From the Yellow Chair
From the Yellow Chair
Stop Copying Your Competitor's Homework
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Does your company look and sound like every other contractor in your market?
That sameness is not harmless. When customers cannot tell companies apart, they compare more options, rely more heavily on price, and force every contractor to spend more money earning attention.
Ready to build a brand and marketing playbook that is actually yours? Book a call with Lemon Seed Marketing:
In this episode of From the Yellow Chair, Crystal Williams explains why contractors copy their competitors, how imitation makes brands forgettable, and what it takes to become the company customers remember first.
You will learn:
• Why looking like everyone else can increase your cost per lead
• How to use other companies for inspiration without imitating them
• Why recognition and emotional connection influence customer choice
• How community involvement and brand consistency work together
• Three questions every contractor should answer about uniqueness, investment, and professional guidance
• Why the best marketing leaders continue evolving while competitors try to catch up
Featured speaker: Crystal Williams of Lemon Seed Marketing
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Copycats And Back To School
SPEAKER_00What's up, living heads? Welcome to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. I am Crystal, and today we're talking about copycats. Copycats. Back to school. Stop looking at your competitors' homework here, right? Stop looking over. You know, when I was in school, we had these little boards that we had to put up so that people wouldn't look left to right at their friends' paper to know the answer. Some of you have been living a life of copying what everybody else does with not an original thought in your marketing strategy. So buckle up, AirPods in, treadmill going, seatbelt buckled, whatever you do while you're listening to us. But let's zip some lemonade. All right, so welcome back to school. It's the month of August. If you're listening to this at any other time, pretend like it's back to August, back to school time in August. But I want you guys to know how it is costing you lots of money to always be doing what everyone else is doing in your market. Okay. A lot of you are up like you're very, you're very up and coming contractors. So you're seeing what everybody's doing across the country. What other people are doing in other markets is one thing, but literally copying what's happening in your existing market, it it reads copycat, right? It reads I'm not original. So there's a couple of things that I think we can go through today. So
Why We Copy Competitors
SPEAKER_00why number one is why are we copying? We're copying people because we see it. You're visually consuming their marketing visually, auditorily, either way. You hear them on the radio. Naturally, what we do is go, oh my gosh, I've got to start doing that right now. They're gonna, they're gonna overtake us, right? Um, number one, from someone that is a marketer, good. I want my competition to feel the burn. Number two, competition is good. I need to remind you, take a deep breath. We can hate them all we want to, but at the end of the day, competition is good for everybody. We not there's room for everybody most of the time. There's you're gonna have a differentiator. Do you right? Stay you, stay focused on what you're doing. But most of you are copying them because you refuse to think outside the box. You kind of refuse to, you know, be creative and risky. And that's what good marketing takes. Creativity, it takes risk, it takes intentionality. And so that's what I would say is the number one reason y'all are copying them is lack of original thought and also like you're kind of scared. Like my favorite thing right now is when people go make a post about how unbothered they are about their competition. I'm like, okay, you're so unbothered that you made time to make a post. Move around, move around, friends, right?
The Real Cost Of Blending In
SPEAKER_00So, number two, let's talk about the cost of looking like everyone else. So, you know, the whole point behind branding and community involvement and engagement and things like that is for to be remembered. Okay, so that you are top of mind with people. So you going out and handing out dog leashes at the at the festival, it's not going to immediately people be like, oh my God, thank God you gave me this dog leash. I've been waiting to buy a new system. You know, I've been wanting a new water heater. That those two things are not in the same conversation very much. Don't get me wrong. People are going to walk up to your booth and be like, I've been meaning to call y'all. That's great. But the overall strategy behind community involvement and good brand awareness is strictly to be memorable. For it to be your name to be the first thing that comes to their mind when they need services. So when we become well known, less people go look for the competition. That's less times that we actually have to put our hand up in a crowded room of pick me, pick me, right? So the cost of looking like everyone else is that your actual cost per lead is up because you don't have anything differentiating you. Nothing's keeping you top of mind. So those of you that are like, well, my logo's fine, everybody knows it. Well, I tell you what, it's not, it's not unique, it doesn't stand out. So really it's insignificant. And like as a brander, it would hurt my feelings if someone
How Memorability Drives Growth
SPEAKER_00told me that one of my brands was insignificant. I was uh went through a drive-thru window the other day and was getting my son some lunch, and this guy goes, I know you from somewhere. And I said, Oh, I don't know. You know, you start all that. And he said, No, no, no, do you do the marketing for spot on pest control? I said, Yes. And he goes, You also have to be MM roofing. And the reason is is because when we launch companies locally, we launch them with us with a strategy of we're gonna go to market first with our mascot and community involvement and giving back. Then we layer on websites and all of that. We do it opposite of what most people do. A lot of you have been in business 20 years, and guess what? You're just now like, you know what? I probably should get off the handster wheel of paid ads. Right? So we want to make sure that we're doing that. Uh,
Inspiration Versus Imitation
SPEAKER_00number three is the difference between inspiration and imitation. So I am always inspired. Him, let me give you the one of the last times I was really inspired. Uh, Stephanie Postel owns a company in uh Charleston. Yes, that is um Anchor, Heating and Air. She did a uh uh postcard promotional thing through contractor commerce where she basically sold a voucher for a new system. I thought it was genius. I loved it. So I took that and I manipulated those ideas to help it spur new ideas for me and for our clients. So I learn from contractor marketing all the time. I'm watching what people are doing, how they're doing social media, how they're doing email marketing. And I take those things and inspire me to go a different direction. The biggest way you can tell that people are just straight up copying you is when you don't have a unique brand and you go do something that someone else was already doing, there's nothing that you can make unique about it because your brand is boring, your logo's boring. There's no, there's nothing feisty and spicy and fun in there. As a matter of fact, it's boring, it's bland, it sticks, it doesn't stick out. So now when you go copy somebody, they're like, wait, who is it? You're probably helping the other guy, right? So there's a difference in being inspired by people doing cool things and it helping it motivate you and spur ideas for you versus just straight up imitating everything that they do. Um, this is my little caveat that I say all the time. If people start copying you, number one, if you're not in the front, they wouldn't be trying to do what you do. So if you're not getting kicked in the butt, you're not in front, you're in the back. So remember you should feel that pressure. When you're at the beginning and you're launching things at a client in Florida, called me one time and he's like, These jackholes, every time I do something, they are um doing it right after me. Good. As long as they're after me and not before me, I'm winning. Okay. I'm winning. So what I encourage you to do is never stop pivoting and changing and evolving and bringing in new things. So by the time people figured out what you're doing, you're on to the next thing. Leave them in your dust, right? That's your motivation today.
What Actually Makes Customers Choose You
SPEAKER_00Um, also, what actually is making customers choose you? So this is going to be number four. What actually is making customers choose you is uniqueness and being where they are. And guys, we have to repeat our message over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And I know you're like, oh my gosh, this is so annoying, but you do because remember, people only need us at a certain time. Right? People don't need us all the time. They need us at certain times. And normally it's not even a good time, right? It's not even something fun. It's something that we're all like, oh my gosh, nobody wants to spend their money on an HVAC unit, on pest control, on a landscaping. Okay, well, landscaping can at least be pretty, but you know, like nobody cares about the other parts, right? Or at least they're not excited to spend it. And so what actually is making customers choose you is like a trust factor and just someone that they already have some sort of emotional connection to. And you can laugh at these things all you want to come and look at my well-branded clients. When you look at good branded clients and you look at good good branded, that's East Texas, and you look at good branded clients, you will see that they naturally are having explosive growth. And it is not always just from a digital vendor or from a little secret code of a yard sign blitz. You know what it is? A combination, a layering approach to all these things. So don't miss out. Don't miss that boat. Okay. And then um, I think the last one that I'll go through here is three questions that every brand, every contractor should answer for their brand. Okay.
Three Questions Every Brand Must Answer
SPEAKER_00So number one, are you do you have a brand that has something unique to it? And if your answer is red and blue and a basic font, that's not unique. We need something identifiable in the mix, okay? So that's number one. Number two is are you investing in marketing as a whole at a reasonable rate, meaning 5% of your revenue goal would be a bare minimum. 5% of your revenue goal. Okay. Trying to be at a hundred, trying to be at a million bucks, $100,000 is 10%, 5% be $50,000. Guys, if we can't find $50,000, now some of you are brand new, but $50,000 sounds like a lot, right? To people, but really that is about $4,000 a month, $4,200 a month. Some of us, if you're trying to get to a million, that's the minimum that I think we need to be at to generate what we need. So you need to ask yourself, are you really investing in marketing? Are you spitting at it? Like, well, I'll throw something over there at it. But then you're mad when you don't hit revenue goal and lead count. So these two things are conditional. Okay. They're conditional. So that's the second one. And the third thing that I ask you to ask yourself is are you trusting the professionals? So if people are telling us over and over and over again that we need to pay attention to AI, are we stubborn enough to be like, we're not going to focus on AI? We're we don't care about it. Right? Or can we open our minds and start exploring what to do? Okay. Same thing with uh let's use um AI voice agents. People are like, I'm not doing it, right? Well, we need to look, we need to explore. We need to have be open-minded here. And then the same thing like putting your pricing online. Some of y'all lose your whole flipping mind over it when it's not that deep. I'm just gonna tell you, it's not that deep. Remember, some of you are looking back in the 90s when people were like, Oh, clutch my pearls. I would never put pricing online. Well, you wouldn't in the 90s because the internet was a wee tiny baby. Okay, now we've evolved to much newer things and newer strategies and don't miss the boat from doing those things. So,
Create Your Own Playbook And Get Help
SPEAKER_00your encouragement today is stop trusting um your competitors to give you a playbook. Create your own playbook. Stop cheating off the competition, be original, be thoughtful. And it always, if you need help, like what should I do next? How should I do it with what vendors? That is where Limit Seed's here to help you. You think you know your brand needs work, that is where Limit Seed is here to help you. We are not your digital agency. We actually are not any of your tactical pieces. You still will need a marketing budget that we go deploy. But imagine having a fractional marketing department that's pushing your brand, pushing creativity and helping you navigate this crazy world of vendors and ad spend and all the new things that are coming out. So if you would love to visit with Limit Seed, please give us a shout. Go online, Limitseedmarketing.com, fill out our contact us form. Lopita will reach out and schedule a time with you. We cannot wait to meet with you. But thank you for thank you for listening to another episode of From the Yellow Chair. Have a great August. Don't get too hot. Talk soon.