#197 What’s Actually Working in Home Service Marketing in 2025 (Proven Growth Strategies)

Summary

Podcast Summary: Owned and Operated - Episode #197: “What’s Actually Working in Home Service Marketing in 2025 (Proven Growth Strategies)”

Release Date: May 15, 2025
Hosts: John Wilson and Sam Preston (CEO of Service Scalers)

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Introduction

In Episode #197 of Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast, hosts John Wilson and Sam Preston delve into effective marketing strategies for home service businesses in 2025. The discussion centers on when to implement various marketing channels, the distinction between demand capture and demand generation, budget allocation, and the importance of feedback loops in optimizing marketing efforts.

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Key Concepts: Demand Capture vs. Demand Generation

John Wilson initiates the conversation by differentiating between demand capture and demand generation:

“[00:00] John: This is kind of like a deep dive. We're gonna be talking about when to add different types of marketing... you don't understand demand capture versus demand generation.”

Sam Preston further clarifies:

“[08:30] Sam Preston: Demand creation versus demand capture.”

• Demand Capture: Targeting customers actively seeking services, such as those searching for plumbers or HVAC services online.

• Demand Generation: Creating awareness and desire for services among potential customers who may not yet recognize their need.

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Budget Allocation Strategies

John emphasizes the importance of aligning the marketing budget with immediate lead generation needs:

“[10:27] John: And the purpose of TV or billboards or anything else is to solve your lead problems nine months from now.”

Sam advises against spreading the budget too thin across multiple channels:

“[05:43] Sam Preston: The big mistake we see a lot of companies doing is they want to do a bunch of different channels... don’t spread it.”

Key Takeaways:

• Prioritize channels that provide immediate leads (e.g., Google My Business, Local Services Ads).
• Allocate a significant portion of the budget to lead generation before investing in brand awareness.

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Effective Marketing Channels at Different Business Sizes

John and Sam outline recommended marketing channels based on the business’s revenue brackets:

1. $0 to $250K/year:

   • Strategies: Word of mouth, Facebook groups, door knocking.
   • John’s Insight:

     “[16:05] John: If I were starting from scratch, I don't know that I would do paid at all. Probably be like meta...”

2. $250K to $750K/year:

   • Strategies: Google My Business (GMB), Local Services Ads (LSA), limited paid advertising.
   • Sam’s Advice:

     “[23:53] Sam Preston: There are some things that you can do to get traction and get it working underneath it.”

3. $750K to $1.5M/year:

   • Strategies: Introduction of Google Ads (PPC), SEO efforts, possible experimentation with social media ads.
   • John’s Example:

     “[30:05] John: So if you're at that 250 to 750 mark, I don't want you to pay for agencies like personally...”

4. $1.5M to $5M/year:

   • Strategies: Aggressive SEO, backlink strategies, hiring a marketing coordinator.
   • Sam’s Suggestion:

     “[36:01] Sam Preston: We're above that...”

5. $5M to $8M/year:

   • Strategies: Hiring a marketing manager, diversifying into additional channels like radio and TV cautiously.
   • John’s Caution:

     “[34:08] John: ...marketing manager. But like, that's different.”

6. Above $20M/year:

   • Strategies: Significant investment in branded spend (TV, radio, billboards), comprehensive SEO and backlink strategies, internal marketing teams.
   • John’s Perspective:

     “[56:06] John: My quick take is 20 million is a good time to start thinking about branded spend.”

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Importance of Feedback Loops in Marketing

John and Sam stress the necessity of establishing feedback mechanisms to optimize marketing campaigns:

“[36:10] John: ...what did I spend in marketing this month? How many new customers did I bring in during this time period?”

Sam highlights:

“[36:25] John: ...the feedback loop is one of our most important lessons that we've learned in marketing just this past year.”

Essential Elements:

• Regular reporting and analysis of lead quality and conversion rates.
• Continuous communication with agencies or internal teams to adjust strategies based on performance data.

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SEO and Backlinks Strategies

Discussion Highlights:

• John: Advocates for a robust SEO strategy, emphasizing the need for high-volume page creation (10-30 pages/month) to outperform competitors.

  “[44:13] John: You have to break the game, which is 10 to 30. Like, 10 to 30 pages a month is breaking the game.”

• Sam: Introduces the concept of managing backlinks as a separate budget line, aiming to enhance domain authority.

  “[44:27] Sam Preston: It's not... it's all bot backlinks.”

Strategies:

• Content Creation: Producing a high volume of quality content to improve search engine rankings.
• Backlink Acquisition: Building authoritative backlinks through partnerships and content marketing.
• Domain Authority: Monitoring and increasing domain authority as a key metric for SEO success.

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Hiring Marketing Personnel

John and Sam discuss optimal hiring practices based on business growth:

• Marketing Coordinator: Recommended between $5M to $8M revenue. Responsibilities include managing lead generation activities, coordinating with agencies, and handling routine marketing tasks.

  “[51:00] John: ...like bookkeepers. I mean, they might add marketing coordinators to it. ... has done exactly that.”

• Marketing Manager: Suggested for larger businesses (above $5M), focusing on strategic marketing initiatives, overseeing multiple channels, and driving overall marketing strategy.

  “[52:07] Sam Preston: So five to eight, we're looking at a marketing manager.”

Key Insights:

• Specialization: As businesses grow, marketing roles should become more specialized to handle complex campaigns and diverse channels.
• Cost-Benefit: Hiring internal marketing staff should align with budget allocations to ensure cost-effectiveness compared to agencies.

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Traditional Marketing Methods: Mailers

John evaluates the effectiveness of direct mailers based on target audiences:

“[53:18] John: But it's a bigger list probably than active...”

Recommendations:

• Targeted Mailers: Sending mailers to active or lapsed customers can yield higher conversion rates.
• Mass Mailers: General direct mail has a lower conversion rate (~1%) and requires higher volume to be effective.
• Segmented Approach: Focus on mailing existing customers or specific segments rather than blanket campaigns.

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Success Stories and Examples

John shares anecdotal evidence of businesses scaling effectively by focusing on a few key marketing channels:

“[41:00] John: I feel like it's like the least amount of things, the better because you're...”

• Chicago Plumbing Company: Achieved $21M to $20M annual revenue primarily through PPC, spending $3K/day on Google Ads.
• Bathroom Remodeler in Akron: Scaling to $200M with a concentrated focus on Local Services Ads (LSA) and PPC.

Sam recounts experiences with clients achieving substantial growth through Service Scalers’ strategies:

“[04:05] Jeff: We just are finishing the best April we've ever had. 55% year over year organic growth...”

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Conclusions and Takeaways

1. Focus on Lead Generation: Prioritize channels that provide immediate and consistent leads to keep the business operations running smoothly.
2. Optimize Before Diversifying: Master a few key marketing channels before expanding into additional ones to avoid budget dilution.
3. Implement Feedback Loops: Regularly analyze and communicate lead performance to refine and optimize marketing strategies.
4. Invest in SEO and Backlinks: For sustained growth, a strong SEO strategy with significant content creation and backlink acquisition is essential.
5. Strategic Hiring: Scale the marketing team in alignment with business growth, ensuring roles are specialized to handle complex marketing needs.
6. Effective Use of Traditional Marketing: Utilize traditional methods like mailers judiciously, targeting specific customer segments for higher ROI.

Final Thoughts: Both John Wilson and Sam Preston advocate for a disciplined, focused approach to marketing for home service businesses. By concentrating on effective lead generation channels, optimizing marketing spend, and scaling marketing efforts strategically, businesses can achieve substantial growth and maintain competitive advantage in the evolving market landscape.

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Notable Quotes:

• John Wilson [00:00]: “You need leads today, tomorrow, and the next day. You don't understand demand capture versus demand generation.”

• Sam Preston [05:43]: “The big mistake we see a lot of companies doing is they want to do a bunch of different channels.”

• John Wilson [10:27]: “Are people searching for us organically? That’s it… if you don’t have leads today, tomorrow, and the next day, your brand is irrelevant.”

• Sam Preston [36:01]: “We have marketing managers that can get results back to our team and outperform.”

• John Wilson [44:13]: “You have to break the game, which is 10 to 30. Like, 10 to 30 pages a month is breaking the game.”

• Sam Preston [56:13]: “The farther you can get with focusing on the least amount of channels, and you optimize those channels, you’re gonna do great.”

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For More Information: Visit www.ownedandoperated.com to explore more episodes and resources on growing your home service business.

Transcript

[John]

This is kind of like a deep dive. We're gonna be talking about when to add different types of marketing. You need leads today, tomorrow, and the next day. And when I see people complaining about leads, they're like, we just can't stay busy. We like pull up in their marketing budget and they have like five grand a month going to Billboard. Like, what do you do? What are you doing? You don't understand demand capture versus demand generation.

[Sam Preston]

One of the guys said, I've got $2,000 a month I do in Google Ads and 2,000amonth I do in LSA. And my first thought is why GMB is the.

[John]

And like the people, the biggest people in our industry are hyper focused on their gmb.

[Sam Preston]

I think that the, the big mistake we see a lot of companies doing is they want to do a bunch of different channels.

[John]

Welcome back to Owned and Operated. Today in studio with me, I have Sam Preston, the CEO of Service Scalers. Welcome to the sofa.

[Sam Preston]

Oh, thanks bro. This is such a nice studio.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's, it's been good. We're having a lot of fun with it. We are pumping out content. IT people should start to question, does he actually run a plumbing company? That should start to be coming up in people's brains. The answer is, yeah, I do.

[Sam Preston]

And soon we're going to ask, is this AI generated or is this really John? Because this is a lot.

[John]

Yeah. Do that deep fake stuff. Yeah, yeah. I haven't tried. Have you tried any like deep fake, like videos of yourself yet?

[Sam Preston]

We have, we have.

[John]

Is it good?

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, it's pretty good.

[John]

Oh, man.

[Sam Preston]

Okay, so you can't show the hands. You got to be careful with that. So you make sure it's, you know, chest up.

[John]

And you just tell the deep fake software to like, don't show my hands.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, you should have to get it. The camera angle up. And sometimes we've done it like of ourselves. Like me talking in an ad is not really me, it's the AI generator me. Yeah, but we've also like used other like AI generated people to talk. And so we have like a couple characters that do a lot better. And what it's allowed us to do is we run just like a bunch of scripts on like Facebook ads or something like that to see like what is going to hit before you get into trying to actually create that yourself.

[John]

That's wild.

[Sam Preston]

Because you want to see what's, what's going to connect, what's going to get the best, what's the hook that gets People to click and yeah, play that game.

[John]

I wonder when likeness becomes like illegal. Like can't do deep fakes of Trump. Can't. Because like all I want to do now is like do like a deep fake of Trump being like, you know, that toilet is huge. Like buyer buy our coupon or something. I don't know. Like that. That'd be good.

[Sam Preston]

So many good ones. Yeah, I. I don't know. How do you, how do you even regulate that? Yeah, that'll be interesting. That's a whole wild west.

[John]

Yeah, it feels wild. It feels wild. Well, that's not what we're here to talk about. So today we're going to be talking about, we're going to be talking about levels, when to add different types of marketing, when not to. Maybe more importantly how to give feedback to whoever you're working with, whether it's an agency, you're like a lead partner or something like that internal team.

[Wilson]

Yep, yep.

[John]

And like basically how, how marketing grows over time at a home service business. So yeah, let's do it. I feel like this is so this is kind of in a series we've been doing, doing the series on like how to scale your plumbing company, how to scale your H vac company. And in each of them we talk about the three pillars that I always talk about, which is like the lead, the sale, the fulfillment. And this is kind of like a deep dive into the lead portion of like how you should be think if you're on the path scale home service company how you should be thinking about, like when's the right time to do X?

[Jeff]

We just are finishing the best April we've ever had. 55% year over year organic growth. Really just a huge thanks to service scalers for being our marketing partner in that a ton of that growth came from both paid and organic SEO efforts. We did a ton of work on our SEO with service scalers. Really strategizing and working on that about.

[John]

A year and a half ago.

[Jeff]

The results have been creeping up over the past about year. Really started to go crazy over the last few months as we're starting to see multiple six figures of revenue attributed to our website and that's from their work on our SEO. On top of that, the management of paid has just been absolutely huge year to date. We're up 30 something percent. April alone was 55. And we're just super grateful for service scalers and that partnership. So if you want to learn more about how they helped us, make sure you check out service scalers.com I know.

[John]

There'S a bunch of like low lift stuff, but, you know, like mass me. We talked, we just talked about this in the workshop. Like most companies, like a million dollars shouldn't be thinking about TV or like bus stop, you know, benches or. I remember talking to a guy. This was like two years ago. It was like a $3 million company in Fort Worth, I think, and they're plumbing and he was like, hey, what do you think of this marketing budget? And it was like full 10%, so $300,000. And it was like, I've got 60 grand in like Google Ads and I've got 40 grand on like some billboards. And he had park benches and like church bulletins. Like, it was just sort of like this spray and pray type of method, which, like, I know is not going to be effective, but. But he didn't seem to. And I think most people don't seem to know, like, hey, you can't just like blow money under the, under the budget of marketing.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

What do you think?

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, I mean, we get that all the time. I think that the, the big mistake we see a lot of companies doing is they want to do a bunch of different channels.

[John]

Well, they want to be everywhere.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah.

[John]

They're like, oh yeah, I'm starting to market. Like, I want brand awareness. So like buses or.

[Sam Preston]

I've heard John talk about SEO. So I've definitely want SEO and like lsa, you know, let's, let's do that as well.

[John]

Right.

[Sam Preston]

The problem is you spread your budget too thin. Like in the workshop, we were just talking about this, one of the guys said, I have got $2,000 a month I do in Google Ads and 2,000amonth I do an LSA. And my first thought is why it's an easy. Which one has a better cost per lead and dump the full $4,000 into that one.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Don't. Don't spread it. So.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

You know, when you're thinking about a marketing channel in any safe business has multiple channels that are driving leads. Because if you only have one, you're really at the lot of.

[John]

You're vulnerable. Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

However, I really like to go deep.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Into a service. So if you're running LSA and you've got a good cost per lead, just keep increasing your budget.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Until you can't spend any more. You know, if you're, if you're spending. Me spend 20, $30,000 a month on LSA, that's.

[John]

I think we spend 15 a week.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, exactly. So I mean, you can, you can Get a lot out of these marketing. I mean, what do you all spend from Google Ads right now?

[John]

Right now we don't have PPC going. Okay. So we've got LSA 15 a week and like modernized, like lead partners.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's another, I want to say, five to ten a week.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's all our direct lead spend.

[Sam Preston]

My point is, like, some people are spending significant budget in Google Ads.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

That we have as clients are spending 30amonth in Google Ads. So there is a lot that you can get out of these channels and people quickly go, well, let's do SEO and Google Ads. And yeah, in LSA and Facebook ads, it's like, hold on. Find one.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Get as much as you can of that and then find another. Get as much as you can and continue to play that game.

[John]

Yeah. And I feel like. And we can get pretty tactical, but the roof is pretty high. Like, I have a friend in Chicago and 21 million this year, like 16 last year. It's like 95% of their marketing budget is PPC. Like, it's Google Ads. PPC in Chicago. So competitive market.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And they spend three grand a day.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And like, that's it.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And like, they got to 20 million. Like, just that. And I feel, you know, we got. I tell the story a lot, but like, we got to 20 million. LSA, PPC, SEO. Like, we didn't overcomplicate it. But yeah, I totally agree. It's this, like, deep, not wide. And I also think you did a good job describing, like, the difference between, like, how to think about spend. Like it was demand creation and. Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Demand creation versus demand capture.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Effectively, demand creation is, you know, someone's.

[John]

Doomsday church, Facebook, billboards, tv.

[Sam Preston]

You show up an ad, they didn't want a new H Vac unit, but because they took a picture of John.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Saying, hey, come by this H Vac.

[John]

Flexing with the toilet.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah. They're like, yeah, we need this. So that's demand creation. It was. It didn't exist. And now they're like, holy shit, I need this toilet.

[John]

Right.

[Sam Preston]

Whereas demand capture is leading a thirsty horse to water. You're not convincing the horse that it's thirsty. And that's everybody that already has a broken toilet. And so they're going to Google and saying, toilet contractors near me, plumber near me. Type of. You know, where's the nearest Home Depot for a toilet?

[Wilson]

Right.

[Sam Preston]

And that's where you're. You're just trying to go, look, we. We're not Trying to sell you anything. You said you want a toilet. Here are your options.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

For a toilet. And that's.

[John]

Well, I feel like that's where everyone should live. And I think when you. So I'll, I'll, I'll give. How we break that down inside our marketing budget today because I feel like that might help people. So we spend 158, I think like 4 to 8,000amonth on market. So much money. That's so much fun. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah, that's, that's a lot. Okay. So we spent a lot of that on that. That's our marketing budget and that's inclusive of a bunch of stuff. So we'll break it down. 70 grand a month is demand capture. We call it lead gen. Like it is leads. And I think the point that I want to bring here with demand capture and why I brought up my friend in Chicago and like why I'm bringing up our portion of that budget, like the only thing that most people should be caring about is do I have enough leads for today, tomorrow and the next day? Yeah, like that's it.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And like a, like a church bulletin is not going to do that for you. And a bulletin's not. Or like a billboard is not going to do that. TV is not going to do that for you. You need leads for today, tomorrow and the next day. And the purpose of TV or billboards or anything else is to solve your lead problems nine months from now.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And it's like to build brand. So that's inevitably how like you get there. But you can get to 20 million just focusing on the lead gen portion of the budget. So 70 grand a month towards Legion, 20 to 25,000amonth towards like our events and door knocking, like canvassing team and that, that's inclusive of like paying for the events and then also the like staff themselves. And we consider that lead gen. Like they're there getting leads. They're there to get leads. We're at 150 and that's 95 of our budget. Those two things together. So the lion's share, 60 some percent. Our budget is to get leads.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And up until January that was actually the budget. Like that was it. We didn't have branding and we're going to do 30 something million dollars this year. And like we were not focused on branding because I don't think it's that important. Like it's important eventually. Yeah, but like you can't build a brand ever if you don't have leads today, tomorrow and the next day. Like, your brand is irrelevant if you can't keep your people busy.

[Sam Preston]

What do you mean by brand? Because when you say brand and when I think brand, I think it might be slightly different. So what do you mean by brand?

[John]

Our measurement of brand is. Are people searching for us organically? Like, that's it. Like, if I was going to go buy, like, Billy Bob's Plumbing in Columbus and I wanted to see if they had a brand, I would get on Semrush or Ahrefs and I would find out how many times people are searching Billy Bob's Plumbing. Yeah, that's brand. People know the name.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

In the community that you want them to know the name. So it's very measurable.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

So for us, our measurement of brand is. Are we being talked about on Facebook? Are we being talked about on next door? Positively. Are people searching for us organically on Google? So that's how we measure it and that's how we think about it.

[Sam Preston]

I think the same thing. Okay. Just want to make sure.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like a very quantifiable metric, which I think is great. You know, in January, we added branded spend, and that was just a net increase of budget of like 35 or 40 grand a month. And that's like TV, radio, billboards go live in May.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

So that'll be kind of fun. It's all like one big. It's one giant campaign. And the entire campaign's purpose is to drive traffic back to our website where we can convert there. So that's kind of cool. So that puts us at 140. And then like, my last 10 grand is the salaries of internal marketing guy folks. So, yeah, that's the marketing budget. But like, until January of this year, it was all lead gen because that is really, like, that's all that matters. Like, you need leads today, tomorrow, and the next day. And when I see people complaining about leads, they're like, oh, my God, we just can't stay busy. We, like pull up in their marketing budget and they have like five grand a month going to billboards. I'm like, what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, like, what are you. What are you doing? Like, you're spending four grand on Google Ads and five grand on billboards. Like, you don't understand demand capture versus demand generation.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, I think if you're below 5 million and you're making the con, I.

[John]

Would say below 2020. Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Like, the majority of your spend should be in trying to capture demand.

[John]

I mean, there's there's billion dollar companies that the majority of their spend is to capture demand. Like you never. That's not something you scale out of.

[Wilson]

No.

[John]

Like ever.

[Wilson]

No.

[John]

So you just have to figure like the whole journey from 0 to 20 is figuring out how to capture demand.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And then you can start like all brand is, is it's a way to make your demand capture more efficient.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

It's still demand capture. Like it's still like I have to send people to my website, but now my branded searches are cheaper and my cost for customer acquisition is cheaper because I didn't have to pay for every single one.

[Wilson]

Right.

[John]

Like I get a little bit of mind share lift.

[Sam Preston]

So you think about that as a cost per lead. Like how do I drive that cost per lead down and how do I get.

[John]

We see it as a cost like cac. Customer acquisition cost will be reduced over time because of our branded search. So if we bring on and the way we measure that is like very simple. It's what did I spend in marketing this month? How many new customers did I bring in in this time period now? And over time my budget should stay the same and my net new customer should increase.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah.

[John]

Reducing my cac. So that's how we think of, of branded spend.

[Sam Preston]

Right. The other thing and like demand creation will actually help your demand capture increase because you will do things like TV and radio and have things that point back to your website, which increases your authority SEO and get you more traffic, get you more leads.

[John]

So yeah, it's all one like cohesive thing. But until you have enough money to just decide to blow 30 grand a month like I did on TV, like you do need to like digital should come first.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, yeah, actually let's do that. Let's just do a little exercise here.

[John]

Yeah. Like when to add stuff.

[Sam Preston]

When to add stuff. Okay. Zero to 250 a year. Right. So you just getting started, you're making maybe 10 to 20,000. What's your opinion? You go first. This one, I'll do the next level.

[John]

If, if that were me and I was starting from scratch, not like a new location, I don't know that I would do paid at all. If I did it. Probably be like meta. But I feel like I would be like scouring Facebook groups and next door and like knocking on doors. Like you'd be like, because I don't have any budget, like what am I going to do?

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And like it's, I, it's actually really meta ads are really competitive. I was, I was doom scrolling on Facebook Like, a month ago, and I haven't been on Facebook literally, in a decade. And yeah, like, basically I was liking, like, high school last time I was on Facebook. So I, like, got on Facebook and I've been talking to my marketing team. I'm like, yeah, we. I think we really need to run Meta. I think it's like, the frontier that nobody's touched yet. Hell no. I was, like, so comically wrong. It is every single. There was companies I've never even heard of before competing for space on Meta and, like, just finding them and, like, oh, my God, there's another one. So it's really competitive, and I think that you can really tell the difference between good and bad on paid meta. So we're 30 million. Our budget is bigger than most people's companies, and we still approach Meta cautiously because we know if our creative's not good, we're not going to do a good job. So if you're really small and you're, like, trying to invoice and run calls and do all this other stuff, like, I don't think meta's the spot.

[Sam Preston]

I would not put a lot of money behind any kind of paid acquisition between 0 and 250. I think it's all word of mouth and Facebook groups.

[John]

Well, yeah. And. Because who's going to pick up the phone? Who's going to book it? So, like, you're going to spend this money and you might not even be able to, like, make the lead happen.

[Wilson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Preston]

I mean, at this point, you're probably still working for somebody else. And this is like your nighttime job.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Or side hustle or something like that. I mean, we just hired a landscaper who is working for somebody else, and he comes at nights to clean or to do my neighbors and my.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

My lawn. So, yeah, I think that's. That's it right there. Word of mouth and Facebook groups.

[John]

Facebook groups knocking on doors. Yeah. So you have no budget. And, like, if you got a call and you're working, like, you're going to lose that call that you just paid 80 bucks for. And $80 is precious to anybody. But, like, when you have no dollars, $80 is really precious.

[Sam Preston]

This is Feed my family.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And make sure the lights stay on as I'm trying to get started.

[John]

Yeah, you probably. Unless you have, like, a considerable amount of cash sitting around an agency, this is not the right moment for an agency.

[Sam Preston]

No, I would not. Okay, so 250 to 750.

[John]

What's that, 50 grand a month? Maybe 60 grand a month.

[Sam Preston]

It's not bad.

[John]

It's not bad.

[Sam Preston]

Doing the 10% rule means you have roughly 5k.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

In marketing spend, that feels pretty good.

[John]

I'm assuming that someone's picking up the phone, whether it's an answering service or like you got somebody remote. Probably not in office at that size, but maybe as long as someone's picking up the phone, I feel like I would start to mess around with paid LSA would be tough. So like, LSA takes at least in our mark. Maybe there's different. You know, it's the amount. It's probably based on the amount of competition. But I only know my own market. It was. It's really hard for us to get analysis kicking unless it's got 100 reviews. So if you don't have 100 reviews like it, it. LSA doesn't seem to want to work.

[Sam Preston]

There are some things that you can do. It's nothing like crazy. It's not magic, but like, there are some things that you can do to get traction and to get it working underneath it. But clients, you know, consistently report back like, hey, whatever y' all are doing is working. And it's like they cross the 100 review mark.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Like.

[John]

Yeah. I mean, I Crossing it for you. I feel like that's the big one. Because lsa, what's nice about ls like, maybe high intent is the way to talk about it. Because if someone's. If someone's clicking on an LSA button, like, they. Their water change is out right now. They have a drippy faucet. They're trying to get it taken care of. It's a high intent need.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Versus like a. I would never touch a lead partner, like an Angie's List or a modernizer, anything at that size. Because you don't have the tech stack. It's non. High intent. You don't have a sales process because you're under. Like, you know, you don't have a sales process. People. People under 10 million usually don't have a sales process at all. So I feel like you just totally flop. So you need like. And this is actually kind of one of the wonderful things about our trade. I was talking to. I was talking to a lot of people last year because a big problem that we were working on last year was how do we drop. How do we, like, build the business on the back of cold or warm leads? And, you know, I was describing that problem, which is like a dumb problem. I was describing that problem to like. Like a bath remodeler or. And he was like, dude, that's all we, that's all we know. Like what do you mean you don't know how to handle this type of lead? Like they're knocking on doors, they're at all these events. They're like, because everyone's kind of low intent.

[Wilson]

Right?

[John]

Like no one's like, oh, my bathroom broke. I need to need an 80 grand remodel. Like, nobody's like that. So there's entire industries built on how to manage these types of leads. But in plumbing, H vac, I started working on that problem when we were $25 million.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's why I was like, we should probably figure out how to handle like non emergency leads. Yeah, we should do that. So you can get pretty big just on lsa. So yeah, that size I'd be focusing on lsa, maybe some Google Ads. If you've got ppc, if you've got good landers that are going to convert.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, I would actually disagree with you. I would not start Google Ads at this point. The problem with Google Ads is it's a game. It's not just a, you know, light switch. You turn it on, you suddenly get a bunch of leads. It's we need data to come in. And so I'm going to be using your budget to test this keyword out in your market and going, yeah, that's going to work.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

So I think it's going to take too much budget for that to really be able to scale.

[John]

Well, that makes sense. I remember when we first started on PPC, like and this was 2016, company was like a million, almost 2 million bucks. So 2017 I think, and it was some random agency in like North Carolina. I've never heard from them again. Honestly, I think they're just like really reach back out. I actually should email them. But yeah, it was, we came in with like two or three grand a month, which now like that's, that's like the shocking number that it worked. Yeah. But yeah, we came in with two or three grand a month. And I remember that being a sacrifice for us because we had never advertised before and like my, my dad and I were still working together and we were partners and like it was a point of contention that's 25 grand a year out of like not a big business. Yeah, it was like I, yeah, I remember the sacrifice and I remember like the, this really needs to work. And they were like, oh, it might take 60 days. And we're like, yeah, we really need this to work.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

So.

[John]

And that was at a Million and a half ish or to like 2 million ish. And I remember that being like a challenge, like having to wait for it.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

So yeah, I think I can, I can understand that.

[Sam Preston]

So if you're that like 250 to 750 mark, right. I don't want you to pay for agencies like personally, like you can, don't get me wrong, we can do.

[John]

It's like a percentage of ad spend thing. It's just. Yeah, yeah. Because if you can only spend two grand but like your agency fees, like a thousand or two grand or whatever an agency fee is like. Yeah, that's a 50%.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

That's crazy.

[Sam Preston]

I wouldn't do that. So if I'm between those times, I am definitely getting, I'm doing work on G GMB. Right. Go get 10. You can get so many leads from that.

[John]

Yeah. I know I've said this before but like GMB is the, it's so good. And, and like the people, the biggest people in our industry are hyper focused on their GMB and for years I like overlooked it and I was like, oh, it's simple, it's dumb, it's, it's like I just didn't think it was that complicated or like serious. But the biggest people in our industry, GMB is their focus, including us. Like we invest a ton into our GMVs.

[Sam Preston]

Yep. It's, it's, it's so good. So go get it. Go to YouTube and learn all you can at this point. Like I don't want you hiring an agency. Go learn this stuff. Because I mean 80 to 90% of what we do, you can find on YouTube.

[John]

Right. We, we have a GMV stuff.

[Wilson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sam Preston]

We have a couple of things that we were like, we hide. That's our secret resume. We're really good. It helps us get better results for our clients. But like you can go, you can self manage. You can self manage gmb. I would play the lead partner game a little bit.

[John]

Okay. Interesting.

[Sam Preston]

Mostly because you can get in without too much risk. You can go spend $1,000.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And see if it works. Yeah. And so go, go to Google.

[John]

Like Angie's List type thing.

[Sam Preston]

Exactly.

[John]

So I think that, I think the only issue, and maybe it does work for that size because the, there's a gap with leads and it's like there's a point in a business where the owner is so fucking tied in because he has to be. And he probably is at half million fifty. And like he will nail every lead because he literally has to nail Every.

[Sam Preston]

He does.

[John]

And then, like, above 2 million, once you build out a call center, like, they don't give a fuck about those leads.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And it's not until you have, like, a real tech stack later on. So I. I think I can get behind that.

[Sam Preston]

And once you get a little bit bigger, you change over to something like. And I guess we'll talk about the next bracket. You'll change over to something like Google Ads. So you can get that cost per lead down.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

From something. Because you're just getting a higher cost per lead.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

In Angie's List. But go to Google, search for your service in your area, and yeah. Scroll down to the SEO, Figure out which one hits first. Is.

[John]

Oh, that's a good idea.

[Sam Preston]

Is it modernized? Is it Yelp? Is it Angie's List? You know, thumbtack? Which one is it?

[John]

That's a good idea.

[Sam Preston]

And then go test out that lead partner first.

[John]

Dude, that's like a. That. I have literally never done that. It's a good.

[Sam Preston]

Really?

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

I've never actually done this. Right now. That makes a lot of sense. I'm sitting here, like. Which is.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah.

[John]

Well, I've told people, and it's not joking, I think. And this might be, like, me coming off as, like, a douchebag, but I think that, like, mid-20s. I. I just remember thinking that, like, oh, my God, 20 million. We're going to know everything. Like, we're going to be put together, like, so tight. And, dude, you're still, like, we are still a small business.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

That is, like, figure. And I know that might sound unrelatable, but, like, we're still a small business figuring it out every day.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah. Say that way.

[John]

This is the part that sounds. Makes me sound like a douchebag, but I feel like mid-20s is the new, like, 3 million. Then that part might be, like, super.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

I feel the same, John. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like. I feel like it's like. It's just a bunch of, like, derps, including me, like, trying to figure out what the next step is. And we're just like, I don't know. Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah. I mean, it's. It's a whole different set of problems. I mean, I can't talk about all of them, but from a marketing standpoint, you. You struggle. You start getting into a place of, like, I don't know how to spend enough.

[John]

Yeah. That was a real. I don't get tame 30.

[Sam Preston]

Okay. Spend more. I can't. Google will not take my money or it'll waste it.

[John]

Yeah. That was a real challenge for us last year. Yeah, it's an unrelatable challenge, but it's a challenge. It was a challenge.

[Sam Preston]

I don't have that problem yet. Okay, okay. So 250 to 750. I'm doing G. GMB.

[John]

GMB. A lot of focus on GMB. I would say still the same stuff like as, as the earlier bracket.

[Wilson]

Yes.

[John]

And maybe that's always assumed, but like still like door knocking. Like if you've got no revenue, you've got no pride.

[Sam Preston]

Right.

[John]

Go knock on some doors. Still don't have pride, but yeah, I just called myself a derp in front of like thousands of people.

[Sam Preston]

Exactly, exactly.

[John]

I probably need more pride. And then like, yeah, Facebook groups. Next door is a big win. There's actually a guy and I fucking love this. He's the, he's a plumber in my like neighborhood and he is content creating on next door. It's the coolest shit I've ever seen. It's like, it's just a dude like trying to build his business and I don't even know his name. Like I'll log on to next door and it'll just be like, hey, just completed this job and like taking a picture and like it works. Yeah. And I've never heard of a next door content creator before. This guy, like he gets leads. I look at the comments and people are like, oh dude, that looks so good. Like you should come out. My place has, has this thing going on and it's a one man show.

[Sam Preston]

And advantage that you can't do.

[John]

I can't do that. I can't fuck am I going to do with that?

[Sam Preston]

Right.

[John]

And like I look at it and I'm like, dude, that is awesome. And like you're going to, you're going to be a meaningful competitor one day because like you're doing something that's really interesting that I can't do. And like it is working.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's like just photos and like a quick story of what you did that day to the neighborhood and people are eating it up. That's a plumber. That's not even like the saddest. That's not even like the before and after landscaping guys. Like this is like, hey, look at the pipes I put in. Like it works.

[Sam Preston]

The next generation of plumbers are all on TikTok seeing while they're.

[John]

Oh for shooting. Yeah. I mean I think the content creator, I mean I'm one of them apparently. But like I think the content creator plumber is like definitely a Thing.

[Sam Preston]

That's amazing. So we're 750 to. So 750 to 1.5, we're doing that.

[John]

Feels like a good bucket.

[Sam Preston]

Facebook groups, we're doing word of mouth, we're doing maybe some lsa, but definitely we're playing around with lead partners and we're doing our own self managed gbp. What are we doing now?

[John]

I mean that's when we added ppc. I don't know, like looking back, I don't know if it's the right decision or the wrong one, but that's when we added ppc. Thinking back, I think this is the.

[Sam Preston]

Time where you could bring in an agency and probably should. I would not run PPC by yourself. I think that's a bad mistake. You will get yourself in trouble.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

You could do LSA by yourself. You can. So at this point you're either starting to throw money at LSA and get aggressive.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

With LSA and you can bring in an agency to do that or you can do it yourself. And then at some point though, in that process, I think you start pushing towards Google Ads because Google Ads for the most part is going to allow you to drive that cost per lead down, which you need because you need profit margins and you need net because you, at 1.5, you're in a really tricky situation where you have all the problems of $3 million business but none of the cash flow to actually solve those problems. And so like we want that cost per lead down as much as possible. So I like playing that game. Right, right around that.

[John]

I mean that tracks that. I. That's when we did it. Now I think the quick distinction is we were still really focused on like lead gen. Like leads. So it was ppc. We didn't add SEO till later, which I think was probably the right decision for us at the time. But yeah, I do agree. I think like I'm, I'll basically agree with anything as long as it's like, as long as we're focusing on leads. Yeah, I feel like that I'm always going to get like outside of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think agency at that size makes sense to me. We're managing spend. We're starting to, we're starting to meaningfully spend.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

You know that's 10 grand a month, 15 grand a month. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of money.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Now the big mistake that I've seen people make in this zone or like a little bit later on, even a lot later on. Like I was Talking to someone. When was this Was like a week ago. And I want to say they were, oh, they're $8 million. They're an 8 million dollar H vac company. And he was like, hey, when's it time to bring on an internal marketing hire? And I think people get like. And I've seen people try to do that at like $2 million.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And I think it's like a, it's the, it's the same mentality as like the guy who's like, I need to buy my building so I don't pay someone else rent. They don't want to pay an agency to manage this like thing. It's really dumb because as a percentage of ad spend. So like, let's just roll this really quick. If you've got, you have an agency or you can like, because at $2 million you could theoretically start to think about like placing somebody but, but like their salary might be like six to $8,000 a month. I mean even if you got it cheap, it'd be like four to six thousand dollars a month. And like as a percentage of ad spend, that's like 40% like it. The math doesn't math. It's just dumb. But I feel like people just, it's the same thing as I need to buy my building so I don't pay a landlord. They're like, I don't really want to pay an agency. So this guy in, in Atlanta, $8 million business that is way too early to be even remotely considering an internal hire. Like it. That does not make sense. Like for like my push back.

[Sam Preston]

So depends.

[John]

Manage spend. Like if you're bringing in someone to coordinate with agencies, that makes more sense to me.

[Sam Preston]

100%.

[John]

Yeah, I think that makes sense. Or like, hey, we'll occasionally post on Facebook. We'll like send emails to our like if you're like using a generalist. 100%.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

But like what we've learned with marketing over the years is like we all think of it as marketing. Mm. There's a fuckload of stuff going on. Like there's a lot. Like you need like a SMS expert.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

You need a copywriter. You need someone who can deliver great emails that will deliver results.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah.

[John]

And like that's like one part of marketing.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And then you have all the different paid channels. And like how you manage paid meta is totally different from how you manage paid Google. And like probably two different people. Like some, some people can do both. But like that's different.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's totally different from like content creating on Instagram.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Or TikTok or whatever it is where you're trying to drive and like these are all these different specialties. And I see like I met someone at a workshop last year, $5 million company, and they had like a marketing coordinator and this guy was trying to get this marketing coordinate to do all this stuff so he didn't have to pay their agency. And it's like, dude, that's like, that's a lot. That's like 15 different jobs that you're asking this person to do. Like it doesn't make sense. Like each one of these has a deep level of expertise.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And all this person's going to do is totally with.

[Wilson]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

So yeah, I see that mistake start to happen. Like and maybe we're not in the two millions yet, but like starting to happen when there's a little bit of budget we can bring on somebody and it's like, okay, well let's cut this expense. And it's like my guy.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Have them do the stuff that an agency can't do. Like agency is probably not going to like, like take videos of your guys doing work and putting it on Tik Tok.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

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[Sam Preston]

Fieldpulse.com yeah, I mean I've got opinions which is a good thing. Lots of opinions here. I, I think you can get away with a, you know, 5 to 8 million. I think you can get away with a marketing manager if you, we brought.

[John]

On ours at 15.

[Sam Preston]

I think they have a very specific role. One vendor accountability. Right.

[John]

Like like scorecarding.

[Sam Preston]

Scorecarding.

[John]

I expected X leads from service scalers. You delivered me Y leads.

[Sam Preston]

Clients want to have somebody that is with our brands do get better results.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And so, and that's because mostly the feedback loop.

[John]

100%.

[Sam Preston]

So like we're sending a bunch of conversions.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And we're, we're optimizing for conversions. And what I mean by conversion is a phone call. So hey, this phone call happened. We optimize it. Oh, this keyword brought four more phone calls. I'm going to optimize for that.

[John]

Right.

[Sam Preston]

Marketing manager that comes back and says, hey, 10, seven out of those 10 calls that you sent us, we're shit. We don't want those anymore. Oh, awesome. Okay. That, that keyword's not working. Deprioritize it. I'm going to shift the budget over here.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Oh, now it's five out of five. We're. We're good. Okay, great. Now I'm going to play around here. So the marketing managers that can get results back to our team.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Outperform.

[John]

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, you need it for like, again, we're not running PPC right now, but when we have like if we're running PPC for electric, like sometimes we'll get people thinking that we are the electric company, like First Energy or something like that. You know, the provider of electrical. It's a keyword problem.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like we probably. It was probably like electrical company. Yeah, like that was probably the keyword that was being searched. We'd get the phone calls. So what we. And we'll get back to the like and a half thing. But the feedback loop is. Yeah, we really jumped. The feedback loop is one of our most important lessons that we've learned in marketing just this past year. So we started mandating once or twice weekly calls with everybody that touches our leads. Yeah, I mean we're called. We're talking to Angie's List twice a week. We're talking to Modernize twice a week. Getting reporting. We're giving them feedback like, hey, here's the leads you sent. Here's what happened with them so that we can like change it and, and modify it. It's really important because they. Yeah. I think everybody assumes an agency just comes in and they get so mad when the agent, they're like, ah, it doesn't fucking work. And all the leads are garbage. It's like, are you talking to them? Did you tell them that? And like, how often did you tell them that?

[Sam Preston]

And like, are you even listening to phone Calls. Do you have something?

[John]

Do you even know? Yeah. And are you providing reporting?

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Um. And like, do you even have access to report? And I.

[Sam Preston]

We don't.

[John]

Yeah. I feel like that sucks. Like, that, that sucks. So. Because, like, there is demand on Google. Like, it's there. And if we optimize keywords and if we optimize, like, landing pages, like, we will capture it and we will sell shit.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. The. The feedback loop was really interesting to us and especially for. Especially for ppc. But espec. Like lead partners. We didn't even know you could do that. Yeah, I didn't even, like. And I'm here to tell everyone now you can do it. But, like, at the time, mid-20s, we're like, what do you mean you want weekly reporting? That was a totally foreign concept to us. And then we start diving into it more and more. We're like, holy. Yeah, this makes a ton of sense. How can you do a good job if we don't give you the feedback that you're doing a good job? Like, it's impossible or a bad job.

[Sam Preston]

You know, you got to give people.

[John]

Like, it's pure luck. Like, it's lucky if you do a good job.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

If you don't have the data.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And that's the same with Angie's list or anybody else. Like, they need the information.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah. So what we do when we don't have the data is we just go back to the ones that have given us data and we look at all the keywords that have worked and we just copy and paste them into a new market. And we're like, I hope it works.

[John]

That makes sense. I mean, what. Yeah, what else would you do?

[Sam Preston]

And some. Well, we reach out to the clients. We say, hey, how's the calls? And they'll say, good or bad? And that's fine. There's a fine answer. But it's very subjective to how you feel and not actual data.

[John]

Unless you're coming from a marketing background that's just not going to be on your brain. Like, it's not going to be like, you're not going to be like, oh, what's my convert rate? I just did like a glass. But yeah. So you're just not going to be thinking about that, which in the way, millions.

[Sam Preston]

You should have a marketing manager.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Or like, maybe a call center manager dealing with that. Like, what do you think?

[Sam Preston]

I think they're slightly different. I think you can have. And I think you can. You can get this person offshore. Like, it doesn't have to be a full on.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

You know a massive expense I think you can get it for.

[John]

No, I, I, Yeah. So I'm definitely agreeing now because I, we have not offshored that but I think if you're just bringing on like a coordinator, there's tons of great project.

[Sam Preston]

Managers who understand marketing or marketing managers that can hold you offshore.

[John]

You really like changed the game. Like when I think about, when I think about just like my growth through the industry and like what it took and like when to bring on certain salaries and when to do all this stuff, like it is totally different now.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

I think for the better. Like you can bring on way more infrastructure at a way smaller size.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Which like only helps support you. That's a great example of like if you can dial in your marketing, like nothing can stop you.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And if, yeah. If you can bring on what, you know, $10 million earlier than I did, like you'll beat me to 30.

[Wilson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John]

That's amazing.

[Sam Preston]

So I think you absolutely do have own and I know we skipped a whole section but 5 million, I think you absolutely can go get that person should. And then there are two jobs of 5 million.

[John]

I don't think is much different. I don't think it's much like ad SEO. Like you add SEO, maybe social paid ads.

[Sam Preston]

I think there's an argument that you should be playing around again it's all budget and if you haven't, if you haven't maxed out Google analysis, they keep doing that. But like I think that you want to diversify a little bit for.

[John]

I disagree.

[Sam Preston]

You disagree?

[John]

I disagree.

[Sam Preston]

I'd play around with it. I'd have a little like couple thousand dollar discovery budget.

[John]

I, I think the people that I know that have grown the fastest over the past eight years found one channel and beat the out of that channel. Like they, they that's us too.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like LSAs drove results and still drives results. It's just now we've grown large enough to be outside of it, but that's any channel so. And it doesn't even need to be digital. Like I have a friend who took a business from 15 to 60 million on the back of Home Depot leads inside the store.

[Sam Preston]

Oh shit.

[John]

And but then okay, we're at 60 million bucks. Kind of vulnerable now. Then they added in a retail exposure. Yeah, but like one channel.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

15 to 60 something million dollars.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like Ishmael from Next Gen, man. It was, it was LSA and PPC.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

$100 million. So I feel like the longer you can go honing in on the least amount of things, the better because you're. It's just like distraction.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't know. I think I still probably would test it out. And maybe again, maybe just because I'm a gambler and, like, I like testing it out. Yeah. I mean, and even for my company, we. We have a Facebook ads budget. We are going to spend that budget whether it works or not. Because I want it to work, so I know it works.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And so, like, I think that there is an element of, like, you should. But then again, if LSA and Google Ads is working for you, SEO is working for you. You can just throw that more into ad spend and just try to get more and more out of that. So. All right, we've got.

[Wilson]

From.

[Sam Preston]

We. So.

[John]

So, yeah, 2 million to 5 million. The new addition was SEO.

[Sam Preston]

SEO. Maybe some. Or TikTok, you know, some paid.

[John]

And I. I think. I think SEO. Yeah. The problem is you eventually have to do it. Like, you got to do it eventually.

[Sam Preston]

Well, SEO takes a long time, which is why.

[John]

Takes a long time. And, like, the game changes every day because people are adding stuff to it every day. And I think my big. My big, like, note on SEO is just. It. It's hard. Like, how many pages a month are you guys doing? Yeah, like, per client. What's like a normal amount of pages?

[Sam Preston]

I mean, 10 to 30.

[John]

Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. I remember, like, people are still today signing contracts with Scorpion for, like, two pages a month.

[Sam Preston]

That is.

[John]

It's wild.

[Sam Preston]

It's investing $10 a year into the stock market. You're literally never going to.

[John]

You're. You're going to do absolutely nothing, because if everyone's doing two pages a month, you are not actually going. You might as. In my opinion, you might as well not do SEO because you are advancing at the same level that everyone else is advancing.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, you have to break the game, which is 10 to 30. Like, 10 to 30 pages a month is breaking the game.

[Sam Preston]

I mean, it's also a backlink conversation because a lot of these places aren't doing backlinks. And the backlink game is changed. It used to be so different than it is now. Like, how.

[John]

Like, how's it changed?

[Sam Preston]

It's not. I mean, like, it used to be that you just reach out to a blog and say, hey, like, can we put our name?

[John]

Oh, sure.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, yeah, you're paying for that. It's. It's all bot backlinks.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Um, and so we're Even we are about to. And hopefully this. This takes a little bit of time to get out. You know, not tomorrow. Um, but we're about to launch a new offering around backlinks to run backlinks. So similar to the way you have a Google Ads budget and we manage your Google Ads budget, we want a backlink budget, and we just manage your backlink.

[John]

But I think that makes sense. Like, if. If I'm back to this is why I think I'm like kind of a derp. And Everybody in the 20s is kind of a derp. Is like, we're all convinced it's also complicated. But then when I talk to people in the hundreds, I. I was. I was talking with someone in the 200 millions, and the things that he cared about was how many backlinks did I bring on this month? And how many Google my businesses did I launch this month?

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And. And like, what's the status of those GMBs? And like, that was what he was concerned about. Yeah. Ten times my size.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And. Yeah. I just feel like we all make this so complicated.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And like the biggest people in the game, it's just like backlinks. Yeah. Like, that's it. Like, that that's going to matter. And like, his domain, mine's like 36, which, like, pretty good. His like 70.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, he's killing it. Yeah, he's. He. He'd kick my butt.

[Sam Preston]

That's amazing.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

I mean, the. The problem with backlinks and agencies is it's. It's a profit problem.

[John]

Right.

[Sam Preston]

Because it's a.

[John]

If.

[Sam Preston]

If I'm charging 2,000amonth for SEO services, which we don't. But if I'm charging to. Which there's a lot of that. Do that.

[John]

Like you guys are above or below that.

[Sam Preston]

We're above that.

[John]

Yeah. Well, I mean, 10 to 30 articles a month, like, because, yeah. Scorpion used to charge me two grand a month for two articles. And it's like, was that.

[Sam Preston]

And backlinks, we. We add in backlinks. Our purge, and that is a massive cost.

[John]

Yeah. Yeah. So you have to direct pay for them. Uh, yeah.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

So, I mean, my bill is nuts. So the problem is the profit margin there. So what we want to do is kind of take that option even away. And so we have like, kind of like we're managing that backlink, and then the ad spend is on top of that. So what I want to be able to do is have the conversation of somebody saying, hey, you're. You're plumbers in Atlanta.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

You're number five and we bought three grand of backlinks.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

I think we'd get to number one and like that type of conversation. I was just like, okay, great. It didn't cost me anything. I'm passing that through. But it's within the budget of we manage your backlinks. Yeah, but it's a, I think, I think two things. One, I think it's going to be an interesting conversation for the plumber that's never had this conversation before.

[John]

Yeah. If you don't know what a backlink is, it does make it complicated.

[Sam Preston]

They're like, what am I paying you already? Give me backlink links. Why, why am I buying more backlinks? I was like, oh, it's, it's an authority.

[John]

Like, what's the value? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I believe our, our authority is the highest now in market, which is kind of fun. At 36, I'd have to believe it is. That's a lot.

[Sam Preston]

Pretty high. That's high for a plumbing company.

[John]

But now. Yeah, now I'm really curious. Yeah. But yeah, I think, I think separating that out makes sense. And I always go back, I, I know I keep bringing this back up, but like, literally, people nine, ten times my size, the, the things that they're concerned about are backlinks and, and I, you know, years ago, like we started investing in backlinks and SEO eight years ago. @ this point, it, it worked. It was valuable. And like the guys 10 times my size are right. And like when I'm thinking about when we had those conversations, like, I came back and immediately I changed my mindset around it. And maybe this is like if you're 10 up, this is like if we're still in brackets here, like how to be thinking about this because this is a longer play. This is like, hey, over eight years. This was a good decision. But if it was like a 90 day period, this would not be a good decision.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

But yeah, I came back and I was like, yeah, I mean, they're right. Like, what I should be thinking about is domain authority. I should be thinking about backlinks. I should be thinking about GMVs. And I don't, I really shouldn't be thinking about much else besides that.

[Sam Preston]

Be clear, if you don't know what a backlink is, backlink is when you have a link on another website back to your website. So like, and it makes your credit.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And they post a link like your URL, that's a backlink. Your GMB is a backlink to your Website. Your Facebook page is a backlink to your website. So the backlink game is finding other websites that have good authority in the space, linking it back into your website.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

What's kind of fun is as the business has grown, we're getting a bunch of free backlinks now because people want. So like you guys, is our logo on your website?

[Sam Preston]

I'm sure it is. I'm sure we've linked you free backlink.

[John]

So like when you're signing up for softwares, like they play a logo game because it gives them credibility of like, oh yeah, we got Wilson.

[Sam Preston]

I'm pretty sure Wilson website is powered by service scalers.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that's a backlink. Yeah. So yeah, I think you get these like you can work with vendors and get free high authority backlinks and they're working hard on driving their website up.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And I think that's a part of where like we have, we've had a major jump in our backlinks. Both we've invested, but also because we invested a ton into brands and now we're getting referred in more spots and like I think we went to 29 from 29 to 36 in like 60 days.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Since launching TV. Since like being way more out there in the community, since like the industry community. A lot more softwares like logoing us on their, on their homepage. And those are all free backlinks.

[Sam Preston]

So 0 to 150. We're doing Facebook groups. Word of mouth.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

150 or 2.

[John]

250.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah, 250 to 750. We're starting to do GMB. We're starting to do some partner elite LSAs. LSAs. 751.5. We're starting to do Google Ads.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

1.5 to 5. We're starting to add in SEO. Getting aggressive on that. Maybe some socials, depending on who.

[John]

Who's leaving, who's running it. Yeah, like we're starting to mess with socials in the mid-20s.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Like, okay, okay.

[John]

So like I love that. Later, later.

[Sam Preston]

Five to eight. We're starting to look at a marketing manager.

[John]

Yeah, like I would, I would even say marketing coordinator.

[Sam Preston]

Coordinator.

[John]

I would be cautious with the title manager.

[Sam Preston]

Okay.

[John]

I would say like that is very much like at that size you're hiring someone to like post shit on Facebook. That is not. That's a marketing coordinator. It's a generalist. Probably some kid fresh out of college. Like they're not going to be driving your brand book forward. They're not going to be figuring out next steps on strategy.

[Sam Preston]

They're holding people accountable. And they are.

[John]

Yeah, they're getting scorecards, they're helping like allocate budget. But like they're not a manager. That's a coordinator.

[Sam Preston]

Quick staffers do that.

[John]

I don't know. I know. Right now they're doing CSRs, recruiters.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And bookkeepers. I mean, they might add marketing coordinators to it. They show you could do that remote for sure. Like we have. We've had a marketing coordinator remote in the Philippines. His name, Sean. He's cool for like three or four years now and he's been great. And he does exactly that. Like, he gives us data. He like, here's the number of leads, here's how many we closed. Here's some posts on Facebook, manager, call board.

[Sam Preston]

And make sure like something has too low leads there.

[John]

Yeah. So I think that's a great hire for that size. But like marketing manager, like you just don't have enough budget for a marketing manager to be effective in their job. The marketing manager is there to like manage marketing and really drive the business forward and you just don't have the money for it yet.

[Sam Preston]

Okay, so five to eight, we're looking at a marketing manager. The only caveat to all this.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

That would be more demand creation versus capture. What. What do you think about when do you do mailers? Because every, like I talk to so many people that swear by them and like I've never done before. But we were just like Jeff, we were just talking to. He was like, yeah, I do this and it crushes for crushes.

[John]

Yeah. Well, I think it's a really good question. And the like, who are we mailing? Is probably the most important part of that question. Because I was. If I just say fuck yeah, go do mailers. Like, that's really not the answer. So there's like three different people, types of people you can mail. You can mail members or current customers. So like people you're actively serving. That will always work. Yeah, like that's going to work. They're actively engaged in your brand. They're giving you money in the last 18 months. Like these are real live customers that have seen you recently. Yeah, that's always going to have a super high return. The next is lapsed customers. So I haven't seen them for two years to five years. You will get something. It will not be as high as active.

[Wilson]

Right.

[John]

But it's a bigger list probably than active. And the third is I have never worked with this person and that's like a Val pack mailer. That's like a mass mailer. That's an every door direct mail and that's a 1% conversion rate. So if you send. So you need a lot of volume.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

So if you send like my active members, which let's say you have like 200 members, so you said 200 postcards, you're going to get like 20, 30 leads out of that, so. Absolutely. That totally works. Lapsed customers. Maybe if you send a thousand, you might get like 10 to 20 leads. So like lower conversion rate, but like still good. They know who the heck you are. Much lower conversion rate on every door direct mail.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

So I think mailers can work in the right place. They do work if you're dealing with like customer segments, you know, but if you are trying to mass mail your way to leads to customers that have never seen your brand or introduced to it, it's probably the wrong way to spend budget.

[Sam Preston]

So would you put mailers in the 15 to 5 or 5 to 8?

[John]

I think if you're mailing your customers, you can start pretty small because like if it's only 200, like that's 200 bucks.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

You know, and it's leads.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

So I'll always be for anything that drives leads. So anytime we're like, hey, I'm going to do this thing and it's going to get me leads in X amount of time, like I'm on board. But if we're talking about like billboards, like $2 million, like you lost me, like that's there's no good enough call to action to make a billboard drive lead.

[Wilson]

Right.

[Sam Preston]

Cool. No, I'm with you. I'm with you. So fairly early on, testing your market, go after your customers first, go after cold customers or lapse customers and then, and then start looking at new customers. Okay. Any other like traditional marketing, at what point do you start late doing that?

[John]

Okay, late.

[Sam Preston]

I mean, how late? I'll let you all start that.

[John]

Like we did radio on the way up. We did radio on the way up. And I feel like we started that at 5 million. Might have honestly been a bit early.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Because when I think about that $6,000 that I spent, like I started spending that with my marketing budget was like 20 grand a month. And like there were a lot of times where we couldn't fill our board. Like it, it's just, it was wrong. It was the wrong decision. Like all of your dollars for as all the way up to a billion dollars of revenue.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, the first and most important thing is, is my board full today, tomorrow, and the next day?

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

Like, that's it. If your spend doesn't align with that, then, like, what are you doing? The only reason that we've added meaningful branded spend is because my lead gen budget of 70, 80 grand a month fully keeps my board full today, tomorrow, and the next day.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[John]

And I just have an extra literal million dollars to spend, so that's what we do.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Okay, so you're thinking, like, closer to, like, 20.

[John]

My quick take is 20 million is a good time to start thinking about branded spend. Other people think smaller. Other think. I've never heard anyone say larger. Yeah, I think I'm, like, the bull or the. The bear in this one. Yeah. I think the. The farther you can get with focusing on the least amount of channels, and you optimize those channels, like, you're gonna do great. And all the biggest people in the space that I know that have grown the biggest, like, that's how they do it. They beat the hell out of the least amount of channels possible.

[Sam Preston]

Would you change that opinion based on the type of business? Like, kitchen remodel versus plumber. Plumber.

[John]

Sure. I mean, 20 million for kitchen remodel. If you're doing it well. Like, if you're not like, a. I guess it depends on, like, if you're like a neighborhood kitchen remodel, like, maybe you never hit 20 million. So I'm not trying to be a dick, but, like, I know somebody who's at 200 million in bathroom models right now, and they're here in Akron, and they're going to be on the show soon, which is really cool. And it's. I don't know how many locations they're at. They started, like, two years ago. It's freaking crazy. Yeah, I know. They're having. I know. Yes, I know.

[Sam Preston]

It took a second for me to process.

[John]

I know. I know. They're having $3 million weeks. I know. And I'm like, yeah, my first $3 million a month, they're $3 million weeks. Like, they're way more dial than we are. Way more dialed.

[Sam Preston]

You want to start a kitchen remodel?

[John]

If I can do it like that, hell, yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. They're just way more dialed in than we are, and which is great. They're really inspirational. So I think if you're doing that, like, yeah, average tickets, 50 to 100, whatever, grand, like, sure, like, pop off. But I don't know. They're one of the only, like, mass Scale remodel companies that I know. But if you're doing remodel, like, that's how you should do it. Like, it should be mass scale. I don't really want to run like a neighborhood bathroom model company. That sounds really terrible. I would run a $200 million, like, several states. That's remodel.

[Sam Preston]

I feel it's unreal. That's so.

[John]

It's crazy. No, they're doing an amazing job. Yeah. We're going to have them on the show, I think, in the next couple of weeks. It's a lot. It's a really fascinating story. Like a couple years. And they're taking down $3 million weeks. Weeks. Like four. Like $4 million weeks now. Because they're doing 200 million. Like, budget's 200 million for this year. Wow. Crazy.

[Sam Preston]

Who's their agency? I wanna. I wanna know these people.

[John]

Yeah, they. Their cmr. CMO is like. He's a baller.

[Sam Preston]

I want to meet him.

[John]

Yeah, we've talked a couple times. He's a baller.

[Sam Preston]

That's amazing.

[John]

Yeah. I feel like we covered the whole stack of, like, when to add folks in, like, how to think about staffing, how to think about budget. I feel like this was good. A good addition to how you. How to scale your home service business.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

And I think there's a lot more to talk about, so we should do this again and go like, maybe every. Every service or every. Every channel.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

Like, hey, when do you start this? What. How do you get out of that? I think that can be fun.

[John]

Yeah. I agree. This is awesome. If you like what you heard, go to owned and operated.com and make sure you check out service scalers. Sam and his team are doing a great job. They've done a great job for us since 2021. And we've been really grateful to work with you guys. It's been a lot of fun. Like, yeah, we started working together when we were like, $7 million revenue. So big change, Big difference. A little bit of. A Little bit of a shift.

[Wilson]

Yeah.

[Sam Preston]

He wouldn't let me run social, so if he only would have listen to.

[John]

Me, we would have been at 50.

[Sam Preston]

We could be like the kitchen remodel company right now.

[John]

$4 billion weeks, like, that makes me sick. All right. Like, and subscribe.