On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sheila Smeltzer sits down with Daniel Dixon, CEO of SendJim, for a high-level but highly practical conversation about modern marketing, targeting, and the real drivers of growth in home service businesses.

What makes this episode stand out is how it reframes marketing from “getting more leads” to building a system that consistently generates the right leads—and converts them. Daniel breaks down the concept of being a “big fish in a small pond,” explaining why most companies waste money by marketing too broadly instead of dialing in on their ideal customer avatar. He introduces predictive targeting as a game-changing approach that uses data to identify the small percentage of homeowners most likely to buy, dramatically increasing efficiency and ROI.

Beyond lead generation, the conversation dives into the full lifecycle of a job: generating leads, converting them, and delivering the service. Daniel and Sheila explore the often-overlooked tension between sales/marketing and operations, and why growth requires both sides to stay balanced. They also emphasize that the most overlooked opportunity for growth is a company’s existing customer list—where trust is already built and conversion is significantly easier.

This episode is especially valuable for newer business owners because it simplifies what can feel overwhelming. Instead of chasing every marketing trend, the focus is on fundamentals: know your market, stay in front of your customers consistently, use multiple channels, and build systems that follow up long after your sales team stops. It’s a strategic, no-BS conversation that helps business owners think smarter about how they spend their marketing dollars and how they scale sustainably.

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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 listeners. I'm your host, Sheila Smeltzer and contributor to the Huge Transformations podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. I have a kick butt interview with Daniel Dixon. Daniel is the CEO of Send. Jim, if you don't know what Send Jim is, send, Jim is a. Marketing product that can absolutely help you be a big fish in a small pond.

This is targeting market targeted marketing folks, and Daniel and I, you know, Daniel's got a huge passion for small business. He came out of the corporate world. Uh, we don't even really talk a lot about that, but he came out of the corporate world and his passion is helping small businesses grow. Um, he actually grew up in a family.

His mom and dad owned a carpet cleaning company, so you see why he's passionate about home services and small business. But, um, we are gonna talk a lot about marketing today and this stuff is gold. You guys, I learned so much. That I am so excited to share this information with you. Um, we talk about how to really dial into your target market and how to market and spend your marketing dollars to that target of who is your ideal customer avatar.

Um, we talk about how to convert. We talk about the lead gen. The conversion. And then we even talk about, yeah, now we have to go deliver the service. And that natural tension between sales and marketing and operations. Um, there's so much that we cover today in just 40, 43 minutes. Um, you are gonna wanna listen to this.

So thank you so much for joining us. My wish today is that you'll be an active listener because we are excited each and every interview to help you grow. Enjoy the show. Hello. Hello everyone. This is Sheila Smeltzer, huge, huge podcast contributor, and today we are here with Daniel Dixon. Hey Daniel. Hey, thanks for having me 100%.

I am very excited. We were chatting a little bit and I know that we've known each other in the home service space and through the huge convention and other for a long time, but I've never really gotten to know you. And I love a platform on a podcast that we can get to know each other and share some good insights with our listeners today.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to, uh, to dive in also. So, Daniel, tell the audience, just everybody who's listening, let 'em know who you are. Yeah. So Daniel Dixon, I'm currently, uh, I would say an entrepreneur. I, uh, I'm currently the CEO at Syn j. Um, and I own and operate a, uh, garage floor coating company.

I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I've got, uh, a beautiful wife and two children that are in elementary and middle school. And, uh, life couldn't be any better. It's, it's, uh, I'm super lucky. I love that you're grateful. I can tell. I am very grateful. I love it. Um, so I, I definitely wanna talk about Send Jim, 'cause uh, I know that this is a fantastic, uh, marketing product and um, definitely can help small businesses of all kinds.

And so I'd like to talk about that. Um, I really do wanna, I'm hoping that we can dive into some sales and marketing chat in general. Mm-hmm. Um. Because I know that I think some, a lot of companies are either really good at sales and marketing and other companies are just really good at operations. Um, it's very difficult to be good at both, I think.

Um, and one thing that I've really been thinking about, um, leading into and thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about today on the podcast is. One thing that I've noticed in my years in business is, you know, we have all of our different roles in the company from admin, sales and marketing operations, right?

Yes. And so there's that sales and operat, sales, marketing, and operations. There's just always this constant tension that's. It's supposed to be healthy, right? We want a healthy, like the ideal is that we have this healthy tension between the both. Meaning if sales and marketing is crushing it, then we need operations to meet that demand, right?

Yes, we've got all the leads coming in. Leads coming in, great. We gotta go out and we have to fulfill the services that that, that the leads. Need. Right, right. And then vice versa, operations. We can build up operations and have all the trucks, and have all the people and the equipment and all the stuff. But if we sales is lagging, then you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose those employees.

'cause they're like, I can't make any money here. Right. Yes. So I'd really like to talk about that today, but tell me, just to get started, I wanna know more about what you do in the marketing space with Send Gym and Automate Motivate. Yeah. So, uh, syn Gem is a marketing automation platform. Um, what we do, we've kind of flipped, uh, old school marketing on its head, and, uh, we've got very, we've brought like technology to old school marketing.

What I mean by that are things like. Making sure we convert every single lead, um, and making sure the neighbors of our customers know about us, uh, as a home service company and marketing to those people. Um, and making sure that, uh, we understand who in the market is buying home services and. An only market to those people.

So a lot of that we do through postcards, um, handwritten cards, um, we do some text messaging, but it's a lot of physical goods. Mm-hmm. And instead of like the, the old school spray and pray method, where it's like the more cards you get out, the better, let's try to get out a hundred thousand postcards. Um, we've said, Hey, what if we could only send a thousand postcards, but they're 10 times more effective.

Right. So how do we reduce the cost, uh, of your marketing? Um, and get the same or better, uh, result or revenue generated from that. So that's the product. Go ahead. So this is, is this what we call predictive targeting? Predictive targeting. I'm surprised you heard ab...