Owning Your Community With a Fantastic Brand!
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Marketing and Branding Success Story
12:51
Impactful Branding Success Story
25:12
Comprehensive Marketing and Branding Strategies
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Building a Strong Brand and Culture"
44:42
Building a Strong Brand Strategy
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Lemon Seed Marketing CollaborationStephanie Postel, co-owner and COO of Anchor Heating and Cooling, takes us on an inspiring journey of branding and marketing success. In this episode, we uncover Stephanie's secrets to transforming her company into a thriving business in just three years. From her background in monogramming and embroidery to her experience as a Kappa Delta sorority member, Stephanie brings a unique perspective to the power of branding with pride and consistency. Join us as we explore the importance of establishing a strong brand presence, community involvement, and strategic marketing initiatives that have propelled Anchor Heating and Cooling to new heights.
Discover the keys to strategic branding and pricing from Stephanie's firsthand experience in the plumbing, heating, and air industry. Learn how setting appropriate pricing from the start allowed Stephanie and her partner to invest in branding, creating a cohesive and recognizable company image. We delve into the dual approach needed in marketing, combining continuous brand building with targeted lead generation. Stephanie also shares the power of leveraging social media platforms like TikTok to engage audiences and build a strong community presence. Uncover the impact of a simple yet effective $7 marketing concept that showcases the transformative power of well-planned marketing initiatives.
In this episode, we explore comprehensive marketing strategies and the importance of maintaining a strong brand presence and customer service strategy. Stephanie shares valuable lessons on creating structured marketing campaigns, drawing parallels between organizing children's spaces and developing successful marketing plans. She emphasizes the significance of living a company's mission and vision authentically, and the power of storytelling to build connections with communities. Discover how a clear plan, entrepreneurial spirit, and a willingness to take risks contribute to business growth and differentiation. Join us as we sip some lemonade with Stephanie and dive into the refreshing world of Lemon Seed Marketing.
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Speaker 1: 0:01
What's up, lemonheads? Welcome back to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am sitting down with the none other lady in purple. She's clutching her pearls. So many of you already probably know who is on this episode, from one marketer to another one. I am so excited for this episode. Trust me, you're going to want to have a pen and paper, because we roll ideas off like two crazy people, and so we both love marketing. We're so both super passionate about branding, marketing in general, utilizing your brand and community involvement. So it's sure to be action-packed and filled full of content. So grab your lemonade, settle in. As we discuss all things marketing, let's sip some lemonade.
Speaker 1: 0:55
All right, stephanie is in the house today. Listen, and you guys know like you can probably hear it in my voice. I already know we met up at a service time event recently and had dinner and just. We could have talked for hours upon hours, and so we shut the restaurant down and I got a great dinner out of it. It was so much fun to talk through there. So, on the episode today is Stephanie Postel. She is the co-owner and COO of Anchor Heating and Cooling there in Charleston, south Carolina. So I say this all the time. Stephanie, this is how I start almost all my episodes. Why should anyone listen to what you have to say? Brag on yourself a little bit. Tell us a little story about, kind of, how you guys got where you are today.
Speaker 2: 1:48
Yeah, well, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you and to be able to share a little bit. You know, I normally there's a little bit of backstory as far as the two companies that I was with before David and I started Anchor. But you know what? This, or actually last week, we kind of closed that chapter, which I'm very happy about, and we've been running Anchor Heating and Air for the last three years. Actually, two days ago was our three year anniversary.
Speaker 2: 2:25
So we have been growing this great little company. Our first year we did a little over a million 1.4 million we did 2.8 million last year and we are going to finish up at six and a half million this year. We have, I believe, cemented our place in our community with our marketing, with our give back and all that kind of stuff. And so you know should you listen to us? I don't know, but but I that that I can at least help people that are getting started or are ready to take their company to the next level, and focusing on marketing is so important. So that's what I love and that's what I think we can chat about a lot.
Speaker 1: 3:14
Perfect, absolutely Well. So I always like to start with a good brand. So, in all transparency here, lemon Seed did not do your brand. Stephanie is not a client of Lemon Seed, she just does great things and there's power in great things.
Speaker 1: 3:28
I love this industry for a couple of reasons. Number one I love collaborating with people that are creative on their own and are just gritty marketers, and I just really think Stephanie holds that seat, so I enjoy that. But also I think there's power in understanding, like as vendors any of my vendor friends that are listening to this, like you can, of every 50 contractors that I've talked to probably truly understand the power of brand and start their brand forward. That's my theme for Lemon Seed is brand forward, meaning everything we do is reflective of our brand and our brand story, and I try to do it well for Lemon Seed. I try to do it well for my family's heating and air conditioning and now pest control and roofing companies, because the importance here is that people know who you are and then you naturally will grow the business.
Speaker 1: 4:35
One of the best things you ever said to me is Crystal, we don't even do PPC and I'm like girl, I love it. I love it so kind of tell me how you got where you got, with with your your new look and feel. How did you end up with this pearl and this anchor and all those concepts?
Speaker 2: 4:52
Yeah, well, you know, I think that over time I mean I've owned other businesses I probably really comes from I owned a monogramming and embroidery business for about seven years and obviously that's all about brand right.
Speaker 2: 5:08
So I got to see lots of other people's brand. I put their logos on everything you know t-shirts and hats and all those kinds of things, and. But I think my background really starts from you know your standards and who you are and who you want to show people you are, and I always really tell the story that this all goes back to being in a sorority in college and I was a Kappa Delta at Clemson and one of the things that, of course, they said to us before we got to wear our letters was, when you are wearing your letters meaning that's your brand the Kappa Delta on your shirt you needed to look good. You needed to not look like you just rolled out of bed to go to class. You needed to when you're which I didn't but if you're smoking, you had to sit down. You know you are always a huge representative of the sorority and stuck with me, you know I will say I'm all for.
Speaker 2: 6:17
You know, people being comfortable and all that kind of stuff. What you see here, like this, is always what I look like. I don't care if we're going to work in the yard, I put makeup on. That's just my thing. Because I think if I'm going to the grocery store, what if I see somebody and then they're like, oh, you know, like, look at her. So that's kind of my where that all started.
Speaker 2: 6:42
And when we started Anchor, where that all started, and when we started Anchor, we knew that we were going to have a brand and it would absolutely not be red and blue. So, to be honest, our first brand because, if you know any of our story, we really didn't plan to start our company. When we did, we had about a two-week heads up because we were fired from the company that we had grown and that we're part owners in, and so. But I told David I was like our background was, you know, obviously providing great service, and part of providing great service is looking the part. And so even when we started from, you know, two weeks notice, we had an anchor that was in. Our colors were black and teal, I mean so there.
Speaker 2: 7:36
I actually have. You know, if you go back and look on our old, our first TikToks, our old brand is there. But again, from the beginning, because we wanted to have something different, we wanted to stand out, we had gray t shirts with that logo on it Again, but knowing that the brand would look different when we did actual branding because I did that myself, did that myself. So you know in, like you said, in all honesty, I didn't know you at the time or maybe things would have been different, but we reached out to Dan Antonelli, who did our brand. At that time there was a long waiting list to get in and we drove white trucks that had that brand on a sticker on them for eight months, because I knew the importance of branding and we were not going to wrap trucks, have this, you know, invest in a website, all of that kind of stuff, knowing that our eventual brand was going to be different. And that hurt my heart Don't get me wrong, because I can't stand a white van.
Speaker 2: 8:49
But it was important because when we started that, when we got that actual brand, I knew what a difference that was going to make and so, again, you have to be dedicated to that, because it's hard to not go ahead and just say, well, it just would be easier to have that red and blue or just easier to have something else. I knew that a story had to come from our brand and we were able to tell this whole story when Dan created the brand that he did for us. So that process, of course, and just like you have, of him asking us questions, getting to know who we were and in our brand, everything in it has a meaning, you know. So my pearls I've been wearing pearls since I was 14, every day, like literally you can go back and look at pictures from me when I got those first pearls and they were just I liked them. I wore a necklace every day and it was my pearls. So that obviously had to be part of our brand. I went to Clemson David and I love Clemson football, so there's orange and purple in our colors. Obviously.
Speaker 2: 10:04
You know people think that Anchor is based on us living in Charleston and while that's a great tie in, it's actually because we were in a really scary place when we left that other company and we're jumping into starting our own. And my sister sent me a quote about being anchored in God and I looked at David and I said, here we're going to be anchor heating and air, like that's where the name came from. You know, it's nice that it ties in to being in Charleston and all that, but it's really about about that. So we have that quote actually on a mural in our training room.
Speaker 1: 10:43
Oh, gosh, I love yeah, I just love a story, and so you know I'll be honest, like the stories that you hear are real. And then you, then you look at the graphics, right. So graphics are a very vital part. So please don't get my words twisted here like the way things look, 1,000 percent matters way more, a lot more than people give it credit for. But graphic design teams can do a better job of bringing a real story to life than they can with nothing to work with.
Speaker 1: 11:15
So so many times we get a business and they'll say, well, I don't want to rebrand right now, I don't have the money for it. And I'm like, friend, you don't have the money to not rebrand right now Because there's nothing to work with. So even though my last name is William so it's not even this grand, super interesting last name and so if I was just called Williams Heating and Air Conditioning unless I worked really hard to create a logo that had a mascot or something in it, that name itself it's just another last name. And there's so many last names, so many people are called their last name, and then the service right, it's definitely, definitely an issue, and so I just love anybody that comes to this stage with a story. I love the pearls. I think it's very endearing. I think that people connect with that.
Speaker 1: 12:04
Maybe you didn't have pearls when you were growing up, but you had something that you held on to, so this just gives the consumer there in Charleston, um, very much an idea of who you guys are and what you do. And so tell me this, so you know, I'm assuming, I'm just assuming here. It didn't like you guys had tons of money or like money backing you, backing you up. So when you guys decided to do this rebrand, it was definitely an investment. And then how did you roll it out? Did you do everything at once? Did you streamline things? What was y'all's thought process there?
Speaker 2: 12:37
Yeah, I mean, we didn't have a lot of money getting started. To be honest, we literally had $2,000. So we went and, you know, did that first install and just reinvested the money back into our business. One thing I think it's always fair to say is that you know we did have the benefit of I was an operations manager for a large plumbing, heating and air company and so we knew the level of service that we were gonna provide and we priced ourselves appropriately from the beginning. So I think that is important for people to know is that being priced appropriately it gives you freedom and being able to then plan to brand right so you can make a much better budget when you're not affordable or cheap.
Speaker 1: 13:29
Oh, heating and air or whatever it is Right.
Speaker 2: 13:33
Yeah, it was on our roadmap that we were going to do this branding, so so, yeah, I mean, I think that was what we were looking forward to the whole time. And then when we got the new brand, well then now everything just matched Right and so it took us to that next level. But we really rolled everything out on TikTok. To be honest, that was one of the first places. Of course, once we got all of our logos and all of that stuff, of course, once we got all of our logos and all of that stuff, we changed all of our social media and we're able to then, you know, work with our partner, rival Digital, to create an amazing website. But we actually put, we had already made our choice.
Speaker 2: 14:26
Always tell people that, because do not get too many people to help you decide on your brand. Girls say, yes, I mean work with your brander, like let them tell you you pick, maybe get one opinion from, like, your best best friend or your mom or dad, but you don't need everyone's opinion because everybody doesn't have your story or connection. But once we chose, we actually put our choices on TikTok. We let people see, you know what they thought, which one would be the best. We got great engagement and then, once we announced the one that we chose, of course we had it in the works to have our trucks wrapped and everything, and after that it has just taken off, right. I mean, all of a sudden we had had, we had three trucks at that point, but of course, like I said, they had a sticker on them. And all of a sudden we got those three trucks wrapped and everybody were like oh my God, do you have like 10 trucks?
Speaker 1: 15:19
now, where did y'all come from?
Speaker 2: 15:21
Yeah, we always say we're a, you know, 15 year overnight success. So it just seems like that because all of a sudden when you have that presence and that billboard, it makes all the difference. And then that just catapults you into being able to do the things in the community and of course you know. Then you go into events and having your tent and everything is branded. You know, like you say, you always see my purple, like we are always branding, no matter where we are. In fact I said it was. It was funny. David was just sitting in here and I actually wore a green vest today because it's Christmas, you know, or getting close to the holidays, and I was like, wait a minute, I got to put this purple sweater or a sweatshirt on that I have in my drawer because our brand is so important, like everything has to match. And then people know us they even in Charleston now, when they see us at events, they're like oh, always got the purple on right. So it's a constant reminder of who we are, what people see in the community.
Speaker 1: 16:35
Well, I got to ride in the purple truck, yes, so you know I go, I think through this, and so you know again, so many people just waste an opportunity to understand the importance of this and, like you know, branding is something that it takes a while, Like it took a lot. It took you wearing purple every single day. It took you wearing pearls every single day and it took that name anchor. And, like you know, you guys have very nice uniforms. You know your vans are wrapped. Everything is putting that brand out there. So you know, we interact with our community all the time, with people that are nowhere near even in the consideration phase of needing HVAC services.
Speaker 1: 17:26
Yet and so you're working. You're working years ahead of time, literally on brand impressions, building up that brand awareness with these clients and or with these potential people in your market, and so it doesn't always come to fruition super quickly. So when you see all these people chasing leads like we need leads right now, I get it. I truly do get it. But in marketing there has to be two different buses that you're on. One is this can sit, continue.
Speaker 1: 17:53
I cannot talk this morning continuously continuously drives forward, pushing forward through everything. It just keeps driving. The other one is like a little sports car that you buy for fun and you just start driving around when you want to get leads right. So there has got to be a both of those things running. Unfortunately, a lot of contractors lean heavy one way or the other. They're just like sitting back and they're doing nothing for lead gen and waiting on results. And there's companies that do nothing for branding and they're strictly doing lead gen. They're like I don't know why I'm only getting the tire kickers Right, and I'm like because the science and the thought processes behind marketing are very, very different.
Speaker 2: 18:33
Absolutely.
Speaker 1: 18:34
So another thing that Stephanie, I thought would be great you know, and I'm obsessed with it, I'm jealous, I didn't think of it Is I saw your $7 little I think it was $7 concept, yes, and I was like genius. I told her at lunch or dinner that night with she and David, I said flipping genius, and listen, it takes a lot to impress me with a full genius idea. Dang, this was so good and what I loved about it was it was simple. It incorporated e-commerce. I loved that and it also was very well promoted ahead of time. So this was the trifecta right. This was all. Things were pumping at the right time altogether. And also the success was what I think of success may not be what you and David think of success, but you guys felt it was very successful. I just loved the buzz. If anything, I don't care if you sold one actual certificate. The buzz around it was pretty impactful. So I thought the listeners might just want to hear, like, how you came up with it, what you did, like, how you executed it.
Speaker 2: 19:36
Yeah, definitely, and I love to tell people about it. I just and make sure you know that um, that people know all the pieces and parts. So I actually did work for Contractor Commerce for seven months while we were getting our company up and running, so that was a benefit to me, obviously, just to see the e-commerce side and what it could do for contractors, and so I just wanted to say that part that we've gotten a lot out of that. Not everyone does because they don't brand it and market it properly, but it has been a great thing and it's on our website and all of that. So, that being said, the idea truly.
Speaker 2: 20:19
You know, I like to take all the marketing credit, but this was actually David's idea, because we have a great neighborhood here in Charleston that we do a lot of business in and they have supported us like crazy and so we love to give back to them. And David said we should just market in that neighborhood and we should just give them all free service contracts, them all free service contracts. And I was like, well, that's a good idea, but how are we going to do that, right, how are we going to see some results from that? And so for me. I was like it was in July, I think, and it was Amazon Prime Day was going on or about to go on and I said, well, what if we did Amazon Prime Day? But we did it for Anchor, because we want to make sure that if we're offering this contract to people like, how are they going to sign up, how are they going to get it, how are we going to make it work in our office.
Speaker 2: 21:16
Yeah, so anyway we came up with Anchor Advantage Day and we actually thought about it for a little while and I couldn't get the operational side to work for me, so so we drug our feet a little bit, but then, once we got it, all decided it was going to be one day, and it was one day. It was October 30th. You could get a seven dollar service contract for the whole year. It is our service contract. We did not strip it down or anything. But the only way that you could buy the service contract is to buy it online, because we have very few CSRs and I didn't want to overwhelm them while also having to take on regular calls. So we made it so that it's on our website. They had to go buy it there, and for 24 hours only, and we thought about that. It was close to install time.
Speaker 2: 22:12
Now I don't know about everyone else out there, but my two worst months are November and February. Always it's right before the holidays. November, nobody wants to buy anything. It's a short month. It almost doesn't exist, right. And then February is the same way.
Speaker 2: 22:28
So we did this October 30th and we decided to incorporate an install aspect to it as well, and we decided we were going to give away $2,000 coupons off of an install. But you can't give them away because I needed to know who had them, right? So we decided to sell those for seven dollars as well. And who wouldn't trade seven dollars to get two thousand dollars off of a system? So again, you had to buy that in our store online.
Speaker 2: 23:03
And then that way we knew one who had the service contract, and then we could also reach out to schedule those people who bought a coupon, because otherwise it would just be on your website and anybody and everybody could go download it. But we couldn't track then who had it, so we couldn't market to them. And the other thing is, you know, just to be very honest, we don't want to go in. We we do a little bit of discounting, but we didn't want to go in. We do a little bit of discounting, but we didn't want to go in and give somebody our best deal and then they pull out another $2,000 off. I mean, let's be honest, we're in this business to make money, not to give away systems. That's a hobby not a company right.
Speaker 2: 23:42
So that was our two offers $7 service contract, seven dollars, two thousand dollars off an install 24 hours only.
Speaker 1: 23:52
And we did the I love the urgency, yes, the sense of urgency is very important.
Speaker 2: 23:59
Yes, absolutely. And then to do our marketing, our marketing. So we did three days only on the radio because we had done, we had, we did one commercial that, hey, anchor Advantage Day is coming, you know, find out more on our website. We did an email campaign to all of our customers, we did a text blast and that was it, and those were all things that we already have. So we use Marketing Pro for Service Titan. That's where we sent out our email. We use Chirp for our text messaging, that's where we sent out our text message. And then we did, like I said, three days of radio, um, and then we had a sign on our website, um, a pop-up, and that was all the marketing we did for it, um, and it was a huge success.
Speaker 1: 24:58
Okay. So I want to hit on a couple of things that you said and I want to expand on these things. So, again, this is why I flipping love, stephanie. I love this because do you see how like it was so thought out. So I'm going to back up for a minute. I'm going to give a little story.
Speaker 1: 25:12
So when my kids were like 12 and 13 years old, like so they would have been like 10 and 13, something along those lines I would say go clean your room and they would go in there and they would kind of slap around at it. But then I realized they needed a comprehensive plan. So it overwhelmed them to think about their room, because there was trash, there was clothes, there was clean clothes, there was dirty clothes, and so I came up with this idea. I was like you know, what I'm going to do is say we're cleaning our rooms today, everybody go put your shoes up, everybody go get your dirty clothes, and like they would have to come back to me, and eventually they kind of learned how to curate a process and we struggle with this all the time. Like I see this everywhere. The idea of building out a comprehensive strategy to accomplish a goal is very daunting to a lot of people. So it's very overwhelming to have to think things through, and I've learned that that's actually a skill set of mine and you too, so we live in this same spot of I can conceptualize what I want my end goal to be and then all the steps I have to take to get there.
Speaker 1: 26:14
So I don't know if y'all listened carefully here, but I heard there was a mass media strategy. So that's the new customer acquisition side, that's, you're trying to reach new people. And then you had an in-house marketing plan of how do you reach people multiple touch points between texting and email marketing. And then you had a social media plan, which is also new customer acquisition and branding cultivation. So you had a strategy to get both the new and existing customers to take advantage of this plan. And, guys, I'm going to tell you, there was no fear of spending money. So they had this. It didn't even sound like it cost you a ton of money.
Speaker 2: 26:53
Let me tell you yeah, you want to know that honestly, we, and I should say we ran one Facebook ad for three days. It was $150. My radio was already in my regular budget. So I mean, let's say I spent $200 on that. If you wanted to attribute that there. I mean, let's say I spent $200 on that, if you wanted to attribute that there, I already have marketing pro, that's already included, I already have that's already included. So literally, this whole campaign costs us $300. Like that's it. It was using what we already have, that we were we use, but we were just focused on this and that that truly is all we spent.
Speaker 1: 27:33
Well, and again I say this because I think the important thing here to understand is money was not even the first thing that you thought about about this. You thought, OK, how do we accomplish this? How do we? So another thing how do we capitalize on something that's going on in our environment, like Amazon prime day? Right, so that was something, and this is why marketing is not set it and forget it. So, yes, this prime day come at the same time. Yes, it does.
Speaker 1: 28:00
But really like if you're thinking that you can sit down in October and plan all of 2025 and literally click a button and go, you know what this is going to roll. Perfectly, it will not. It's going to disappoint because it constantly needs, you know, massaging to make it better, and so you know you play off of that. And then also, you had to pick a product that you were confident you can do. So let me tell you, I can already hear contractors. I know what. I would sell that for $7. Well good, you did so, don don't worry, you're not selling it at full price or seven dollars at this point.
Speaker 2: 28:30
So you know that's what I tell people. I'm like, yeah, you get people to call you and then you don't close the deal.
Speaker 1: 28:38
These people weren't going to call you anyway until they heard this deal right so, and I'll tell you another thing that I heard on here and uh, contractor commerce. I will give them a shout out. They they're great with lemon seed. They'll be at our conference coming up at the end of January. They're fantastic. But I want to say this about contractor commerce. It is another example, and you alluded to this early on in the conversation because you knew, you know the direction that I'm going with this.
Speaker 1: 29:07
People will be like it didn't work for me, and so I always say tell me how you were promoting your e-commerce. So you go to these conferences and everybody's pushing e-commerce. It's the wave of the future. And then AI you gotta have all these things going. When really, I look back and I'm like friends most of you guys, including me I have to look at my own business. At times. You including me I have to look at my own business. At times you don't have the foundational things figured out first, and so e-commerce does not just have to be about selling systems. Is your site that's linked to your? Is your e-commerce site that's on your website? Is it branded well and are you using it for things? And then are you actually telling people? I do not think it's a magic little gnome that runs around the Internet for your specific target market, begging for people to choose it. It has to be a part of a marketing strategy, yes, and so it is so impactful.
Speaker 2: 29:58
That's what I say about which I never understood, but I, when I did contractor success for contractor commerce like contractor commerce does not generate leads, like it is absolutely not. I say it's a, it's a, it could be a lead closer, right, it can make something really when, when somebody gets to your website now they have something to do, right, they're going to get a quote, they're going to buy a service contract Like that's the value to me and contractor commerce. It gives you a tool that keeps your marketing accountable right, because now we know if our marketing agency is sending people to our website, what are we getting them to do when they get there? Because I can tell you, read is not a good outcome. I went to your website and I read for 30 minutes all about you, never going to happen, right. But if I go to your website because all of your Facebook, all of your TikTok, all of your social media, all of your email says click here and get a quote, then when I want that and I go there, I'm going to get a quote.
Speaker 2: 31:08
Or if I'm learning about your service contract, which there's so many companies putting out their service contract, service contract this is what I say. We are marketing to people all the time, not only between nine and five, and, to be honest, if I need maintenance at my house, I'm at work from nine to five, so who can I not call when I'm at work? The person that I need to get my service contract from.
Speaker 2: 31:33
But if I deliver that ad, to you or that commercial to you about my service contract and you're a nurse and you see it at two o'clock in the morning because you work an overnight shift, and then you can click on the button and go buy the service contract right then, and then I call or text you tomorrow. Now we've completed the sale. You will never be able to do that if somebody has to call you. I've said this a million times I needed to go to the dentist. I was like three months past going to get my teeth cleaned because I couldn't remember until six o'clock at night to call my dentist and my teeth cleaned because I couldn't remember until six o'clock at night to call my dentist and make an appointment and I couldn't do it after. I had to do it when they were open. Thank God they've changed that now. Right, but, but that's where we limit the people that we are marketing to. We're like we're only only call us and buy a service contract. How stupid is that?
Speaker 1: 32:28
right. Well, we are 100% and we are so, like again, the customer journey. Guys, marketing is deep. It is much deeper than like well, I have the right PPC company and my website looks good.
Speaker 1: 32:41
It is so much deeper and I just feel like we miss it so many times we miss it. But you know, the customer journey. What you're talking about here reminds me of like every interaction with your company, like how many of you have ever gone to a store. So here's another good example. You know my son and I, so my 15 year old as of yesterday, my 15 year old and I go to checkout at a store that has self checkout. So we're scanning the items and all of a sudden it says alert on the screen that pops up, that stop scanning. And the guy walks over.
Speaker 1: 33:13
The young kid walks over to us checking out and he says, yeah, the camera system thinks y'all are stealing stuff. Well, you know me. I was like excuse me, right, excuse me first of all, sir, if I'm gonna steal something, it won't be this six dollar bag of talkies chips for my 15 year old. But I was like like, uh, okay. And the guy was like yeah, so I don't know like how many items do y'all have over there? And it was so flippant. But I was so offended and I was like I'm offended because I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong and it was like very, I felt like we were making a scene you, my customer, if we're not careful. Our flippant attitude towards like oh yeah, sorry we didn't answer, sorry, we don't answer chat, sorry, you commented and we didn't answer.
Speaker 1: 33:57
On social media, we appear that we don't care about that business and I think it limits every single lead and every single client. We are grateful, we are grateful, we are appreciative and we're going to do our very best. Whether they are $5 company or $500 million company, we are going to treat everyone with due diligence, respect and timeliness and all of those things, and I just think people see it. When you're trying to protect your brand, that includes being available where they are. It includes a solid CSR strategy. It includes our vans, our tech, our team looking good, our messaging looking good and guys, some of you need to protect that like your family shield, because we're just we're too loose A lot.
Speaker 2: 34:43
Absolutely, but like that, that was a great opportunity in this campaign, though, because that's why I had to think through the e-commerce side of it, because I didn't want these people that were reaching out to us we couldn't answer the phone that day, so I would have overwhelmed our CSRs and not provided this service to somebody who may have been new to us, right. And here's the other thing I love the new customers that we got and I'll tell you the results in a second but it's really also to our current customers, because why do we forget that those people have multiple systems, or they have mothers and fathers and grandparents and neighbors that need systems, right? So definitely, this. This campaign was certainly about the new customer, but we also offered this to our current customers because existing members existing members can renew 100 percent.
Speaker 2: 35:43
They could renew, extend their contract, or it could be for new. They could renew, extend their contract or it could be for new. And that was a huge thing. Just to say listen, pay attention to our marketing, because you never know what we're going to offer, right? Because half the time existing people might be like, oh God, I got another email. Well, hey, if you miss this one, because that would have saved you. I mean, if you paid 195 last year, now you're paying seven. Okay, I mean, that's a good deal. So you, you, I mean, if you paid one, ninety five last year, now you're paying seven. Ok, I mean, that's, that's a good deal. So, so you know.
Speaker 2: 36:13
I mean, I think those are the kinds of things where I don't care. I want you to stay customers of mine forever. That's the whole point. If I can pay, you can pay me seven dollars to do that, $7 to do that. I can't tell you how many more customers I don't have to go spend $600 on to come in the door because I'm retaining the people that I have currently. And then you're happy with me if you're extending or renewing.
Speaker 2: 36:37
So I know you're going to tell somebody the next time. They need somebody, right? So that's just the thought process we're so worried like to your point about. You know you're driving around that sports car beeping through everybody's neighborhood right now. Well, you should have been driving the van around six months ago saying it doesn't matter when you come on, just remember who we are when you need us, right?
Speaker 2: 37:01
I just think that I get reached out to at this time of the year, like what are you doing to get leads coming in? What do you mean? I planned that six months ago, right? Or I had at least a strategy. I thought November's bad, here's what we're going to do. And, to be honest, we had another strategy. You know, past that day we had a nut. We sent out a great direct mail piece that followed up Anchor Advantage Day, but it didn't have the same offer on it because Anchor Advantage Day, but it didn't have the same offer on it because Anchor Advantage was special and you only could get that that day. But that's the thing, like, you have to have that follow up that goes along with it.
Speaker 1: 37:40
So, anyway, I love it.
Speaker 2: 37:44
Yeah, one day, only 180 interactions. Yeah, one day, only 180 interactions. So we sold 169 service contracts that were either extended, renewed or new. Actually, 37 new customers out of that brand new to anchor Anchor, eleven two thousand dollar contract or eleven two thousand dollar coupons were sold and in as a direct result from Anchor Advantage Day, it was over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in in new business.
Speaker 1: 38:23
For me, yes, yeah. So I'm telling you like, from this great, just brainstorming idea, and you know, guys, like I tell you like marketing can be fun without being like this stressor that just wears you out, you know. So just encouragement of thinking through your brand and then carrying that brand, messaging through your offers, which then leads right into great company culture and things like that. And I know that Stephanie is passionate about company culture as well. And you know, I'm telling you, I know this steps on toes, but I have talked to contractors that have been at $2 million for 15 years, yeah, and they're like I don't know why, it's my website company, it's my. And I'm like, no, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: 39:06
You want to see movers and shakers. If marketers are taking credit for it, they shouldn't be in this grand scheme of things, because marketing is just in an arsenal. What operators you need? An operator, you need someone with an entrepreneurial spirit, like, yes, I mean david, david paul still might be the best technician and sales guy that ever walked over in toronto, south carolina, but you know what? Evidently the two of y'all together are rockstar operators and that is where you see companies that are moving and growing and shaking and they just pass everybody else. And literally the people that are left in the dust are like well, what are? What are they doing different? They must have private equity money. No, they don't. They just have a plan and they're not scared.
Speaker 2: 39:51
Yeah, absolutely what if that failed? Like what you know? What if we didn't sell anything that day, you know? But, but okay, if we didn't, then we'll just back up and do something else, right? I mean, I think that's the whole thing. That branding is like I love it, but it you have to have a story about what you are doing and why you're doing it, right? I mean, like I'm passionate about this place, not because I get to make a lot of money, but because all my people do Right.
Speaker 2: 40:24
I'm my David and I say all the time like our, the, our measure for success is going to be about what the people that work here do not want, what we do, right, and I believe that. So if that's not what you believe, figure out what you believe. If it truly is like you just want to make more money, ok, I think you'll be successful. I don't think you'll be wildly successful because it's only your vision. It's that that's not a mission. And I can tell you that people now I don't care how old they are, you don't, you can't tell me it's 20 year olds or 30 year olds or 40 year olds People want to be connected to a mission and the mission is not conditioning, it just isn't. The mission is serving. It is doing great things for people. Now, the heating and air conditioning is the vehicle Right. When we do more heating and air conditioning work, we have more other stuff that we get to do, and that success has turned into us being able to give back to our community, and I mean donations and support and all of that stuff. And then I can connect that to what my people are passionate about, whether it's a military donation or it's somebody with cancer, or it's a kid's little league or whatever that is. Now I can say, listen, when we do this good, then we have this that we can do even better. And so then, once they're coming to me now and saying, hey, I want us to do this charity and I'm going to lead it, okay, right, I mean, that's all that I can look at and say, well, that makes me successful. Now, right, because I could lead us through wanting to be a service-based company and serving. But when they have jumped on that now that makes a huge difference and you will see people perform better because they know what the end goal is. And to me, that's the internal branding that has to be done.
Speaker 2: 42:33
I think we do a terrible job as contractors of saying we're going to do this on the first day, like we're mission vision, blah, blah, blah on your first day of onboarding, and then we never talk about it again. And then you're like I don't know why all these people can't show up on time. Well, because you're not a great boss, because you are not constantly reinforcing why we're coming to work to do what we're doing, right, and then if you promise something you got to do, I think you're muted. Then we have to promise to do things and we have to do them. And that's the same thing, I know. You know you said something about our pro promise, but some of that is also connected, like that's an external promise, but there's a part of that that's also an internal promise and that if David and I say we're going to do something like we've been talking about this 401k all year, that we are going to, we are going to be able to provide a 401k for everybody, well, guess what starts at the beginning of the year 401k, right, like those kinds of things.
Speaker 2: 43:40
You know, it's great to do our external branding, but if your people inside aren't on the mission, you're not going to be. It doesn't matter what you do outside, right, they're not happy, they're not staying there. You got all this turnover. The greatest compliment I got very recently and I've gotten it more than once is how do you and David always find the best people? I like, I agree, like you know, but you, you know what? I think that we have shown them the mission over and over and over again. We, we carry out the mission. And then they tell their friends hey, this is the real deal over here, like they do what they say they're gonna do, like we're spoiled, we get really taken care of. And and I would say to them you're not spoiled, this is what comes with doing a really great job. And so you know, while that may look like spoiled, ok, that's good. If that's what you want to be, I'm happy. Well, you got to live it Right.
Speaker 1: 44:42
So you have to live your mission, vision and core values. You have to live out the things. You have to talk about them. It has to really be in their face that you are constantly expecting them to. You know, reflect what you're putting out into the market. So there's nothing, nothing worse than selling something that you can't deliver on. And so you know, when we're putting all these cool ideas out there and then we are not ready to delivery, like that becomes an issue. And so just making sure that we, you know we are doing everything we can do. Well, stephanie, I know you've given so many fun thoughts and ideas here. If someone and I know you love like coaching, you love to be a good supporter. So if someone was like, oh my gosh, I love her, how do I talk with her? What's the best way for them to reach out to you?
Speaker 2: 45:19
Yeah, I mean, well, of course I'm on social media, um, but of course, uh, you can um reach out to me by email, which is spostell at anchorheatingandaircom. I'm happy for you to send me an email, send me a private message on Facebook. I'm, you know, marketers, as good marketers always are. I'm on Facebook, you know, making sure that we are getting to everybody. So, yeah, I mean, please feel free to reach out.
Speaker 2: 45:48
I love, I love people that are passionate about what they're doing, but maybe they just don't have the tools. It's always helpful, I think, to hear it from another contractor uh, I like the, uh, crystal, you do an amazing job. I think there's always going to be a gap between what you can tell somebody to do and then another contractor who's like, listen, if you're, if you're changing marketing companies every year, it's you, not them, and so I can say that to somebody right, like I can say I know they're only a partner to me, and so if you're going to do what you say you're going to do, you'll have results, and I'm happy to help those people do what you say you're going to do, you'll have results, and I'm happy to help those people. I always say I tell myself I make a thousand dollars an hour. So if I spend time with you, you better go do something that I tell you to do, implement something, because I think we do get so many like everybody's got all the ideas and y'all take in the ideas, but then you don't go do anything. You've got to make a plan on how you are going to make something happen, because it's not magic. It absolutely is not magic, and sometimes you need help.
Speaker 2: 46:57
You know, marketing is my deal. I love it. It's not David's deal, right? So David is great at putting in air conditioners and he's great at being with people, but if we didn't have each other, we would never have been able to tell anybody how great a job we do. So I think there's your own cheerleader 100 percent, 100 percent. Well, I just there's a lot of times too are afraid to tell everybody what we're doing because we see it as promotion or whatever. Listen, the community needs to see you doing great things, and so if you're not telling people that you're doing great things and giving back, sure, do you get some promotion out of it? Absolutely, but people can see insincerity a mile away too, and so I think they understand that, yeah, we're getting some marketing out of it, but at the same time it might encourage somebody else to do the same thing.
Speaker 1: 47:57
Great. The whole community, yes, and there's power in learning from those that are doing things differently than you. So it isn't that if you go talk to Stephanie or you talk to any other contractor and they give you these ideas of what's working for them, it's about taking that data and or that information, those ideas, the collaboration, and then manipulating that to fit like, okay, how can I take a lot of this and push it so people get stirred up about this? People are, like your company's, not any different than any other company yes, they are. Every single company is very different, but the basic principles of marketing and branding, those things are the same.
Speaker 1: 48:35
So you still have to take the foundational principles of marketing and branding and apply them to, yes, your company look, feel and all those good pieces. And so it's about learning from others and being exposed to others so that you can, in turn, apply that to your business and your brand and your business makeup. So you know, it's about like learning from others and being exposed to others so that you can, in turn, apply that to your business and your brand and your business makeup so that you can continue to have an even better brand building experience and marketing experience for your company, and so well, Stephanie. What is one piece of advice you would give a new? I already feel like I know it, but you know someone's brand new less than a million dollars. They're ready to get started. What is the one thing you would tell them to do?
Speaker 2: 49:14
Well beyond get ready to get branded, that is, of course, the most important. A couple of things, because I can never answer just one Create your story. You know I tell people all the time everybody has a story and it doesn't have to be. You know, I tell people all the time everybody has a story and it doesn't have to be. You know, I trudged through the snow when I was 13 and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2: 49:36
It may not also be that your family has always been in HVAC or they've always been in the trades. Whatever it is. You have to create some story around what's going on, and so take the time to think about who you are and who you want to put out there. I think those things for me, because that gives you so much then to be able to talk other people into getting behind your brand right when you get out in the community. Like, if you know who you are, then you can help other people see who you are, who you want to be, and then they can get in with you and get to work on building a company. So obviously I think branding is huge. Other than that, get on social media.
Speaker 2: 50:25
You have got to be out there you have got to be out there, you have got to be putting yourself consistently out there video, video, video, um, you know, and doing the little things um that you're able to do to share that story.
Speaker 1: 50:37
So absolutely, and again, it's just things that people sleep on. You know, if you're sitting back and you're just constantly worried about your digital presence, that's probably the first problem. It's definitely a key piece.
Speaker 2: 50:50
It is absolutely. But that's the whole thing is. I know I've spent less on that side of it because I have a great brand, and then when I go and pick up new pieces, those pieces are even more successful. We have not done direct mail, we just started direct mail. In November we sold another 150. It's more now, probably about 150,000, based on that first direct mail piece. We never would have been able to have that success if we hadn't laid our brand strategy down first.
Speaker 2: 51:28
So another company would say, oh, direct mail doesn't work. Well, yeah, red and blue does not work. You're exactly right. So if you're going out there and you are in your mailbox and you look like every other company that's out there, that doesn't work. But if you've laid down your different colors and who you are and your mascot or whatever you choose, then when you pick up new pieces like that, all of a sudden somebody is like oh yeah, I heard them on the radio, saw them on Facebook, blah, blah, blah. And then now that is more meaningful to them. So I just can't tell you, I know our budget. Always if I show somebody our budget for marketing, they would go like Google's, your where you spend all your money? It is not, it Absolutely Not, and that's a whole nother, whole nother podcast. But still it's yes, I spend money.
Speaker 1: 52:23
Well, and again, it's just a plan. You have a plan and you have a brand, so automatically you're well ahead of most contractors. Well, guys, if you can't tell, we could talk about this forever. So we probably can start a series called things you're probably doing wrong in marketing, and I know we might sound a little. I know we might sound a little like we know what we're talking about here, but we see it.
Speaker 1: 52:49
Stephanie lives it every day. I see it every day with contractors that just don't get branding and they get in their own way. So much Like sometimes you have to look and see that you might be the issue, but the good news is there's great programs out there, great support groups, business coaching groups, companies like let me see, that can really help contractors. And so, guys, thank you for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I was so lucky to have Stephanie all the way from Charleston, south Carolina, here in our virtual lemonade stand today. We love talking about marketing. If Lemon Seed Marketing can help you with any of your marketing strategy or branding, we would love to chat. Friends and family talk free. Visit us online at lemonseedmarketingcom and until we see you next time, don't forget to sip some lemonade.
