And the better you're doing at branding and the better you're putting your name out there, the more your paid tactics are going to perform better. Ask any digital company what would make me perform better is if you had better branding right. So don't get down in the weeds of well, I tried that and it didn't work.
Speaker 1: 9:37
You know, maybe you tried the wrong digital company or the wrong spend, the wrong ad messaging, the wrong graphics, the wrong audience. I mean, there's so many little pieces that could have been wrong that you've got to just go back. You know, marketing is a. It's like a fight that never ends, but you're constantly in there because there are some punches that you really land and there's some punches that you miss, and there's sometimes. You just take it in the jaw. You know, like dang, that sucks. But guys, the people that are winning this game for home services right now are the people that are out there pushing hard. They're not over capital, they're not what do you call it? They're not over invested in other places where they have no money to win and lose.
Speaker 1: 10:19
And those of you that are just starting out that maybe you're listening to the podcast if you want a tried and true strategy like how do I start my business and make money, get on social media because it is free, and talk and talk and talk all the time posting free content and that's how you grow your business and lead aggregators. If you want to just go that route e-local, a&g, all of those things sure go. Make a run at it. You will realize that the quality over the quantity will eventually become more important. But hey, I understand you got to have some money to make money. But this is why I encourage people if you have not started your business right now, please make sure you have money to actually market your business, because when you have to start from scratch, it's just a harder hill to climb. So I just encourage you to plan accordingly for your marketing Plan, accordingly for what you need to spend and then, last but not least the last thing that I want to talk to you guys about, which this one just shows me again that we still have so much room to grow.
Speaker 1: 11:21
I watched a company that really needed to rebrand. I watched them basically give up on themselves because they knew they couldn't get their team on board. They're like I don't know, like I'll never be able to win my team. I'll never be able to. I'll never be able to do this, I'll never be able to do that. And it was so much defeat and they were so jaded and, honestly, what happened when I looked up is they were in their own way. They are in their own way. They are sabotaging themselves because they won't just pull their bootstraps up and go to work. So today's encouragement, guys, is for you to just pull your bootstrap up and go to work.
Speaker 1: 11:57
Trust the process of branding, trust the process of strategy, put strategy before tactics and trust the professionals to really win the day for your marketing strategy. You have time now to kick off a new year or do great things in this next quarter that are creative and on brand and are, slowly but surely, an organized approach to growing your marketing budget and those of you that have a lot of budget. Let's go. Let's get riskier. Let's get braver. Let's start really offering some cool things that make people stand up and pay attention. It's a great day to do that. It's a great time to start it, and I can't wait to see some of you grow.
Speaker 1: 12:39
As most of you know, limit C Marketing is a full service marketing agency that helps you with your strategy. We are your marketing coach. We are not a website company. We do not do any of those things in-house. What we are is a vendor facilitator, organizer and marketing coach. We're here to help you. We're here to get you creative and we can definitely help your home service business grow. I cannot wait to talk to you about branding. If you're interested in a brand, I'm here for you. Call me, talk to me. Let's get something on the books where we can look through what your options are. If you really love us, you know what would help me the most is a good review on our podcast and sharing on our social media. Love you, guys. We hope you're killing it this week. Thanks for sipping some lemonade with me again. I'll see you soon.
