On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sheila Smeltzer sits down with Jonathon Henderson of Pressure Washing Marketing Pros for a practical conversation about what it really takes to grow a home service business from startup mode into a scalable operation.

Cutting through the usual marketing fluff, Jonathon explains why most companies between $0 and $500,000 do not actually have a lead problem. They usually have a sales process, admin, or follow-up problem. He breaks down the difference between referral leads and digital leads, why trust has to be built differently with each, and how reviews, CRM systems, boots-on-the-ground marketing, and better lead handling all play a major role in growth.

Sheila and Jonathon also dig into how AI is changing search behavior, why website content now needs to be more specific and useful instead of stuffed with keywords, and how companies can stand out in increasingly crowded markets. For exterior cleaning and other home service owners, this episode is a strong reminder that sustainable growth comes from mastering the fundamentals: knowing your market, building trust, creating repeat business, and tightening your internal systems before throwing more money at marketing.

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Transcript:

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer from North Carolina, we are your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in.

The industry folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses and they want to help you succeed. Yep. No fake gurus on this show. Just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders.

And every episode is 100% experience, 0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guest will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the wild.

Journey of entrepreneurship. Let's dive in.

Hello. Hello, this is Sheila Smelter, your host and contributor for the Huge Transformations podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I have a great interview with Jonathan Henderson, pressure Washing marketing pros. He's a seven year digital marketing company and we dive into, really most of our discussion is talking about if we're a company that's trying to scale from zero to 500,000.

We do a lot of discussion around this and where we need to focus on marketing and how. He's able to help companies kind of get to the next level. The thing that I love about this conversation with Jonathan today is that it is so incredibly practical, and even though we're talking about marketing and digital marketing and AI and a marketing checklist and current marketing trends, and you know how to close a customer, we're talking about all these things in this, in this show today.

But you know, really, if you're a zero to 500 or if you're a. Million to 2 million to $3 million company. It's all the same stuff. It all applies. I learned so much from listening and talking to Jonathan today. Um, this is just really good conversation. He completely speaks our language in the ex exterior cleaning space, and I just, this is so gold.

I love it. I am so glad that you're here to join us today. I hope you'll be an active listener, and I thank you so much for listening to the show. Hey everybody. This is Sheila Smeltzer, your host and contributor for the Huge Transformations podcast. Today I have Jonathan Henderson with us. Hey, Jonathan.

How you doing, Sheila? I'm doing great, man. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you for having me on. Yeah. Well, thank you for joining us. We get to dive into marketing today, don't we? Yes, we do. Yes, we do. Uh, tell our listeners who you are, what you do, and, and so we'll get started. Yeah. So my name is Jonathan Henderson, as Sheila alluded to pressure washing Marketing pros.

We're a digital marketing agency that exclusively works with exterior cleaning businesses, whether it's pressure washing, gutter cleaning, paper, ceiling, and even Christmas sign installation. So we have over 145 plus clients in the US, Canada. So we've seen, not all, but we've seen a lot of what goes on in the industry.

Very cool. So you're, you have a digital marketing company and it, it's not all digital, right? Is that incorrect to say that it's digital? Yeah. So SCA website design ads. Mm-hmm. Okay, great. And your, like your niche is an exterior cleaning? Yes. Cool. Exclusively exterior cleaning only. All right, well we've got the right guy on the show today then.

'cause we've got a lot of listeners that are in the exterior cleaning space. But really a lot of what we talk about would go into other verticals, right? With garage floor coatings or any, any type of home service business. Of course, of course. I have experience in the home service industry. I used to be a part owner of a junk removal company as well, so I kind of know how it is to run a home service business also.

Okay. Well, Jonathan, I just wanna start, how did you, how did you, how did you learn what you know, how did you become an expert in the space? Trial and error. Right? That's just probably how everybody is when they say YouTube University trial and error. I first started off. About seven, eight years ago, and I was in the military at the time and I wanted to find a way to supplement my income, kind of make more impact with what I was doing.

And so while I was deployed, I just wanted to pick up another skill. 'cause I had so much free time on my hand hand. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna learn how to run Facebook ads. And so I bought a course that I saw on Facebook and I dove into that, started implementing some of the strategies, cold calling businesses in my local area while I was, you know, deployed with that.

So it was like a 12 hour difference, like seven to 12 hour difference. So I'm cold calling those businesses, landing a couple of clients that were restaurants, and I started doing Facebook ads for them. Then after I did Facebook ads with them, I eventually, one, one of my best friends had a digital marketing agency that he was starting at the time, and he was doing more website design, SEO stuff.

So I was like, Hey man, can you teach me how to do that? So he taught me how to do that. I started implementing that for local clients. Once I got back from my deployment, I started implementing that for, I had about seven or eight people in my local area. Roofers, plumbers, floral shop. Right? One lawyer too.

So I was doing digital marketing for them, and I, a pressure washing guy. He's still a client of ours today. Jesse Meister. Shout out to you. Uh, propel Pressure Cleaning Warner Robins. Right. But, uh, he had hit me up and he said, Hey man, do you, have you ever done any, uh, marketing for pressure washing businesses?

I didn't, at the time. I didn't even know what it was. That was around 2000. End of 2018. Beginning of 2019. And I was like. I don't know what pressure washing is, but I know that I can definitely help you out. 'cause there's not as much competition now, you know, now we know eight years later there's way more competition.

Right. But, uh, at the time we got him ranked, we said, you know, we did really good for him. And I asked him if there was anybody else that was in his industry or there, if there was anybody else that was in this industry. And there was, and so. I just began, you know, cold calling. I began doing these video audits and uh, that's how I got like the first 15 to 20 clients.

And in 20, like in basically beginning of 2020, I just decided to take it full time and uh, start pressure washing marketing pros. So that's how I learned at first. I just bought a bunch of courses, executed it myself, and yeah. So, and I'm assuming, because you and I met in the huge mastermind group, so I'm assuming that when, what was your first huge convention?

My first huge convention. Funny enough, my first huge convention was in 2000, which, which one was the one that was in Atlanta? What year was that? Atlanta. That's going back a bit. Yeah. I think that was like 20, was that like 2019 Maybe I can tell you that was, that was, yeah, that was a minute ago. Um, I know that most of them have been, have been in Nashville.

There was Atl...