You Have a Plan. But Do You Have a Strategy?

A lot of contractors are out here doing marketing — posting, running ads, sending emails — and still wondering why it's not working. The answer usually isn't the plan. It's that there was never a strategy behind it.
In this episode, Crystal and Emily break down the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan, why one has to come before the other, and what it actually looks like to build your marketing on a real foundation. If you've ever felt like you're busy with marketing but not making progress, this one's for you.
In this episode:

Why most trades businesses have a plan but are missing a strategy
The real difference between the two — and why it matters more than you think
Signs your marketing is running on tactics instead of strategy
What a strategy actually looks like for a home service business
How to use your strategy to build a plan that finally makes sense

If you don't know your strategy, that's exactly where we start.

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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!

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Idea

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I know that's what Madison was like. Hey. All right, it's gone. We have to smile for Rachel at the beginning. Okay, ready? What's up, Lemon Heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I'm Crystal. And I'm Emily. And today we are talking about you might have a plan, but you probably do not have a strategy. And there's a difference. Absolutely. You came up with a really good analogy. So I want everybody to settle in, get ready, and let's sip some lemonade.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Let's do it.

The Grocery Cart Plan Trap

SPEAKER_00 0:36

All right. So a lot of people can have a plan. They have good intentions. They feel like they've gotten some things written down, but they don't have a true strategy. There's not any real meaning or why behind it. And so Chris and I were sitting here talking a little bit, and I'm like, what is a good analogy? If I was like, it's kind of like going to the grocery store and I can buy a bunch of food and I can put a bunch of things in my cart and get home and put it up in the cupboard. But then I don't necessarily have anything to actually make a whole recipe with. Or everything is so scattered throughout that I can't make a full-on meal with it because I bought bits and pieces of different things to where I don't have a real recipe. I don't have the why behind why did I buy this ingredient? I don't have really any real intention to add this to my recipe that I have here. Cause I didn't really have a recipe, I just bought food.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah. So you had a plan. I'm gonna go to the grocery store, I'm gonna get some hamburger meat and get some cereal, but then you get back and you're like, okay, I didn't have a recipe or what I was doing. You're right. So, you know, I I've watched, we watch contractors all the time that have a plan, they got vendors. I mean, they they they know that they should be doing it. They spend some money somewhere, yeah. And like I wanted to, my goal is revenue, you know. You know, so you're just kind of battling through that, and there's really no cohesion or synergies to what everyone is doing, sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

And and there's no flavor or or seasoning to their market to where that's why everything feels lackluster, and then you're like, I hate it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Or the it's not working, and a lot of times it is working. We just don't have we don't know because our plan was to just go with people that Facebook recommended. Oh, so then you did it, you did it, and then you're like, I don't think it works for me. But again, there's no strategy tied in there. So I think the difference between a plan and a strategy when it comes to marketing is the plan is like what I'm gonna do, the strategy is how I'm gonna do it and with why. Yes, yeah. So, and I know that feels weird. It's kind of like advertising and marketing. I think marketing plans are made up of all of your advertising tactics, so you know, and what you're gonna do in the market and what you're gonna do in the community, and all these things. So, you know, again, I encourage most of you listening. If you're not on plan with lemon seed, you don't have a strategy, you have a plan and kinda, and really that's a list of vendors, you know. But really thinking through like who and why, and then honestly pivoting when you need to pivot, you know, gassing it when you need to gas it, um, is really important to think strategically.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah. So strategy has to come first, always like like no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Okay. Um, it takes tremendous intentionality, but that's where you're gonna actually see results and actually gain traction. Okay, things just won't be haphazardly happening. Um, and that's where you can really make strong decisions and really push and pull and gain momentum and like feel solid with true growth and not just like accidentally things happening.

The Batting Lineup Strategy Lesson

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Well, and like I think of it like a batting lineup, right? So, you know, all of us people that play sports quite often, you know, when I was growing up, and even as I've gotten older, you know, when you go to build a lineup, right, for batting, you're always trying to figure out I need a leadoff person, a person that can run fast, that's gonna get on base, it's gonna do what I need them to do. And then I need some some I'm gonna sprinkle around in there, like somebody that's not the greatest, but maybe they're fast. But then here comes my cleanup batter, and he's got to be good. I need him to be a powerful hitter. And at the end of the list, by God, just don't get out. Okay, if you're my ninth batter, your job is to not be don't get out, don't get everybody else in trouble either when you hit the ball. But the reason that that that is a strategy is like some people set that lineup and they never change it. And then some people look at that and they look at every game and who they're playing and how people are performing. Are they in good mental shape? Are they in good physical shape? How are they, you know, because sometimes you're just off, like your bat's not hot, you're not hitting good, and you have to make a pivot. So, sure, anybody can make a lineup, but strategically, I need to think about that before the game. Okay, I can't be like, Oh crap, I need to send a batter up there.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

You've got to have submitted your lineup before the game starts, okay? You can't change it mid-game. And listen, this to relate this to you all.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Some of y'all go, Oh my god, it is spring. Like, oh my god, it's April. Oh my gosh, it's November. And I'm like, it comes around every year, every the same time.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

The world did not change the month orders or the seasonality.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

The busiest time of the year for Lemon Seed is October and November. You know why? Because everybody's like, I got a little money coming out of summer. I want to do something different next year. Yeah. And you know, and so we're like, okay, this is great. But ideally, the sooner you start a strategy, the better you can start strategizing.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Right. There, there's never the the best time to start a strategy is now. Okay. It's never when I have X number of dollars more in my bank account, when I have X number of hours in my day. It that'll you'll never actually get to that point. The best time to have a strategy is to start right now. And if you just get started, yeah, you can pivot and mold it and adapt it. It doesn't have to be that is it for the rest of end all be all time. But getting started now is better than never.

Start Now And Stop Spreading Thin

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

And what some of y'all are doing right now, and why how we know you're missing strategy, because listen, this is everybody's call with us, you know. So you sign on with Limit C the first thing you're going to go through is a strategic intensive. And so in that intensive, we're talking through like, tell me what you're currently doing. We want to audit all of that. And you start off with like, well, my wife's cousin's best friend posts on social media, but I don't push on her real hard because you know, she gets it done when she can, she does a pretty good job. And then, you know, I signed up with so-and-so, this vendor, because I really like him. I saw him at a show and then I signed up, you know. So it's very haphazard. It's very much like you're posting so that you'd feel like, yes, I'm posting. Can I check that? Check a box, yes. Do I have a website vendor? Yes. Am I doing direct mail? Kinda. And so instead, really, for a lot of you, it's hurting you more than it's helping you. You're spread too thin, but you can't realize it, meaning your budget. So your budget budget is so thinly spread out that nothing can be impactful because you don't have enough money, or it's all over, literally all over the place. I mean, you're just messaging's all over the place, where you're doing things, like markets, all of it's all over the place. And so I think a lot of times that's how we can identify that you're missing a strategy. And right now, you should be able to articulate verbally when I say, What is your marketing strategy? You should be able to say something along the lines of this year. We are prioritizing digital space, and we want to make sure that our website and all of our paid ads are on plan, all tracked. We're integrating with Searchlight, we're launching a campaign for social media, we're posting every other day. We launched our TikTok. We have, but some of you are like, Well, we got it, we got a website, yep, and I'll run some ads. Run some ads. How much do you spend? I don't know. I gotta ask my accountant. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

So when we're saying, we're saying you need to have a real strategy, but like, what does that actually look like for your trades business?

Build Strategy Around Who And Why

SPEAKER_00 7:30

So, first off, it starts with again knowing the who, okay. Who are we trying to reach? Who are we trying to talk to? Starting with your ideal avatar, your ideal customer, having that actually like articulated, where do these people live, eat, and breathe, sleep? What are they doing? How are they interacting with the world? Yes, that paints a real picture and that helps you to start to narrow in and target where your messaging is going to go and how should it read with messaging that resonates with them? Um, knowing your market position, um, not getting too diversified. We talked about it earlier, but like we want to be five mile famous. We want to be five mile famous before we're a hundred mile diluted, okay? Like spread out too thin, just like what you're saying. So knowing where in the market, and then like what makes you different? Why should someone call you over their competitor? Is it your um you're open on weekends where they're not, or you're not gonna charge a dispatch fee? Or is it um offer financing, correct?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Whatever it is that makes you different.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Can you own the whole home that you can do their HVAC and their plumbing where they've got to call multiple people for other pieces of it? So you gotta know what that is, and then you've got to tell that story. You've got to tell the reason of why people should pick you over their competitor. That is a strategy, and then you can go figure out where to put that with the individual tactics, but you've got to have that why and to who. That's the strategy that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

When like where do you fit in the market? Okay, so like a lot of you, we were talking about this yesterday. If PE is in your market, right? Which, hello, everybody, PE is in your market. You've got to got you got some PE, some locally owned, some family owned, some very, very small, some decent size. You've got to look and figure out who am I to these people? What do I want to be known as? You don't have to be the lowest man on a totem pole or the most expensive, but you know, really you've got to figure out are you the fun guy? Are you the IEQ guy? Are you the we're the same day install guy? What the heck are we? But I can tell you, if you don't determine who you are in the market, the market will determine it for you. So if you want to keep on like driving around a white van, and well, I don't have to tell nobody my my name carries enough weight, it sure does to keep you right at under a million dollars every year. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Like they look outdated, they're slow, their techs are trashy, like smoking a cigarette. Yes, they will create their own story, whether it's true or not. So that's why you've got to be intentional to tell it. And then I think also the strategies you have to have tactics and money and a plan for every piece of the customer journey. So, like, what are we doing just to build our brand, to build our name recognition? We've got to have something at the top of the funnel for that. Then we've got to have things in place for like when they do actually need us, when it actually is a hundred degrees outside and their systems quit working. How can people actually find us and get a hold of us so that we can go service them? And then once we have serviced them, what are we doing to cultivate our existing customer database? Okay, we're not done there once we've done the job and they've paid the invoice. That's not the end of the customer journey. We want to create raving fans where we stay their guy, where we they become advocates for us. And so making sure that we have systems in place for every step of the customer journey, that's a strategy. That's a strategy, and that's what most people don't have.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

You got bits and pieces of things. But and then when we actually bring this strategy to life at Lemon Seed, we call it the yellow playbook. What happens is once that strategy, everybody's locked and loaded on where that strategy is going to take us, everything becomes a lot easier to build around that. Sure. So then you can build the plan right to hit the strategy, right? So the plan hits the strategy. So hey, our plan, our go-to-market strategy is this. We're going to move this, keep this, change this, update this, whatever that looks like. And that can be a wide variety of things. Like it could be a logo update, it could be that you're adding a brick and mortar location, it could be that you're moving to AI answering teams, it could be that you're launching a social media, a whole revamp. Like it could be all kinds of things, but everybody's focusing on that North Star, which is our strategy that's built upon all these foundational pieces. And I really think it

Customer Journey Systems And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 11:31

becomes a lot easier to build and stick to it. So if you don't deviate from the strategy because you trust the strategy, you tend to compound your growth. Because people say, Well, how did y'all grow so fast? Well, because we we put a plan on the board and we stuck to it. And our most successful lemon seed clients trust the process. Oh, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

And it is truly that it is a process, it is a not an overnight fix. Um, all those things are kind of just fly by night, and like as quick as your growth is, that can also be as quick as your fall is.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

And you can do it with a controlled, stable, real plan, and you know, people's process, and people will tell you all the time, like the people that will argue with you over $50, but there's people that will argue over $50 and people that don't bat an eye at $5,000. And that's when you can really see who trusts the process, who understands what they're doing. But nickel and I mean, we see this with other vendors too. Like, well, I'm not gonna pay that extra hour for them to go in and do something. I'm like, well, I'm not fighting them over $75. Like, you know, we're we've got bigger things to focus on than $75, which again, my grandma always taught me if you watch your dollar or don't step over dollars to pick up dimes. So I get it, but at the same time, I get it on this side of like trust the process.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

So so we've fast and fear is talking about having a real strategy over just a haphazard plan. And so if you need help developing a strategy, that is what Lemon Seed was founded for. Um, how can you build a brand, build a strategic marketing plan that helps build companies into legacies? That's what Lemon Seed is founded. That's what we do every single day for contractors all across the country. And so if you would like to know more about how we could help you, reach out to us, lemonseedmarketing.com. We'd love to talk with you and help build your company into a legacy. Absolutely. So thanks for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

We will see you next time.