Marketing Trends in 2025 w/Eric Thomas and Sarah Ghirardo
0:00
2025 Marketing Predictions and Trends
4:28
Evolution of Marketing and AI
17:03
Balancing Traditional and Digital Marketing
22:40
Branding Advice for Contractors
What if AI could revolutionize your marketing strategy and boost your customer lifetime value? This episode features the insightful Eric Thomas, founder of Rival Digital, and marketing expert Sarah Ghirardo, as they share their predictions for 2025, exploring the future of AI in marketing for trades like HVAC and plumbing. Together, we discuss the challenges and opportunities AI presents for smaller companies and the importance of maintaining a strong brand, simple website, and effective customer relationship management.
The conversation takes us on a journey through the evolving role of AI tools like ChatGPT, illustrating how they can enhance efficiency and creativity in marketing strategies. But despite the tech-forward focus, we emphasize that the key to success still lies in a customer-centric approach. We share real-world advice for businesses, particularly contractors, on addressing foundational issues like call center performance and customer experience before rushing into AI integration. Our discussion brings to life the story of a contractor who struggled not due to a lack of leads, but because of operational inefficiencies, thus painting a picture of where practical priorities should lie.
In a surprising twist, we also explore the resurgence of traditional marketing and community engagement. As the digital marketing landscape becomes more saturated and costly, the renewed value in joining local chambers of commerce and hosting community events becomes apparent. Through analogies that liken marketing to baking the perfect cake, we underline the necessity of blending brand awareness, call-to-action, and customer cultivation. Plus, we touch on the exciting potential of smart HVAC systems and influencer marketing to enhance customer experience through predictive maintenance and personalized services, showing how these strategies can set contractors apart in the post-COVID era. Join us for an enlightening episode that blends traditional wisdom with futuristic foresight.
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Speaker 1: 0:00
What's up, lemonheads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am excited to be basically kind of live, I guess, from the Roofing Process Conference here in Marco Island. Your view is us. Our view is actually a beautiful ocean, so I'm excited to be here today with the Trademark Podcast. We are going to be talking about all kinds of cool things that are predictions for 2025 marketing, so I can't wait for you to hear this episode. Let's sip some lemonade, all right? So you two dynamic duo make up the trademark podcast, so I'll start with this every time. Why should anyone care what you have to say? So tell me a little bit about yourself and what you've been doing, who you are. I nominate Eric to go first. All right.
Speaker 2: 1:01
Hello listeners, my name is Eric Thomas. I've been on the show before. I can't remember what episode, but it was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: 1:07
Yes, it was.
Speaker 2: 1:08
Way back in the day. Founder and president of Rival Digital, host of the Trademark Podcast, dad, husband, all the good things why they should listen to me I'm not sure that they should, oh well, but it would be really cool. I I feel like I have some pretty decent insights to bring to the table. Been doing marketing in the trades now for about seven and a half years, both kind of client side and the franchise world, and then and then now, you know, with rival digital, supporting HVAC, plumbing, electrical, garage door companies. Yeah, I've got a book coming out in the new year which I'm excited about and which I guess gives you a little credibility for talking and well, we think you're great.
Speaker 1: 1:51
You do great things. We share several clients. You do a great job for them, so thank you. And then the prettiest one at the table, that's at the furthest back part of the table.
Speaker 3: 1:59
Go for it, sarah. So I'm Sarah Gerardo, and I am a marketer in the trades. I have been in the trades for a long time over nine years now marketing over 20 years. Why you should listen to me, I don't know. I like to talk about marketing. I have a weird passion that annoys people, but it's also what I like to talk about marketing. I have a weird passion that annoys people, but it's also what I like to talk about absolutely we.
Speaker 1: 2:30
We did our we.
Speaker 1: 2:31
You know we're talking earlier and we're like we could have just kept talking right um always so I forgot we were recording, yeah yeah, so I uh some of the things that we were talking about earlier that really resonated with me and that's why I said, oh, I gotta get you guys on this podcast is I have a lot of listeners that maybe they're not huge companies like they're smaller companies really trying to get started and the idea behind all of this AI and automated home and smart AC, all of that life, is a little intimidating to them. Yeah, and so you guys were bringing up some great thoughts. So I just wanted to kind of start with and maybe I'll kick this off to Sarah, you know where, what are you? What are we seeing is being predicted in 2025 as far as marketing, just marketing tactics, strategies, things like that. She had a great chat, GPT prompt earlier, but I just want to, I want to kind of get started Like where do you think things are going to go in 2025? You know what?
Speaker 3: 3:25
Like I mean, it's going to be the same thing. You're going to need a brand, right Like you're going to need a strong. I know a girl, yeah, I know a couple of people. You're going to need some sort of website, whether it's AI based or a landing with something simple. Graveldigitalcom yes.
Speaker 1: 3:42
I also know a guy for that.
Speaker 3: 3:47
And you're going to need a CRM or ERP to put your customer information in Right, and if you've already have your customer information, you're going to want to use that to, basically, you know, market to them because those are your cheapest leads and they have the longest customer lifetime value, right. And so that good old, that good old LTV, cltv, yeah, so, um, it's the basics, will always be there, but the difference in 2025 is the innovation part. Right, ai has been here for a very long time, but now we are pushing forward with it at a very rapid pace.
Speaker 1: 4:28
Yeah, it feels like it just came out of nowhere, like in your mind, like you've seen AI. But all of a sudden you're like, oh crap, you know I better start evolving. I call it the blockbuster idea, Like, please don't let me be a blockbuster, you know, we're like you look up and you're like I am totally irrelevant. Yeah, you look up and you're like I am totally irrelevant, especially if you're a marketer and you're listening.
Speaker 3: 4:46
you have to evolve with all of these things Most definitely, and so the role of marketing is just completely changing, and the role of advertising is changing as well, and so the cool thing about it is it's not scary, it's how innovative you can get with it and how you can do your job faster as a marketer, and even if you're wearing 20 different hats like you, can produce things faster with automation, and it helps you become more efficient. Right, that's the goal in business Become more automated, which makes me more efficient.
Speaker 1: 5:22
Well, and access to things that you don't always have access to. So you know, I was thinking about this the other day my kids, I made a joke and I said we don't use your card catalog in your head and my kids were like and I was like y'all don't know what a card catalog is.
Speaker 1: 5:36
I'm sorry I forget that I am 43 years old, um, but you know it goes back to like look how much, like, so much information is like at your fingertips. And so you know honestly, like you want a marketing plan, askchat, gpt, they'll give you one. What most people aren't going to do is go implement it, which you made this statement earlier today. Sarah was like, hey, I will give you the whole plan. Like, let me see, I'll lay out the whole strategy for you. Eric might say this is exactly what I need you to do, and people are going to go. Eh, I don't know. Yeah, because only I forget what number you said, but like, a very small percentage of people actually put something into action. Yes, so in 2025, if anything, just like, do something. Yeah, take action.
Speaker 2: 6:17
Yeah.
Speaker 1: 6:18
So where do you think we're going to go on the digital side? Like that's real scary to people. Yeah, you know I've done all this work building SEO and now like now Alexa, and everybody's got to know my name as well.
Speaker 2: 6:29
Like, how is that going to work? Yeah, just go on chat GPT and just type in home and then chat GPT, since latitude and longitude coordinates for your house. I'm just kidding, that's not.
Speaker 3: 6:36
The drone comes down and you're like no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: 6:38
Yeah, hello, eric, eric, son of Philip. Oh my gosh. I think on the digital side it is scary because there is uncertainty. However, the thing that's constant is that there are human beings that have questions and they need the answer to something. And the goal of search no matter if it's Google or Bing or Yahoo or ChatGPT or Perplexity or YouTube the goal of search is to take someone's query and provide it with the answer, and they find that answer by building up a database, an index of information, and when someone searches that query, they go, search the index and they return a result and they hope that that's the most relevant result. So, really, I think, if your core focus is on running a good operation, doing everything for the customer first, humanizing your brand and just having the customer in mind, and everything you do, from your content marketing to your branding, to your customer experience, ai in the digital world because it's going to take all of those data points from across the web that says lemon seed marketing is a company that does branding and strategy for home services businesses and it's going to tell the person searching it.
Speaker 2: 7:53
Here's what I found. Yes, so I don't think it's as scary as it needs to be. I do think what is more important than for some contractors, what's more important than for some contractors, what's more important than worrying about ai is worrying about your call center, worrying about your brand oh preach. Worrying about your pricing. Uh, like I don't if you're, if your booking rate is lower than 85 percent, like, and especially if you're in like 70 65 percent and like if it's bad and you're over here, like what does ai mean for my business in 2025? Ai means nothing until you get that call center fixed. So I would say, like blocking and tackling has to come first, like the baseline requirements of running a successful business marketing, finance, sales, operations, what until those are figured out, I I wouldn't be worrying too much about AI and your digital advertising.
Speaker 1: 8:47
I have contractors that are like I need to launch e-commerce and I'm like you can't even sell when they call you, when they call you to book a call you're like, oh, I mean, one time I was dealing with a contractor and this was so sad.
Speaker 1: 9:00
He was like man, I'm just not getting any leads. And I was like, yes, you are. Like I see the lead, I see the actual phone calls. Well, come to find out they were only booking like 25% of them. Because he was like, and he was very adamant, well, my team doesn't start my, we don't answer the phone till 9am and I'm like, eh, like negative, and then we take an hour lunch, so from 11 to one, we just let it roll to the answering service and then we closed it for. So I was like, so sorry, you're not wanting to do business and you're certainly not for the homeowner. Like I'm not even home between nine and four, like I have no idea that it ain't working, you know, and so.
Speaker 1: 9:36
but he realized like if you just took the existing leads that you were getting and actually booked them, more revenue yeah.
Speaker 2: 9:46
What I think some ways that folks can use, you know, ai in regards to digital marketing is. I see it all the time where, like, I'll go on a website for a contractor, then I'll go to a Facebook page, I'll go on to, maybe, their Yelp page, I'll go onto their Google business profile, and every single place has a different message. Yes, and it's like, why is that? Well, it's because the the, the flavor of the month when they were setting up their Facebook page was. You know, this was their message.
Speaker 1: 10:19
Their cousin's daughter did the.
Speaker 2: 10:21
Instagram page. Yes, their cousin's daughter did the Instagram page. Uh, their cousin's daughter did the Instagram page. The guy in the basement with Cheeto dust on his fingers made their website.
Speaker 2: 10:29
Oh man, and so there's all these different flavors in their marketing. So something that we've been doing to help folks just maybe not to get a perfect message, but just to get a consistent message is have the otter, the AI note taker, hop onto a Google Meet and just interview the contractor. And the contractor can do this with someone internally. Get on Google Meet, invite Fred from firefliesai, let them record it, sit there and just interview them Like hey, when did you start your business? What's your name? Where are you located? Why did you start your business? What does your family have to say about this? Do they support you? What's your goal in three years? What's your goal in five years? What does your team say when you know, just interviewing on my basic stuff, take the transcription, throw it in the chat GPT and say now, summarize this and provide me with top line messaging for my brand. And usually what it gives you is not a professional brand messaging, but it's at least something that's like consistent, Standardized. It's standardized Lemon.
Speaker 1: 11:29
Seed was born from this. Literally like when my brother called me in 2014 to come back to the family company, he was like I feel like I'm kind of out of control with our message and our brand and I don't know what to do and and I need somebody to come in here and do this, and that's literally how Lemon Seed was was born. Like I don't do websites and things like that, because I know the importance of a consistent message and I don't care what vendors you're using. If you're not a good partner to them and you're not focusing on keeping your brand consistent, you're going to naturally be at a disadvantage for performance.
Speaker 3: 12:04
Yeah Well, I don't think a lot of contractors know to keep their brand consistent, right, like, your message needs to be consistent. Your brand needs to be consistent, like. It needs to show up Like if you're just getting started. That's the easiest way to get into a marketplace is to have a consistent brand, and it's not just in like how you show up as the people you hire, it's the way you go out to calls, and if you have someone in your family answering your phone calls for you, it might be time to think about how AI can answer phone calls for you. Now there are a subset of customers that don't want to deal with AI. There are ways around that. Right, you can have an intro message that says you know, if you don't want to speak to AI, we do have AI to make our time more efficient. But if you don't want to speak to AI, press two. So it's an IVR of letting them know who they can speak to and they have a choice in the operations.
Speaker 1: 12:58
Yeah, yes, that's good.
Speaker 1: 13:14
But, again, it's about being as automated and efficient as you can be, and so when you start a company, it's building that technology stack that really helps you make sense that you're going to use right off the bat. I was sitting on a panel at a manufacturer show and one of the guys was like what do y'all think? So, mind you, I had met all these contractors less than two million dollar contractors, right On average and I was sitting in the room and I thought, man, so many of these guys gave me an email that was like hot dad Eighty nine at AOL dot com.
Speaker 1: 13:39
So I was like we're not ready for e-commerce. We're not even have it.
Speaker 1: 13:42
We don't even have an email you know, so that's one thing that I want to encourage, like everybody that's listening, Like I want to encourage people like you just have to know where you are in the journey. So you can even be a large revenue producing company, but not really ready for e-commerce or these AI integrations, even like smart home style stuff. You really need to get your foundational pieces, which would be brand your online presence, even, I consider, even like social media. Those things are, to me, so foundational. Now, Then you start layering on the cool stuff, but what you do is you set yourself up for failure when you're like you know what. But what you do is you set yourself up for failure when you're like you know what. Let's launch e-commerce where people click and try to buy equipment online and then let me send a guy that is at a 20 percent closing rate. Like it's just a recipe for disaster. You're going to waste money, You're going to waste time and it'll just make you disheartened, you know.
Speaker 3: 14:38
Yeah, and I think, like, if you're going to implement quick ways to the conversion, right, the conversion needs to happen at the speed of search. And the speed of search is changing because there are multiple searches going on Right. There's LLMs that are developing search models, and then there's Google, which is a I'm not going to bore you but basically, like it's speed to lead. And when you think about that, when someone clicks, that's a conversion. That means, like it's going to either go to your call center or they're going to click to take an action. Right, and that click, like, it matters so greatly that you train your operational side of what that means. So, if they're calling to get a person on the phone, then you're going to train a CSR how to do that. If they are clicking to make a purchase online, you are going to train that technician on how to install it and to get out into the home and to keep that conversion alive. Yes. So, yes, e-commerce may not be something that you implement without the training and the system Correct.
Speaker 1: 15:51
A preparation of some sort Right, you know, because I have several contractors that are using like contractor commerce. They're using people like that to sell their memberships and just make it a little easier of a transaction. So I do think the customer experience, the customer journey with our company, is very important that we're not really paying a lot of attention to. So using an AI tool for booking online scheduling programs and things like that, I think really are going to be really important next year. They're already important, but for those of you that haven't launched some of those things, I definitely think there's a good opportunity there. So you know, the other thing that I wanted to chat with you guys about is the local, like local side of things.
Speaker 1: 16:37
Y'all know that's like where my heart is. It's been like Moots on the Ground, girl of Style Marketing. I'm just like really like pounding the streets basically and working with nonprofits and working with chamber of commerces and things like that Shaking hands and kissing babies is what I call it and how important that's going to be, because I think that, naturally, people are going to start considering all of those thoughts, right, all of those interactions. I didn't know what you guys thought about that. Do you feel like that's going to be a trend coming back.
Speaker 2: 17:06
It's crazy that it's even considered a trend. It should be like a baseline requirement to running a business, in my opinion.
Speaker 3: 17:14
Business 101.
Speaker 2: 17:15
Yeah.
Speaker 3: 17:15
Join the chamber of commerce.
Speaker 2: 17:17
It's crazy Get everything out of it. It's crazy and like this is coming from the digital guy like it's crazy that people over pivoted so hard to digital marketing that by joining the chamber of commerce and hosting a community event, you're seen as a disruptor it blew my mind. Yes yes, we see folks like stephanie and david postel crushing it with their community marketing. Everyone's like, oh my god, they are something else, like they're crushing, and it's like, guys, guys, what they're doing, everyone should be doing.
Speaker 1: 17:44
Yes, I mean in 2014, and I know I keep going back to this, I'm like an old person Back in my day, but in 2014, what I did is I knew that there was no home service company, much less a heating and air conditioning company, and I just literally started being active.
Speaker 1: 17:59
I literally took the brand and I put it in front of people, started being active. I literally took the brand and I put it in front of people, whether they liked it or not. I just said, hey, here we are, and we were sponsoring all kinds of things because all I wanted to do was shake hands and kiss babies all the time, because top of mind awareness is how you win that long-term game. Um, so there are short wins, which is where I think the digital piece came in. Is everybody started on this like, oh, you need speed to lead, you need leads, leads, leads, and people got desperate.
Speaker 2: 18:24
Yeah.
Speaker 1: 18:24
And so they just were like okay, and they didn't have the time, energy or finances to support anything other than digital. So then what happened? When their search volume dropped? Everybody was like I don't know what to do with my hands.
Speaker 2: 18:36
Yeah, I don't know what to do. And it got like uber competitive too Like. It got like uber competitive too Like it was at first, digital marketing was like this is half the cost of traditional advertising and there's so much more opportunity out there, like when Facebook ads first started. I mean you could gosh, you could go on Facebook ads and you could boost a post for 50 bucks and make a hundred thousand dollars off of it.
Speaker 1: 19:01
And people still think that works like that.
Speaker 2: 19:02
Yeah, that yeah, well, naturally it just got oversaturated and um and everyone just pivoted so hard from traditional advertising and you know, brand marketing to performance marketing, digital advertising, stuff like that, and um I just go back to.
Speaker 1: 19:17
I use this analogy too all the time like making a cake. So my husband makes a delicious seven-up cake that his grandma taught him to make, his aunt makes it, and this cake is. It's phenomenal. But you know what it's made of, basic stuff. There's no like fancy ganache shot. It is flour, sugar, butter and you know, really, it's all in the baking and all of that. And so I use that all the time, like if you were to say, give me a piece of cake, I'm not going to hand you a scoop of flour. The cake that you want is a combination of the vanilla, the egg, the flour, the meal, all of it, and the 7-Up in his case, and it's a combination of all the ingredients at the right time, baking at the right temperature.
Speaker 2: 20:00
That make that cake good. That's the thing. Also is like the time and the temperature. So many business owners, they'll get all the ingredients and then they'll, instead of putting it in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes, they try to put it in the oven at 1400 degrees for one minute. Yes, and they're like why is my cake burnt? Correct?
Speaker 1: 20:21
Why didn't it cook? I slid it past the oven. Why is it not?
Speaker 2: 20:24
baked this was. I thought this would be quicker if I, if I tripled the, the temperature and I could decrease the time it would be quicker.
Speaker 1: 20:30
But then it gets burnt yes, and I think I think a lot of you know sarah's done this before. You've seen this before. You know it really is a. It's a balancing act, like when you look your marketing team, it is people that are trying to like how do I shift? Where do I shift so that I stay balanced? Marketing is not. I can just I'm like sorry, I'm fixing to get search made.
Speaker 1: 20:51
Marketing is always evolving and so it's a game. You literally have to play the game. Sometimes you really win, sometimes you're like stuck in a rut, but you just have to keep trying and keep being motivated. But it is a balance of brand call to action and existing customer cultivation and I just think we're missing it. So last little thing so, on this whole smart AC stuff that we're seeing Right, what do we think is the best way to approach marketing? That and we talked about this a little bit on y'all's podcast, but I love what you said about the influencer marketing piece, like I thought we had a good conversation around that and I think I think that's great. What do you think homeowners are? How do you think homeowners are going to respond to that new like dollar in my business big brother drama.
Speaker 3: 21:40
Yeah, I mean, like I think, as time goes on, we're always in the homeowner's business, right, like it's predictive maintenance, it's we want to monitor the whole home, yeah, and it's such a win for us as contractors because it's data collection yes, Right, and the more data we collect, the more personalized of an experience the customer can have. So we can say hey Eric, your HVAC system is just running out of control, right, like there's something going on. Let's come out there and check out what's going on. Maybe we need to add a capacitor or like whatever. Yeah, but like customers want that, we just have to teach them what they want, correct.
Speaker 3: 22:24
Correct we have to educate them. We have to educate them. We have to provide value with what we're selling and we're like, hey, we're not here to look inside your home.
Speaker 1: 22:38
We're not here to do that. We're here to provide safety and security for your loved ones. Well, and now, you know, used to people were home more. Right, they were home more. That's what happened during COVID, right, everybody went home. So then they were like, wait a minute, it's hot over here and cool over there, like we got issues, yeah. But now people are back out more and so I don't know. Like I travel a lot, my lot, my kids are always gone. So, knowing that someone was watching, like hey, girl, like your unit's running, um, I find, I find some peace in that.
Speaker 3: 23:06
I think the older demographic. We need to work a little harder to educate them, like would you like to know anymore.
Speaker 1: 23:08
Well, yeah, think about like the widows, right people that don't have a trusted. Maybe their kids don't live near them and so they don't know what's going. There's so many facets like ways that we could go after that that I definitely think it's more about educating the homeowner.
Speaker 1: 23:23
Like you don't even know you need this yeah you know, they don't know what they don't know, right, um, but they do. Like you know, I live in east texas and so a lot of times people are like you know, that's big brother. I don't want people listening to me. I'm like people are listening to you, whether you like it or not yeah you forgot to opt out.
Speaker 3: 23:38
Yeah, you didn't even know that there was an opt out.
Speaker 1: 23:40
Yes, yes yes, we are, we are seeing everything you do everyone blindly accepted the terms and conditions of all these softwares and websites and stuff for two decades and then suddenly we're like hey where's that?
Speaker 2: 23:52
business. Where's that data going? Yes, yes, how doesGPT know the latitude and longitude of my home? I wonder why.
Speaker 1: 24:03
Well, I know that's and it is a little eerie, you know, to people, but I definitely think, going into 2025, it's going to be important to be cognizant, working with your, your digital provider, like are, are you helping me be ready to voice for search? Are you, am I getting there? You contractor, you don't have to know it. You got to have a trusted partner that you know. But also, like, get involved in your communities, start doing local things. Even if it's once a month, you just intentionally do something and then talk about it a little bit, just tell somebody about it and then, on these new innovative things that you feel like are coming out, that might be a little like they make your head spin. I'm like sarah, like just start educating people on what they are, um, and maybe like, give you, put one in your own home, put one in your parents home, things like that. Those that's who your influencers will be your own technicians yes, your own team, yeah, right, so, um.
Speaker 1: 24:51
Last question that I like to ask everyone if you had to give a brand new contractor one piece of advice for marketing and they're probably going to be totally different what would your piece of advice? Brand new contract I'm getting started. What should I do for marketing, eric? You go first Brand, new Brand new.
Speaker 1: 25:10
Yes, like I just started, I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2: 25:13
Invest day one in a good brand, even if that means taking out a line of credit.
Speaker 1: 25:19
Tell the truth. I paid him to say that, but thank you.
Speaker 2: 25:21
I'm dead serious. You can worry about the website later. Make it on Wix at first. You can get a nice website in three years from now.
Speaker 1: 25:27
but it's that big of a game changer.
Speaker 2: 25:30
Buy nice, or buy twice is the way to say it, or buy once, cry once. There's all different things, but you'll end up and I'm only saying this because I made this mistake as well, and hundreds and thousands of contractors have made this mistake is they get started real quick. I need a logo. Next thing, you know, you know I need a van. Next thing, you know I need to get a second van. Next thing you know, I need a third van and some uniforms and a CSR, and they're all wearing this logo and all the different icky iterations of the logo.
Speaker 2: 25:59
And then suddenly you're at five trucks. You know, million, five, 2 million. You're just like maybe my brand's my brand now isn't what I need it to be. And then you invest then. And well, now you got to. There's so much more considerations. You're rewrapping trucks, you're changing your name. You're changing your name, which requires then an SEO company to fix the SEO. Three years or however long of SEO you've had going in some instances, 20 plus years for these contractors you have to get a new website at that point. You have to get a new domain name. You have to change all your online listings. It's messy, super messy when you're five, 10, 15 years down the road to undo all that. So I would just say from day one hire a professional branding agency to help you come up with a name, a tagline, a logo, the colors, van wraps, van wraps, all of it. Even if you don't need the van wrap, get the van wrap designed for something and just your brand story Like, what is your story?
Speaker 1: 26:56
Like, don't take a brand off of a shelf.
Speaker 2: 27:02
Like something and just your brand story. Like what is your story? Like? Don't take a brand off of a shelf. Like, get a custom brand that says who you are, who you want to be. Yeah, well, we made this mistake. You know, when we, when we started rival, we started it and then, like it was like three days before our first day in business, we made a logo on like canva and it was like it was like a spartan helmet and it said rival digital and it was like orange and black, and it wasn't until like a Spartan helmet and it said Rival Digital and it was like orange and black. And it wasn't until like a year and a half down the road I was like, wow, ceo Warrior has the same colors along with the Spartan helmet. So people got us confused with CEO Warrior. We had the same colors as Rhino at the time, so people got us confused with Rhino. So we were like non-existent to the world. We just had like it was just Eric.
Speaker 2: 27:37
It was Eric and then he had this logo that looked like two different companies. And so, you know, two and a half years into it, we had to do like I was like we need to refresh our logo so we can try to stand out. Luckily, we didn't change the name, but we changed the logo and the colors, and that required a huge overhaul. Just online, All of our booth, all of our print materials, all of our swag, everything had to get dumped. And I didn't dump it out, I donated it, uh. But we had to get everything remade and redone and it was a lot more work than it should have been had we just hired a branding agency up front to make us a proper you know uh brand identity.
Speaker 1: 28:12
I love it. I love it. I couldn't agree more so Sarah it's because she's a branding company. Absolutely. Um you don't have to have LLC in your name. That's it, that's it. That's your token right there.
Speaker 3: 28:28
I'm just leaving it at that for small businesses.
Speaker 1: 28:31
I mean, that is true, they, this is what I hear from them, that is true, I hear this all the time. They'll come to me and their name will be like last name mechanical, mechanical, yes, and I'm like okay, so I'm like mechanical, so you work on like all kinds of machinery, and they're like no, I'm like well, that's what this says right, so that's the other thing.
Speaker 3: 28:52
That's the other thing. When you're naming yourself like it's a keyword search, right, so no thing. When you're naming yourself like it's a keyword search right. So, no matter what you're naming yourself like, we are the trademark. Okay, that is a hard trademark search to do, and we spelled it with an. E Okay, wow, we are different, um, but it's a different search, like we could have done a little bit better about what we're doing, um we could have taken the advice that I just ranted about.
Speaker 2: 29:22
Yeah.
Speaker 3: 29:24
Cool name. It's just like we can, we have work to do, but we wanted to get out quick and scale. Well, just like any small business, they want to get out quick and scale and they're like, look, we have this skill. So you can't say, hey, don't be who you are right now, because they're taking action and they're starting.
Speaker 2: 29:41
Yeah.
Speaker 3: 29:41
But you know, having a good brand starting out is the way to go, yeah.
Speaker 2: 29:47
Yeah.
Speaker 3: 29:48
That's what we're saying, absolutely. You can drop your LLC into you know?
Speaker 2: 29:52
Yeah, Don't name yourself I totally respect the ready fire aim approach of like young. I totally respect the ready fire aim approach of like young scrappy startup companies, for sure, yeah. But yeah, it cracks me up about the LLC thing, cause it's like I don't know, for I think for some like small business owners, like that's a flex.
Speaker 3: 30:06
Yeah, like I'm registered.
Speaker 2: 30:09
Thomas mechanical LLC.
Speaker 3: 30:11
And stop using mechanical.
Speaker 1: 30:13
I know I'm like I don't know what it is Me, neither I'm like it's terrible, I don't know what it is Me neither.
Speaker 3: 30:17
I'm like, homeowners don't get it. And HVAC, like I mean, some people know what that is. Roofing that's. I know that that's roofing.
Speaker 1: 30:23
Yeah, Head control. Things like that are a little different.
Speaker 2: 30:32
So yeah, I mean we could All right, yeah, we'll stop, I'll stop there, we'll come back for part two, absolutely.
Speaker 1: 30:36
Well, thank you so much for watching and listening to another episode of from the yellow chair. We would love a review, a share, something hook us up, but thank you for sipping lemonade with us all the way from Marco Island. Have a great day.