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Matt Bertram
Foreign.
Tyler Dunnigan
This is the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing, your insider guide to the strategies top marketers use to crush the competition. Ready to unlock your business full potential? Let's get started.
Matt Bertram
Howdy. Welcome back to another fun filled episode of the Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. I am your host, Matt Bertram. I am changing a lot about what's going on. As you know, I've been talking about the podcast name's going to be changing. We're doing additional branding. We're doing the Mastermind group. We've been growing as a company and we've been exploring new avenues and hopefully I've liked the new format. As we've expanded out, we're going to build these into playlists. So if you have a particular interest, a lot of people ask, well, hey, where do I get started with this? Or where do I get started with that? And, you know, this, this podcast is going to fall into the, like, entrepreneurial category for people that want to make some money. I think a lot of people want to make a lot of money and they think the Internet can do it, and they're absolutely right. And so I wanted to bring on a guest that has done that same thing multiple times. He's on the, you know, Inc. 5000 list. Uh, he's, he's grown and scaled multiple companies. He's actually in a, a niche space that I recently heard about that I do believe is booming. Uh, and he agreed to come on. So, Tyler, great to have you on, buddy.
Tyler Dunnigan
Matt, I'm stoked to be here. I can't wait to get into it and talk opportunities and everything else around those things. Excited to be here.
Matt Bertram
Awesome, man. Well, you know, we, we can definitely talk some personal branding as well for anybody listening to this podcast. Because I, I think that one of the biggest things that is important in any kind of deal that you get into is people need to know who you are and people need to, you know, there's, there's some virtue signaling that has to happen today. Like, I think that that's starting to become the new social capital, you know, like, absolutely agree.
Tyler Dunnigan
That's one of the reasons why I'm on. And I'm sure your other guests do the same, right?
Matt Bertram
Like, so, so, I mean, now you're going to go meet somebody, right? Whether it be sales or, you know, you're doing a deal of any, any sort, you're going to go search them on Google, right? You're going to go look at their LinkedIn profile. You're going to try to, like, you know, weigh them up, value them up like, who, who is this person I'm meeting? And, and then you can find out so much more. One of the things I did is when I was in, in sales, I, I, I got, I won this pharmaceutical contest right out of school for GlaxoSmithKline. And so, so I became a farm rep out in Florida. That was like kind of my, my first, first career, first job from sales. I, I just, but I always leveraged marketing. I won that contest through marketing. And when I was selling people, I used to have two business cards. Okay. One was the business card of who I was representing at the business, and the other one was my personal blog because I wanted people to see who I was. And this is when like you're building like a, a really wanky site. Okay. And I mean, these were in the websites when the stuff like moving gifts were the thing, right? Like the whole site like, was like, like so I just trying to, trying to a date myself there. But it was really important that, I mean, you know, Facebook was, was only in colleges, right? Like, it was only in colleges and it was the cool thing to be part of. But not everybody had a Facebook. People couldn't go look up your Facebook. And you were just poking people at that point on Facebook, if you remember. And so, you know, social media wasn't developed that much I can tell you. I was probably one of the first people on LinkedIn and I was, I was doing, I was running a staffing company. So I flipped a staffing company in my 20s and, and everybody would go on LinkedIn and they would put their resume on there. And if you knew if they were building out their profile, they were looking for a job. And so it was just like, it was great fishing. I mean, this, this is where I grew up. And also I would tell you that my mom was one of the first people from Microsoft. And so I was playing online games with her, her employees and became friends with a, a number of people from Microsoft that went on to do crazy things. I mean, like if you look at the, you know, people that came out of Microsoft, I mean, someone that used to run Starbucks, I mean, I can go down the list like venture capital, but like, okay, this is about you, dude. And one of the things that I'm seeing, okay, is there's a lot of people that listen that know marketing and have an entrepreneurial flair, whether they're at the end of their career and they're stepping out. I'm seeing a lot of people move into the consulting space when they've Worked at a big company and what they're realizing is they don't have that big brand behind them anymore. It doesn't open the doors. Right. And so they have to step back and they have to build their, their personal reputation. Right. And who they are and what they did. And you got to tell that story. And so give me your pitch as we get into this. Give me your pitch on, on who you are and what you do.
Tyler Dunnigan
Yeah, yeah, I would love to. So in a nutshell, I am a lifelong entrepreneur. You know, I'm 34 years old, so I like to say I'm still early ish in my journey. But I've been involved in real estate from flipping houses to managing them to getting into multifamily. I managed a quarter billion dollars of assets under management. That's when I really learned the built companies for high net worth individuals. They would hire me, I would be consultants. Hey, I need to build this thing. Help me out here. And you just learn how to structure things. Fast forward. I got involved in managing multifamily apartments like I mentioned and when I was in it, although it was corporate America was a big job and all, all those good things, I got to brag at the, you know, family reunion about them. I hated it. And that's when I saw the opportunity for the companies I left to start. And today I own a company called Turnserve and, and that is a platform of brands. I got to start them all. It's my playground, for lack of better words. And in a nutshell, we provide turnover services and solutions for the largest property managers in the US and we provide convenience turnkey services such as painting example. I own the company apartmentpainters.com I own apartment flooring.com, i own liquid liner and all these other ones. And all of those roll up and we go to market as turn serve and we say, hey, we could help you with convenience here. We can get your, your units ready for you. We've innovated, we've built some products, we patented a couple products in that space as well. And we're building out software in addition to all those things to bring it all together. So collectively I am just a relentless entrepreneur. I'm always busy in a good way. I can't sit still to save my life. And I just love creating solutions that can scale. I don't want a job forever. So I always build companies with the exit in mind. And a lot of that is around sales and marketing first and then the solution second. And that's that's also something that we can dive into today about some of the largest service brands in the world being sales and marketing agencies first. So in a nutshell, that's me.
Matt Bertram
Yeah. No, the world started to flip on its head, right? The world started to flip on its head as, I mean, today you can reach more people through marketing in more ways than the big brands could dream of years ago. Right. I mean, you know, one of, one of the, the key things that no one's doing okay, post once a day on whatever platform you say, I'll tell you, 4% of people, I think, or 5% of people, maybe it's a little bit higher than that, I think, but it's probably pretty close to that. Globally are the ones that actually post once a week on LinkedIn. That's it. Everybody else is consuming content. Wow. Right? Like, look at that opportunity. There's so much opportunity. YouTube is the platform that more people are on longer than any other platform. People want to get their news, people want to get their information. And if you're a heavy YouTube user, you know that there are gaps. There are gaps in what you're searching for, what you want. So, like the industry starting to mature, but there's still huge opportunity, right? There's people that have, are, but there's always going to be people ahead of you, there's going to be people behind you. But, but every platform, there's an opportunity to build your personal brand on that, right? And marketing for companies helps them tell their story, right? And that means you can connect with more customers. So, you know, let's say there's some property managers out here, right? And they've heard about you. I mean, one to many, you're reaching so many people, right? You're, you're, you don't even know how many people you're reaching. And then there's repurposing, they're sharing of the content. Like the number one thing that Gary Vanderchuk says, everybody's heard of Gary Vee because he cusses all the time, right? Or, or if you like wine, I've heard him on at south by Southwest and some marketing conferences. And he's actually like a super nice dude and he's very smart. Like, if you get through the cuss words of, like, what he's saying, he's saying, like social media, you're going to grow your brand, you're going to grow your company, leveraging it more than any other thing that you could do. He goes, you'll cancel your meetings, you know, your sales meetings. If you knew that you could just get on social media and you can tell your story, I can tell you right now, we're landing at our agency, EWR Digital. 100 million dollar companies left and right, okay? Inbound. That changes all the, the B2B sales process on his head. Because, man, I get sucked into like these lunches. I do not want to sit down for a two hour lunch in the middle of day. That crushes my whole day, right in, in Houston, I gotta drive somewhere, I gotta sit down. I don't know who these people are, but what, what is that? What are people doing? Okay, they're trying to get to seven hours. Okay? They're trying to get to know you for seven hours. That's what conferences are about. That's what everything's about, getting to seven hours. Then you're gonna know I can trust somebody. That's like the magic threshold. Actually in dating too, you know, I'm, I'm married, but you know, in dating too, it's seven hours. Different locations, multiple platforms. Okay, 7, 11, 4. That's the magic, that's a magic number that, that Google's done a lot of research to come up with seven hours of content, see your brand name 11 times on four different platforms. That's the framework that we, we operate under. And if you think about any major brand, anything that you bought and anything that you've had interest in movies, I mean it goes anywhere that that's what people are looking for. And, and so you can take marketing, you can apply it to any product. And I know you've done that. And so I want to hear about some of these businesses, maybe some case studies of things that you've done, like you've identified this opportunity which, you know, when you're trying to sell something, identify something that's very expensive. Like what's the most expensive thing that people own? What's their biggest asset? It's their house. When you get into bigger numbers, you manage more money, you get a bigger percentage, right? You make more value for somebody based on that. So, you know, most millionaires in the past have made their money in real estate. So, so I think it's a great place for people and I think there's a lot of opportunity, like tell me how archaic it is where you kind of saw opportunities early on. Tell me a little bit more about the origin story.
Tyler Dunnigan
Yeah, of course. So, and you said, you said it well, sell something that's expensive, right? Or go after things where it generates a lot of money. And for me, when I was Younger, you look up to people that are successful and killing it, crushing it, all those things. And they were in real estate. And I said, okay, cool, I have no money, but I'm willing to work. Let me try it out. Well, same concept. You look at a house, you can buy for 70 grand, put 100 into it and sell for 300. You know that, that prints cash. For me, that wasn't quite big enough yet. And so that's when I started to look at the market holistically. All right, what's bigger than single family real estate? It's multifamily. And so what I do, when I look at something, I want to make sure that I'm not getting involved with a dying dinosaur of a space. Sometimes that creates opportunity. A lot of the times it's getting abandoned for a reason. And that's. You have to look like for me, in the, in the multifamily housing space, it's old, it's archaic, but it's predictable, it's steady, and it's growing. 50% of renters move every year. And so I flipped the framework instead of trying to find one or two houses to do, instead I would go after one or two property manager, property management companies that have thousands of apartments under management. And so today, if we land one client, the, the LTV of that client could be $500,000, it could be $5 million, and we only had to sell them once. And so that's where we look at the high ticket offerings, because it's reoccurring. I don't need to go sell 10,000 homeowners, so to say I can. But my time is better spent from a marketing and effort standpoint, going after the whales, for lack of better words. And so I always look at the market first. Second thing I look at is what could I improve? Like, I don't want to get involved and just be another cog here. Like, can I ser. Update or innovate the space? For me, my background, it was absolutely yes in, in the industry I got involved in, because I knew it well. I spoke the language, I felt the pain in that industry. And so that's also something I, I always try to be conscious of. What is my offer, what is my value proposition? And if, if it's a hypothetical that I can achieve, I'm probably not going to do well in there. So I need to make sure that I could add value. And I understand firsthand what is the process, what am I solving everything around that. And then little by little, once you're in that space for me, I. There's a book called Edge Strategy. I don't know if you've ever read this, but once you have something going on in one space, you see what else is within arm's reach. Like hey, I'm already here. I already have resources being deployed here. What if I just did this one extra thing? And so for us, so turn serve as a parent company today. It started off as one company and now I have over 10 LLCs underneath the umbrella and, and each one is producing millions of dollars. And that didn't happen by chance. It's because we had our eyes open and our heads on a swivel trying to find opportunities to create better offers and solutions for our customers. And that's exactly how we went from a painting brand to a flooring to a bathtub brand to now a patented product brand and now bring it all together with software, so on and so forth. All of those things are within arm's reach. And it all has to do with the industry I got involved in and focusing on what I'm good at. So those are the first things I always look at and consider before getting involved. I get pitch business ide every day there's people that have companies that want to join our platform and it's one of those things to where you say like hey, like there's probably a repurpose here somewhere but it's probably not going to be a paving company that's going to, you know, like think of the boring company versus some old excavating company. You just want to make sure you're getting involved in something where there's a future versus a dead end.
Matt Bertram
Well, you know, one of the things you said and it probably flushes it out in that edge strategy. I actually haven't read that and I'm an avid reader so I got something new for my reading list there. It sounds like what you've developed is network effects within your own business. So that those are the businesses that are growing today of you bring somebody else into the network and then it helps everybody else. So you bring on a client. Well, it benefits, you know, all the different companies you have. You bring in another supplier that those, those suppliers might be working with other people that they might be touching or whatever. But the strength of the network, as that network grows, it becomes more powerful and more valuable based upon what you have. Right. And so it's like an ecosystem you built like a hub and spoke ecosystem, it seems.
Tyler Dunnigan
Yeah, that's exactly it. Then you get into cross selling and other opportunities and you talk about social validation. If you're already in the space, you already have a name, your brand is coming up, whatever it might be, it's way easier to sell people that you already do life and business with.
Matt Bertram
Yeah. One of the other things that you said that, that I definitely resonate on is you have to know what the problem is that you're solving and you have to, you have to really zero in on that and understand the value of that problem. And once you have a problem that nobody else is solving or not solving in a way that you can solve better, that, you know, has a lot of value as far as what it does for somebody. Now you have a business idea. A lot of people just have crazy business ideas, okay. But they don't think about is the, is this a product market fit? There's like people need this, okay? Like, I mean, you know, I, I, I've had some IP attorneys on, right. And so you know, they're telling me all the kinds of people have all kinds of crazy ideas and you can patent whatever, but if people don't need that patent, all right, waste a lot of money or, or you're going to market something that like people don't want to like. So, so that's the cool thing about social media. There's a lot with market research that you can start doing, you can test out, you can really test out before you cement branding, okay, for like different products. If you put stuff out there, you can, you can do polls, you can ask questions about it, but you can see what people are buying. Like, one of the things that I had somebody on that's doing and really was impressed is they were running ads for a product they hadn't developed yet to put them on a waiting list. Okay. Now you, you, you, you, you get into this area of clarity and, and, and, and all that. But they were, I, I, I think that they, they had a true intention of developing that product and then they were running that product with all kinds of different copy. Does that make sense? So they were going to develop that product, but they wanted to decide on the branding, the look like, the language, like how they were going to communicate that message. And so they ran all these different ads and you can measure the click rate, you can measure, you know, does that person sign up like so you can create some KPIs. And what becomes clear when you do email testing or anything else is there's a couple that work really well over others if you test enough, right. I like actually like testing like the whole Alphabet, like I like to start one variable at a time and I'll test 26 different titles and then, you know, I'll test the copy. Copy doesn't have to change that much. You just got to get them into the copy. And you, you're kind of speaking to different people and, and you got to see how that, that copy works. But you test like different variables and you can see that. And so anything that you're trying to do or create or message, you're. You're able to kind of put that together. I mean, tell us how you did that with like your first business. Right. Of like, okay, like you had this big vision, you knew you had this problem. You, you started to get into the contracts but you kept expanding. Right. Like you kept seeing those opportunities. So how did you identify that? What did you, you know, like, like, like why did you make those decisions to, to, to spin it up the way you did?
Tyler Dunnigan
Sure. So, so it was twofold. One, we in the service space, not so much the product business, I'll talk about that in a second. But in the service space we were literally like running into other providers and we would like, what are you doing? And that's how I started my bathtub refinishing brand because my painting brand couldn't service a unit because there's somebody refinishing a bathtub. And I just organically stumbled upon it and I was like, oh, that's interesting what's going on here? And then you learn and you see other vendors and they're within arm's reach, so to say. So observing them is one, one thing. However, go, go beyond that. When we started selling our core services initially we, we discovered that the multi family space is very contingent on budgets. And so we got to the point to where we realized, hey, if we could analyze a budget not only for the service we're offering today, a lot of these mega firms that with, with billions of dollars under management will literally would send us their budget for allowance on, on spend on our, our services and everybody else's as well. So not even just the online, you, everything else. We, we learned their budgets for how much are they going to spend on floors this year? What about out exterior? What about landscaping?
Matt Bertram
Basically RFQs for, for everything, right? Everything. Yeah, you knew what, what they wanted.
Tyler Dunnigan
And so what we did, we took that initial concept and we reached out to a few core clients and we said hey, our assumption based off of some data that we have is you might have 14 of your maintenance budget to spend towards this. Is that remotely close and surprisingly, it was spot on. Almost everything that we tested. And so we built out frameworks around that. Now, granted, that's, we got a little bit lucky there. Admittedly, we didn't have to fish quite as much, but interpreting that data, it saved us a ton of time. But then we would, then we would look at, okay, how do we monetize that? All right, how do we build a service that. Or a solution that could fill that void? And then once we did it, our first version of our website had, there was like six different versions, and each one is built by either somebody different or it was a different template. And it wasn't the fact I wanted to live forever. I wanted to know, am I, am I speaking to a, a residential person right now? Am I speaking to a property manager? Am I speaking to a property owner right now? And crafting that in a way, we, we tested, we had over 70 versions of, of our initial test. And what we found out was it's property managers driving it. When initially I was marketing and trying to sell property owners. And so just a subtle little shift there helped us realize that, hey, we, we could probably improve our funnel here astronomically just by changing the scope and who we're marketing to and understanding our ideal client profile and their characteristics and what they're searching for and everything else. So it's, and we didn't start off perfectly. Obviously, we stumbled upon some things and we, we, we got a little bit lucky here and there. But really just interpreting that data and deciding what to do with it allowed us to keep on moving. And then that, that actually, the last part I'll share on that is this. That actually tiptoed us into our own product business. So I love service companies. I love all those things. I've always had a wish just to create something meaningful and be able to show it in my hands of somebody versus saying like, oh, I'll do this service for you, that service for you. You know, as an Entrepreneur, I have 10 service companies and I have like, I can't show you, you know, you gotta visit my website, so to say. And so I wanted to build a product that was useful. And it was actually in that bathtub business I was mentioning where we saw a vendor doing it an outdated way. And, and, and we essentially took what he was doing. We said, there's a better way to do this. We didn't know what it was yet. One, we looked at the data. How much is spent every year in the service? Okay, cool. And then what about the market? How big is the actual Space. How much do people spend on this product every year? And it was massive, surprisingly massive. And so we took two years and around a quarter million dollars in R D and we actually patented a product that was third party tested against Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, Lowe's, you name it. And it beat them all. It beat every single one for, for what we, what we do. And then we started selling offers via email, cold emails. What's, you know, we're testing clicks, who's likely to sign up for a newsletter, who's likely to sign up for a free orientation, whatever it might be. And all of those things just go back to refining the offer and making sure that we're tracking the success on those things. So we're, we look at the analytics probably more than anybody else, especially as a service company on our side, you know.
Matt Bertram
So I'm thinking what we should do is I have been been contemplating moving into a long form format of a podcast. Okay. So like typically these podcasts are another 10 minutes from here. Like we're going really fast through all this stuff, right? Yeah, I, I think what we could do is people would like listening to how you are looking at things as a business because there's a lot of people that listen that are at agency or work for an agency. You're kind of peeling back on where I see marketers lacking today, what young marketers lacking today and agencies that I'm coaching is they got to get inside the heads of the clients that understand the marketing. A lot of times they're doing marketing for big companies that have big moats, big, big logos, whatever, that are actually just now starting to have to do marketing. Okay. Or small companies that don't have the budget to do, to do anything fancy or people that are just too busy to even look at it. Like I can tell you at ewr, when I talk to the account managers, there's a handful of clients when I talk to them because I've started to open up office hours, they're like, yeah, yeah, we get the reports, they're looking good, blah, blah, blah. But they don't even know what they mean. The clients don't even know what the reports mean. Right. So how does that translate to business? And I think that there's a lot of people that do find this podcast that know that there's a digital transformation going on. There's. What is it? 75% of baby boomer businesses are going to change hands in the next couple years. Okay.
Tyler Dunnigan
Huge opportunities, Massive, huge opportunities.
Matt Bertram
And no one knows, like none of the Old marketers know anything about analytics. I mean some of them do, but I've been on a number of cross functional teams that you buy the print ad, you buy the radio ad, you buy the billboard, you buy in the magazine and you, and your job's done. Okay. And you're like, I guess you got your views, like I hope you sold your business. And it's frustrating for me, right. And, and, and I feel like when I'm on those cross functional teams, they're all asking me and my team for data and all this kind of stuff and I'm like, like they haven't made the transition yet. And if you look at TV spots, you know, I knew one. Well, I still know, but he sold his business. One of the biggest TV advertising companies. Okay. The, the ad spots are going down by so much because they don't have analytics, but CTV over the top, like streaming all going up. Right. So it's, it's shifting and, and there's this big, there's all these changes happening, but I can see that there's a lot of businesses, especially in businesses that have been running the same way for a long time, haven't made that change. So you're, you've made the change to understanding the analytics that helps you drive the decision making and also leveraging the marketing to get the things done that you want done and also in multiple verticals. Right. So like, you know, okay, we can talk painting, we can talk carpet cleaning. We, I mean like these are all different marketing strategies and you have different companies that are making a lot of money and then there's operating those companies and finding the right people to put in those places. Like there's a lot I think, to talk about and I think that putting together maybe a long form podcast of people that are looking to make that transition from corporate America. Okay. Because the gig economy is not going anywhere. It's certainly on the rise. I think that there's going to be layoffs that, that are going to be coming in short order. Right. I think housing is actually going to be a big issue too, but I won't go into that. There's a lot of stuff coming and there's going to be a lot of people retiring and they still need to make revenue. And, and I'm, I've done some coaching. Go check out my LinkedIn. Like I had a, under secretary of the Energy Department because I work a lot in oil and gas. Helped her get her podcast up and going. Like, I mean there's people that have great skill sets, okay. Of, you know, you want to get in with the government, you want to, you know, you want to get some things approved, whatever. But how do they market themselves, right? How do they market their businesses? And, and I just think that from your perspective and from my perspective, we could slow this down. We could talk about some of these different things and we could. And I, I personally listened to, I, I don't like the short, short podcasts. Okay. And I've been looking to move to the longer form podcast. But you gotta, you know, it's not as easy as people think to, to make that transition and to find that content. But I think, I think that, I think that that's what we should do. I think we should, should wrap on this podcast and, and it'll, it'll publish in a couple weeks, but we'll get, um, we'll set up a time to do a long form and we'll, we can map some of this stuff out and dig into it a little bit more. And I think it create a lot of value for people and then people will get to know you a lot better. And, and also, like, what I think I want to communicate to the audience is the thinking, right? How you're identifying things, what you're, what, what you're thinking about, how does that translate into business, what are the struggles you're dealing with, how to overcome it. But also, I want to keep interjecting data because I am such a proponent of data driven marketing. And I think it makes all the effort because it was like, yeah, I think this could work, but let's just run it and a, b test it and we'll just see what the right answer is. Because what I think might be the right answer is not what the market thinks, right? And I was like, I always let the market decide. And so we have a really good company culture because, well, you know, hey, everybody puts up their ideas, we take the best ideas, we try them out, and then we figure out what actually wins based on the data. Right? And so everybody's always kind of optimizing to that. But I would love to do that. I also have a start hard stop here. So let's go ahead and wrap and then we'll talk more and we'll reschedule something. So hopefully everybody got some value. But the one question that I do ask people, and I wanted to give an opportunity for anybody that's listening to, to contact you, but what is the one biggest unknown secret of Internet marketing in your mind, of growing these businesses?
Tyler Dunnigan
Oh, okay. So I think it's nothing super clever, if I'm going to be honest with you. I'm going to double down on what I said before and you hinted at it as well. It's understanding who you're marketing in your target and, and understanding you are inherently biased to assume you know what they're looking for. You don't. You need to interpret the data, you need to understand their pain points. If you could just, you might have the best, most strongest gun, the. You name it, it's so accurate. But if you have that scope aim just a little bit left, you're not going to hit. Understanding who you're going after and why and then knowing how to interpret the data to where you're not fooling yourself is the number one superpower. You have to start there.
Matt Bertram
Well, people, people don't start with strategy, okay? People don't start with research and data. They just want to jump into it. And that's why I think people fail a lot on social media strategies. They just jump in like it's about posting a lot. No, it's not about posting a lot right there. It's very strategic and, and that's why I've kind of stepped away from the agency a little bit. I still oversee all the strategy and everything going on there, but. Matthew Bertram, Comm. Like, I'm doing a lot of helping people get out of ditches with different kind of problems, but it's all like thought process and it's strategy work and we always start with who's your target audience? What is that? Customer journey. And then we start testing out offers to figure out what they want. Okay. And to your point, you tweak something just a little bit, could make a huge difference. It is wild. How much?
Tyler Dunnigan
Massive difference.
Matt Bertram
So, so, so, you know, this podcast used to be predominantly for 10 plus years about SEO and SEO now has become, well, I want more leads, I want more business. How do I make that happen? It's everything. How do I use the social media platforms, right? Because their algorithms, how their algorithms work, how, how it all works together. And, and it's now about, well, getting that message to the right person, which you can do today, but then converting them and it's about conversion rate optimization is I think one of the biggest things and that's the biggest thing is like get the fish on the hook and then reel them in. And so I would love to get some time with you where we can maybe even sit down and really have a long form conversation about how to think about this and how to do it. And I think that I would love to from that. I think a lot of people will be really, I want, I want them to be in our conversation. I have a lot of these conversations with certain people and I, you know, I'm in a couple text groups with some, some great people that it deletes like the messaging, you know, after about a week. Right. And all that stuff is so valuable. But it, it's, it's like no one gets to see behind the curtain. That's what I want to do. I want to pull back the curtain and I want to like really look at stuff and, and, and help people that are searching online that are struggling, that are trying to find the answers to what they're looking for. And, and I mean it's out there and, and I think we could, I think we could lay it out for them.
Tyler Dunnigan
So yeah, let's do it. And I have so much to reveal behind the curtain so to say like you said. And in my companies I have investors table and whatnot. And a lot of these, these, these folks have sold businesses for billions of dollars and they're in the service space, they're in the online space. What I'm learning is they are a sales and marketing agency first and understanding what are they looking at, like what's, you know, they're looking at win rates and, and all these offers and you name it and they are growing like crazy. I have friends in this home improvement space that did $100 million in their third year in business because they are sales and marketing analytics interpreters. They know what they're doing and I, I would definitely love to sit long, long form things that I've learned even the past 12 months, six months and even more recent than that, things you would never assume and colliding analytics and marketing to operations and scale and, and so much more.
Matt Bertram
Awesome. So if people want to hear more, we just gave everybody just a taste of what we're going to be talking about. How can they reach out to you right now if they're like I gotta, I gotta talk to you. You Ryan number one space.
Tyler Dunnigan
I'm super involved in LinkedIn. I will respond to every message unless it's an automated AI message and it doesn't do a good job of, of covering its tracks. Reach out to me there also. Dunnigan. Collective.com. it's just my last name. Collective.com. i have a snapshot of some of my companies on there, some blogs and, and things like that. LinkedIn. Any socials really. And as long as you're real, I'll respond to you.
Matt Bertram
Awesome. Well, everybody go check that out. Today is an exciting time because you have access to AI, you have access to the Internet, you have access to all the social media platforms. You can reach people, like I talked about at the beginning of this podcast, in a way that, like, businesses, marketers would drool. Okay, like 30 years ago, like, now is the best time to start. If you haven't started, if you're stuck, there's answers, there's solutions, there's opportunities, and there's people that can help. And so if you want to grow your business with that tool, reach out to EWR Digital for more revenue in your business. We'll give you a free consultation. No pressure. We can see if we're a fit, we can point you in the right direction. We have a lot of connections and we want to get you the help you're looking for. Stay tuned for the mastermind group that's going to be coming out next month. And then we are going to be turning that, those into trainings that you can get if. If a mastermind group's not for you. I've been having people ask me about it for at least three years now. And we finally got to that point. We've launched it for the energy category and I've taken a lot of those trainings that are helping CMOs of Fortune 500 companies in the entry space and then I've applied it to the small business category. So stay tuned for that. Stay tuned for the name change. So unknown secrets of Internet marketing. And we'll still redirect it best seopodcast.com but we are launching something new. I just feel there's the times changing and a lot of, a lot of things, from the lining of the stars to the, to the, to the politics to the life cycle. I just, I just feel like there's change everywhere. Hopefully y' all feel it too. Look positive, know where you're gonna go. Drive in that direction. And until next time, my name is Matt Bertram. Bye bye for now.
Episode: Scaling Service Companies Through Data-Driven Marketing with Tyler Dunagin
Host: Matt Bertram
Release Date: May 12, 2025
In this episode, Matt Bertram welcomes Tyler Dunagin, a seasoned entrepreneur recognized for scaling multiple companies and landing on the Inc. 5000 list. Matt begins by discussing the podcast's evolution, including rebranding efforts and the introduction of new formats like playlists and mastermind groups. He emphasizes the podcast's focus on the entrepreneurial spirit, aiming to provide actionable insights for business owners, marketing executives, and agency professionals.
Tyler Dunagin introduces himself as a lifelong entrepreneur with a diverse background in real estate and multifamily property management. At [00:00], Tyler shares his extensive experience, managing a quarter billion dollars in assets and founding Turnserve—a platform comprising multiple service-oriented brands such as ApartmentPainters.com and ApartmentFlooring.com.
Notable Quote:
"Collectively I am just a relentless entrepreneur. I'm always busy in a good way. I can't sit still to save my life."
— Tyler Dunagin [07:38]
Matt and Tyler delve into the significance of personal branding in today's digital landscape. Matt recounts his early days in sales and how personal marketing—like maintaining a personal blog alongside business cards—was pivotal in his success. He highlights how personal branding has become essential for building trust and credibility, especially as professionals transition from corporate roles to entrepreneurial ventures.
Notable Quote:
"People need to know who you are and there’s some virtue signaling that has to happen today... it’s becoming the new social capital."
— Matt Bertram [01:44]
A significant portion of the discussion focuses on scaling service companies through data-driven marketing strategies. Tyler explains how Turnserve leverages data to understand client budgets and needs, allowing for targeted marketing efforts that yield high lifetime value (LTV) clients.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"Understanding who you're marketing to and interpreting the data so you're not fooling yourself is the number one superpower."
— Tyler Dunagin [30:19]
Matt introduces the concept of network effects within a business ecosystem, likening Turnserve’s structure to a hub-and-spoke model. This approach allows each subsidiary brand to support and enhance the others, creating a powerful and synergistic network.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"We always look at the market first. Second thing we look at is what could I improve?"
— Tyler Dunagin [15:22]
Tyler discusses the meticulous process Turnserve employs to develop and refine its offerings. By analyzing budgets and client needs, the company identifies gaps in the market and crafts services or products tailored to fill those voids. This data-centric approach ensures that every new venture is grounded in real demand and has a clear path to profitability.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"We're interpreting that data and deciding what to do with it allowed us to keep on moving."
— Tyler Dunagin [19:34]
The conversation shifts to the vast opportunities present in today's digital marketing landscape. Matt highlights platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn, noting the underutilization of strategic content posting. Both speakers agree that leveraging data and analytics can unlock new avenues for reaching and converting customers.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"There's so much opportunity. YouTube is the platform that more people are on longer than any other platform... but there are gaps in what you're searching for, what you want."
— Matt Bertram [07:38]
Towards the end of the episode, Matt and Tyler discuss the potential for expanding the podcast into a long-form format. They see value in in-depth conversations that explore the intricacies of data-driven marketing, business scaling, and the challenges of transitioning from corporate environments to entrepreneurship.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"I want to pull back the curtain and really look at stuff and help people that are searching online that are struggling, that are trying to find the answers to what they're looking for."
— Matt Bertram [31:53]
In the closing segment, Matt encourages listeners to reach out to Tyler for further engagement and support. He underscores the importance of leveraging AI and digital platforms to maximize marketing efforts and business growth. Matt also teases upcoming offerings like the mastermind group and additional training sessions tailored for different business categories.
Key Points:
Notable Quote:
"Today is an exciting time because you have access to AI, you have access to the Internet, you have access to all the social media platforms... now is the best time to start."
— Matt Bertram [34:58]
This episode of The Best SEO Podcast offers a comprehensive exploration of scaling service companies through data-driven marketing, anchored by Tyler Dunagin's entrepreneurial insights. Listeners gain valuable strategies on personal branding, targeted marketing, and leveraging data to drive business growth. The discussion also highlights the evolving nature of digital marketing and the immense opportunities it presents for modern businesses.
For those eager to delve deeper into these topics, Matt and Tyler hint at future long-form episodes dedicated to unpacking the complexities of digital transformation and entrepreneurial scaling.
Connect with Tyler Dunagin:
Stay tuned to The Best SEO Podcast for more expert insights and strategies to elevate your digital marketing and business growth.