Dan Antonelli (2:40)

or lettering, no lettering on, on a truck and actually race cars? I was really interested in the cool graphics on RA Brother was into hot rod. So I would see these hot rod magazines, and I'm like, I want to do stuff like that. I want to do airbrushing. I want to do hand lettering. And so I started becoming really obsessed with. With lettering. And then later on, you would see people that would say, hey, well, I have a business. Can you do the sign for my truck? Can you do lettering for my storefront? And stuff like that. So I was one of these weird kids that in high school, my friends were going to hang out after school, and I was like, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna hand paint some alphabets and practice lettering, you know, like, okay, you know, you have fun with that.

Trent (3:13)

Did you spray paint too, or no?

Dan Antonelli (3:15)

I actually never did spray painting from the New York City area. I grew up in Staten Island, New York, and there was a lot of graffiti. So I had a very deep appreciation for. For graffiti as well, because I, again, just being obsessed with lettering. I. I got into it mainly in books, and I learned sort of how to do it, but I actually didn't really do so much tagging.

Trent (3:36)

What age is this that you're 15, so you're coming home from school, your friends, soccer, baseball, and you're drawing.

Dan Antonelli (3:43)

But what.

Chris (3:44)

What got you interested in it to begin with?

Dan Antonelli (3:46)

I wish I could identify why I was fascinated just with the construction of letters and. And how they formed and. And then what they communicated at the same time. And so, you know, even going to the supermarket as a kid, I would love going down the aisles and just looking at the brands that were on the shelf. Like, why did that one catch my eye? Why was that one interesting? How did they form those letters? So that obsession, I think, was, you know, just something that I feel incredibly blessed to have that obsession and to know it at 15. Like, this is where my heart is. This is where my passion is. And I happened to get a job in a sign shop, and that was like the dream job. That was like, you know, getting a job for Disney. Like, I would go to this sign shop and we would do lettering for contractors for their vans and their trucks. And I worked under a sign painter who is the most gifted sign painter ever. And he taught me so much about layout.

Chris (4:37)

And this was all painting.

Dan Antonelli (4:39)

It's all paint? Yeah. No computers at all at that point. So he taught me about layout and composition and legibility. And a lot of the principles that I learned from him are still evident in the work today. And I'm actually still Good friends with him. So I'll send him pictures of a van that I did and he'll comment back to me and give me feedback on it. And such a good guy. That inspired me. But at the time I said to my parents, like, hey, I just want to be a sign painter. That's what I want to do. And like, no, you know, we think you should go to college and, you know, learn, you know, about advertising and stuff like that. So in my mind I'm like, okay, well, if I go to college and I get a degree in advertising, like that probably can help me be a better sign painter. Like, so if I did that and learn how to communicate, learn about the advertising industry and learn about the psychology of advertising. And that's really what, what college did for me. Now, of course, while I'm in college, I'm still lettering, I'm still painting signs, I'm still doing trucks. And then I graduated and I got a job in New York City as a graphic designer. And then I started the business while I was working full time, like a lot of entrepreneurs do. And you know, I, I, I, I remember when I was doing it, I was commuting it to New York City, coming home at 6 o', clock, I'd have dinner with my wife and then I'd go to work till 1, 2 in the morning. And I did that for like nine months.

Trent (5:56)

Did you live in Manhattan?

Dan Antonelli (5:58)

No, we, I lived in New Jersey at that, at that point.

Trent (6:00)

So finally we hawk in where?

Dan Antonelli (6:02)

In Union, New Jersey.

Trent (6:04)

Oh, Union, Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (6:04)

Okay. Yeah. So I, my wife is like, you can't quit your day job until you have enough business to equal what you're making at your day job. Because no one in our family had ever started a business. There was no entrepreneurs. They worked for the government, all that stuff. So that's what I did, you know. And you know, I think it was good to do that. I think it was important to, to go through those steps of, of hustling and working your ass off for something that you wanted so badly. And you know, the day that I quit my job, like, it was like, didn't miss a beat, you know, never, never after that point did I worry about, you know, how we were going to provide for my family or a paycheck or anything like that.

Chris (6:45)

So that the launch of that was 30 years ago?

Dan Antonelli (6:47)

It was in 1995. Yeah. So 31 years ago.

Trent (6:50)

Wow.

Chris (6:51)

So 31 years ago you take the leap, you go and start the business. At what point did you hire your first employee?

Dan Antonelli (6:57)

It was probably maybe three or four years later. And believe it or not, they would come and work in my basement.

Chris (7:04)

Okay. Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (7:05)

So I had, I had my first employee. She came, she worked in the basement, and then she actually moved to San Francisco. And you know, we figured out, hey, maybe we could do this remote. And it actually was my first remote employee. She moved out there and it worked out. And then eventually it just started getting a little weird having people come to my basement and I'm in a residential neighborhood. My name was like, what the hell's going on here? So I got my first office, which I shared with another company because I couldn't afford to get this space myself. And then we outgrew that space and we had about 15 people. And then I built the current office that we're in, a 5,000 square foot office. And. And today we have 70, I think we have 72 employees right now.

Chris (7:43)

How many, how many work there in the location?

Dan Antonelli (7:44)

So we have about 30, I think about 32 in the new Jersey office. And then the rest are remote.

Trent (7:50)

So was the focus always on trades? You're talking about a lot of bands.

Dan Antonelli (7:53)

It wasn't in the beginning, no, it

Trent (7:55)

actually wasn't like consumer goods and packaging.

Dan Antonelli (7:57)

We did everything.

Trent (7:58)

We did.

Dan Antonelli (7:58)

So, you know, and we still have some leg see clients. Like I have a. An orthopedic surgeon who will not go anywhere else for any of his marketing. And. But you know, I started really seeing that the trades. First of all, I was just really interested in doing branding for the trades because I'm like, you know, this is a really good group of people. I love working with entrepreneurs like that. And, you know, we, we grew organically almost in the beginning because I started getting known and started having things in magazines. H vacr business, you probably remember that magazine. And we won a few awards and we just became, you know, really known for it. And then at a certain point we just said, why don't we just do this? And instead of trying to do all these other things, you know, and focus on it. So I'd say probably about 15 years ago, we made a conscious decision just to focus on the trades.

Trent (8:44)

And the thing is that, like Chris mentioned this, your brands are iconic and a lot of it has to do with this, like cartoon cartoonizing things, which I love. I know that's not all the vip, but the ones that I love are cartoon versions of shops. Was that like always your shtick?

Dan Antonelli (9:04)

You know, I would say in the beginning we were especially known for nostalgia based branding. Okay, so nostalgia based branding deploys mascots often. You know, if you go back and you look at brands from the 50s, a lot of them used, you know, these, these kind of cute characters and they were illustrated in a specific style. So it became really good at that genre. But, you know, I always say, you know, even about mascots, to me, like, when you think about mascots, it's, it depends, you know, like, it's not the right answer for every single solution. Like, I, I compare it to, like, what we did for Tommy. Like, when we did Tommy Mello's brand at A1, there was a reason why he became the face of the brand, and it was because at that point, he had his face on every single ad and it was on his trucks for years. So I'm not going to just throw away that equity. But, you know, I think, I think it's not always the right answer by default, but it can work really well when it's executed really well.

Chris (10:01)

Hey, guys, it's Chris. If you're finding value in what you're hearing, go ahead and like, and subscribe. That way, people just like, you can find this content for free here on YouTube. Now let's dive back in the show.

Trent (10:12)

The thing that I always hear about branding is like, this is an expensive endeavor. And I mean, you're spending 20,000, you're spending 50,000. And it's not like there's a direct correlation on ROI in, in the traditional way where you could measure it, like, let's say ppc, like a proper marketing campaign. Because, like, how would you track it?

Dan Antonelli (10:34)

Some of it you can track, though. You absolutely can track some of it.

Trent (10:37)

Like they would say, I saw your van driving down the road.

Dan Antonelli (10:39)

Not, not only that, though, but what you can track is you can track acquisition costs, you can track average tickets, you can track those KPIs and those metrics and that' we've really tried to focus on.

Trent (10:49)

I want to hear about that piece because that is true. Like, if you have an established brand or if you have a brand that looks good, people are willing to pay the premium. And that has to do with the brand and the trucks that you show up in. But to get into the house, the customers, the business owners, like, I'm just trying to get the phone to ring.

Dan Antonelli (11:07)

Right.

Trent (11:07)

So to those people that are scared about investing in the brand, obviously I'm a huge fan of yours.

Dan Antonelli (11:11)

Yeah.

Trent (11:12)

What do you, what would you tell them about investing in specific branding for the purpose of customer acquisition?

Dan Antonelli (11:19)

Well, I always like to flip that question and just say, if you Think investing in branding is, is expensive. How much is not investing in branding costing, costing your business? Right? So again, when you look at those metrics and you look at their marketing spend, when people are like, oh, well, I don't want to spend 10 or 12% on, on my revenue on advertising, sometimes it's, you need to spend that because no one knows you exist. And that's where the whole notion of five mile famous really comes from is like, well, what if you could have a brand that within five miles of your office, everybody knew you existed. And instead of them going on Google and typing in AC company near me, they type in the name of your company. How much cheaper is it going to be for you to acquire a customer then if they already know you exist? But we've done so much studying of the data and what I love is there's so much data now, right? You look at Service Titan, you look at things like Searchlight, which gives you a ton of information, and you could just really benchmark those things out. You could look at six months before the rebrand and six months after, well, what was the effect on the KPIs that we care most about?

Trent (12:21)

Right?

Dan Antonelli (12:21)

And look at the acquisition cost is another huge thing, right? With some of these, you know, look at how much you're paying for a click sometimes and how much all that is costing. And again, if you're invisible in the community you're trying to serve, yeah, shit gets expensive. It's really expensive. So that invisibility is the hidden cost of not branding.

Chris (12:41)

So let's, let's talk a little bit more detail on a brand. What are the absolute do's and the absolute don'ts? When, whenever anybody's coming up with a I want to do a rebrand or I'm starting a new business. Yeah. And we want to create a brand. Like, what are, what are the things I should be thinking about? What are the absolute do's? What are the absolute don'ts? Obviously it would be great, like, hey, I'm just going to hire Kick charge, they're going to take care of it. But what is kickcharge thinking through for this particular person? Like, what are the principles that kick Charge builds any brand based on?

Dan Antonelli (13:12)

Yeah. So it's funny that you talk about, hey, I'm thinking about starting a business and it would be great if you could invest in day one. And, and part of why I wrote this book is because the mistakes that are made on day one, there's a lot of them. But one of the biggest mistakes that's made on day one is the name of your company. Literally number one thing that we see all the time. And we had, we've renamed like last year alone, we probably renamed 60 home service companies because they started with that wrong foundation.

Chris (13:41)

Smith's Mechanical.

Dan Antonelli (13:43)

Mechanical. Mechanical, yeah, yeah. Even H Vac. H Vac. You don't like either?

Chris (13:50)

Yeah, Mechanical is the absolute worst, you

Dan Antonelli (13:52)

know, or you know, CL Heating and air. Oh, I'm going to name it after my kids initials. Oh, super. Great. That means something to you. It means nothing to anyone else and there's no chance anyone will ever remember it. So naming is something that is truly one of the first things you people get wrong. And I think thinking about names that exhibit a promise, right? So let's imagine you're on an elevator and somebody says, hey, which company you with? And you say the name of your company. And immediately, just by hearing the name of the company, they think something positive about what they might get. Because people think branding is complicated. It's not complicated in the sense that all we're trying to do is control what someone believes they might get if they hired you. Right. We're trying to build trust before the tech gets to ring the doorbell or your CSR answers the phone. Right. So a lot of mistakes are made very early on because they're not thinking about things like that. They're not thinking about a name that maybe would live in someone's mind so that they can recall it easier later on. They're not thinking about how to build visuals around the name. That also makes it easier for people to recall that particular name. So certain names are stickier and the stickier the name, generally speaking, the better.

Chris (14:59)

So speaking of names was, is Kick Charge always been named Kick Charge?

Dan Antonelli (15:03)

No.

Chris (15:03)

All right, what was it, what was it before Charge?

Dan Antonelli (15:06)

You know, and we spoke earlier about, you know, my start in the sign industry and how that's. We kind of evolved, but we were called graphic designs and it was graphic D dash signs.

Chris (15:15)

Okay.

Dan Antonelli (15:16)

And I thought that that was clever when I was 25 years old and I was like, hey, we do graphic design and then we also do signs. It's great. And then like, you know, years go by and then, and then this is the question where I say for people to also ask themselves, right? So years ago by. And then I started hating the name. But I had it in my mind. I'm like, well, I can't change. Everybody knows me by this name. And I'm like, dude, like that's what you tell all these other people like that. That's bullshit. Like, you got to change the name if it doesn't reflect who you are. So I would say, like, anyone that's thinking about their own name, like, ask yourself, does it truly represent who you are today, whether it's the name or the logo or the combination of the two. And for us, it stopped representing who we were. And so when I built my new office, I said, I'm not going into this new office with this name. And we came up with Kick Charge because we thought it really represented what we do. Like, we energize companies, we power companies. Right. So, like, we thought it was a great name. It was a name I can own. It was a name that no one else would be confused with a name I could trademark, which is also a great attribute that you want to think about anytime you're thinking about naming your company, especially if you have aspirations about going in other markets. So, you know, yeah, I had to kind of live through it myself, and I think it was actually a really great exercise. So we did that in 19. Sorry. In 2017. And I. I come to the table, I think now, with a deeper appreciation of the emotional. The emotions involved in rebranding and renaming. Right. So I understand. Like, I know how hard it is. I know. And. And even when I did it, my own family, like, this is a terrible idea. Like, you should never do it. I had employees telling me it was a terrible idea, should never take. Do. And of course, looking back, like, we would never have achieved what we haven't achieved if I had stayed the same name. No way.

Chris (16:56)

So when you rebranded, at what point or how much. How much was your revenue at that point?

Dan Antonelli (17:01)

Oh, my God. A million and a half, maybe.

Chris (17:05)

Which is. It's hilarious to think about, right?

Dan Antonelli (17:08)

Yeah.

Chris (17:08)

Because, like, a million and a half, although a respectable business, right. It's not like this big, established, incredible thing that nobody. That everyone's heard of.

Dan Antonelli (17:18)

Right.

Chris (17:18)

But in our own minds, like, everybody knows. Like, everybody knows. And they're all going to. They're going to question why or whatever.

Dan Antonelli (17:24)

Yeah.

Chris (17:24)

It's just funny to. And. And trying to remove yourself from that situation.

Dan Antonelli (17:28)

Right.

Chris (17:29)

I think is like, one of the most important reasons why even you should have a mentor or a coach in the business. Right. Another set of eyes, Right. That can take your personal bias.

Dan Antonelli (17:38)

That's objective. Right. 100.

Trent (17:39)

Tell you a funny story. That is true. I was a vegan for seven years.

Dan Antonelli (17:44)

No way.

Trent (17:45)

Yeah, for seven years.

Dan Antonelli (17:46)

Okay.

Trent (17:46)

And I. That was part of my identity. And like most vegans, vegetarians and even people that do CrossFit. I was like, I have to tell everybody, right? Anybody, any restaurant, I'd be like, just wanna let you know I'm vegetarian. Just wanna let you know I'm vegan. And that became like a part of my identity. And then some time off, I was like, yeah, I don't want to do this anymore. I want to go back to eating meat. And I just went to a restaurant and didn't say I was a vegetarian.

Chris (18:12)

And you orders.

Trent (18:13)

I ordered steak and nobody said anything.

Chris (18:15)

And I was like, instantly feel like a man.

Trent (18:18)

Oh, I, I, I don't.

Dan Antonelli (18:21)

Graphic.

Trent (18:21)

But the steak was gone. Okay. And the point, the point is like I made up this entire identity in my mind about this is who I am and this is what I say when I go to restaurants. And then I just went to a restaurant, nobody knew nothing or to steak. And it was, and my life's been, look at me.

Chris (18:39)

You know, it is, it is remarkable the level of self imposed prisons that we put ourselves in.

Dan Antonelli (18:44)

Yeah.

Chris (18:44)

Right around our brand, our business, the way we, the way we eat. I mean, and we think like, I have no other choice.

Trent (18:51)

Right.

Chris (18:51)

I chose like, I live here, I can't get out. Right. I can't expand.

Trent (18:55)

But we are all malleable, right? Yeah, it's what that one means.

Chris (19:00)

Okay, so rule number one, creating a great brand is make sure that the company is memorable, that it's going to speak the message, that it's not tied to just personal identity. Especially, I mean, names for the most part. Right. Like personal names should be thrown out the door.

Dan Antonelli (19:19)

Last name brands, initial based brands are the two hardest things to get sticky in someone's mind. And they just require a ton of money to get it to become sticky, you know, so if you can avoid that and have something right off the bat that is sticky. And especially names that evoke a very deliberate visual. Like we did the branding for Grasshopper Heating and Air. So even if you'd never seen the logo for Grasshopper, I bet you have an idea of what it might look like just because I told you the name. Right? So now imagine that truck driver drives by once and you see Grasshopper and you see the visual that goes with it. 100,000 times easier to remember that than CL H vac or CL mechanical. And they actually used to be called PMA. Mechanical was their original name actually, before they rebranded. And now they're at I think 30 million in revenue and that's four years post rebrand and which is insane.

Trent (20:06)

Are you doing the branding for the billboards, too, or is that something.

Dan Antonelli (20:09)

Yeah, yeah. So we. I mean, we're full service, so we do the brand development, we do the print collateral, we do billboards, and we also do digital marketing.

Trent (20:17)

So obviously, the. One of the most unique ones was Tommy and the ladder.

Dan Antonelli (20:21)

Oh, Tommy and the ladder.

Trent (20:22)

Looking back in his tushes hanging out. That was you guys?

Dan Antonelli (20:25)

That was us. Yeah. That was actually my idea. I personally designed that. That billboard. And it started out originally as a joke, but what happened was we. We were given photos from Tommy from a photo shoot. And there was one picture of him on this ladder, and he was, like, kind of pointing at his butt. And I thought to myself, I said, you know, this would make for a really interesting billboard. And I said, I'm. Nobody asked me to do this. I said, I'm just going to make this bill. And I sent it to Bri, which is his fiance, and she was like, oh, my God, I love this. This is so good. So then I sent it to Tommy, and he's like, we're doing this. We got to do this. Like, he was all into it. And then I send it to him, and he's like, here's my guy in house. And this guy in house was not having it. He was like, I don't. I don't want. It's too risky, and it's not on Brand. And. And I wrote back the Tommy, like, he don't want. He doesn't want to do it, man. And Tommy squashed that, and we wound up doing it. I think we put, like, a dozen of them up in Phoenix. Yeah, it was just fun, you know, it was just different. I think that's the other thing, too, is, you know, the idea of disruption is anchored in what we truly believe Brand should do.

Trent (21:28)

Okay, so that's a question for you. This pattern disrupt. Is there a way. Like, is there a line on too risky before people are, like, turned off

Dan Antonelli (21:35)

to it or there's a definite line.

Trent (21:37)

Okay.

Dan Antonelli (21:38)

Yeah.

Trent (21:38)

Well, like, anything that will make you remember it, it's fine.

Dan Antonelli (21:43)

It's not really like that because, like, you could. You could have your truck be pink with purple polka dots, and people would say, I see your truck all the time. And I. And I remember it. The problem is it doesn't deliver promise of the expectation of the service. Right. So you have to be careful in what you're doing. We love the notion of disruption, but I. I do disruption with the mindset that it still has to deliver promise at the same time, meaning can't be one or the other.

Trent (22:08)

Something could look beautiful and well designed, but doesn't offer like the. We do high quality service calls or memorable.

Dan Antonelli (22:17)

Exactly.

Trent (22:18)

Interesting.

Dan Antonelli (22:18)

Yeah.

Trent (22:18)

So what do you, how do you like. Okay, so what is the process of building that? So how do you do it? Do you, are you doing market research?

Dan Antonelli (22:24)

Yeah, we definitely do market research, but a lot of what we do is just based on building the brand for its intended audience, which is a woman. Women make up over 80 to 85% of the home purchase decision making process. They initiate the process. So a lot of people get caught up in building brands that not only like they're thinking about themselves, like they want, you know, my buddy's gonna think this is cool and I think it's badass and they want a badass truck wrap and all this other stuff. And I'm like, Mrs. Jones isn't into badass.

Trent (22:52)

Right.

Dan Antonelli (22:53)

Or badassery, if that's even a word. Right. She's into someone that I feel comfortable and safe having this person in my home. Right. And, and so making sure that the brand speaks to the people you are selling to is most important. And I say this to clients all the time, like listen. Especially if it's a male owner. I say, listen, I want you to love your brand, but I'm not designing the brand for you as my first priority. I'm designing it for Mrs. Jones. She's 45 years old, she's got two kids, her husband is out of out of the house a lot and she takes care of all the in the house. So how do we make her feel confident that when you come to the house she's not going to get ripped off, she's not going to get sold stuff that she doesn't need.

Trent (23:34)

Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (23:34)

And that she can trust. And again, we talked earlier the idea of the brand building trust before you ring the doorbell. Right. So just making sure the brand speaks to that audience is the most critical thing. And where a lot of guys get it wrong because they, they want to build it for their own egos, but they forget that it's not built for them.

Trent (23:49)

Right.

Dan Antonelli (23:50)

That's least important. Not least important, but it's not.

Chris (23:52)

What are the things that build trust with, with the 45 year old?

Trent (23:57)

Give us a secret, Stan.

Dan Antonelli (23:58)

Yeah.

Trent (23:58)

You know, holding out here.

Dan Antonelli (23:59)

First off, just understanding too. It's not just, just the logo, it's not the truck wrap. Like that's just part of the overall brand. So you have all the pieces of the brand that are speaking a language to someone and communicating Something often it's subliminal, right? But the words on your website, what do they say? Like, what do they communicate about the story of your company and why I should be invested in this particular story? You know, you think about the branding that we did for Ken Goodrich at Ghetto and the boy holding the flashlight and the story behind that and what that meant to people. That wasn't just a logo. That was a story about why you should trust this company. Because.

Trent (24:34)

Did you guys do Kenarak? Is that what it's called?

Dan Antonelli (24:37)

We did not do that, that particular brand, but we did Ghetto, like when ghetto was 5 million in revenue. And I think when they sold, they were over 3 or 400 Kenarator. So, you know, I think just keeping in mind, again, if you were to judge the brand on the visuals that are presented to you on the website, the guy's uniform, the business card that gets handed out their social media channels, what do you think about this particular company? And if it's generic, then why. Why am I choosing you? Why. Why am I, okay, paying a premium for your service as well? So when you think about poor, close rates, a lot of that is, is. I mean, there's so much sales training that goes into that. Right? But you take somebody that's got a killer brand that also is a killer salesperson versus somebody that's trying to sell something that on the surface doesn't look like I should pay a premium for this. It's like going to a Kia dealership and them trying to tell you that the car costs Mercedes dollars.

Trent (25:37)

Right, Right.

Dan Antonelli (25:37)

And you're like, I don't, I don't get it. There's a disconnect here. Like, why. Why would this car be this much money? It's, it's. It's a key. And nothing against Kia. I got a key. Every key is Stinger. Yeah, I love my key, Stinger. But that's, that's again, controlling the impression before the doorbell is ring, before,

Chris (25:54)

you

Trent (25:54)

know, I. I'm doing a bathroom remodel. I don't know if you saw it on my stories. And I am using some kind of, like, handyman friend of mine, and he's got white van syndrome. And he gave me a price that was like, on par with everybody else because he's been listening, right? Next level pros. A buddy of mine, I'm like, dude, increase your prices. So he came at me like that, and I'm, like, looking at his truck and I'm seeing the rust and like, he's always got car problems.

Chris (26:20)

And smoking.

Trent (26:22)

Yeah, he smokes outside. And I'm, I really, like, it's not the money because I'm going to pay the money no matter what, but it is like, it got.

Chris (26:31)

It has to be on par.

Trent (26:32)

It has to be on par. Like, hey, look, I would pay this. If you came in this beautiful truck, you didn't smoke, you know, you're, you didn't park right in my driveway with the oil leaking thing you put the grease on. Okay. But it's very interesting and you're right. And I'm living it right now, which is once you have something that you can anchor yourself to, like I'm anchoring myself to this brand. And this is how they look and this is how they present themselves. You can justify the price. But. But if not, it's like, hey, what am I paying for?

Dan Antonelli (27:00)

But, but if he was a stranger and you didn't know. No, I wouldn't, you know. Are you going to go with him then at that point? No, no, probably not. And maybe he does amazing work. And I think that's the other thing too is you have so many contractors, they kill it. Like, they do a freaking amazing job. But if you were to judge them on what you've been presented, you can't get there. And if I can't get there, then I'm not buying it.

Trent (27:20)

Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (27:21)

You know, so really just trying to marry up and I think that's what we do well is we, the people who come to us have a great service. They just don't look like they have a great service.

Trent (27:29)

That's right.

Dan Antonelli (27:30)

And that makes my job easier because now I can marry up the reality with the perception.

Trent (27:34)

Right contractor, wrong company. Then. So I got a haircut yesterday. Okay, then we'll get back to you. But I got a haircut yesterday and I went to this barber shop and this guy spent like over an hour on my hair. Like, really, it was really phenomenal. And he charged me 30 bucks. And I'm like. And I was going to his guy who's 60 bucks for like a 30 minute haircut. And so now I'm telling this guy like, hey, look, you're spending, you're an artist. You're spending so much time here. But I'm in this strip mall with bars on the windows and it. I'm. That would never pay $60 here. But if you were somewhere else that just looked better.

Dan Antonelli (28:11)

Right.

Trent (28:12)

I would pay that.

Dan Antonelli (28:13)

That.

Trent (28:13)

And that's kind of what you bring. Except you bring the van to the house.

Dan Antonelli (28:16)

Yeah.

Trent (28:16)

To say like, does that look like we're gonna do, you know, 299 tune

Chris (28:21)

up for you, right. You know, I mean, another similar instance is like you go into Marshalls, right? Marshalls is notorious for selling some high level brands at a discounted price or whatnot. I go in there, I will never expect to pay over 25 bucks for anything. Right. And no matter how good the product is or whatnot, because I know I'm in there, I'm Easter egg hunting, I'm getting zero service, right. I'm lining up behind 30 people to be able to check out. Takes me 20 minutes versus I go into Louis Vuitton, right. Like everything is nicely displayed. I don't shop at Louis, but you know, if I, if I did, right, Like I'm going in there, I'm getting the drink, I'm getting the, you know, they're, they're sitting down, they're, they're measuring me. They're, they're, they're bringing it up, right? Like, and it's like, oh, 600 T shirts. Okay. You know, and then, so yeah, you just have a certain level of expectation based off of that, that initial impression.

Dan Antonelli (29:12)

Yeah. And I think the other thing too, that we didn't really talk about, but people also in the trades, they struggle with recruiting the top tier talent. Right, Right. So a lot of times when I see people posting on Facebook and they're, they're, you know, on a Facebook group and they're talking about how hard it is to find the right talent and no one wants to work for me. And then, you know, I'll click on their profile and then I'll go see which company that they, that they own. And then I look at the branding and I'm just like, yeah, I know what you got. You got a recruitment problem. Because I, I wouldn't want to work here. Like, look at the truck they're going to be driving, right. Look at the brand you're going to ask them to represent. So recruitment becomes so much easier with a better brand as well. But it's not something that people initially even understand about branding. Like, they don't come to me usually and say, dan, I want you to rebrand us. Because I'm trying to solve my recruitment problem. But it is, it is an effect of the brand that they later on.

Chris (30:02)

Yeah, it's so interesting to me when somebody has it like, like 90 the right way and then off by like 10. There's this group I follow on Instagram, I forget the name of it, but it's a mechanical, you Know, it's like Joe Blows Mechanical. But the outside of the name, they do everything right. Like, I mean they, and they have these, these reels on Instagram that get shared hundreds of thousands of times. It's their onboarding process. I don't know if you've ever seen any of these. Like, they'll show whenever they onboard a new plumber or new H Vac tech or whatnot, and they'll bring them in, they'll have like the whole like all their clothes and the treats and the snacks and what they go through for the training and they take them to lunch and they video and record this and like, dude, everything about it. They got the brand new van. The van looks good, but it's still like Joe Blows Mechanical. And like that one just baffles me. It's like, dude, if you could just get that one more thing. You guys are so close, so almost there.

Dan Antonelli (30:59)

It happens frequently. Like even, you know, we, we rebranded Aaron Gaynor from Eagle Plumbers and he was at 40 million in revenue. And, and not too many guys at 40 million at revenue are saying, this ain't working right. I need to make a change. Because at that revenue it's an expensive proposition to rebrand hundreds of trucks and everything that goes along with it. But it was two and a half years later and he's at a hundred. Yeah, you know, I just interviewed him a couple weeks ago and we talked about that. And to me it just blows my mind what they've been able to accomplish. But again, getting to that point and

Chris (31:34)

saying, was the name Aaron Gaynor before?

Dan Antonelli (31:35)

No, it was Eco Plumbers. It was Eco Plumbers. But you know, again, he got to the point where he was like, it got me to here. It's not going to take me to where I want to go. It's not going to be a 250 million dollar brand in the future. And so, you know, we went through that process of rebranding and I think just developing something that really represents who they had become and where they want to go in the future. But that's actually probably the biggest company that we rebranded at that revenue. Tommy, Tommy's was second. Tommy was, was 30 million at a one garage when we rebranded him. But Aaron is actually the largest company revenue wise that we, we rebranded and, and a lot of people will say when they get to a certain revenue, it's, it's. We can't, we can't change now. We can't pivot. We can't. Yeah, we're too big to, to pivot And I'm just like, no one's too big ever to really pivot.

Chris (32:24)

You bring up such a strong point that doesn't just apply to branding. Right. Like what gets you to one place doesn't get you to another.

Dan Antonelli (32:30)

Right.

Chris (32:30)

Like I cannot do the same thing that got me to 10 million to get me to 40 and 40 to get me to 100. Right. Like there are ceilings at every level of revenue, whether it's lack of management team, lack of like national branding.

Dan Antonelli (32:46)

Also ego.

Chris (32:47)

Right, Ego. Like there's, there's so much that, that goes into there and I think just so, so important the fact that this guy was willing to go. I mean, I can't imagine. I mean, you got hundreds of vehicles at, you know, four to $5,000 a wrap.

Dan Antonelli (33:00)

Yeah.

Chris (33:01)

Plus the cost of, you know, just everything else. I mean. Yeah. I mean that's a significant multi million dollar.

Dan Antonelli (33:06)

Yeah.

Chris (33:07)

Rebrand. So.

Trent (33:08)

So if you're like a two million dollar shop, let's say like two or three million dollar shop. And like you have to, you can't. These guys don't have money like on day one to build.

Dan Antonelli (33:19)

Some of them do. I mean, if you, if say you don't. But if don't. Yeah.

Chris (33:23)

You don't have 50 grand sitting in the bank that I can go and make an investment that's going to build this beautiful brand. Yeah.

Trent (33:30)

Then what, what, at what period of time do you say like this is, this is a worth it spend?

Dan Antonelli (33:37)

I mean, honestly, as soon as it's fiscally responsible to do so. I always say the best time to rebrand was yesterday. The next best time to rebrand is today and the worst time is tomorrow.

Chris (33:48)

And I think this goes back to your initial argument. The, the opportunity costs like I'm 100.

Dan Antonelli (33:52)

Yeah.

Chris (33:53)

If you got to throw this sucker on a credit card. Right. And, and pay high interest, that high interest is going to be cheaper than the opportunity that you're missing out on by not having a reputable brand.

Dan Antonelli (34:03)

Yeah. I mean, we, we do financing and I started financing like basically 18 months ago because there were those guys at a million in revenue that couldn't swing the initial payment. And I said to myself, like, first of all, we tried to do it through a bank and no bank would do it. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna put my money on the line. I will self finance it because I believe.

Trent (34:25)

Is that what you currently do?

Dan Antonelli (34:26)

That's what we do.

Trent (34:27)

Wow.

Dan Antonelli (34:27)

Yeah. So it's my money. I'm Putting on the line. And I think we did like a hundred finance deals last year and we only had one default.

Trent (34:35)

Wow.

Dan Antonelli (34:35)

So I'm okay, you know, putting my.

Chris (34:38)

I mean, that's great.

Trent (34:39)

That's great.

Dan Antonelli (34:40)

Yeah. Because I know what it's going to do for your business. Right. And if I could help more people do it and deploy it earlier, that's great. But, you know, you think about not doing it right and you, you know, you say, well, some people say, well, I don't have the money to do it right now. But then it's the same people every month that Google's whacking them on PPC cost and LSA cost and digital marketing costs.

Trent (34:58)

Right.

Dan Antonelli (34:58)

And it's just like a death by a thousand cuts that way. So you want to do that way and keep overspending on your marketing or do you want to try to fix it once? Yeah. And if it's done right, you should never need to touch it.

Trent (35:09)

One of them is like, you have to be a drug addict to Google and keep paying them as they continue to up their prices. And in your way, you're taking charge of the brand and saying, now, yeah,

Dan Antonelli (35:19)

you know, who, who, who loves weak brands? Google, they make a ton of money on weak brands.

Chris (35:24)

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing more. You essentially own your own platform when you own a real brand. Yeah, Yeah, I love it. So what are, what are the absolute don'ts when it comes to branding and making a name for yourself? So we talked a little bit about the do's. What are the, the don'ts that guys need to avoid? Like, don't do this. Don't. This is a huge mistake.

Dan Antonelli (35:46)

Yeah. Well, like we said, make sure you're designing for the audience. Right. Make sure you research the market that you're in and even brand colors. Make sure you're picking colors that you can own. You know, we, you know, people think I'm not American or anti American because I say avoid red, white, and blue. Well, why do I say avoid red, white, and blue? It's not because I, I love this country. It's because you can't own it. So think about colors. Think about no one else in your market using these colors. I want to own this color scheme, whether it's apple, green and blue, like Aaron Gaynor's apple, green and blue. There's no one in that market using Apple green and blue. He owns apple green and blue in that market. Right. So look at what you can do to own your particular space. Think about avoiding very common Types of brand styles that you may be seeing. Like if there's too many in your market, like look at what you see in your market and if there's already a couple of mascots, don't add another mascot to the, to the market. Right. So think about what will again be uniquely identified to yourself and not confused with someone else. You know, we already talked about naming. I mean those are all key aspects to really be considering. And again, just even if you can't afford like a branding company initially, just keep it clean, keep it legible and make sure it's not too busy. Your truck wrap as, as a thing, you know, like you see some of these truck wraps and you can't even tell what the company does. So I would just say opt for something simple and clean and functional, at least initially, if that's all you can do and we can fix it later on.

Trent (37:12)

Does it bother you to see other people kind of like ripping off kick charges characters?

Dan Antonelli (37:19)

You know, listen, you know, we've got 3,000 brands under our belt at this point. I know we inspire a lot of people.

Trent (37:29)

I think what, that's a nice way to say it.

Dan Antonelli (37:31)

What bothers me more is when the inspiration is exact. Is exact and then trends into the trademark infringement piece of it. So I'm very abundance mindset oriented and I, I understand there's other companies that want to do branding and that's totally cool. And, and I love to see some of the work that some of these other companies do. Just be respectful of the intellectual property of others as you're creating art for people. And, and you know, we're so careful and, and you know, really just making sure we're doing things that are original. But yeah, it's sad to see when things, and we talk about things not to do. You know Chris, like honestly, like don't rip off someone's brand. It's going to be a really expensive lesson to learn and it's a hard lesson to learn. Like we see it happen frequently and sometimes it's even other branding companies that are selling ripped off trademarks and then you wrap five trucks and then you get a cease and desist and that's a really expensive, you know, mistake.

Trent (38:27)

Do you ever see the movie, what's that cheerleading movie? Oh, I just lost it. It was like the most popular cheerleading movie in the 90s.

Chris (38:36)

Cheerleading?

Trent (38:37)

Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (38:38)

Yeah.

Trent (38:38)

What is it? It's Bring It On. Did you ever see Bring It On?

Dan Antonelli (38:41)

I have not seen many cheerleading movies,

Trent (38:43)

so I've never seen Bring On. Oh my God.

Chris (38:45)

Maybe I saw.

Trent (38:46)

Now I have to. I have to just say it. Otherwise it's gonna seem weird. Like I'm not just watching cheerleading movies, but bring it on.

Dan Antonelli (38:51)

It already feels a little weird.

Trent (38:52)

It's a famous movie and this one choreographer sold the dances to multiple people and they all ended up in the finals.

Dan Antonelli (39:01)

Oh, my God.

Trent (39:02)

And so, yeah, anyways, that's what that reminded me of. Which now that in retrospect, on the podcast, doesn't seem like such a good example, but.

Dan Antonelli (39:09)

No, but I get it. I get it. Like, you know, especially if things are showing up in the same market, like, that's obviously not. Not a smart move.

Chris (39:16)

At what point does it make sense to trademark your brand? Whether it's logo or the actual words,

Dan Antonelli (39:22)

you should trademark both and you should do it as soon as they're created.

Chris (39:26)

Okay.

Dan Antonelli (39:26)

You know, and again, as you're thinking about picking a name for yourself, one of the things, the biggest chapter in the book is actually on naming, where we talk about, again, the best practices with that and just making sure you're thinking about not just what's available in your state. Like, people make the mistake as they go in their federal. They go in their state database to search for an llc and it'll come back clean. It'll say, oh, well, no one in the state's using this llc, so I can use this name. And they never bother to check federal. Federal supersedes state. So you may think that you're. You're a val. You're able to use this name in your state, but there may be a federal trademark on that particular name. And then you're going to get that cease and desist down the road. So definitely making sure that you're checking both federal and state as you name your company.

Trent (40:07)

I had one question before you, before we wrap this up, which is private equity groups, like every single shop that we work with wants to have an exit. Like, that's pretty much their goal. Some legacy passed down, but mainly people want to sell. Is there any correlation between owning a brand and having an established brand and the multiple that you get in private equity?

Dan Antonelli (40:30)

Yeah, it's funny. I spoke to Brian Cohen from SFNP two weeks ago. We did an interview with him and we were talking about that and we were talking about the effect of that. And even Guild Garage, that also just recently sold to Oak Hill Capital for a small number. Yeah, for, you know, I mean, it was under a bill and out of the. I think they had 24 brands under their umbrella. I think we have 14 of them. That were kick charge brands. And he'll tell you flat out that it's a huge multiple multiplier. Yes. You know, like they, they understand at that point that first of all they don't have to fix anything. They have to go in and rebrand and redo trucks and things like that.

Trent (41:09)

Right.

Dan Antonelli (41:09)

So absolutely it's something to put a definitive number on what it's going to, you know, what you're going to do on an earn out later on is harder. But certainly as you go to exit and you're presenting this company to investors and they see how well the marketing is dialed in, of course that's going to affect the multiple.

Chris (41:29)

And I think the biggest thing though is the way that it impacts those actual KPIs along the way. I mean if you doubled your revenue then it clearly, you know, you drove down your cost of acquisition, you did all these different things like, and that could be directly tied to a rebrand, then it really doesn't matter whether or not PE pays for the brand. They paid for the multiple which the brand created.

Dan Antonelli (41:51)

And to your point, you know, Trent, like a lot of them, like you said, they're looking to go out out sooner. So the interesting thing on a lot of PE acquisitions for poorly branded companies is that PE doesn't want to put money back into the brand. Right. They actually don't want to spend money because now they got a wrap truck so it's going to hit their ebitda. Right. So I think that that's when you're see opportunity for the family owned businesses to actually really invest in branding. Because you, you know, people think that oh my God, it's private equity that's investing in branding all the time. And honestly it's not like we, we do a lot of work for private equity, but you look at the portfolio of most private equity companies and most of them have awful brands. Seriously, like, it's bizarre to me. Like sometimes I look at this, I'm

Chris (42:32)

like, because they're buying spreadsheets.

Dan Antonelli (42:33)

Yeah.

Chris (42:33)

I mean that's the reality.

Dan Antonelli (42:34)

Yeah. And, and so I always just say, what is the thing that you can be doing as a privately owned company in your community to become visible? And investing in branding is one part. And then doing the things that PE is not doing, like going to the home show, going to the 4th of July parade, sponsoring all the soccer teams.

Trent (42:52)

So that's actually something we talked about when you hosted our Tuesday call.

Dan Antonelli (42:55)

Yeah.

Trent (42:56)

Which is outside of the branding piece. Like you have to get do the

Dan Antonelli (43:02)

work you gotta do.

Trent (43:02)

The work go grassroots.

Dan Antonelli (43:04)

Yeah.

Trent (43:04)

Because that, that totally offsets your customer acquisition cost.

Chris (43:08)

Give us our top 10 actions for the community involvement. So you just named a few. So you got the home shows, you

Dan Antonelli (43:15)

got the parades, the baseball teams, all the soccer teams, baseball teams. That type of engagement. Make sure you're putting sight signs up for every job that you're on. I love it when you're able to go, you know, five houses up, five, five houses down and five houses across the street with door hangers. Things like that I think are so much better for that visibility and because that visibility within the community, as and again within the neighborhood is trust. Right. If my neighbor across the street used you for their heating and air, well, that already makes you better than just some random listing on the top of Google.

Chris (43:50)

Another thing that we would do would be like customer appreciation and even like barbecue type things.

Dan Antonelli (43:55)

Right.

Chris (43:55)

So we would, we would host customer appreciation community barbecues.

Dan Antonelli (43:59)

Yeah. Right.

Chris (44:00)

Where hey, if you, if you come, if you're a customer, you get to come eat free. If you're not a customer, bring your electric bill, bring this out or the other you get, you get to eat free. Right. And then you're, you're doubling down on like the home show type of material that's, that you already have in place. Right. The tents, the tables. Exactly, those type of things. Another thing that we would run is like on weekends, whenever we're doing installs or whatnot is we do pop ups in a neighborhood where like literally like free hot dogs, hamburgers over here at the Smith's house. Right. Like, I mean, and, and like just hey, come, come see what you know, such and such company is all about. Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (44:37)

And another thing that you could be doing too is just doing stuff that has PR value. So you know, you have the technician in the house for this, this elderly woman, she's disabled and her hot water heater is broken. She's on fixed income. Yeah. Can't we just do something for, for this person here? Yeah. And you see Tommy do it a lot also and, and they, they embrace the PR value of it. I'm not saying that that's the, the sole reason why you do it, but certainly if the community sees that you're investing back into the community and doing things like that, there's a lot of value.

Chris (45:10)

It's a double win something great and you get the PR value.

Dan Antonelli (45:13)

Yeah. 100%. So you know, the, the turkey, you know, Thanksgiving donations, doing things like that, donating toys for tots. Like again, making sure you're active with that. And then again, too, making sure your social media channels is reflecting those activities.

Trent (45:27)

And so Kick Charge has branding. They have traditional marketing. Digital pbc, lsa.

Dan Antonelli (45:33)

Yes.

Trent (45:34)

Website building.

Dan Antonelli (45:35)

Y.

Trent (45:35)

And then you also do social media.

Dan Antonelli (45:37)

Yes, we do.

Trent (45:38)

And. And you do the traditional billboards.

Dan Antonelli (45:40)

Yes.

Trent (45:41)

Okay.

Dan Antonelli (45:42)

So you're.

Trent (45:42)

Once you develop the brand, they could essentially put you in the pipeline and push you all the way through 100 One Stop Shop.

Dan Antonelli (45:48)

Yeah. And I think also, like. And it's not, you know, certainly one thing that I think is unique about us is that we can handle all the channels. But regardless, I want everyone to just consider the fact that every integration of your brand needs to be consistent. So if you do have multiple vendors managing that, just making sure that there's a guide for them to follow on how your stuff should look, no matter where that customer journey is happening.

Trent (46:14)

Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (46:15)

I think that's the part that drives me crazy sometimes. If we do a brand for someone and then they go somewhere else and get some of this other work done, and I see something posted and I'm like, oh, my God, it's the wrong font. It's the wrong color. Yeah. Where did this color come from? Where did this font come from?

Chris (46:27)

I love that you brand integrity.

Dan Antonelli (46:29)

Yeah. And sometimes I'll shoot the client a screenshot. I'm like, dude, what, what happened here? You know?

Trent (46:34)

Yeah.

Dan Antonelli (46:35)

He's like, oh, I didn't have time to call you guys, so I just had my guy do it. And I'm just like, like, I'm like, you're killing me, bro.

Trent (46:44)

What was your favorite one that you designed?

Dan Antonelli (46:46)

Favorite brand?

Chris (46:46)

Yeah, all time. You got 3,000 of them to pick from.

Trent (46:50)

And don't choose your investor

Chris (46:54)

well.

Dan Antonelli (46:56)

Or, or you can, you know, Listen, I, I, I, I love the brand that we did for Amanda August at Grasshopper, and I love it for a number of reasons, not just what it created afterwards, but the impact. And I think for me, as you think about, you know, legacy and you think about, well, what. What is the most important thing for me? And to me, I sort of judge that by impact. Like, what is the impact that our work has had? And you look at what's grown out of Grasshopper and how many lives have been affected, how many jobs have been created, and the vision that she has on what she's building there. And, and so for me, that's probably one of my, one of my most proud brands, because that came from nothing. Like, she gave me her last $20,000, and I actually didn't know it at the Time. And from her last $20,000 to 30 million in revenue and it's four or five years later, if not incredible.

Chris (47:50)

And she's H vac.

Dan Antonelli (47:53)

H vac and plumbing. Yeah. And, and she's investing with other companies. And actually in her Investment Group, nine out of the 10 brands are kick charge brands that she's invested in. Which is, which is pretty wild for me to just see. Like, I'm like, I'm like, okay, am I just the incubator here? Like do you just go pick out all my people?

Trent (48:11)

But that's what I think about you. I think that you're like a catalyst for people's brands and you are an actual artist. Like you came into this space and I know there were people that are doing something similar, but you like, just like you would see Banksy like artwork in New York, you'd be like, that's a Dan Antonelli. I mean people say that about you.

Dan Antonelli (48:32)

Yeah.

Trent (48:32)

And you are like a harbinger of greatness. And I'm glad we're friends. And like I love seeing your work everywhere and you give just like somebody's investing in your company when you're a little 15 year old kid trying to make it work. Like the life that you bring to other companies uplifts this whole industry.

Dan Antonelli (48:48)

Yeah.

Trent (48:49)

And you are truly one of a kind mind.

Dan Antonelli (48:50)

Thank you. Yeah, Great.

Chris (48:51)

Love that. I love it. So, last piece of advice. Two million dollar shop struggling to pay the bills. Maxing it out. What, what are the next three steps that this guy needs to do? He's driving white vans. Rusted, rusted old white vans. No brand, you know, undercharging customers. What are, what are three pieces of advice you're giving to that person?

Dan Antonelli (49:17)

Yeah, definitely. First of all, read, read my book. If nothing else. Right?

Chris (49:23)

That book up. Yeah, sure.

Dan Antonelli (49:24)

You know, read this book. I wrote it for that person.

Trent (49:27)

Branded, not blanded and Antonelli.

Dan Antonelli (49:30)

It'll give you so much advice and insights and it's a, it's an eye opener. It's funny because people have have messaged me after they've read it and they said to me, I wanted to vomit after I read your book. And I'm like, I don't know if that's the endorsement I was looking for. But, but, but they realized all the things that they were doing wrong and how it was affecting all those metrics. So I would say think about ways that you can invest in your own brand. Think about ways that you can become active in your community that, that you're serving. Right. Don't just throw money at Google every time the phone's not ringing. And I know sometimes investing in community stuff feels long term, right. It's not something where right away I'm going to get a million leads for them. Sometimes you do, but think about ways that you can connect with people and just make sure you're doing everything you possibly can to create raving fans. You know, that's the whole, that's the whole thing because you know as well as anyone the referral is gold. Right? And that person is going to hire you because their friend did. So just make sure you're doing all the right things and, and think about building a brand that people would care about, that they would connect with, that they might remember later on, if you can.

Chris (50:41)

Love it. Thanks so much, Dan. It was a pleasure talking about branding again. One of my favorite subjects there is you can find you on social media where at?

Dan Antonelli (50:50)

You could just hit me up on Facebook at, you know, just Google my name, dan antonelli or kickcharge.com and or dan@kickcharge.com if you want to shoot me a message and listen for guys that have a brand, then maybe you're not sure if it's good. Like I'm happy to give feedback to anyone that, that just wants me to take a look at it. Like that's my way of giving back. I'm not going to sell you anything. If you have a truck and you want, hey, is this good? What can I do to make it better? Just hit me up and I'll just give you as much advice as I can. Sometimes it's just a matter of changing a few things and in a little prove it. Like so much, you know, so if I can help anybody, just, you know, hit me up. It's fine.

Chris (51:25)

Love it. Thanks so much, Dan.

Dan Antonelli (51:26)

All right, brother.