← Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast
#165 - How Branding in 2025 Will Either Make or Break Your Business
00:39:43
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- [00:00]
A
I'm budgeting 9 million of organic growth this year. We're making a very big push on brand this year. It's starting at 30 grand a month and then it stays static at 50 grand a month. We can do much more than what we're currently doing. We're already selling memberships in these zip codes. How do we just go deeper? Wilson just wrapped up the year in the low 20s and we were pumped. I mean, most of the industry did not have that same level of success. And when I think about who was a huge partner for us, like top of the list was service scalers. We've been working with service scalers for a couple years now and they've helped us drive best in class SEO, best in class PPC and dominate LSA and GMB marketing. They've been a huge partner for us and we're really grateful for that partnership because it's helped us to take down 46% year over year growth. As, as we think about our budget next year, we're aiming for the low 30s. And one of our most strategic partners is going to be service scalers. They're going to help get us there, they're going to help us stay ahead of AI, they're going to help us keep our SEO relevant. They're going to help keep us on the top, exactly where we want to be. So make sure you check out service scalers.com. sam and his team over there is just a bunch of killers. So thank you, service scalers, for your partnership. Welcome back.
- [01:18]
B
What's going on to owned and operated.
- [01:22]
A
Owned and operated. We've, we've, we've caught up some of our backlog. So like a week or two ago we had an episode air and it was like. Yeah. So we're. So we're recording right now and it's the week of Thanksgiving. Yeah. So we're caught up. So we're middle of January right now, and I think this goes live. February 4th.
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B
There we go. That's better.
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A
Yeah. Middle of January. January's going, like, really interesting. It's cold as heck.
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B
I'm jealous of that because we are still having pretty moderate weather and it's.
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A
Like we had one negative right now. Yeah. Like six feet to my right. It's in the negatives.
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B
Ooh. I mean, good for you.
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A
Yeah.
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B
I'm really happy.
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A
It's actually been kind of interesting because we haven't, I don't feel like we've had like a, like a normal. I'm checking the weather right now. I don't Feel like we've had a normal winter in a couple of years.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And like it's been really just consistently cold for four weeks now, which, like, the past couple years in Ohio, it's been like, today's 60, today's 30, today's 20, tomorrow's 50. But like, I'm looking at our 15 day forecast and there's not a day above 30.
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B
So I mean, what you just described is what's going on with us. We had, we had one day of snow or two days of snow and it was like 31 degrees and then the next day 50 and then the next day 20.
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A
That's been every year for like the past five years for us. So this year's been crazy. Like, so what used to happen is it would snow and then it would thaw the next day. But we've had snow for like two, three weeks now, which we haven't had happen in like literally years. Well, and then next week it's going to be negative 10. We have three straight days of negatives.
- [03:12]
B
Well, that's, I mean, and do you guys. So for us, in our kind of moderate weather condition, or at least where we're at. Right. What we see is we see kind of a little spike there, but generally the spike is bigger in the beginning of winter. Right. And then as you get to January, February tapers out. You might get a few extra calls, but like, bing and then being smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller. Do you guys see that as well? Okay.
- [03:38]
A
Yeah, but we'll also, like, in the negatives, we're going to see a lot of burst pipes. We're gonna see a lot of frozen pipes. I mean, negative 9 is cold and that's the temperature, let alone the wind chill. So that is just cold weather.
- [03:53]
B
Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. So your plumbing picks up, which is what we saw last year as well. Our best month was probably January last year when we're running with the really limited crew. So.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Okay. No, that makes a ton of sense.
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A
And the colder it is, what we find is more water heaters. It's like that freezing air. Like it, the wind like blows out pilot lights or it like causes additional condensation or. So like the colder it is, we see a ton of water heaters go.
- [04:20]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's the same here. But once again, we haven't just. We like. I think our coldest we got was 15 degrees this year. 16.
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A
Oh, yeah.
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B
So it's just like we're just not there. I mean, we have.
- [04:33]
A
Well, next Week is our coldest week. Three straight days in the negatives. But like this week I woke up and it was negative one.
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B
Jealous. Jealous. I mean, that's cold enough to break water heaters.
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A
Yeah, no, it's cold. Yeah, we, we beat budget. We doubled our daily budget on Monday and we beat budget by 50% yesterday and today we're going to hit budget. So it's sort of like crazy. We're having a crazy week.
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B
Congrats. That's awesome.
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A
But yeah, January. So January is going good and hopefully that carries into February and means that we're going to have like a real winter, which again, it's been years. Yeah, yeah.
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B
I mean you just have to play them at the cards you're dealt. And so, I mean, I'm jealous hearing that. But you know, we're still trying to do the same play. The cards were dealt and we'll see how that goes. And what. So you're, that's good. So you're talking about budget a little bit. Are you on track for budget in terms of like your, what you need to hit or are you on track for your goal for January 2025 to hit the revenue you want at the end of 2025?
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A
Both. Yeah, so we, yeah, so we, I mean, we're, you know, two weeks in but counts, John.
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B
Every day counts.
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A
Yeah. 2025. This is our first year with a budget. So if you're out there wondering if you can make it into the mid 20 millions without a budget, the answer is you can do I advise it? No, but you can do it. So, yeah, this is our first year with a budget which has been, I've always been really hesitant and I gave the excuses a lot of people gave which is like, ah, we're growing too fast to have a budget that doesn't make sense. Which like I'm budgeting 9 million of organic growth this year. So like that's still a lot and I feel pretty comfortable budgeting it. So all that to say, like, I don't think there's any, I don't think there's such a thing as too fast because again, I'm, I feel very comfortable budgeting for 9 million of organic.
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B
What does that look like on a percentage base? Is that like 30% growth?
- [06:36]
A
Yeah, like it's like mid-30s. Yeah, yeah. This first year with the budget, it has been extremely helpful and I think we've talked a lot over the past couple months of like, hey, we're doing more check ins, we're doing weekly, we set better monthly targets. We're doing weekly check ins against those targets. We do weekly coaching with our frontline and senior leaders. We're now adding in weekly check ins on cost center managers of like, hey, here's the thing that you're, that we need your team to do. We need two people recruited and hired. We need, you know, AR to be X, we need X number of calls in and out for call center and we need X amount of leads. So we're adding those new components to our budgeting process. And just like this weekly thing and then it's Wednesday, so second Wednesday of the month and every second Wednesday we do our monthly financial review of the previous month. And that I think all of these like different disciplines that we've slowly added over the past six months, we're just consistently getting better. And it's exciting because it's showing. So budgeting has been really helpful and the consistent like meeting and talking about it and progressing towards it has been a win. And like our gross margin every month for the last six months has risen by like half a point to one full point like consecutively month over month.
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B
Boom.
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A
Yeah, like we're feeling like we're like, we're not quite where we want to be. Like we want to be a 55% shop, but we're in the 50s consistently now, which we have never been very consistent about it. We've been there, we just haven't been consistent. So it's exciting to be there and be consistent.
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B
No, that's amazing. And a 50 shop is freaking outstanding. That's crazy. I mean like, like we said we did ours the other day and it wasn't nearly as, as good as that. So we're, we're working towards that and hopefully get that 1%.
- [08:21]
A
It's not as good as 50 or not as good as 55.
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B
Not as good as 55. I think we did it, it was like 47, 48. And so we're pushing to try to get into the 50s this year.
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A
Yeah, we, we just hit, I think our, this was our second month of like consistent 50s. We've hit 50s off and on. But like when we started really making progress on it like 44, then we hit 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, which I think we were like 51.7 last month.
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B
That's awesome.
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A
But like, dude, every percent is hard fought.
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B
Yep. Oh, 100%. And what's, what's going to be interesting is to see how, how you do in February. So overall, because like February is the month where you Cut. And you. You start to try, you know, the discounts happen to fill the board and everything like that. So. Interested to see how you handle that.
- [09:10]
A
Yeah. I mean, December, really, I feel like, was a good example of it because we.
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B
It was moderate.
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A
It was pretty moderate.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And I think that we have been like. Our H Vac gross margin was 53% last month.
- [09:22]
B
What's the benchmarks for H Vac and plumbing? What are they supposed to be for?
- [09:27]
A
Like, a healthy business is, like, 50% for H vac is good. 55 is, like, amazing. I do know a company running, like, 57, 60 in H vac, which is, like, unreal, but they're also, like, PE back. So they buy, like, really, really cheap.
- [09:42]
B
Yeah.
- [09:43]
A
Yeah. So they're amazing. But they do run, like, it's like, 59. Like, I've seen P. L's. It's like 59% in H vac. And I'm like, that is unreal. Plumbing, 60% is the target. That's always, like, the known target. 20% labor, 20% materials.
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B
Yep.
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A
Very easy to understand. We don't often hit. We have hit 60. We don't often hit 60. We are usually a 55% plumbing.
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B
It's interesting. Yeah. Because, I mean, as we're starting to move on our plumbing journey, we're trying to figure that out. And that's what we've heard as well. And. And last last month, we ran 17.8% material, and I think we ran 24% on labor. And so we're getting there. Like, that's what we're trying to.
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A
Yeah.
- [10:25]
B
Come back with. On. On the back end. Now that we're really honing in on our gross margin and getting all the accounting right, we're able to see it, like, 55%.
- [10:33]
A
Like, we are overall. Like, we obviously want to hit 60, but, like, we're happy when we hit in the 55s. Yeah. 60 is the target. And then H vac, I believe the target. Well, I already said that one. Electric is, like, 60 to 65% because it's. That's pretty. Yeah, it's very low material expense. So, like, for us, I'm just, like, looking at our number here. Like, our budget for materials is 15% for electric, and we are targeting a 62% gross margin. Last month, we hit 61.
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B
That's amazing. Yeah, so that's good. So you have two. Two divisions that are blending up when you look at your hole to try and get you that 55% shop. So that's awesome.
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A
Yeah. I Mean, in order to get to 55, like it's H Vac, we know where it's at. It's H vac because H Vac is the one that could be 40 or it could be 55%. Whereas like plumbing we know is probably going to be 55. Electric we know is going to be 55 to 60, maybe above 60. But H vac is the big like unknown every month with this, this, these.
- [11:44]
B
30% plus growth organically. What, what are you doing to try and get there this year? What, like, what's the plan? What's the, the big moves? Where, where's the silver bullets at to get there?
- [11:56]
A
Yeah, yeah. Big stuff we're thinking about this year is it's really the next, like two years. Growth is always like, where are you going to get the leads? Where are you going to get the people? We feel pretty confident in our process. We're making a very big push on brand this year. Like, big push. I think it's probably a $450,000 investment total. And that's going to be. We've, we've done radio and we've done branding activities forever. But like this is like a push. Yeah. So it's going to be a, it's, it's a meaningful part of our budget and it went live first week of January, so it's going to like sort of scale up. It's starting at 30 grand a month and it taps out at 50 grand a month and then it stays static at 50 grand a month. So TV, radio, billboards, the stuff that you'd expect, some social spend, some over the top. It's like a well encompassing thing. We've been working on it for four or five months. So that started January.
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B
When will you know if it's working? Like when do you have your first sit down to make sure that you're getting ROI on it or, or how are you tracking that? Because traditional spend or traditional branding is generally really hard to get any ROI on or at least see it outside of, hey, I think it's hard to see short. Exactly. So when shortterm, when you sitting down and looking at that and trying to figure out if it's worth it or not or if it's winning.
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A
Like we'll basically do a quarterly review and it like we're using a couple metrics. Like one of them is search. Like, did our search our organic search volume increase. Did more people search Wilson Plumbing in this time period? Over the trailing 90 days and definitely this previous year, same time period.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So that's that's the first one and then the second one is pretty straightforward. Revenue by zip code. Like did our revenues increase in these zip codes?
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B
Did.
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A
Yes. No.
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B
That's cool. So you're targeting certain zip codes with. I mean, I know you can geofence neighborhoods and geofence zip codes. Is that how you're doing this? Targeting for the branding?
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A
This is an all encompassing. We are covering the entirety of our service area.
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B
Okay.
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A
So that's a little bit different. But like we're placing billboards in specific spots. We're doing over the top, which is like streaming in very specific spots. We're doing social spend in specific spots. So we do have a few like we are targeting right heres and we expect to see big changes there. But then we have some like fringe areas. Like I had an area that we did like 800,000 in that we don't have a GMB. We don't have like 800,000 across five zip codes. But like that's a lot. We have an area that we did 1.2 million last year and same thing. Like there's no. Actually we, we really don't know why we really did 1.2. Like I bought a company there like years ago, but I assume it's just like our trucks are there a lot.
- [14:48]
B
You don't know why you're doing so well because you're not focusing on it but just naturally organically doing well. So you're going to try and put a little focus in there to grow those specific zip codes then?
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A
Yeah, yeah. Basically we have a couple areas that like our market share is not what we want it to be. And that's the other way. That's sort of the final way we're thinking about measuring this is like, what's our market share? How many units get installed for H Vac? How many of them did we install? So like what was our actual share of this market for water heaters, for sewers, for H Vac systems? And how much of that do we own?
- [15:24]
B
And so when you're targeting these zip codes, what kind of metrics are you looking at other than just that? Are you running like an SEO report to see who else is there and then what the competition would be like? Or are you just saying we're the best, we're. We're just going to move in and dominate no matter what the competition is?
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A
Yeah, I mean basically the latter. I don't know about the, that attitude towards it, but like we're going to overspend everybody.
- [15:48]
B
So we're going to go in there, we're going to overspend and we're going to really push Wilson down, make sure that everybody knows the name Wilson Co. Even if they don't use us. But hopefully they do have some attrition because it's extremely different than the way we're looking at it. So that's why I'm very interested because we don't have that kind of marketing spending. So we went the back route and just said, hey, this market has 60,000 people in it. This is their average, the average income per household. Who's the competition in this area, how far it is away from the main shop. And so we took that and we said, okay, if we were to move a GMB into here that's from an underperforming area that we don't want to be in, we would dominate reviews by 4x. So the moving GMB would have 4 times the amount of reviews out of the gate. And then once we took over, the SEO profile of it showed like all of our keywords, that if we moved it into this area and we just did moderately. Okay. And a little bit of spend, that we would dominate the SEO kind of marketplace for these, these houses.
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A
So yeah, so we're thinking about it a little bit differently where, hey, we already do like in a lot of these markets, let's say, because you know, it's all these like boroughs, like neighborhoods, basically.
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B
Yeah, exactly.
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A
Okay, so this neighborhood, there's a winner. In this neighborhood, the winner does 10 or 15 million dollars. I already do a million in their service area. Like I'm already there. We just don't have a gmb. Maybe we're not doing mailers, you know, pick a reason. But like we're already there playing in their front yard. So for us, this isn't like new market that we've never touched. This is density. Like, hey, we already do all of this. Now we just want to do a lot more in these specific areas.
- [17:40]
B
That's interesting though, because, I mean, so that's the same reason why we chose this area though, to even look at in the first place was this was our third highest performing zip code and we don't have anything there. And so we said, why if we don't have anything there, the third highest performing zip code, like, let's put something there and make it the first highest performing zip code. Yeah, yeah. So same thing. It's like we just realized that when we moved, when we're looking at their area, that from a marketing perspective, and I mean, it Stems from our mindset. If we don't just don't have that, like, we have our marketing spend, we can't, you know, go and drop $450,000. So, yeah, we have to be a little bit more tight about who we're competing against. If it's like, you know, Hoffman brothers.
- [18:26]
A
I also think you don't need to. So, like, something that was kind of interesting. If you're watching this, if you're not watching this on YouTube, I recommend you do so. Like, this is our service area, so it's obviously like, maybe it's not obvious, but it's big. It's a quartile of the state that we're doing revenue in in Ohio. So we cover a pretty big area. But, like, I'm going to change these years. So let's go back to like 2018. And my point here, yes, we did branding activities. Look at that.
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B
It's about a quarter of the size of his last year's map. And it's really tight around Akron.
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A
And I can pull it up. Like, I'm just going to keep going. So, like, I'm going to. I'm going to take you through the years. So that was 2018. This is 2019, a little bit more 2020. And my point here is this was pretty much all lead generation with a little bit of branding. So in 2020, we added Cleveland. And you can see that if, again, if you're following along on video, like, we didn't used to go above this line, which is like just above Akron. And then Suddenly we're in 20 more zip codes because we added an entire new city. Go to 2021. And it just keeps getting wider and darker because we, like, we're. We're doing more revenue densely. So this is 2021. We're now working in all of Cleveland. And basically we just used Legion activities to get us here. And you didn't have to, like, you didn't have to drop 450 grand. So this one is like darker green. So we focused, we went a little bit south, roughly the same map. And then 2023, you can see. And by the way, this is one of the ways that we measure. This is how we measure our marketing too. Like, are we where we want to be? So 23 was wider, but also we have a couple zip codes that are just darker. We're doing more. And then finally last year, the widest and the most dark greens. So when we're looking at this now we're looking at like, okay, where do we find where do we find our 9 million? Well, okay, this area here is a high income area and I'm already doing $600,000. There's no GMBs, there's no like anything in these zip codes. And we are doing $600,000. Like we're doing a company worth of revenue inside those four or five zip codes. Okay, well how do we do more or like here, here's three zip codes and all together we're doing like 1.2, 1.3. Same thing. No GMB, no billboards, no branding, nothing focused in those areas. And we're doing a lot. And then over here is sort of the same thing. Like it's far away from our headquarters which is right here. So it's about 45 minute drive. But we're doing half a million dollars over here already. So how do we get density? So this is kind of an interesting map because if you look at it, it's actually the entirety of like the northeast Ohio service area. And when we're thinking about our continued expansion we're just like, how do we get denser in some of these zip codes? So how do we, is that as tv, radio and just really get a lot of thick green.
- [21:45]
B
Is that as wide as you want to go? Because right. We talk about in two terms. You go wide or you go deep, you expand the territory out or you try to get darker colors and yeah, more of the market share. We're expecting pretty wide already. So besides for a new location outside of this, the goal now is not really to get any more zip codes. It's to maximize the potential of the zip codes you already have.
- [22:09]
A
Pretty much like we work, we do work in every zip code in our service area that we could reasonably do work in. So now like that's why we're like, how do we go even deeper? They're already seeing our trucks. We already have healthy homes which is our membership in each and every one of these zip codes. So how do we go even deeper?
- [22:26]
B
Just answer the phone is one of those phrases that's always easier said than done. I know it was hard for me in my business because the phone always, always rings while you're out in the field trying to get something done or it's 8pm and you're trying to get your kids to bed. Well, I have the solution for you. I'm extremely excited today to announce quick staffers your go to solution for building a high performing, cost effective customer service team. We are placing CSRs who have been pre trained on proven home service SOPs. And scripts, the same ones that Wilson and I use in our business. For a limited time, we're offering $500 off your initial placement costs for the first 10 signups. See link in the description below or head over to quickstaffers.com for more information. So I mean, this is ours, very similar to yours. I think we were a little too wide, honestly, in my opinion for where I'd like to be in the Nashville location. But you can see we are located right in here, this hot zone of dark. And then we have just a lot of light green out. But you can kind of see down here in this location. We do, you know, 100,000, 200,000 without any GMBs, which it's not a huge amount for, for you, but for, you know, our size, that's a, I mean.
- [23:40]
A
For a zip code, that's a lot of money. Yeah, a lot of money. And then like that's a one man show.
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B
Exactly.
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A
Like you're doing a one man show's worth of business and that's in that zip code.
- [23:48]
B
And then when we looked at this and we went, okay, who is in Spring Hill? Who are we? You know, I'm giving it away, but I don't care. Who are we competing against? And the answer is no one. Like there's nobody in there. So why wouldn't we double down and say, hey, this is one of our top producing zip codes. There's no competition, which is why we're getting them right now. We're bleeding down, is what I call it bleed through from our upper zip codes. So let's put something there, let's maximize potential and let's really capitalize. And that's where our, I guess 25% organic growth is where we're planning on, on getting it from. But let me ask you a question. So we're having trouble though finding, you know, a location to put a gmb. You know, we, we would have to spend very heavily to open shop there in terms of percentage wise. Right. We're at like 2.3 on, on rent for rent to revenue percentage if we're to buy or rent, excuse me, something down there to move a GMB into that location because they don't have the typical ability. We would be looking at probably like 3.5 until fruition of the actual like growth happens. What do you think? What would you do? Would you, would you take that risk to. In February to get into this?
- [25:14]
A
Probably not. Just like GMBs take a while to ramp up anyways.
- [25:17]
B
But you would, but that's my worry, actually is because, like, I want it in place now so that when summer hits.
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A
Yeah, but you're talking about doubling your rent expense. I mean, that's a lot.
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B
No, not doubling, but like a fourth. Yeah, we found something, but it's. It's a lot and we don't need it, unfortunately. So I'm kind of mixed emotions on it. And so we're still searching, but, you know, it's available type of thing. I, I want to. Want to pull like a straight from Rich Jordan and like sub out the other half of it, like sublease. But it's just such a small office space that is. Doesn't make sense.
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A
Yeah, yeah, I think. I don't know if it takes three or four months. I think I would just hold.
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B
Yeah, that's what we're at right now is we're just. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, get some of that spring money rolling.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, get that, get that spring money. None of this. Yeah. 50 degree money.
- [26:16]
B
That's really interesting. So you're moving into. You're going deep in a few zip codes that you're really passionate about. Yeah.
- [26:23]
A
So non. Non entrants. This is actually like the first year and you saw it from the map. Like, we actually haven't been trying to add new zip codes this year. We're just trying to do much, much more. Because what I. What was kind of interesting for us is we, we did another, like, version of a market share study and by trade, some of our market share is really low. Like our H vac market share is low. And we're like, oh, man. Like, it doesn't have to be this low. Like, we can do much more than what we're currently doing. So that got us really excited about, hey, we're already in these zip codes. We're already selling memberships in these zip codes. How do we just go deeper? And we're pumped because I think like the, the foundation we're building this year, it's going to, we're going to really see the results in 25, 26. I think this is like how we get to 50 pretty quick inside Northeast Ohio.
- [27:14]
B
Can you, can you talk more about. Like, I know you, you've kind of mentioned that you, you have some channels you're relying on for branding. Is that the key that you view as is going to open up those locks? Is it like, hey, we are going to, in these zip codes, put some billboards in and we're expecting that that's going to be what really turns on the. Or you just Are you turning.
- [27:36]
A
I'm glad you asked that. To clarify, I. For the. I do not think billboards are the right decision in the vast majority of cases. So, like, I agree.
- [27:46]
B
Disagree with you. Cool Ray came comes in and. And slams billboards down your throat.
- [27:51]
A
And then billboards only work if you attach them to other campaigns.
- [27:55]
B
Yeah.
- [27:56]
A
So like, I'll see people pull billboards for like one or two things and like, hey, this one's near my shop. I want it. And like, maybe. But like, the best case for a billboard is you're running mailers or TV or radio or social and billboards reinforce the zip codes that you want. Like, that is a, a good use of billboards. But billboards as a whole, like, it's kind of a tough branding exercise.
- [28:20]
B
They're not the, the. They're not, they're not the triggering point that gets you to pull the trigger and make the call. The mailer is or the ad on Facebook is. And they just keep you at top of mind. Right?
- [28:33]
A
Yeah.
- [28:33]
B
That's the way to look at it.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah. I'm going to give an example. There was a. It was a company we looked at a couple years ago and they were 5 million bucks and they were spending 500,000 10% on marketing. And they were like shrinking in revenue. And in that same time period, we're just like going gangbusters. And I was like, what the heck is going on here? And then I randomly passed one of their billboards and they were spending huge amounts of money on billboards. And like, that was their big thing. And they were shrinking and they'd been doing it for years and they were shrinking. And it's like they should have been spending more in LSAs.
- [29:12]
B
Yeah.
- [29:13]
A
Should have been spending something in PPC or mailers or. It's like they were trying to like my quick take is use the medium for what it's meant for. And if you need leads, don't do a billboard. You need leads, you don't need branding. Billboard tv, it's branding. So, like, but if you're hungry today, you need leads. If you're going to be hungry in a year, you need branding and leads.
- [29:37]
B
And with that. So then what's. So if you don't want me restating the question, so then what's. Are you focusing more on brand. Excuse me, lead gen in that area and then you're just going to support with branding or are you just focusing on branding in that area and then you're going to continue your lead gen or you.
- [29:54]
A
We're going to continue Legion. Yeah, this is an addition of budget. We feel really comfortable with our processes around Legion.
- [30:00]
B
How do you feel about the LSA kind of marketplace at the moment? Because I've heard a lot of chit chat around LSA changes. I mean, they just got rid of the app. Google search volume has been eaten up by AI search volume. What, what's your feeling on LSA moving into the future?
- [30:19]
A
Well, that's why we started focusing more on brand. We feel like, I don't know what 2025 and 2026 hold for like Google. I do think it would be hard to disrupt like the Google. My business review platform is like a universal review platform. Like to me it's, everybody uses it and every business is on it. And I feel like that's really easy. So it's hard to see the GMB side getting disrupted. It would just be easier to like knock it off. But maybe I'm wrong.
- [30:55]
B
I actually agree quite a bit with that one because it's so ingrained.
- [31:00]
A
I mean every restaurant, every dentist, every plumbing company, every software, every everything.
- [31:06]
B
And you can't AI that away. If somebody said, hey, there's so many other H vac company in the area and they said, oh, private response, I'd probably still Google it and be like, hey, let me double check. Its reviews are good.
- [31:19]
A
But I mean there's Angie's List, there's Amazon, there's all these different like review aggregation things. But GMB is kind of the only one that is like pretty universal.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah.
- [31:28]
A
Like it's not for products, but it's for business.
- [31:30]
B
I mean, I'm with you on that one. I just, I just wanted to see if you had any different insights because I, I, you keep hearing this.
- [31:36]
A
We're expecting more challenges in lead gen in 2025 than previous years.
- [31:42]
B
You know, I don't know if it's going to be a challenge for you. I think it's more so it's just going to be understanding what the change is. Right?
- [31:49]
A
Yeah, well, we think it's going to be less like, oh, you just use lsa. But we've been like, it's something we've been working on de risking for a while. Like, how do we farm our own lists? What are the lead aggregators are out there and how much use are we making of them? Like, we started beta testing lead ags like four months ago. So we're four months into it. We're not like, LSA is the standard by how we measure, like lead aggregators as far as return on Investment. The ROI of those leads, like LSA is the best. We get the best return on LSA spend.
- [32:22]
B
Yeah.
- [32:23]
A
But Angie list actually is not far behind, which.
- [32:26]
B
No, cut this. Don't, don't, don't tell people this secret, dude.
- [32:30]
A
It's crazy. But like, and there's, it was so.
- [32:32]
B
Bad that there's, it's so bad for the contractor that all the good contractors left. But they're so good at SEO that.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah.
- [32:41]
B
That they're able to get you so many consumers.
- [32:44]
A
Yeah. But what's also been interesting is like, guys, aside from Angie's list, there are hundreds of lead aggregators and I had no concept. I thought it was Angie and that was it. And there are hundreds of options out there. I mean, modernized. Like, they just came on as one of our sponsors and we are making money off of their leads. Like, it is a freaking win. Yeah. So, like, we've been testing lead ags for a while and there's a ton of them. So right now we have like 20 going in addition to LSA.
- [33:17]
B
Yeah. So we have, we have one and that one. The last week. Excuse me, Last week we spent 1300 with them and they brought us 30 leads. 30 leads?
- [33:29]
A
Yeah.
- [33:30]
B
For $1300. It was like 45 bucks a lead. And I'm talking about water heater replacements, H vac unit replacements.
- [33:37]
A
Well, once we finish recording, you can tell me the name. Yeah, but, but what I, what I do think is interesting is like you'll find these lead aggregators that aren't Angie. And you're the only one.
- [33:47]
B
I was just going to say that you can dominate if you have a medium sized business. Because what's happened is all the good large companies left for LSA and they left a bunch of chuck and trucks, man. In vans.
- [33:59]
A
Or sometimes there's none at all.
- [34:01]
B
Or none at all.
- [34:02]
A
And there's some lead aggregators that were the only service provider for like electric.
- [34:06]
B
Yeah.
- [34:07]
A
In northeast Ohio. So, like, we just get all of them. Now. The thing that is totally different, similar to how Angie works, is it's not lsa. It is not someone's clicking to call and it's easy peasy. Like, you have to have a really effective pipeline management. And I don't think we're there. We're not starting to get there, but yeah, it's, it's a lot harder to get those leads, but they are there.
- [34:31]
B
Well, because it's a speed to lead, so you have to deal with that right out the gate, especially if there's competitors. Right. It's Whoever, Yep. Responds the quickest on the weekend or at 10 o'clock at night is going to win that job. And then you have to get out there and then sell them or deal with the, the, the issue. And there's a lot of tire kickers, a lot of shoppers, a lot of not lsa. This is an emergency. It's, we were thinking about doing a remodel. We wanted somebody out here for free to, to walk us through. So there's definitely something there that has to be done in terms of how you and your team kind of sift through the noise. But there's some really good opportunity on lead gen right now or lead aggregators right now.
- [35:17]
A
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you and I'm sure that'll change again. But LSA for us is still the standard by which they're all measured. Like LSA beats the heck out of all of them. And we've continued to just overproduce lsa. So I, I, I don't know if other people are, I guess I haven't really been keeping track of how other people are doing with lsa. I don't know if it's still like rough or not, but like I'll say has still been good.
- [35:41]
B
Yeah, I mean from what I've heard from the grapevine is that it's not the way it was even last year. Like last year was still pretty set it and forget it. You know, optimize. There's a few strategies now. It seems that the leads are, there's maybe quarter less. They're harder to get, harder to come by. And I don't know if that's due to the changes in service area and how they prioritize service area or not prioritize service area. But yeah, how they stop dinging them. There's just been so many changes to LSA in the last like six months. There's been a ton of algorithmic changes that I just don't even know. You know, if, if you aren't following and being very active with the team and if you're our size, like it's me. It's not, we don't have anyone else who's, who's running lsa. So it's like I have to know about the changes and how to navigate and what to do, how to prioritize your GMB now and all this kind of stuff. So with that being said, it's, it's really interesting and, and the, I think that the people who, we've talked about it before, like in 2019 20, 20. You said it. You forget it. You get the calls. 20, 23, 2024. You set it. You do some, you know, some minor management. You get the calls. 20, 24, 20, 25, 20, 26. I think it's like, hey, you said it. You manage it actively. And it's like you have to fight a little bit for the calls.
- [37:12]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're adding more emphasis and energy than ever into our GmbH.
- [37:17]
B
Yeah. And I think that's a lot worse.
- [37:19]
A
It's also like we're getting rewarded, but I think, you know, long term, I think brand is the ultimate winner. Like, you always need leads, but like, once you get once you can invest heavily in brand, it's going to win. So we, we see our push this year as a de risk against leads because we know in six to nine months, next time we go through quarter one, we will have invested half a million dollars into our brand in all the zip codes we already work in. So, yeah, stronger.
- [37:50]
B
I mean, and the proof's in the pudding. I mean, we see it here in our, our metro very often just because there's so many big players that you can go through and ask people like, why who did you use and why? And they said, well, I mean, I called this guy because we hear about them all the time. And it's like, that's it. Like, that's the one thing that, that gets people to call is that they are top of mind. And yeah, it's terrible as the company is, which I'm not going to say the name. It's like that, that's what draws people to it. So it's very interesting. I'm excited to see any kind of like concrete evidence of it working because, you know, it's very hard to quantify.
- [38:33]
A
All right, so we talked about brand spend, we talked about lead aggregators, we talked about budgeting. This was pretty wide ranging conversations.
- [38:40]
B
Moving into new zip codes.
- [38:42]
A
Yeah, yeah, we added zip code. Yeah, it was good. We're gonna leave it off with our next workshop. I actually think it's already like half sold out, which is kind of crazy. I was just gonna say, I think that's the benefit of this being our third one is a little bit more traction, which is awesome. And yeah. So 30 seats. I think we have 15 signed up. Should be a lot of fun. It's early April.
- [39:05]
B
Yes.
- [39:06]
A
Six to the eighth, two.
- [39:09]
B
Don't look at me. April.
- [39:13]
A
Yeah, our, our next workshop is in April. It's gonna be a lot of fun. It's breaking five workshop. So It's a lot of the fundamental stuff on how to get over your first 5 million bucks. Check out Owned and Operated.com workshop to get more information and to reserve your spot. Thanks for tuning in.
- [39:32]
B
Thanks.