From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Funnel Vision: How to Turn Your Marketing Into Momentum
Think your Google rankings are all that matter? Think again. In this eye-opening conversation, marketing strategist Jonathan Bannister challenges everything contractors believe about digital marketing with his provocatively titled new book, "F*** Digital Marketing: Why Building a Memorable Brand Matters More Than Rankings."
Bannister takes us on his unlikely journey from police officer to marketing expert, revealing how a desperate career pivot in 2014 led him to discover hard truths about what actually drives success for home service contractors. Through candid stories of working with HVAC and plumbing companies across the country, he exposes a fundamental problem: contractors are fighting over the mere 3-5% of homeowners actively seeking services while completely ignoring the other 95%.
The podcast uncovers what Bannister calls "The Great Reset" – a seismic shift in how consumers find and choose service providers. As Google's monopoly fades and AI platforms rise, contractors clinging to outdated digital marketing strategies face extinction. Bannister predicts that within three years, 98% of website traffic won't be human as consumers simply ask AI assistants to find and book services for them. In this new landscape, being the most recognized brand trumps having perfect SEO.
Perhaps most compelling is Bannister's story about a contractor who rebranded a 97-year-old company without proper strategy, resulting in a devastating 50% revenue loss. It illustrates his central argument: "No one can do amazing, perfect PPC with a weak, pathetic, unrecognizable brand." Through real-world examples, he demonstrates how contractors with strong brands consistently outperform competitors in digital results, even with less digital presence.
Want to position your contracting business for long-term success? Discover why building a memorable brand through authentic storytelling, community engagement, and traditional media might be your most important marketing investment. The future belongs to companies homeowners ask for by name.
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From the Yellow Chair is powered by Lemon Seed, a marketing strategy and branding company for the trades. Lemon Seed specializes in rebrands, creating unique, comprehensive, organized marketing plans, social media, and graphic design. Learn more at www.LemonSeedMarketing.com
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We'll see you next time, Lemon Heads!
all right, what's up, lemonheads? Welcome to another episode of from the yellow chair. Today, I've got someone in the chair who's really not afraid to ruffle any feathers and honestly, I kind of love that around here, right? So joining me today is actually Jonathan Bannister, the marketing strategist, video expert, one of my favorite people to talk shop with. But now he's the author of this brand new book, and I had a little sneak peek when I saw you at a show, but it's called F with the little words there digital marketing. So, yes, you heard that right, very bold, aggressive title for his book.
Speaker 1:We're going to talk about why he picked that and, most importantly, what message he's trying to send to contractors who are tired of wasting money on tactics that don't work. Listen, he and I have a whole trauma bond over contractors that do not have a good brand but want all their marketing to work exponentially better, and so Jonathan and I are going to break this down. We're going to talk through why contractors are making this huge mistake when it comes to marketing. So grab some lemonade. This is going to be a good mix of spicy and sweet, so let's sip some lemonade. All right, jonathan. So here's the funny thing Before I get started most of the time I ask everybody why should anyone care what you have to say? Tell us where you come from, how you manage this HVAC contractor plumbing contractor life. This HVAC contractor plumbing contractor life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so thank you for having me here, crystal. I love the trauma bond connection that you make there, because it's true. You know, I mean that was some good wording. Yeah, so my background is why you should listen to me. It's like I've got no digital marketing or marketing degrees or anything behind my name. In 2014, I was a police officer and have a criminal justice degree and I really thought that I was going to be a federal cop the rest of my life and that was the journey I was on. And then one day I woke up and I was caught up in the small town politics and my wife and I just had a baby and she's eight months pregnant. Again, we went in for a doctor's visit to our youngest to have a checkup on the baby, and the doctor walks in nonchalant and he's like you know, you're pregnant, right? And I was like no, we're here for this baby. I think you're in the wrong room. And so, yeah, we had three babies in three years.
Speaker 2:So when I got caught up in the small town politics. I just had to really do some deep reflection and say, like, is this really what I want to do the rest of my life? And then so the marketing thing just just happened. Like one day I called a buddy of mine. I was at the doctor's office. I said I'm about to leave law enforcement and I'm going to go do something else. Are you working on anything? He said, yeah, I'm actually building mobile apps. This is 2014, 15. And he says I'm building mobile apps. I was going to see if you help me sell them. And so I started going around selling these mobile apps to the business owners that I'd always played poker with or played golf with and had these relationships with these business guys. And so I started selling apps and I was really, really successful at it.
Speaker 2:And then what happened is I started going to some places. They go Jonathan, I'll buy an app, but can you help me with my website? You got to spread your fingers to make it fit the phone. I was like, yeah, we'll figure that out. Sure, I didn't know. It meant mobile compatible. And then I went to another place a restaurant one time Crystal and it was a seafood restaurant. I'd played poker with this guy for many years and I said, hey, scott, will you buy an app? He goes yeah, I'll buy an app. And he goes, hey, jonathan. And he caught me right before I was walking out the door. He said hey, jonathan, but let me ask you, can you help me with my SEO? My SEO is shit. And I said yes, scott, we can help you. I went to my car crystal and I Googled what is SEO Because I had no clue what it was. So I know this doesn't help.
Speaker 1:But you figured it out.
Speaker 2:Oh, I figured it out. I obsessed over how to find the right people that can move the needle and get the job done for people. And so, because I always felt like I was against these people that had these marketing degrees or had been in it very, you know, longer than me, I just I studied harder and I grinded harder and uh, over the last 10 years now 11 years, you know we've been working with contractors this whole entire time and I've heard their pain points, I've heard their frustrations and uh answered I mean, we've gone out and figured out how to do it.
Speaker 1:Well, sometimes you'll take like I'll take on the job experience over educational experience or a combination, because I want people to like back their hands dirty.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Theory versus practicality is a big thing. So, like, listen, I live on the contractor side of life and the vendor side, and so there's so many broken promises to contractors from vendors. And listen, it's a sales tactic, it's a sales pitch. You're trying your best to, you know, promise things and you try to deliver the vendor and sometimes you just don't nail it right, you just can't nail it and so you get caught up in that fire and so it's definitely, definitely will kick things into a different stratosphere of knowledge when you've had to, like, work down in the in the hard parts and figure it out for yourself. So I kind of admire the hustle, for sure I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I remember being in East Texas off of Interstate 20, somewhere East Texas, a carrier rep brought me in to meet this contract. I built my relationships off of the manufacturer side. So we've been with Carrier, we've been with Lenox, we've been with Carrier, we've been with Linux, we've been with York, and so I've always enjoyed getting to know the TMs and building the relationships that way. And I went riding with a couple of TMs all through Central and East Texas and I go to this one place and it was like a brand new shop but it was built out like a Western theme, but it was. It was a fancy, fancy office. And I get brought into the owner's office and, uh, we're sitting there at this little desk inside of his office not his main desk and then he walks in cowboy hat, his cowboy boots.
Speaker 2:Man, he was just like this super intimidating guy and I remember that when I started talking to him about what we did, when his response back I could tell that he knew more about what I was talking about than I did. And I just remember how uncomfortable that feeling was and those learning it. You know, those learning experiences were always super impactful to me because I've left his office and you know, I didn't make an ass of myself, but I just felt like I've got a lot to learn, you know, and this was probably 2016. And I just remember going. I will never let that happen again. I will make sure that, no matter what who I'm speaking to and I'm trying to earn their business, I will make sure that I know more than they do, at least so I can intelligently present our services to them. So it was just little things like that. I didn't know it all, but I had to go out and figure it out.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's the same thing. Like you know, there is something to be said. Yesterday I was talking to someone and they were like you know, we have this branding strategy, but they just don't know our industry. And so, and they're not willing to learn our industry. They were, like we've told them numerous times, like we're in Louisiana, we do not ever in our in one history day need a humidifier. Stop Stop trying to do humidifier things. We don't need humidifiers buyers. And so there is something to be said about again contractors that know the trades, that work hard to know the trades and that communicate well with people to learn and just get to know who they're servicing. It's definitely important. So, okay, well, let's jump into this a little bit about this book what kind of inspired you? And and then that name, you know, we knew it was going to make waves. So, you know, shout out kudos to the marketing game there. But what made you go all in with that name? Like, what message are you trying to really get contractors to take away?
Speaker 2:You know, I, I think it's. It's been a couple different things, but like the combination of it all is what made the the name come to be. I believe like I had a dream. I felt like it was a dream. I felt like I went to sleep two nights in a row and I was upset with some client situations. I saw this book, I saw the cover, I saw the name of it. I woke up. It was like really, really heavy on my heart that I needed to get this message out.
Speaker 2:But about it's probably been about three years ago now I, um, I, I, I had the opportunity to to get connected with, uh, ryan shoot and the guys over at Roy Williams and the guys over at wizard of ads. And it was because one of my clients, who is one of our most important clients, been with me five years now We've become personal friends. His name's Dylan Rucker. He owns All Heart Heating and Cooling out of Southern California. And Dylan calls me and he goes hey, I'm going to do a meeting with these Wizard of Ads guys and I'd like for you to be on the call. And I just remember having this gut-wrenching reaction because I didn't know who they were, crystal. So all I heard was Wizard of Ads. And I was like, well man, what are we doing wrong with the ads for you if you're now bringing in this company called Wizard of Ads to do your paid ads? And so I get on the call and then I hear them talking about branding stuff and, like you know, coming up with some concepts, and I was like, oh man, this has nothing to do with me. I was like, okay, whatever, just do the call.
Speaker 2:And then about two or three weeks later, the client of mine says hey, jonathan, we're going to move forward with Wizard of Ads. We're going to move forward with Wizard of Ads. We're going to start off doing about $30,000 to $40,000 a month on radio. And I remember my response to him was have you lost your effing mind? And when I told Ryan to shoot, that he goes, you got to put that part in the book. You have to tell that story, because that was the pivotal moment.
Speaker 2:The change for me was I really meant that that's who I was. I said have you lost your mind? And he goes, what are you talking about? And I said you're going to take $30,000 to $40,000 and you're not going to be able to tie one single attribution return on investment. You're not going to be able to prove any kind of ROI at all from that investment. But if you gave me the $30,000 or $40,000, I would go put it in YouTube and TikTok and Google Display ads right now and we would be able to show you quantifiably, show you return on investment. And that's who I was, and because I didn't see it yet.
Speaker 2:But once I did see it and over the next couple years I learned about branding. I learned and saw that my clients who had a strong brand, they kept winning their, their ads. We were running their ads the same way. We were telling the same stories as far as SEO and Google maps and getting the results. But the ones who had a strong brand kept winning. Everything was easier. Crystal kept winning. Everything was easier. Crystal the ads converted, her lead was lower and I was like why, why is this? Like this client only comes up on LSA and Google maps and they're getting 10 X return compared to my client that we had them on SEO, google maps, ppc and LSA. So we had one that was coming up in all four places, one only coming up in two. But the one that came up in two had a stronger brand and kept winning and I was like I just started seeing it and then I kept talking to.
Speaker 2:I was lucky enough to get to go down to the Wizard of Ads facility a few times in Austin and I got to hear some of those guys talk about branding and when you really pull at the emotional strings and you can make an emotional reaction and turn into an actual chemical change in the brain from laugh, cry or anger, then that's what sticks. And now I know that if you don't have brand equity with that customer, you have none. Let's say you've touched them zero to five times. In my opinion they don't know your brand. So in the fight or flight moment you're sitting outside today, a little sticky, it's hot. If you would have woke up this morning your home was 84 degrees inside because it's almost 100 outside, then you would have been in this place like almost a fight or flight.
Speaker 2:Oh, I got to go to work, my kids are going to be home and so in that place, if you don't have brand equity domination with that customer, they're not kicking up their phone and going call ABC Plumbing. No, they're going plumber near me or find me the best plumber if they're using an AI software. And when that happens, crystal, I know that the human brain is looking for nothing, because if they were looking for a particular company, they would have typed in that particular company, right, when they don't know who they're looking for. When that list comes up, if it's Google, there's 20 to 23 options. If it's on ChatGPT, they're going to give them three or four different solutions. But when they see something a name, a logo, a color, a family photo of the dogs and the cats and the kids, whatever they see, they go oh, I remember that company, I've seen their ads, I've seen their billboard, I've seen their direct mail car the brain will just gravitate to what is familiar to them.
Speaker 1:You know what I use this. I use this analogy sometimes when you're new to something right, new to a new group, new to you know, let's use like. Let's say, you start networking, like with your local chamber Right, um, if you're brand new and you walk in the room, the first thing you're doing is scanning the room. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Right, you're standing in the room to see Is there anybody in here that I know? Is there anybody in here that I recognize? Yeah, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to gravitate towards that person because it's familiar in a scary space. It's just the same thing when homeowners are searching for who they're going to utilize as a service partner for their home. They're opening up their home, they're opening up their pocketbook, and so they're literally searching for someone that they know in a crowded room, in a crowded space, who is someone that I know, and so I tell contractors all the time I use this analogy of two plus two equals five.
Speaker 1:So independently, things are really hard to manage one-to-one correspondence, right, but it's the collection of all, it's the sum of all of your efforts in marketing, the branding, the community. So branding is a broad term, but it's mass media style things that are just intended to build logo recognition, brand recognition If you're doing social media that's active and engaging. If you're out in your community I call it shaking hands, kissing babies, petting dogs If you're doing all those things and you have a good website that has good SEO, a direct mail strategy, all these different things, it's all of those things added together. So that's why you have to look to me. You really have to look at marketing as a whole. I spend a lot of time coaching contractors. Like man, you know what you're doing. You're inside of your service titan dashboard and you're looking at every tracking phone number and you're just minutely picking it apart when, instead of saying, ok, we spent 10 percent of marketing this year, and look at all of our new customer acquisition. So if you start looking at it more as a whole, you're going to realize where your holes H-O-L-E-S are my East Texan comes out sometimes the whole thing. But you'll start being able to realize like okay, I've got a lot of brand exposure, but no one maybe is converting on the click, so maybe I've got a conversion issue versus man.
Speaker 1:I'm in a dogfight To me and you can disagree, so I hope you do. Or have a different opinion. People that call me that I'm doing ppc and I'm like I think a ppc is like an mma match. Everybody's gonna get the heck beat out of them, everybody's bleeding and bumped and bruised, but somebody at the end gets to stand up and like yes, versus like things where, like they're, you know, doing other forms of like taekwondo and they're all padded up and protected. So I'm like GLSA, you're over there still fighting, but you got on like a helmet and stuff. You're not like busting eyeballs out of schools, you know, and so like, to me, ppc is like it's just a fistfight in there.
Speaker 1:And again, especially when some of you have a blue and red logo with a house, a wrench, and honestly, now we're actually seeing a big swing of overly branded companies in the same market and so now everybody has this really cool brands, but they all look very similar. Their truck layouts are similar, their color, their stylization of it is all similar. So now we're having people like I want to go a whole different direction than these people. So listen, but it is that crowded room when homeowners are in panic mode, right, and they don't want to need us Now they need us. They don't want to spend the money Now they have to spend the money. They're just scanning the room. Is anybody familiar? And so your job should be how can I make sure that I'm the company that people are most familiar with in my market? How do I win the game?
Speaker 2:Well, and so for me, I look at brand equity in stages, right. So I think there's the winner, you know, or maybe a few winners in a market. They have like total domination of brand and those people, if you were to look at their leads, you're going to see a lot of branded campaign winners, whether it's from PPC or whatever it is. You're going to see branded search where people are saying give me this company, and so obviously that's what you want. You want people searching for your name or talking into their phone and they've never used you before. All right, so your family business, mcwilliam and Sons. You want people going hey, give me McWilliam and Sons. But when service type or whatever dispatch software pops up for your team, that customer's info is not in the system because they've never used you. But you do know where that lead came from. They specifically said give me McWilliams and son. That to me, is total domination at brand equity.
Speaker 2:You own all brand equity, because they've never used you, but they know you're the company they want inside their home.
Speaker 1:You know what the best compliment is? One day this lady was talking to me. I was just sitting at the same coffee shop that I'm sitting at right now, because we don't have internet at my office.
Speaker 1:She comes up to me and she says Crystal, I want to tell you something. She said I called the appointment center. Oh, that's so nice, thank you for choosing us. She goes who else does air conditioning? I'm like, oh my gosh, you made my little marketing heartbeat Because I was like, oh my gosh, you're right, who else is there? And I really try to tell this story all the time of like it is a scary check to write every month for a contractor Like, hey, just trust me, right?
Speaker 1:But back to what you were saying about storytelling too, people don't want to be sold to, they want to engage, they want to have an emotional connection. And so when you kind of switch your brain as a contractor, as a business owner, over to the fact that you need to tell your story, whatever your story is, your dad had the business and now you have it. You started from scratch, whatever, whatever. People just want to have something to know about you. Listen, we're nosy by nature. Like, hey, why do you have that scar on your face? Why do you? Why did you pick a dog? You know what happened to your hand, I mean. And your people are like, oh well, I don't want to make it about me? Um, everything is about you. Everything is about you as a company, how you want your community to feel, how you want people to remember you.
Speaker 1:And then again go back to that crowded room where you're scanning, looking for anybody that you know. You want to be the one they know, because you were the most genuine and authentic one in the room. And another little quick story I'll tell you is we have this person call, let me see if they want to work with us. And so they're like man, I just can't. I don't know what to do with this brand. I got a new brand, I just don't know what to do with it. So we opened it up and we're like oh, it's a parrot. And he's like yeah, I went with the parrot and I was like okay, so tell me about your connection to parrots. And he was like no connection to parrots, I don't even like parrots. So I was like so you know how hard it is to be fake.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we now have to go like make up some five o'clock somewhere, jimmy Buffett style thing, when this dude is like skater boy kind of vibe.
Speaker 1:So it was just interesting because, like you can't tell a story, you can tell a story, we can make a story, but it's not, it doesn't come as naturally or as authentic enough to really build that. So when you're doing that and people know you, then that's when paid strategy sees that huge lift, because again, they might not have remembered you right in that moment, but when they scan the room, think about how clouded our day is right, think about all the times I mean we are sold to constantly through radio, through television, through social media, through everything that we do. We're sold to. So we've seen you and your branding did work. It just might not have you quite top of mind yet, but you will be the familiar face in the room if you just work hard and stay consistent with that, which then automatically makes your ads perform better because people see you in the crowded room versus every other. Comfort air, pro comfort air, keep you comfortable air, all those things. Anyway, it just helps you really stand out.
Speaker 2:I think I look at there's three levels of brand equity. The top dominant level is majority of your searches, the majority of the people that are coming to you. They are pre-positioned, know who you are. They've they've never used you. They're searching for your name. Um, a ton of referrals are coming in Like that. That is the brand equity place. The second level I think you've touched the people six to 10 times and the thing is I want everyone to understand is the golden number has always been like six or seven, or six to eight or something from the history of time. You had to touch people six to eight times for them to remember you. Well, guess what that number? Today there's studies out there, like through Harvard and Stanford, that say that number can be up to 40, 50, 60 touches, because we see eight to 10,000 ads a day from hearing it on radio, seeing it going on social media. Eight to 10,000 ads a day. So there's a lot of noise out there and you got to crack. You got to get through that somehow.
Speaker 1:And you know what? It's not 1995. So I saw this meeting today that it said. My friend said 30 years ago I went back to the 70s. 30 years ago was 1994. And now I need a nap. But it's not the 90s.
Speaker 1:So the 90s you were groundbreaking when you were advertising as a home service company. Nobody was doing it. Nobody was doing cool things like brands, and there was a few, but not the majority, and now it's just tons of people.
Speaker 1:We've had this big push for entrepreneurship, encouraging people to open their own businesses and do their own things, and so to me it's just everybody's figuring out what it takes to be a marketer. We've driven up costs and all those good things, but you just I think my heart breaks a little when I talk to contractors who are just trying to get to $3 million or trying to get to $5 million, and they just don't have the cash that they need to really advertise, and so they literally thought of everything except their marketing budget, and then they're just cash tight and they're strapped and we're scraping things by. And so if I had one piece of advice, it would be that I think contractors need to remember that, just like everything else, marketing has to be an intentional part of your budgeting strategy, because if not and you're like I'll just go a little bit at it here and there that's how your leads are going to come in here and there. So when you're intentional about it, they'll start rolling in.
Speaker 2:So you asked me earlier. You know how, like the book came to be right and there was a couple of different things. It was starting to understand branding over the last three years, understanding the impact it had, right. Well then, that was just me learning and growing and still I've learned things from you on branding and I'm like man. I want all my clients to use you and your team, crystal, because I understand the bridge that you would help connect there. That's missing between the communication of. There's a difference between lead generation or lead capturing, and branding. They're completely different beasts. They do complement one another but they're different.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that happened was I got referred to this client up in the Cincinnati Kentucky area northern Kentucky, cincinnati area and the same old song and dance that you've heard many times, you know getting, in my opinion, screwed over by some marketing companies and he's kind of bounced from a couple companies and he's kind of bounced from a couple and you know, this company was probably, when I started working with them, two and a half, three million. They had lost 50% of their revenue in one year because of a rebrand, so they went out. They took a 97-year-old brand that he had worked for the company and then bought the company out. So 97 year old company and he went to a branding expert and changed the name of the company completely. Almost as bad as a parrot right the story you just heard. The brand made no sense whatsoever. He couldn't explain the connection between him, the community, whatever in that brand. But you took a 98-year-old company and then you didn't do the proper branding strategy and welcome it to the community the right way and he lost 50% of his revenue in one year. And so when we started working with him, the digital was bad, but it only took us three or four months to completely change everything around. He was ranking at the top of LSA.
Speaker 2:He was in the dominating Google Maps at this point and I'll never forget Crystal. It was like November, december and it was freezing cold outside and he sent me a text. He goes it's 12 degrees outside and our phones aren't ringing, and so I immediately went to my computer. I use a Chrome extension called GS locator that I can change the location of where I'm at so I can get accurate ads. So I changed my location to where it was and I put in a heating repair or, you know, furnace repair near me and there he was in all four places, on page one, beautifully, and what I saw was on Google Maps he was in the second place.
Speaker 2:But in the first and third place was these two companies that, when I was up there shooting video content for this business, everything I saw downtown Cincinnati was branded with these two companies the trains downtown Cincinnati, all the billboards. I saw these two and now they're owned by a PE, supposedly. But I mean, like the train is like, it was this pink, bright pink wrap and it was plumbing electrical, um, uh, I'll think of the name of the company here in a second Cause. It made an impact. I was like man, that's some, that's some good branding. And they got the whole tram downtown Cincinnati wrapped in it, right, you remembered it.
Speaker 1:You remembered it.
Speaker 2:That's right. And so when I went and I saw him in the second spot but he was smashed up between two very big companies that are branding heavily it clicked on me and I said, right there, it doesn't matter where you come up on that page. If you have a weak, unrecognizable brand, you're at the mercy of what I call Russian roulette. And that person, who came there blindly and had no brand equity commitment to anyone they're looking, their brain does subconsciously, their brain is looking for something that's familiar, that jumps out, and if it doesn't, then they're just going to go to which one looks best, which one's at the top, which one has the most reviews. However, that person decides to make a decision, but you won't get the majority of the clicks on that page when you have a brand that is unrecognizable, no one's heard of. And so, crystal, I will tell you I just did a presentation two weeks ago down in Houston to a couple hundred contractors. My whole presentation was like building a memorable brand. And how, if you don't pivot right now, I call it the great reset. I truly believe that we're in the great reset right now because Google is dying, google's going away here very soon. The way that people have.
Speaker 2:There's been a monopoly for 25 years that Google's had, and I believe that it's going away because people are going to be more diversified. Now You're going to have people on Gronk and Perplexity and ChatGPT and Gemini. They're going to be spread out. They won't just be with one company that has the monopoly that's called Google, and so for that reason, I also think marketing is going to get a lot harder. All the AI platforms are rolling out paid ads. Next year 2026, they're all going to have their PPC on those paid AI platforms, not on the paid. On the free versions they will have paid ads. So what are you going to do? You're going to keep playing the lead generation game. You're going to keep buying leads and just hope that your marketing budget spreads between all the AI platforms, because you're also going to have to have one foot in Google still until it completely goes away, just like the phone book.
Speaker 2:People had to have one foot in the phone book and they had to have one foot in Google, and then, sometimes a couple of years later, they put more in Google than they did the phone book and then finally they said, all right, I'm done with the phone book, I'm only digital, and so I call them the tech cartels. I truly believe that Google, angie's List, homeadvisor, yelp they are the cartels. The marketing companies are the drug dealers. And so, until I knew any better, I was out there pushing their product and I was saying, yeah, you need to do LSA and PPC. And just like I told that client of mine, if you lost your mind, you're going to do $30,000 in radio. Are you crazy? I don't feel that way anymore, because we've all been lied to. The marketing companies have been sold on return on ad spend. Let me tell you it's complete BS, because just because you need to get a return on it, but just because you go out and run ads and you got a weak brand, your return on ad spend is never going to be good.
Speaker 1:No, and I'll tell you this I think contractors have been just so misguided. People will stand up I've seen it myself at shows, at conferences. People will stand up and say you should be able to measure every single dollar that you're spending in advertising. And I'm like okay, yes, in a sense of so let me see if I have like this three bucket approach that we use. That's basically like okay, we're going to give every tactic that we're using a place. It has an intentionality behind it. So if we're going to go by billboards, the intentionality is brand awareness and so our expectations of performance around those billboards is set at.
Speaker 1:Okay, I want to grow my organic search versus me launching a PPC campaign. I want to see very good one-to-one correspondence around a PPC campaign, even a direct mail campaign. It depends on what is our message, who is our audience, how often are we dropping it? Because once we make those decisions, that lets me know what bucket in Women's Seeds framework would I put that in? Is that a marketing play? Like I mean a branding play? So am I just announcing hey, nacogdoches, proudly now serving your area, here's a coupon. So that's very low probability of a bunch of reactions to it, but as part of a greater strategy. It was built. We planned it that way to build our brand.
Speaker 1:And so there's so many people that have a plan for marketing with no strategy for marketing. So, like, yeah, I run direct mail and I'm like, okay, tell me about your direct mail strategy. I mean, I just mail people Like, what's your offer? Oh, it's the same all year long. Okay, you did that on purpose, I don't know. Okay, why did you buy those billboards? I don't know, they were the cheapest ones. Okay, well, this one's covered in trees and this one's in an area that you don't even service. Like there's just no strategy and we're all just like throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. And so when you can get intentional about your strategy and you're building a brand, that is where you watch fireworks happen. That's when people say what's the silver bullet? That strategy, consistency, frequency, budget, ad spend those are the silver bullets, but they have to all be together.
Speaker 2:Well and listen. I think people need to understand that I don't care if you're the best LSA management company. You're the best PPC advertisers out there. I've heard of some really good ones. At the end of the day, crystal, I'm telling you, no one can do amazing perfect PPC with a weak, pathetic, unrecognizable brand. Because if you're in a competitive market, if you're in the middle of nowhere USA, that's different. Guess what you buy, that top of the page, you make sure that it's got a good call to action on it. But if you're in a competitive market, I don't care how good you are at PPC or SEO, if you are up on that page with strong brands, you're going to get out clicked every single time. So I want people to understand if you've all been lied to right, and what I mean by that is.
Speaker 2:There's this pie chart that I stuck into my presentation. It showed 95% versus 5%, because at any given time in any business, especially home service, three to 5% of the market at any given time is in the buying cycle to purchase the services that you provide. So that means if you're a plumber, only three to 5% of your market needs you right now. They need a plumber to come to their house. If you're an air condition contractor, three to 5% need to buy an air conditioner, get theirs fixed. The tech cartels have told us and convinced us only focus on the three to 5%, because that's where the leads are, the 95%. We've said screw those people. They own a house, they live in your service area, but that's investing into your people in the future. And the tech cartels say no, no, no, no, go buy the leads. Y'all fight like hell over these 3% to 5% and that's what people have been doing. And when I talk to my clients and I go hey, let's focus on this 95%, they go Jonathan, I don't have any money for that. If I don't get leads, we're going to have to close our door, lay our guys off.
Speaker 2:This is why I call it the great reset, because I'm telling you right now, I'm hearing the complaints LSA is going downhill, google AdWords is not working right now and it's because traffic is going down Crystal. There are people I know right now that have not used Google in six to eight months Personal, like individual, just homeowners like you and I know they said they'll never use Google again. They said I use Gronk or Perplexity or ChatGPT because it's unbiased. They realize that the sources and you can see exactly where they're getting the information they're searching for. That means more to them than what they're getting in Google or they've received from Google over the years. That traffic's not coming back.
Speaker 2:So when Google finally just starts dying over the next couple of years, like where are you going to be? Are you going to be trying to fight and gamify all the AI platforms? Because let me tell you also in my presentation and I encourage everyone out there that listens to this go, do it. Take chat GPT and then go to Gemini and ask it the same question Today what sources are you using to find local home service contractors? And if you want to put in Plumber, hvac, whatever industry you're in, do it and say give me this result in a pie chart, all right. And then ask both platforms and what you're going to see is what ChatGPT is using for sources for local home service businesses.
Speaker 2:And Jim and I are completely different. Chatgpt does not give one ounce of shit about your Google business profile, your Google reviews, your YouTube channel. Chatgpt is not using any sources from an entity that's owned by Google. But if you go to Gemini and ask it, the biggest part of the pie chart is your Google business profile, your Google reviews your YouTube channel. Biggest part of the pie chart is your Google business profile, your Google reviews your YouTube channel. So what are you going to do? Next year, there may be 15 or 20 or 30 AI platforms. You're going to try to go gamify all of them and figuring them all out.
Speaker 1:No like be the household name that people think of when their house starts leaking because they got a water leak.
Speaker 1:And you can listen. Right now. There's other, you know, digital contractors that are digital vendors, that are just like screaming and hollering about stuff and one of the things that we're branding. You know, we're just going to throw these brands up and we're aiming at that and I'm like, no, like I get it. I don't want to sound like I'm like digging my heels in and trying to blockbuster this thing, right, but really, at the end of the day, I still think it's going to be the concept of two plus two equals five. It's being fluid enough to adapt and adopt new technology, but not losing our whole mind. Don't lose your whole mind. There still is the human connection. So, yes, can someone go to their house and be like you know? Hey, alexa, call the best planner for my company? Yes, they sure can, but you know what else they can do. Hey, alexa, will you call Bartlett Heating and Cooling for me and schedule an appointment? And so there's still power in teaching people who you are, showing up where they are and, like you said, the great.
Speaker 2:What do you call?
Speaker 1:it the great, the great reset. The great reset is you are sleeping on opportunities. If you think you're going to be able to skate by with piss, poor branding, a weak logo brand being ramped and not getting out into your community and doing stuff, You're just asleep and you're going to look up and be like why is everybody else growing and I'm not? And it's because you blockbustered this thing. We used to have Kmart here, so Kmart like people that just didn't evolve. You know Kodak I was reading this whole study the other day on Kodak film and now they were like a billion dollar company and then literally like they go bankrupt and I was like it's so sad because they just dug their heels in, Like we are not going to adapt.
Speaker 1:And so, like I feel like I talk out of both sides of my mouth when I say I want you to adapt, but adapt responsibly. So adapt and adopt new things and seek and learn and do and implement, but never lose sight on the fact that people do business with people that they like, know and love, that they see and they engage with. And so, again, I don't care how you call AI can talk to the other AI and book an appointment all day long. I just need to know that people know who I am.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's the thing. Look, there was another slide I showed that said by 2030, the experts are saying 98% of all website traffic will not be human. I don't think it's going to be five years, I think it's three years from now, websites will not be used by people like me and you or the regular everyday homeowner. And here's the reason why, because here's the evolution of how leads worked. In 1995, there was radio, tv, billboards, yellow book, newspaper the only lead generator. Right, because the lead generation is bullshit. That was created over the last 15 years.
Speaker 2:Lead generation only existed in the yellow book and newspaper. Your other radio, tv and billboards was traditional branding, which, by the way, still exists today, still works today. Wow, it's a big shocker, right, but we've been lied and told don't do all that stuff. Go fight after the leads of these 5% of your market that needs you. Well, the evolution was you had a phone book, you had this big, thick, heavy book and you had to go and you went to the yellow. If you knew the brand, you went to the white pages and you search for that company, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, if you didn't know the brand.
Speaker 2:You went to plumbing section and then you had to hopefully, the person started in the front at the a's because, that's right, you had all these ridiculous a royal plumbing or an, a royal flush or whatever, and um, and so what we evolved to was plumber near me, right, that's what Google was. And then you got to see your plumbers. Read the reviews, whatever you need to do, where we will be six months from now. The technology is here, but on a vast scale I think it's six to 12, 18 months.
Speaker 2:People will say, hey, ai, whatever platform they use, I'm off work on Tuesday. I need my water heater flushed. Can you do some research, find me the best plumber in Frisco, texas, and get them booked on Tuesday before 2 pm and let me know when that's finished. Thank you, and that's all they're going to do. They're not going to go pick up a big, heavy book like they used to in the yellow book. They're not going to go plumber near me and research their own stuff. They're going to trust the AI to find it, book it, schedule it and they're going to get on with their life and get more of their time back.
Speaker 2:So my thing is just like you said, instead of hey AI, find me the best plumber, like hey AI, find me McWilliams and Brothers and get them booked on Tuesday. And they've never used your company before, but they're already pre-positioned and ready and they trust you and they've seen your commercials and your billboards and they think y'all are funny and they think you're trustworthy and that's who they're gonna use. That's called branding and that's the way you should also be looking at your leads and the growth of your business. Moving forward is we want the people coming to us and looking for us, because they already know us. We invested in them before they needed us.
Speaker 1:Yes, and listen. People don't need us that often, so you may work years on people. So okay, Jonathan, where can people get a copy of your book?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, uh, it'll be out this this week, so it'll be on Amazon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be on Amazon and they can also go to our website. If you're a contractor, we're giving everybody a free copy of it anyway. So they can go to our website, topservedigitalcom. It'll pop up and they can put in their information. If they're a home service contractor, we'll ship them a free book, but they can also find it on Amazon.
Speaker 2:I wrote the book. It's talking to contractors. It's telling contractor stories inside of it, but it's really for any business. The title is F Digital Marketing, but the subtitle is why Building a Memorable Brand Matters More Than Rankings, and that's what I want people to understand is you can have the best rankings, you can have the best Google, my Business, google Map results, but if your brand is weak, you're going to get out, clicked by that person underneath you or above you, because their brand sticks out and is more memorable. Crystal, I want to tell one story. I was up in Boston recently and I heard someone tell this story and I think people need to hear it and really I hope you get impacted by it the way that I was and the guy told the story and he said there was I want to say it was Savannah, georgia. It was somewhere like or around Savannah. He said, this marketing research firm came in and did a study.
Speaker 2:They sent out a direct mail card or this like piece of mail where people could fill out a survey. They asked who was the best real estate agent in that area. They had names going down the list for them to select who was the best real estate agent. There was no clear winner real estate agent. There was no clear winner. Everyone that submitted their answers in had different people and there was no clear person who won. Then what they did over the next six months? They sent out a direct mail card every single week for six months to everyone in that community talking about this one real estate agent, this female real estate agent. And they did the survey again six months later and they asked who was the best real estate agent? That woman won hands down and that woman was fake. It was not a real real estate agent.
Speaker 2:And they explained that it's not always about being the best, it's being the best known. So if you are not known, you have no chance, no matter how good your results are going to be. So stop thinking it's always the marketing company, and sometimes you and I've talked about this Some people aren't great at getting the results. But if you are, do you do feel like you've got good results and you're still not getting the business or the growth that you want? You need to do some evaluation on your brand, because I'm telling you, I think it's the only thing that's going to matter moving forward, because there's going to be so many different places people are getting their information from. It will never just be Google again, and so, because of that, stop trying to make sure that you come up first on all the AI platforms.
Speaker 2:Make sure you're the best known and that you've invested into that 95% that own a home and live in your zip code and I believe you do that by shooting good video content. Come up with a great content creation. Tell stories. Tell your story. Everybody has a story. Just like you said. Don't try to lie to yourself and go oh my, I don't really have a story. Everybody has one and, like you said, people buy and connect from people that they know, like and love, and so you got to get that out there. But you have to be willing to spend money and maybe they don't need you for three, six, nine months or two years, like you said, but you're positioning yourself to be that company that everyone wants to work with.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, man, preach on, preach on. So I love it. I told y'all we have a trauma bond over this. We could keep talking, we could keep talking about this, but listen, women's team marketing is here to totally help contractors build that brand, get organized with your marketing. Basically, we're your one-stop shop. So we have really loved starting to work with TopServe and just starting to work through some clients that want to do really good things, and so we're definitely here to help. So check us out at lemonseedmarketingcom, we're proud that this is our podcast and, jonathan, thank you so much for being on here. We did record this mid-July, so once this goes live, his book will be up and going, so make sure that you go grab that. And, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. Jonathan, thank you for joining me from this coffee shop on this loud street today, so thank you for bearing with me, but you guys have a great day. Thanks for sipping lemonade and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Crystal.
Speaker 1:Absolutely All right, let's end.