From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
2025 Lemon Wrapped
Stop chasing silver bullets and start stacking real wins. We’re taking you through the most useful, unfiltered moments of 2025—what worked for contractors, what flopped, and how to build a brand that outlasts any algorithm. From booking rate benchmarks to campaign thinking, we connect the dots between operations, marketing, and customer experience so your plan actually matches your revenue goals.
We kick off with a reality check on trends: if your call center isn’t converting near 85 percent and your pricing isn’t clear, AI won’t save you. Tom breaks down short vs long purchase cycles with a simple example you won’t forget, and we translate that into a durable media plan that compounds over quarters. Jess gives “CRM therapy” on why one bad workaround ruins reporting and targeting, while Jen’s 3S framework—show up, stand out, scale—keeps your content engaging without flooding feeds with offers no one wants to share.
Then we get into brand, community, and campaigns that actually convert. The loudest ads didn’t win—showing up locally did. We call time on the$49 tune-up crutch and show how story, team, and visuals make offers believable. We also look ahead to geothermal and high-performance HVAC as differentiation plays rooted in measurable savings, not hype. The throughline is simple: diversify, stay consistent, and align your brand voice from the truck to the phone to the technician at the door.
If you want 2026 to be a breakthrough year, start with strategy, budget with courage, and keep your customer experience on-brand at every touch. Subscribe, share this with a friend in the trades, and leave a quick review to tell us the first fix you’re making. Your move.
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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!
What's up, Lemon Heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. Y'all, 2025 did not disappoint. We talked trends, we broke some myths, my favorite part, and we dropped a fruit, a few truth bombs. And yep, we laughed. We got a little carry-eyed sometimes, but let's take a little stroll through some of the best moments of From the Yellow Chair. Back to From the Yellow Chair and welcome to our 2025 wrapped episode. I'm Crystal, and today we are reliving the tactical wins and the funniest, most influential, and unfiltered moments we had in the studio this year. If you're in the trades, grab a cup of coffee. There, but uh grab something stronger, I guess, if you need to, because 2025 taught us a lot, right? It was a it was a year to remember. Uh, we talked about marketing, of course, customers, teams, leadership, sales, all the things. But I wanted to bring some of our favorite moments to you from this year. Let's kick it off with clips that actually move the needle for contractors, the tactical wins for 2025. I was like, you know, you know what the shoulder season takes? Freaking grit.
SPEAKER_01:Say, I mean, unless you hate money, success, having creating impact in the world, buying back your time to get freedom for yourself, then I don't know, maybe you shouldn't pay attention.
SPEAKER_03:But so people want to do business and work with managers and bosses and owners that care more about them than they do about the bottom line.
SPEAKER_07:It is revenue, efficiency, everything else.
SPEAKER_03:Let's start where the year started. Talking trends with Eric and Sarah. I loved this moment because they cut right to the chase about what contractors think matters versus what's actually mattering. Let's roll that clip.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_09:Uh so I don't think it's as scary as it needs to be. I do think what is more important than for some contractors, what's more important than worrying about AI is worrying about your call center, worrying about your brand.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, preach.
SPEAKER_09:Worrying about your pricing. Um like I don't if you're if your booking rate is lower than 85%, like, and especially if you're in like 70, 65%, and like if it's bad and you're over here, like, what does AI mean for my business in 2025? AI means nothing until you get that call center fixed. So I would say like blocking and tackling has to come first. Like the baseline requirements of running a successful business, marketing, finance, sales, operations. What until those are figured out, I wouldn't be worrying too much about AI and your digital advertising.
SPEAKER_03:If 2025 had a motto, it was definitely stop chasing shiny objects. Thanks, Sarah and Eric. Now, this next clip is a clip that I think every contractor should tattoo on their forearm, metaphorically, please. Just a checking there. But in 2025, the companies who won weren't the ones who yelled the loudest. I mean, contrary to what some of them would like to believe. They were the actually the ones that showed up in their own communities. Listen, that's a that is somebody after my heart right there. So let's listen in and talk about winning in your community.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we always say we're a you know 15-year overnight success. Um, so but it just seems like that because all of a sudden, when you have that presence and that billboard, um, it 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 have in your tent and everything is branded. Um, you know, like you say, uh, you always see my purple. Like we are always branding no matter where we are. In fact, I said I was it was funny. David was just sitting in here and I actually uh 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 gotta put this purple sweater on our sweatshirt on that I have in the um in my drawer because I it our brand is so important, like everything has to match. And um, and then people know us. They even in 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, um, to who it what people see in the community.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I y'all branding straight up is built outside the marketing department every single time. Just trying to tell you. And then Tom Casey came in and giving us one of the most tactical breakdowns of the year. If you've ever wondered why your best-selling month is never the month you planned for, Tom explains exactly why. Here we go.
SPEAKER_08:And the reason it's critical is if you don't understand this, then your marketing and your messaging will probably be wrong, and you'll be wondering why it's not working. So a purchase cycle basically is how often is the client or the prospect in the market to make a purchase? So uh there are short purchase cycles, like something that will happen less than 90-day cycles, say like food or clothes or things along that line. And then there are long purchase cycles, if anything that's more than 90 days. The 90-day barrier is kind of like how do people remember things and think about things. Um long purchase cycle things will be things we sell, like heating and air and plumbing and electrical. And even within the long cycle, there's a couple different periods. And the the way that kind of crystallize this short-term, long-term concept is everyone who's listening. Imagine you get something in the mail, and you get a coupon for two dollars off a large cheese pizza, and you get a mailer for$1,500 of instant rebates off a new heating and air system. Which one are you hanging on the fridge? You're keeping the pizza coupon because you're gonna have a cycle, you actually want pizza. The$1,500 is not gonna motivate somebody. We can't convince somebody in something in a short-term tactic to make a long-term purchase. And so getting this wrong creates like tons of strategies. And what I see happen, and you probably see more so, is people say, I tried radio once, I tried direct mail once, I tried that once, and it didn't work. And the thing is, yeah, of course it didn't work. I I bet it didn't, because you you attacked it as I'm gonna run a radio campaign for 30 days and get a bunch of work. That's a short-term strategy for a long-term problem.
SPEAKER_03:Now tell me that that doesn't change how you plan your marketing calendar, because it sure changed mine. All right, tech lovers. Jess gave us a little CRM therapy session here. This clip is for anyone who has ever said, we'll fix that workflow later. No, we won't, friends. No, we won't, but here's Jess. You know, what do you think are some of the most common mistakes that businesses are making when they're setting up their service Titan?
SPEAKER_04:That they don't understand that Service Titan operates like a chain of dominoes. Um, that each piece is interacting with the next, and it's creating this powerful interconnected tool. Um, that when properly set up, it allows you to generate reports and target audiences and analyze data, but in proper configuration or relying on workarounds, because I hear that word all the time. I have this workaround. I have workaround. Yes, it disrupts that harmony and that setup and that chain of dominoes. It just it knocks it all over, and and and you can't have those.
SPEAKER_03:The important thing about those dominoes is that one faulty domino throws the whole thing off, to your point. Listen, if your tech stack is messy, your customer experience is messy, period. I'm telling you, check that customer journey, friends. And finally, a clip I personally love because it hits home for so many contractors. Marketing doesn't fail because the tactics are bad, it fails because the plan is non-existent and they do not have strategy. Listen up. So many of you have an advertising plan, but you do not have a marketing and branding plan. Uh so that's the first thing that I think we really could do of why your marketing feels random is because it is. You're just like, you know, flying blind, you know, throwing darts in the dark, whatever little um analogy you want to use there. So that was number one. You be looking for signs that your marketing is reactive and not proactive or strategic. So get strategic. Number two, how can you align your marketing with your revenue goals and capacity? So I have good news and I have bad news, right? The bad news is it takes money to make money and scared money don't make money. So when you're sitting back, like, how did this guy move into my market and just dominate me in like two years? Well, he spent more money than you, friend. The odds are he spent more money than you, he got more intentional than you, and he went with he went for the jugular, which I ain't gonna lie, like I hate to admit it, but it's kind of my jam. My jam is to kind of, you know, get in the weeds and like I'm I'm here for it, I'm competitive and I'm driven. Um, and so I I tell you right now that scared money don't make money, meaning we've got to get out there, we've got to set a budget that's aggressive. And so if you're like, uh, you know, I might can do 2% of my revenue goal and you're doing a million dollars, we don't have enough to do much with. You might as well put all of that into one tactic. So, amen. But I couldn't have said it better myself. But random marketing is not a strategy, it's definitely a prayer that's gonna work, but you gotta have some flow here, guys. You gotta have a strategy, you gotta have a plan. Let's talk about marketing truth box. This clip right here, guys, this is where the internet got mad at us. And I stand by everything I said. Marketing is not just Facebook ads, roll it. Most contractors, especially, when I ask them, like, hey, tell me about your marketing strategy. You know what they tell me? Well, my digital vendor is X. Oh, my website guy, my SEO guy, my paid ads guy. Our natural instinct is to lean directly back into our digital side. And guys, that is such an important piece, but is not the whole. So today I called this episode two plus two equals five, because really there is power in looking at marketing holistically. There's power in understanding that there is the impact that your brand can have on every other piece of your marketing's performance. Once you hit that, once you understand that and value that, it's game changer. Game over for your competition. That's how you're gonna win. Digital is powerful, guys, but it's not your entire brand. Y'all said it, not me. Look, we've all seen some, you know, those questionable ads. This clip, this was the moment we lovingly called them out. Here it is. It's called Promo Sapiens syndrome, right? Promo sapiens syndrome is being stuck in caveman marketing, just like uh like uh uh uh$49 tune up, right? In every ad with no brand voice, story, no value beyond, hey, it's$49. Come on, call me. We cannot live in this cycle of everything's a tune-up, right? So get it. That's a really good strategy. We actually deploy this strategy quite often because it's a low barrier of entry offer. It is affordable. So when people know something's wrong and they might not can afford$49, if your ideal avatar is an affluent double income home, uh,$49 doesn't matter to them, right? So it's not a race to the bottom of a pile of cheap contractors. We don't really want to be the bottom, but it depends on the intentional strategy, right? But we have got to get more customized offers and campaigns. So if you're just throwing it there, oh, well, what is your campaign? A$49 tune-up. Well, really, we want campaigns. Think about Geico, think about um Liberty Mutual, think insurance companies are killing it right now, but even like think about Bronco, right? And how everything is rugged and tough and cool. Those are all campaigns. Those are our vibes, Nike and the and the just do it. Those are like true brands, but they also launch these campaigns around women and sports and things like that. Because you got to kind of change your story up, some um, in your advertising verbiage and your visuals, and I learned this word from my graphic design team, iconography, the icons that you're using and things like that. In every single thing you do needs to reflect your brand, but also it's gotta help you stand out. So, in a pile of$49 tune-ups, go look at the last time you sent that graphic out. Could any other company in your market use that same graphic? Probably. A lot of you are using canned things from different vendors, like, well, they designed my postcard. Well, you know what? They have six templates, right? So you need to like lemon seed. I'm always trying to rock a boat. Okay. I'm always trying to say, uh, I want to, let's change that design around because I need our things to stand out. I need them to be on brand. I need them to be constantly brand building, but also urgency to book, book with me, right? So the biggest fix here is evolve your messaging. Tell stories, showcase your team, highlight cool things about your culture, make the promo the actual sidekick of the plan, not the actual headline. So building out your messaging should really be all around a campaign or a um your brand messaging, all of that together, right? So again, if you just got a$49 tune-up that's red and blue with a snowflake and a sunshine, and you know, don't spring into summer, okay. Listen, everybody and their mama and their grandpa, uncle, baby, sister, cousin is doing that offer. We have to think outside the box. We should not say, Oh, yeah, you know, I'm so creative. I'm doing spring graphics during spring. You know what? I was real listen, if your ad is non-memorable, clunky, and makes people cringe at it, it's not even memorable, it's just bad. So there's a fine line there, friends, fine line. And then here, let's talk about Jen dropping a truth bomb that every business owner needed to hear in 2025. Let's play it.
SPEAKER_00:So, to your point, like if you're not gonna post good content, sometimes it's not worth posting because it ends up what happens, and I don't say this to like hurt your feelings, um, but what happens is that if you're posting content that isn't engaging, it's not showing up in the news feed, and you're telling the algorithm that people don't really like to engage with your content. So things won't typically show up in the content. Um, so the framework that you're talking about is a 3S framework. It's a social media framework that is um for engagement. So we're always looking at creating content that is engaging. Engaging meaning that people are doing something with it. So they're liking it, they're clicking on it, they're watching it, they're sharing it, they're commenting on it, um, something like that. And the 3S framework is it naturally um has 50% of your content being engaging. So um it stands for show up, stand out, and scale, show up, show up content being your most engaging content. So that's the content that is relatable, that's the celebratory content, that is it um day in the life, photo dumps, um, even like uh fun stuff, like every once in a while throwing a meme in there or like cap cut videos, something like that. Standout content is your educational content. So that's about 30% of your content. Love to see that in video format. That helps it get even more engaged and honestly help so much with authenticity. It helps build trust. Like there's so much good that can come out of educational videos. And then the scaling content is about 20% of your content. So that means only 20% of your content should be sharing an offer, sharing your services, things like that. And it's not because it doesn't matter, but it's because it's not a naturally engaging piece of content. People aren't, they don't care about that on their news feed. Um, if and and to prove my point, I want you to think about the last content that you engaged with, the last content that you shared with your friends and family. Like, was it somebody's HVAC offer? Probably not, unless you're in the HVAC industry and you're like, oh, I like this, let's do this. But otherwise, it's it was probably something entertaining. It was probably something educational, it was probably something really fun. Um, and so that's what you want your content to be, even as a contractor.
SPEAKER_03:Y'all don't need more content, you need better content. Jen said that part perfectly. And now we're gonna talk about some of the funniest moments of 2025. Katie really had one of my favorite, did that really happen? Stories of the year. And you gotta hear why. Listen to Katie.
SPEAKER_02:You know what? Um, honestly, I think if we would turn back time, just not even understanding um the opportunity that was in front of me. I think if you would have told me the opportunity that was in front of me, I would have been too scared to take that leap of faith, like as a comfort advisor. So I was working in the office and um I placed an air quality monitor in a customer's home, and this was 20-something years ago. We're and we're in Utah, which is um is very rare to see a woman in the trades. And um we're pretty conservative state to say the least. So imagine 20 years ago um placing an air monitor and then working as a comfort advisor. I believe I was one of the first, if not the first, female to do like in-home uh estimating in northern Utah. And I used to call customers on my way and say, Hey, this is Katie with so-and-so. I'm on my way for your free estimate. And sometimes I'd hear, honey, it's a woman. I'm like, I'm still on the phone. I can hear you.
SPEAKER_03:Every time I hear that, I choke on my coffee all over again. So hilarious. And this moment with Ben Stark, pure chaos, and honestly, peak trades energy. You know, we we talk a lot. So I that unique selling position doesn't have to mean reinventing your whole entire company, it's more about just identifying. So I remember when McWilliams, you know, we sat in a room um and literally we just started throwing out ideas, like, and I'm a big idea person, so I throw out ideas that make the whole team like shake in their boots, like we would never be able, but I feel like that was my job was to push us to think. So one day I threw out and said, What if we guaranteed same day install? Yeah, well, of course, the install coordinator was like, Absolutely not, we can never do that. How would we ever do that? And then I was like, Well, so if everyone else is two and three days out with install, if we can't do it same day, what about if we guaranteed next day install? Yeah, so but we had to think through it together um and be respectful of each other's departments. And so another thing, and I'm really not on a uh tray kick today, but it seems like I am. He told me there's gonna be creators in your business and there's gonna be doers in your business. And the creators will keep creating, but the doers will never create more than they think they can do.
SPEAKER_06:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And so I'm like, if I keep asking the people that do it, how do you feel? Do you feel good? They're always gonna feel like you're pushing them too hard. Yeah, they're never gonna say, you know what, I'm actually very fine. Just send me 10 more. Installs, you know.
SPEAKER_06:Well, that that's a philosophy thing. You know, you you've got to measure it right. You've got to be realistic about what your production people can do, especially on the install time.
SPEAKER_03:Listen, contractor training day should come with a waiver, and that's all I'm saying about that. Now let's look ahead to 2026. Rory made one of the boldest predictions about geothermal and marketing shifts. And honestly, he might be right, but let's play it and hear it out.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, so we come at we come at the geothermal or ground source heat pump world um simply from an energy saving standpoint. Is there an environmental standpoint? 750 trees uh saved, one fossil fuel car taken off the road? Absolutely. Um, you know, we've been at this over 20 years. Um, so we've certainly become the predominant player in Southwest Missouri. We have a multitude of other companies who are random in Springfield who make referrals to us for geo because it is a specialty and it uh it is something that takes a specific skill set. Um I will challenge any HVAC contractor out there that they too can be a geothermal expert because it is not rocket science. Um it's just a specific skill set and training to do that. But what it's done is it's isolated us into that high performance world of HVAC. And so it is ductwork testing, it is blower-door testing, it is air leakage testing, it's all of those things that involve revolve around, you know, a total energy portfolio in a home. Um, and when you say, hey, I'm gonna live in a in a 3,500 square foot house and I have a sub-100 a month total electric bill. Um, and then your neighbor who lives in the exact same house goes, my bill is four to six hundred dollars, you know, we're saving, we're saving a ton of money because it's positive cash flow. Uh it's just a money-saving thing. Um and it's a life cycle thing for us. So it's there's no outdoor units with geothermal. So um you don't you can put your deck anywhere, you can have your master bedroom door anywhere. Uh, and people once they see that, it's just kind of like, oh, this is great. I'm building, building on acreage, and that's the last thing I needed was a place to stick my crazy air conditioner outside.
SPEAKER_03:So hey, maybe 2026 is the year that geothermal really grows up and starts showing up a little bit differently. And finally, this clip right here really captures exactly where the industry is going next year: tactical, smart, and doable. Consistently, most people are looking for the silver bullet. The silver bullet is diversification and consistency. It's when you put all of your eggs in that one basket. Well, I do direct mail, it doesn't work. Did you do it for$300 and did it take one time and you were done? That's not gonna work. Marketing is a game of chess that you sit down and you never get back up. You've got to keep going. You gotta keep your eye out there. You've got to work out your customer service experience, it has to be reflective of the brand. So if you're out and you're smiley and they call your office the first time and you're like, thanks for calling Crystal's hitting an air, you know, that that is not welcoming. That doesn't match the vibe, right? We're we're giving bothersome, right? So, what I want you to do, I want you to think through like your brand has to go from the truck all the way down through the technician in the home. If you want 2026 to be your breakthrough year, let's start here. Y'all, thank you for another incredible year inside the yellow chair. Whether you listen to me from your truck, the shop, your couch at home on a treadmill, I'm grateful that you're here. 2025 was big and 2026 is even gonna be bigger. More guests, more ideas, more growth, and definitely more laughs. I mean, come on, guys, y'all know this. Make sure you're subscribed, keeping an eye on our socials, and big things are coming up. Until then, pull up a chair. It's gonna be a fun year.