Weird Marketing That Actually Works ($1M from Home Shows, Newspaper Leads, & Toilet Ads)

Summary

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Owned and Operated Podcast

Episode: Weird Marketing That Actually Works ($1M from Home Shows, Newspaper Leads, & Toilet Ads)

Date: April 7, 2026
Hosts: John Wilson (CEO, Wilson Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric), Sam Preston (CEO, Service Scalers)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This milestone 300th episode of Owned and Operated dives deep into unconventional, “weird” local marketing channels for plumbing, HVAC, and electrical businesses. John and Sam share real campaigns (from sponsoring urinals at stadiums to local newspaper classifieds), discuss the ROI (or not) of these off-beat tactics, what actually moves the needle, and why stepping outside the digital marketing box can yield surprising (sometimes massive) results.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power & Fun of “Weird” Local Marketing

• Opening Challenge: If it's not weird, they don't want it—embrace unconventional channels for marketing.
• John’s Toilet Sponsorship: John describes spending $20,000/year to have his face and company logo on signs above 116 urinals at a baseball stadium. The message? “When you pee, think of me.”
• Recall Rates & Impact: Sam references research of 92% recall on bathroom stall ads—regardless of the accuracy, this type of placement sticks with people ([04:48]).

2. Sports Venue Advertising

• Deal Breakdown: John’s $20,000/year stadium sponsorship included the urinal ads, plus extras like a “strikeout sponsor.” Some larger venues quoted $100,000 for a season, but with the potential for exposure to hundreds of thousands or even millions ([07:15]-[08:30]).
• Creativity Inspires Results: Roto-Rooter sponsored a minor league team by turning 50 stadium seats into toilets ([09:02]).

3. Other Unusual Local Tactics

• Local Newspapers & Print: Despite digital trends, hyperlocal print can deliver. John’s dad ran a $100 ad in a small local paper, netting eight leads in a week, likely because he was the only HVAC advertiser ([11:51]-[13:10]).
• Church Bulletins: Small investments in bulletins (about $42/month) drove consistent monthly leads for a newly-acquired business ([13:10]-[14:50]).
• Restaurant Menus, Pizza Boxes, and More: The hosts list options—everything from dry cleaner hangers, coffee cup sleeves, benches, to community newsletters ([10:51]-[11:14]).

4. Brand vs. Lead Generation

• Qualifier Plays: John’s real-world experiences show that while some of these channels are pure brand-building (hard to track ROI), others, like classifieds or bulletin ads, can drive direct leads when coupled with offers or coupons ([15:27], [19:43]).
• Cost-Per-View: Sam argues that many weird channels have lower cost-per-view than even Facebook ads or the Super Bowl: “You can’t beat that price for 10,000 flyers on pizza boxes” ([16:40]).

5. Home Shows—A Secret Weapon

• Direct Revenue: John touts home shows as shockingly effective and undervalued—just one event brought in close to $200k, with $500k to $1M potentially for the year ([20:00]-[21:40]).
• Why It Works: Home shows attract homeowners ready-to-buy, and participation can drop sharply (from 15 HVAC booths to 1 in a year), creating huge opportunity for those who show up.

6. Community, Networking & Micro-Influencers

• School Sponsorships & Local Involvement: Having your brand visible at schools or church events creates memorable, trusted impressions—especially if you’re part of the community ([13:50]).
• Micro-Influencer Play: Sam suggests e-commerce tactics like local micro-influencers, meetups, or venue sponsorships for backlinks and brand recognition ([23:24]).
• B2B/Networking Events: Groups like business networking meetings, realtor or home inspector events offer powerful word-of-mouth referrals, even if they're underused by millennials ([27:23]-[28:44]).

7. Measurement & Scale—The Tradeoff

• Limitations: “I need, like, 250 leads a day. You can’t scale church bulletins.” Yet, John admits, a handful of quirky channels can add up and yield big returns—especially with no local competition ([29:53]-[33:37]).
• Cost of Experimenting: It’s cheap, easy to test, and you’ll feel the absence if you turn off a campaign that’s quietly performing.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Urinal Ads:

  “I want the sign to say, when you pee, think of me. And just like my face.”
  — John ([00:04], [06:00])

• On Recall:

  “Bathroom stalls recall is like, 92%. …There is a moment where, like, you’re peeing and you see that. …I think that’s a good advertiser.”
  — Sam ([04:48])

• On oddly effective print:

  “He put this ad in the west side Leader. …He got eight leads in the first week. …That’s crazy. …People are looking, and if you’re the only HVAC company sponsoring that little thing, then it makes sense you get calls, right?”
  — John ([11:51])

• On experimentation:

  “I have spent more for less, so I’m like, let’s give it a shot.”
  — John ([11:41])

• On why weird channels work:

  “The cool thing is like 95% of people are not thinking this way. Everyone’s like Google Ads, Facebook ads, … But no one’s like, well, total.”
  — Sam ([19:43])

• On home shows:

  “All this whole year in total, we’ll drive somewhere between half a million and a million total from home shows. Like, that’s real money.”
  — John ([21:40])

• On being locally visible:

  “No one else was inside that newspaper. No one else was in the church bulletin. …Just because other people aren’t doing it doesn’t mean they’re right. It just means they’re not doing it.”
  — John ([33:37])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:00]–[04:46] – Introduction, milestone episode, and embracing weird marketing (urinal ads story)
• [04:48]–[09:02] – Details on sports venue and bathroom sponsorships; cost, exposure, and results
• [09:45]–[11:14] – Print, local newspapers, church bulletins, and other "old school" channels
• [13:31]–[15:27] – Brand value versus lead generation
• [16:40]–[17:40] – Cost-per-view logic and comparison to digital marketing
• [20:00]–[21:55] – Home shows and their unexpected power for revenue
• [23:24]–[24:23] – Micro-influencers, meetups, and social-local strategies
• [27:23]–[28:44] – B2B networking, referrals, and word-of-mouth professionalized
• [29:53]–[33:37] – Experimentation, scale challenges, and the “uncontested space”
• [34:20]–[35:05] – Call to action: submit your weirdest marketing idea for a future appearance on the show

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Conclusion & Takeaways

• “Weird” or old-school local marketing channels (bathroom ads, home shows, newspapers, bulletins, pizza boxes) are frequently overlooked—but often work because competitors ignore them.
• ROI may be tough to track, but low costs and high brand recall can make even small tests worthwhile.
• These tactics are especially effective if you’re an active part of your local community or can creatively tie your brand to physical spaces and events.
• There's untapped opportunity in unobvious places—try, measure, and don’t be afraid to double down when something clicks.

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Action for Listeners

• Share your own weirdest local marketing move in the podcast’s comments—they’ll invite the creator of the “weirdest” tactic onto a future episode!

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For more tactics and to join the conversation, visit:
ownedandoperated.com

Transcript

[A]

Weird local marketing channels that still work.

[B]

If it's not weird, we don't want it.

[A]

And I am very literally above 116 toilets. I want the sign to say, when you pee, think of me and just like my face.

[B]

Can you give us a ballpark on, like, how much that that costs?

[A]

Probably 20 grand.

[B]

You're going to get such a low cost per view, even lower than something on Facebook ads.

[A]

We'll drive somewhere between half a million and a million total from home shows. Like, that's real money.

[B]

And the cool thing is, is like 95% of people are not thinking this way.

[A]

I think my big with all of this is. Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host, John Wilson. During the day, I'm the CEO of Wilson Plumbing, Heating, Cooling and Electric in Ohio and Indiana. For fun, I run a podcast where I talk to people about growing a business inside the home service industry. Today I'm rejoined by my good friend Sam Preston, the CEO of Service Scalers.

[B]

And.

[A]

And a fun aside is that this is episode number 300. It's crazy to believe that I've been podcasting for five years now and sharing my journey from 3 million of revenue to today 40 million. And basically bullshitting on the Internet somewhat professionally, but I'm thankful for the tens of thousands of contractors that listen to this every month and read our newsletters. And this is a lot of fun. So episode 300. I couldn't think of a better person to share it with than my good friend Sam.

[B]

300. That's insane, bro.

[A]

300. I know. I. It. That is crazy.

[B]

Okay, and how. How long has the podcast been on? Like, that's 100 episodes a year.

[A]

So. 2021.

[B]

So. No, no, 2021 episodes a year. So like one a week, effectively.

[A]

Yeah, we took a small break. We took a small break in 2022 because I was busy integrating, like, So I started the podcast when I was hunting for deals in 2021 and I talked about, hey, the acquisition process. It was a very, like, acquisition focused show. And then in 2022, we were in. We were deep in integration and we had some challenges going on, which I've talked about a lot on the. On the show. And so, like, we had to take. We had to take like a pause. We like, slowed down and. But we picked it back up again pretty hot and heavy in 2022 or early 2023. And then, yeah, I mean, we've been a two. Two times a week show for probably two years now. We are. Yeah, it. I mean, it's it had. Honestly, it has been crazy. It's like, it's changed my life and I think all the right ways. Yeah. Episode 300 is kind of a fun milestone because I keep. I keep wondering, like, when is 300? Because I know what's coming up. I see 270, 280, 290, 300 episodes out there in the world.

[B]

I'm honored to be a part of your 300. That. That's amazing. Oh, yeah, dude, that's amazing. That takes, like, so much consistency. You know, how many times have I started some kind of social campaign where I'm gonna write on LinkedIn again and just like. Well, just you get busy as an owner and you. You fall off trying to solve the problems and trying to grow and stuff like that. So, like, the. The. The fact that you've spent this much time doing one thing consistently is insane.

[A]

Yeah, well, I. I think comically, I think of it as a short period of time because 2016 is also the year. I've been running Wilson for 10 years. And, like, I get the same comment of, like, dude, you've been doing the same. And I'm like, kinda.

[B]

Oh, dude, that's incredible.

[A]

We're. We're corn fed, man. We're Midwesterners working. You know, we're workhorses. We're here to get it done.

[B]

That's. That's amazing. Proud of you, dude.

[A]

Today. Today we're continuing our Click to Call series. This one should be really funny. I have some funny examples of. Of, like, these channels, but it is weird local marketing channels that still work.

[B]

If it's not weird, we don't want it.

[A]

If it's not weird, we don't even want to talk about it. Like, get that shit out of here. This is. I'm talking funk stuff. Like, how many urinals are you advertising above? Like, that's what.

[B]

That's.

[A]

That's what I want to know. So. Yeah, so. So Sam was in town. What. What was that? Two weeks ago. And. And we passed by this, like, baseball stadium, and he's like, do you advertise in there? And I am very literally above 116 toilets in that building with, like, my face and, like, our logo. And I'm like, absolutely.

[B]

Okay. I was doing research on this, and I actually saw.

[A]

I am the bathroom sponsor.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

That's the package. All right, so what's the research?

[B]

I saw that bathroom stalls recall is like, 92%, which I have no idea how they found that stat. So I, like, I'm Skeptical that that's real. But there is a moment where, like, you're peeing and you see that you're like, why? Like, yeah, I think, I think that's a good advertiser.

[A]

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[B]

So I think that's probably really good if the plumbing is working because they're like, oh, wow, clearly this is well done. And it's really good if it's not working because they're like, I need to call somebody to come fix this.

[A]

Yeah. On a normal day, potentially less. Now, the one challenge with that is I couldn't get the back of the female stalls, which I was very put out by because a hospital system already had them. And I was like, come on.

[B]

Like, come on, bro. That's hilarious. Okay, like, can you give us a ballpark on, like, how much that that costs?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So probably 20 grand. And it was a three year contract, so probably, you know, 20 grand a year. And then what else did we get? We got, I think we got like strikeout sponsor, which is kind of funny. And then we got something else, but the bat. I mean, the bathrooms was just hilarious.

[B]

That's so good.

[A]

We, we talked to, we talked to the Cleveland Browns. We talked to the Guardians, I think is their name now, whatever the baseball team is. I, I, I remembered as the Indians, but. And then what's the other one? Cavs. So we talked to all of them in bathroom sponsorships. It was kind of funny. Like, we would pitch the idea like, hey, Cleveland Browns, like, can we buy your bathrooms? And everyone was pretty open to it.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

So like, we were gonna do, we were gonna do the, whatever the baseball team is, we were gonna do their bathrooms. And they have like 80 games a year at this freaking stadium versus, like football apparently only has seven or eight or whatever. And it was only 100 grand, which, like, I mean, that's hundreds. I mean, I don't remember how many people it was a week, but it was hundreds of thousands, I thought millions over the course of the season. Like, it was, it was kind of an outrageous exposure.

[B]

Does that, that cost include like material or is that just like the right to advertise?

[A]

It depends on this. It depends on the sponsor. The one for 20 grand included the material. The one for 100. I think it was like we get material credit or something like that.

[B]

Yeah. And I think you're going to want to go with something like baseball that has just significantly more. Or basketball, you have significantly more events than football, which is, you know, taps out of 17.

[A]

Yeah, but there we go. There's my weird bathrooms, urinals. I mean, I, I think that there is, I think, you know, my dad, my dad was doing. Well, I guess we'll divine define some of these. So one would be like sports advertising. I would say like big sports advertising. You know, another example of this. If you search Roto Rooter captains, I want to say on Google, Roto Rooter sponsored a minor league team here in Northeast Ohio and they replaced seats inside the stadium right behind home base. They replaced like 50 seats and they put toilets. It's hilarious. It is, it is so funny.

[B]

So good. Do people actually pay for those?

[A]

So good. And like toilet. It's like, oh, hell yeah. It's like toilets with armchairs. Like, they're not like real, like, you know, don't in it, but like, you know, it's, yeah, it's, it's really funny. That's so, so, yeah. So you can do sponsorships. You could do, you know, back of the baseball stadium, a lot of colleges, you know, sports marketing is like, its Own thing. Churches is another one that I think fits into this category. I would even put local newspapers as, like, weird in 2026. Like, I. I think that's a little bit odd. Youth sports, like T shirts. Honestly, like, school programs. Like, we just started out. We advertised in my. My son's school's program. And I think, again, weird on one hand, it's sort of like, how do you quantify it? And, yeah, I don't know. Any other restaurant menus, pizza boxes, anything else you can think of.

[B]

Benches, dry cleaner hangers, movie theaters, place mats, gas pumps, grocery carts, church bulletins, coffee bulletins, lots of those different types. Pizza boxes. Yeah, I'm sure there's some weird ones out there that we haven't heard of yet. And so if anybody has a good one, please comment below.

[A]

What is the weirdest thing you do? Comment it.

[B]

Regardless if it worked or not. I want to know.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, we just. We just need to know. Mine's urinals. I spent 20 grand to, like, sponsor. Did you.

[B]

Did you see an uptick in organic traffic or anything? Or is that just, like, purely a brand play?

[A]

I don't. I don't think we've quantified it, and I'm almost not sure that I want to.

[B]

This. This is just a joke. We don't care if we make money here. Like, I just. Like this.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. Like, it's a funny story, to be honest with you. I have spent more for less, so I'm like, let's give it a shot.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, my. My dad. My dad did so. Church bulletins and, like, local newspapers, you know, print, I think, is kind of this little category that's. That's pretty interesting. My dad did a. He. He opened up. It's called the west side Leader, and it's inside Northeast Ohio. It was not even Northeast Ohio. It's like the west side of Akron, like, where I live. And Akron has, you know, 200 to 300, 000 people in the county. And the west side leader goes to the west side. There's an east side Leader, but there was no H Vac advertisers at all in the west side Leader. Like, not a single one. And. Or like the classifieds or what? I don't even know. So he put an ad there because my dad's, like, a very. He loves wet heat, like hydronics boilers, steam boilers, water boilers, whatever. So he put in this ad just to, like, see what would happen. He did this, like, a few weeks Ago. He told me about it at breakfast. That. And he's like, yeah, I put this ad in the west side Leader. It was like 100 bucks. I just wanted to see what happened. You got eight leads in the first week. I mean, and on. On one hand, I was. I was sitting there and I was like, wow, that's. That's crazy. Like, I did not. I honestly did not expect that. And on the other, it's like, okay, well, I. I mean, people are looking, you know, and if you're the only H Vac company sponsoring that little thing, then it makes sense that you get calls, right? We had the same one for a church bulletin. We bought a business in January, and they were advertising in a church across the street. We did not continue it. Maybe we should have, but they. They were driving leads, and it was like five to ten leads a month.

[B]

That's awesome. That's awesome. I feel like the. The church bulletin, tell me if I'm wrong. Like, is it just about placement or. I feel like it's way more effective if you're, like, a part of that community. So you're putting it there and you're like, oh, yeah, I know John. He goes to church with me. Or I see this guy at the coffee shop. All the. Makes sense that it's there.

[A]

I would imagine so. And similar to, like, so, you know, we're. We're Catholic, and our kids go to a Catholic school. So, like, the church and the school are like the same community, but I would imagine so, like, Jack, you know, my son Jack went to school the other day, and, like, my wife sends me a video. She's rolling up to the school, and there's like, a sign because we sponsored some event that's coming up. And Jack's like, hey, that's our company. He's seven years old. He's like, hey, that's dad's company. And so I. I do. There is, like, there. You get greater value by being in the community. Like, the church across the street probably makes a lot of sense, and we probably should have, you know, re. Reupped it because, like, they're going to see the ad in the bulletin, then they're going to literally pull out of the church and see the freaking business right there. I think what I struggle with, I. Which I think I'm. I'm sure this is the reason that, like, no one else is advertising H Vac inside west side Leader is it's. It's sort of, like, not obvious if there's going to be a return. Like, at all. It feels like this could either. Like, I sponsored that event and I'm like, it was $2,000. And in my mind, I. And I even had our controller coded this way. This is charity.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like, this is. Yeah. I was like, I expect absolutely nothing to come from this. But I don't know, like, I mean, obviously I'm saying that while also giving two examples in my life that people are driving leads successfully, but for some reason I still have struggle, like getting it to click in my head that it would work.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think I would approach this in two different ways. One, obviously, like, if it's not driving you more revenue, it's probably a bad marketing play. But I would play this brand number one. Right? So we want just our brand to be out there more often. Specifically, if you start to get bigger and you want to be just seen more often, people want to like your brain, once you've recognized a brand, it processes that information easier. And so if it's seen your company over and over and over again, the moment their, their toilet breaks and they go search on Google, they recognize your brand. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, I know, Wilson, here we go. So I play it that way. But the other one is cost per view, right? Like that you're going to get such a low cost per view something that you. Even lower than something on Facebook ads. Or we were talking about this the other day, you know, advertising on the super bowl, it's a million dollar placement. Everyone's like, oh, wow, it's a million dollars. There's no way I'd ever place it. I would even do that. But that cost per view is so much lower than you would ever get on Facebook ads. Like, that's easy for those brands to spend a couple million dollars on that. And so not saying you should do that, but saying like, you know, when I was looking up, like, what does it cost to. To get on Pizza box? It's like $350 for 10,000 flyers. Like, you can't beat that price for just to get in front of 10,000 people. So, you know, I would, I would play around with it. A couple others that I've seen or heard of is like, I've personally run like Craigslist ads for some home service businesses. I don't offer that as a service anymore because it was really hard to scale. But we saw good returns on those. And it was, you know, very manual work. And I don't know if it still is, but then the other one would be like Reddit, like, that's another one where I'd play around with that because it would be really interesting to run ads there and see if that would help you with backlinks or getting people like noticing you. So I mean there's a lot of other ways that you can go about this, but I would play it as a brand. We want to get our name and our logo out there so people are familiar with it. And how can I get as many views as possible as cheap as possible?

[A]

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[B]

If you can quantify it, like a, you know, a QR code on a pizza box and stuff like that. Like, that's when you can figure out whether that actually made you money. And the cool thing is, is like 95% of people are not thinking this way. Everyone's like Google Ads, Facebook ads, you know, lsa. But like, no one's like, well, total.

[A]

I mean there wasn't a single H VAC contractor in that newspaper. And that newspaper goes to the wealthiest section of this city. And it's like that's, that was also kind of wild. You know what we didn't talk about, which is kind of like weird local marketing, but home shows. So home shows. We started doing home shows about two years ago with our canvassing and events team. I mean they, they, it is a very significant source of revenue for us. We, we had one show so far this year that did, I think it broke 200,000 or it was, it was close. And that was one show out of like the 10 that we've done year to date. So kind of crazy. And, but they can drive real value. And what I think is really funny is like, it ebbs and flows with popularity. So this year, last year, this one, it's called the Great Big Home and Garden Show. I don't know if I don't know how many H VAC contractors there were, but there was north of 15, like, just like spitballing. This year there was one and it was us. And I don't know what happened, like, because most of them last year were like PE backed. So maybe they cut their like explorative marketing spend. I really don't know why. It went like from 15 to 1, but like that works. And I remember, I remember like we were buying companies and every company we bought had like these signs and I'm like, what the hell are these for? Like, yeah, we used to do home shows and then we just stopped. And, and, and I think that that is a weird local marketing thing that people don't think works anymore, but it really does. It really does work. I mean, all this whole year in total, we'll drive somewhere between half a million and a million total from home shows. Like, that's real money. And if we were a 2 million dollar contractor, we would grow by 50 just doing home shows.

[B]

I wonder if you could also play that with like. And I want to know if you've done this, like local newsletters, advertising or like find.

[A]

We, we have done it. We have struggled to get traction.

[B]

Okay, what kind of newsletters, are you thinking like actual news or is it been like.

[A]

So it's more like community focused

[B]

maybe.

[A]

Maybe it'd be different if it was actual news. But this one's like a commute, like blog event. Like hey, here's these, here's the stuff to do this weekend. Maybe news would be different. I don't know because I think you're right. Like the thing about them is they can be so big. Like the one that we're, that we're sponsoring has like 40,000 some readers which is kind of crazy. Like that's a lot of freaking readers. But we don't get much. We haven't gotten a lot from.

[B]

Is it still relatively cheap or is it expensive? Yeah, I mean like trying to get on that.

[A]

Yeah. I think the issue is like do we. It's sort of targeting like are they renters, do they own a home or you know, and, and I don't know how much that matters but like that information doesn't matter at all for a home and garden show because everyone owns a home or like a church bulletin. I guess at least in my church, like most people are going to be homeowners but obviously maybe that's church dependent. But yeah, with I, I think the part of the thing with the newsletter is like who are they targeting? And trying to nail that down. But I, I do think that is a good examp. That's a good one.

[B]

The other thing I would be interested in literally have nothing to back this up except for I wonder if this works is, you know, e commerce companies have went really heavy on micro influencers. So like finding people in your community, foodies, you know, parts, anything that you can find where you can maybe sponsor a, you know, a restaurant visit or you know, a meetup.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

I think this does two things. One, micro influencers, you could probably find a bunch of people that have like a small following that would love of just a little bit of cash to sponsor you. And then second it creates a backlink back to your website which is, you know, kind of expensive when you're going for like specific super local niche. So you'd be like two birds, one stone. If you have. If you're already in the media social content game for your local area, that might be another play where you could again drive traffic, cheap eyeballs and backlinks.

[A]

Yeah, that's a good idea. I know, I've talked to. Well, Chris Hoffman was doing some local influencer work. I don't know how much it actually did for him, but I, I Do think that could, I do think that could work. I liked the idea of local meetups, but like specific to something so something that we've, we have not, we have not like executed on this perfectly. But I think like a wine night for realtors and just like literally collecting people and just talking to them would freaking kill. I think so much of it is like, who's in the room? But even like dinners, like somebody pitched me the other day on like, like, hey, just go to this dinner. And I was like, all right, yeah, well, I'll eat. I eat. And yeah, no, totally. And, and after I got invited, I was like, that actually makes kind of like a lot of sense because the other people in the room at this dinner, like one guy owns a insurance company and one guy, you know, so it's, it's like, okay, this makes a lot of sense. Maybe. Obviously mine are like very people focused. I did newspapers too. Okay. I'm like, all right. Am I all just too one sided? I don't know how, I don't know how I feel about like sports. Like, like little league sports teams, like name on the back of the shirt.

[B]

I mean, I like it in the sense that like there's that association because obviously the people are like, oh, my kids. And you know John Wilson's plumbing company, Right. Like, I feel like there's that like already built in, you know, love of that. But then like again, like, how much is that actually going to pull back for you? I have no idea.

[A]

What's, what's, what's another what. What else do we have for weird ones, Restaurant menus. I always do wonder, like, I'll go to like a cafe, like a dinery type of cafe, and I'll walk in and it'll be like the entire table is sponsored by somebody. And first, I just think that's like hilarious to me. Like, what happens if someone stops? Like, some of these are like printed on there and I'm like, dude, what happens if they stop paying? Like, do you have to redo the tables every time? Yeah, but yeah, I mean, menus or like that type of paraphernalia. I think I'm a fan. I, I think my big message with all of this is, and you sort of said this earlier with the local newsletter thing, how much are you paying? Like, how much are we talking about here? And like if a church bulletin is a thousand dollars a year and that's 52 placements, so what is that, 20 placements? That's. Or $20 a placement, it's like 20 bucks. So, like, you know, you can probably drive $20 of value a week out of it. And it's also, like, not hard to roi. I. I also think I have, like, we have wasted money on some of these local things, so maybe it's like, how much is it? And, like, just continue to test.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, I think the other thing I would want to play around with is trying to figure out how you can be in with the Realtors. And obviously the idea of showing up to like, one of those meetups, I forget what they're called, where, like, everyone sits around, passes around, business cards.

[A]

I. Oh, yeah, we didn't even talk about that. But, like, like a business networking group. Oh, there's a few names. I'm wearing, like, four of them. And those are. Those are real, like, they, they drive real value. And it is kind of funny because, you know, a lot of people that listen to the show are probably millennials, and for the most part, there are no millennials in that room, which I just think is interesting because they, they do have real business that occurs inside those rooms. Like, there's millions of dollars referrals, and everyone's like, hey, word of mouth marketing is the best marketing. That's literally word of mouth marketing professionalized. Like, that's what that is.

[B]

I mean, most, most people reach out to their realtor to find contractors, right? Like, you know, like, hey, do you know anybody? I mean, we. We still reach out to our. Ours, everyone once in a while. It's like, hey, like, what is. Do you have somebody that will fix this? And so, like, being that person, like, I don't know how you get in because they. The realtors really are closed down about, like, you giving them some kind of spiff. But getting in with those, maybe sponsoring like a realtor event, like a lunch and learn or something, that would be really interesting.

[A]

Yeah, no, I, I agree. We, We've tried to do. We did home inspector events, like trainings, because home inspection, like, it. It. They're sort of technical, sort of generalists, but they need, like, the more training they have. They're very grateful for it. So we've done home inspector trainings, we've done realtor trainings. We have. We've never gotten out into like, the networking thing, but I, I think that so much of. I think there's like a B2B relational aspect, and it would be nice if, like, a. Maybe this is like, me pitching myself, but like, I think you almost need like, a community manager that like, goes and drives this community and like, they're running the trainings, they're like meeting realtors, they're like helping to establish B2B relationships that just turn into more and more referrals.

[B]

I like it. I like the things that are just a little bit off the beaten path that nobody else is thinking of now.

[A]

I think they just work.

[B]

It's also a great place to waste money, but you also might just find that one little thing that nobody else has done in your area and it just works.

[A]

I talk to a lot of home service business owners and if you are anything like the many shops that I know and you're getting flooded with AI pitches right now, most of them sound great, but then they fall apart the second they hit the real world. The one that I've kept coming back to is Avoca. What impressed me is they actually get how contracting businesses run. And it's not just some AI answering service. Avoca is going to handle inbound calls, outbound follow ups, texts, web leads, dispatching, and Even coaching your CSRs inside of one system that's built for growing home service companies. And if you're on service titan, this matters. Their integrations go deep so you're not duct taping five tools together and hoping nothing breaks during your busy season. I also like that they're honest about what AI should and shouldn't do when a call needs a human. They have a 24, 7 live transfer built in. No drop balls, no awkward customer experience. Owners using Evoca are seeing hold times basically disappear and booking rates jump, sometimes by more than 30%. And that is real revenue, not just a vanity metric. If you're looking for the one AI partner that actually helps you book more jobs without creating more chaos, this is worth taking a look. Book a demo at the link below. I, I think what I where I struggle with a lot of this stuff because I, I was thinking about this yester I was thinking about this a couple days ago, honestly, before I even knew we were going to talk about this, because I was thinking about the newspaper thing and the church bulletin. And what I struggle with is like, I know that, I know that he got leads from the local newspaper. He probably got eight leads. And on one hand it's like, okay, like, hey, that's leads. But on the other, and maybe I'm just being dumb and someone can like just point out to me like, hey, you're overthinking this, which maybe I am, but in my mind we need so many leads. Like, I need like 250 leads a day. It's sort of Like a. That effort doesn't scale that. I think I get stuck in and so does probably everybody else is, oh, I can't scale that. And it's like, obviously you can't scale church bulletins. Like, no. But like, it's, it still does something towards it. But I think that's where I always get a little bit lost in the sauce is like, how many hours am I going to spend doing this? And like, will there be return? Whereas, like, I know, I know there will be return with LSA and I. I think that's like my, my big challenge on these local things is they all take a lift. Like home shows take a lift and the realtor thing takes a lift. And sponsoring my school's thing takes a lift. And it's just not as easy as, like, turning on meta ads. But it's good for your community and it gets you out there.

[B]

And it's cheap, right? Like, I was looking at church bulletins and it's cheap bulletins. And they're, they're like on average, like 42. 42amonth cost. So like, well, that's a lot. 10 bucks a week. What's the worst, you turn it off after three months going, hey, that didn't work. Or you leave it on for a year because you've forgotten that you've. You've added a subscription. Like, I think, I think it's worth trying some of these smaller ones and just seeing how does it affect anything. And maybe the answer is nothing, but, I mean, I've been part of those. So many of these conversations where, like, I don't think it's doing anything. So you turn off that campaign and then suddenly you see a dip and you're like, whoa, what happened? Like, oh, I just turned this off, you know, three weeks ago. Well, maybe it's that you turn it back on. Okay, now I'm starting to see something come through. So I think it's worth. Worth trying and trying to be unique and trying to find ways that people aren't thinking, thinking outside the box, being places that nobody else is going to be and seeing what you.

[A]

Yeah, well, I think that's the exciting part of all of it, is no one else is there. No one else was inside that newspaper. No one else was in the church bulletin. Like, it is a very. Whereas, like, everyone's on Google. No one else was in the home show. And we did almost $200,000. Like, there's a. Just because other people aren't doing it doesn't mean that they're right. It just means that they're not doing it.

[B]

I mean, and that's the thing that I love that because, like, SEO, Google Ads, there's already competition in the market. So if you're starting brand new.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Part of that learning phase is just, like, trying to squeeze in to create some space for you against your competition.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No one else is on that church bulletin, so, like, you're there. You're already number one. Now you just got to figure out, will that actually drive leads?

[A]

This was a good roundup of weird marketing tactics that still work.

[B]

Maybe we should do, like, whoever has the. The. Whoever has the weirdest thing that they've done will mention them in the next podcast.

[A]

And so they should just come on the podcast and tell us about it. Like, I still want to have the guy on that did all the signs up in Michigan. Like, I think that'd be so fun. They went from, like, 0 to 6 million of revenue in three years in doing, like, only yard signs. Like, that was there. And I'm like, that's awesome.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. The person that comments, the weirdest thing that they've done, the weirdest one, you're

[A]

coming on the show. You're telling us about it.

[B]

I love it. I can't wait to meet you.

[A]

Yeah, I can't either. That'll be a ton of fun. All right. If you like what you heard, make sure you, like, comment the weirdest thing you're doing and sub to the channel.

[B]

Peace.