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This is the Branded Bull Podcast, a show dedicated to helping take your business to the next level with winning marketing and branding tips and strategies built for today's competitive world. Ready for your business to make its mark and stand out from the competition. Let's Get into it.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Branded Bull Podcast, the podcast built to help green industry businesses stand out, get found, and win more work. I'm your host today, Adam Fullerton. I am the co founder of Brainerbowl, and every week we share practical marketing advice specifically for lawn care, landscaping, hardscaping, irrigation, tree care, snow removal, and other outdoor businesses that want to grow. And on today's episode, this one is one that I genuinely believe can change the trajectory of your business. This year, this month, today, immediately, as soon as you can implement the things that we're going to talk about. Not because we're going to talk about the newest marketing tactic, not because we're going to cover some secret SEO strategy, but because we're going to talk about something most businesses never actually do, and that is creating a marketing plan. And even better, I'm going to show you how to leverage AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude or any tool out there that you choose to use, and how it can help you build one in a fraction of the amount of time it used to take with way more specificity for your business. So let's get into it. Let's get into it. Sorry. Most businesses at the end of the day are just guessing. And here's something I've noticed after working with hundreds and hundreds of businesses. Right? Again, you're guessing all the time. And most companies don't actually have a marketing strategy in place. Instead, they have a collection of random marketing activities. Maybe you're posting on Facebook occasionally. Maybe you're posting on Instagram. Maybe you're boosting a few posts. Maybe you've tried Google Ads. Maybe you're paying someone for SEO. Maybe you've wrapped a vehicle or your truck or your trailer. Maybe you are sponsoring a local baseball team. And none of those things are inherently bad. But here's the million dollar question for you guys. How do they all work together? What is the objective? Which activities produce the highest return which should get your future dollars? What should be the cut of your budget basically for marketing? And what's the plan over the next 12 months for your business? For most of you guys listening, most of the companies that we've talked to in the green industry, there isn't one. And you're simply trying to do things that make sense and hoping at the end of the day that something works and something sticks. But remember, great businesses have a roadmap. So you have to imagine deciding to drive across the country without gps. That's my analogy for this week's episode. Could you eventually make it? Sure. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe. Would you waste a lot of time? Yeah, absolutely. Would you make some wrong turns? Without question. And marketing without a plan is exactly the same thing. A marketing plan gives you every dollar and every hour a purpose. It helps answer questions like who is our ideal customer? Which services are the most profitable? Which neighborhood should we target? What revenue goals are we trying to hit? What's our monthly marketing budgets? Which channels deserve the most investment, and how will we measure success? Amongst many other questions. And without those answers, it's really difficult to know if your marketing is actually working. And this is where AI becomes incredible. I know I've talked about AI for a couple episodes in a row now, but this is where it actually makes all the difference. Five years ago, let's say, creating a thoughtful marketing plan might have meant hiring a consultant or spending several days building one yourself and spending thousands of dollars if you're trying to hire somebody to help you. But today, you have access to powerful tools like ChatGPT and Claude and Perplexity, et cetera, et cetera. And the mistake most people make is asking something like, hey, create a marketing plan for my landscaping business that's going to produce a pretty darn generic answer. Instead, with these powerful tools, think of it like hiring a consultant. The more context you provide, the better advice you're going to receive. Here's what you should consider telling AI. Right. Open ChatGPT or Claude or whichever tool you want to use and start feeding it information. Tell the things like My company is located in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We've been in business for eight years. We specialize in lawn fertilization, weed control, aeration, mosquito treatments. We've generated half a million dollars in revenue last year. Our average customer spends 1400 bucks annually. We want to reach $1 million in revenue within three years. Our marketing budget is however much money per month. We have a website, a Google business profile, Facebook page, Google Ads, yard signs, truck reps, email marketing, et cetera, et cetera. Right. You could feed it. Our biggest competitors are X, Y and Z. Our biggest challenges are ABC. Busiest months are 1, 2, 3. Our slowest months are 4, 5, 6. Right. You get the idea. You can feed it so much information. You can talk about average close rates. You can talk about the services you want. To sell more of the services with the highest profit margins, the type of customers we want more of, etc. Etc. I mean, you don't have to stop there. You can tell it what you've tried before, you can tell it what has worked, what didn't work. You can upload your logo, upload your website, you can upload your pricing packages if you want to, your processes, everything, all of it. And the more context these tools have about your business, the more strategic its recommendations become. And that's huge. And then you can start asking it better questions. And once these tools or the tool you're using understands your business, don't ask for content first, ask for strategy. Ask questions like what should my marketing priorities be over the next 12 months? How should I allocate my monthly marketing budget? Which marketing activities would likely generate the highest roi? What should I stop spending money on? Which seasonal campaign should I run throughout the year? Which metrics should I track every month? Which you know, what marketing gaps do you see? What opportunities exist based on what my competitors are doing? These are the questions that you really want to ask a consultant, right? Right. And that's what you're going to be doing if you're using AI as said consultant. And you'll often receive surprisingly thoughtful answers. But remember, AI isn't the expert, you are. And what I want you to do is offer. I want to offer you one important caution, right? Is that as I've mentioned before in previous episodes, that AI is an incredible tool. It is extremely powerful, but it doesn't know your business better than you do. And sometimes it'll recommend things that don't make sense. Sometimes it's going to misunderstand your market, or sometimes it's going to make assumptions. And that's okay. But treat AI. Treat these tools like a strategic advisor, not the CEO of your business. Use its recommendations to spark ideas, challenge its thinking, ask follow up questions, keep refining the conversation. Some of the best outputs come after 10 or 15 follow up prompts, not the very first response you get. So, homework for you guys this week. Here's my challenge to you. Set aside 30, 60 minutes of uninterrupted time, right? Open the AI tool of your preference. Tell everything you can do about your business. Tell it everything about your business. I should say, don't rush it. Be detailed. Just punch in as much information as you possibly can think of and then ask it to help build a complete 12 month marketing plan. And I think you're going to be surprised by both the quality of the ideas and the clarity you'll gain from the tool you're using. And even if you only implement half of its recommendations, you'll likely have a more intentional marketing strategy than many, many, many of your competitors. So in closing, at the end of the day, remember that successful marketing isn't about doing everything, it's about doing the right things consistently. A good marketing plan helps you focus your time, your energy and your budget on the activities most likely to move your business forward. And today, thanks to AI, creating that plan has never been more accessible. That's the biggest thing. It's accessible to anybody listening by simply using Google Perplexity, Claude chatgpt, whichever tool again you want to use. And that is a game changer in this day and age. And that is going to help you stand out, get found and win more work at the end of the day if you're leveraging these tools properly. So that's what I've got for you guys. Short Sweet as always. And if you found this episode helpful guys, I encourage you to subscribe wherever you're listening. Leave us a review Review if you found it valuable. And of course, share this episode with any other green industry business owners who you think could benefit from. And if you're looking to help, get help with your own logo or branding website, local SEO, PPC ads on Google. Of course we love the chat. Check us out@brandable.com that's what I have for you this week on the Brandable Podcast. Again, thank you guys for tuning in and I will catch you guys on next week's episode.
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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Branded Bull Podcast, the podcast dedicated to giving you expert advice and actionable ideas so that your business can make its mark and stand out from the competition like what you heard in today's show. Visit brandedbull.com to see how we can help you achieve your marketing and branding goals. Also, please consider leaving a five star review. And and again, thanks for listening.