Scaling Your Home Service Business with Jen McKee

Summary

Podcast Summary: Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades

Episode: Scaling Your Home Service Business with Jen McKee

Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: Tersh Blissett & Josh Crouch (absent)
Guest: Jen McKee

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers around business growth strategies for home service companies—especially scaling through branding, marketing, operational efficiency, social media presence, and judicious use of AI and automation. Guest Jen McKee (Keyhart Marketing, Key to Growth Podcast, Growth Experience Conference) shares actionable insights into authentic marketing, building valuable networks, and the emerging importance of video content indexing by Google. The conversation is candid, energetic, and practical, with stories, advice, and warnings tailored for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and related service business owners.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Power of Video and Search in Marketing

• Video Indexing Breakthrough

  • Google now indexes videos from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube (not just YouTube as in the past).
  • Leveraging proper bios, geotagging, hashtags, and local keywords in captions increases discoverability.
  • Jen recommends searching “[your trade] in [your area]” on Google Videos to check your visibility.

    “If you don’t have videos, they're not going to pop up. If you're not using keywords, they're not going to pop up. And your competitors… are coming up higher than you.” — Jen McKee [00:00], [47:19]

• Practical Steps

  • Fill out social media bios with service type and geography.
  • Use geo-specific hashtags and keywords.
  • Post regular, authentic video content.

2. Conference Planning, Community, and Connection

• The Growth Experience Conference

  • Jen founded this conference to foster growth through three pillars: Profits, People, and Presence.
  • Focus is on actionable content—not sales pitches—delivered by leaders who have “been there, done that.”
  • VIP experience with transformational workshops and access to keynote speakers.
  • Event structure inspired by the TAP conference (by Tersh and team).

• Authentic Community Building

  • True networking happens in the informal moments—peer learning is as valuable as formal sessions.
  • Attendees are encouraged to be vulnerable about struggles; everyone has something to both offer and learn.

    “Your network is your net worth… It cannot be just a give me, give me, give me type mindset.” — Tersh Blissett [29:00]
    “Every person listening has something beneficial or it's something that you can share… Everyone has something to offer just based on life experience in general.” — Jen McKee [33:31], [35:02]

3. AI, Automation, and Realness in Marketing

• AI’s Role: Friend or Foe?

  • AI is rapidly changing content and ad strategies (e.g., ChatGPT ads soon to roll out).
  • Automations can increase efficiency but can’t replace genuine voice in posts or emails.

    “Don’t use too much AI with your social media…There’s no genuine storytelling in it.” — Jen McKee [36:16], [38:07]

• Avatar & Deepfake Technology

  • AI avatars and deepfakes are becoming more advanced and accessible—can create convincing commercials and videos (e.g., Kevin O’Leary’s avatar).
  • Caution: technology can be misused; awareness of ethical implications is important.

    “He showed us his avatar…his wife couldn’t tell the difference. The most recent iteration.” — Jen McKee [40:11]

4. The Three Pillars of Growth

• Profits: Building an asset, focusing on EBITDA, creating businesses with real, sustainable value.
• People: Internal culture & external community—the foundation for operations and leadership.
• Presence: Brand visibility, authority, and reputation in your market and community.

  “Profits, people, and presence—those are the three most important things in your business.” — Jen McKee [25:50]
  “Presence…who you are in your community, in your market, in the industry…matters in so many ways.” — Jen McKee [35:16]

5. Social Media Nuances and Best Practices

• Platform Preferences & Notifications
  • Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and TikTok have different reward systems (reach vs. creator payments).
  • TikTok has a “stickier” algorithm and can result in greater organic reach for new creators.
  • Notification overload is real; manage alerts to focus on what matters.

    “TikTok does a lot better job of making sure that your post gets seen…so you want to make more posts or make more videos.” — Tersh Blissett [23:04]

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Authenticity vs. AI:

  “If you can tell that somebody wrote this whole thing with AI…it’s not like I’m looking at it like, ‘Well, this was AI, I don’t want to read it.’ It’s like, there’s no genuine storytelling in it.” — Jen McKee [36:16]

• On Conference Fatigue:

  “I cannot stand going to a conference where I have to pay…then go sit and listen to people sell to me.” — Tersh Blissett [11:04]

• On Bringing Value:

  “No matter where you’re at…there’s things you know—areas of genius—that others would [benefit from].” — Jen McKee [33:31]

Lighthearted Banter

• Tersh jokes about being an extreme introvert and the “honor” of being spoken to by him at conferences [28:04].
• Stories about fun gadgets (AI-wristband, wearable cameras for tech montages) and tech fails.

---

Notable Timestamps for Segments

• 00:00 – 04:00: The importance of social media video content for SEO
• 09:34 – 15:00: Conference planning challenges and why intentional content matters
• 23:04 – 24:00: TikTok vs. Meta for reach and rewards
• 25:50 – 29:57: The three pillars of business growth: profits, people, and presence
• 33:31 – 35:16: Everyone’s unique value and the power of authentic peer connection
• 36:16 – 39:44: Pros and cons of AI in content creation
• 40:11 – 42:42: The future of AI avatars and ethical caution
• 47:19 – 48:18: How to optimize your video content for Google indexing

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Audit your business’s online video presence: Ensure you have geo-tagged, keyworded, and authentic videos on every major platform.
• Prioritize real, personal content: Don’t rely on AI to speak for your brand—it can help but shouldn’t replace your authentic story.
• Network intentionally: When attending events, be open and vulnerable; the greatest value may come from hallway conversations, not lectures.
• Update your bios: Make sure your profiles contain who you are, what you do, and where you are—this is now being indexed for video search.
• Explore, but don’t over-rely on, the latest AI tools: Use automation to increase efficiency but keep the human touch.

---

Conference Details

• The Growth Experience
• March 30–April 1, San Antonio, TX
• 70 tickets available; focus on actionable, non-sales content
• VIP experience includes keynote Q&A and workshops
• Tickets and info: thegrowth-experience.com

  “Once our keynote gets released, it's gonna be fast.” — Jen McKee [48:39]

---

Connect & Learn More

• Jen McKee: Keyhart Marketing | [Key to Growth Podcast]
• Podcast Website: servicebusinessmastery.com

---

“We should all be striving for a business that is sustainable on its own. Otherwise, it’s just a job that you have to go to.”
— Jen McKee [25:50]

Transcript

[Jen McKee]

All videos are being indexed by Google right now. Like videos from Facebook, From Instagram, from TikTok, from YouTube. If you are not posting videos as a home service company or if your bios aren't filled out, if you're not geotagging, if you're not using hashtags in your area, if you're not using keywords in your captions, you're missing out on an entire area. With Google like fully indexing all of these videos from Facebook, from Instagram, not just YouTube, it's important that they can index your videos. Anyone who's listening to this, go to Google and search plumber in your area and go to videos and see if your videos pop up. If you don't have videos, they're not going to pop up. If you're not using keywords, they're not going to pop up. And your competitors, even if they have not as good marketing as you and not as good search results than you, they're coming up higher than you.

[Tersch Blisset]

Today's episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Upfrog is the OG when it comes to pricing transparency online. They find system replacement leads through paid ads and have developed an entire system to drive those hard to find system replacement opportunities, nurture the leads and book them into sold systems before your team arrives to help you grow your business.

[Tersch Blisset]

I want to give a huge shout out to Market Storm for sponsoring today's episode.

[Sponsor Announcer]

You've heard of Google Ads, Facebook ads and SEO, but did you know that there's an entire ecosystem like 80% of the Internet that ads can be served on that you've barely heard about?

[Tersch Blisset]

That's where marketstorm operates.

[Sponsor Announcer]

They leverage data science and AI to build customer profiles for your ideal customers and get your ads in front of prospects before they are ready to hire a pro. Planting your brand in their minds early.

[Tersch Blisset]

And often to chat with a team about how they can help you grow your business. Visit marketstorm AI. Hello everyone out there in podcast world. I hope you're having a wonderful day. You are listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Tersch Blisset and I'm not sitting virtually next to my co host Josh, but Joshua Crouch is my co host and he's going to be so disappointed that he misses having the conversation with the world famous in the key.

[Jen McKee]

I feel like he always misses it. It's on purpose.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah. He doesn't want to talk to you. No. Exactly. So for those of you who do not know Jen McKee this is Jen McKee. She's on our show today, and great friend of ours and her and her wonderful husband. We see each other and hang out all the time at Expo events. And if you go to Expo events that are in the trades or related to the trades, you're probably going to run into Jen and Jason. So hard to miss. They always got something flashy, flashy outfits, and I love them. I am most of the times jealous of what you're wearing.

[Jen McKee]

I feel like. I mean, my husband gets. What is the word people think that he's used sometimes because he wears suits, but I've never seen you wear suits that are the same color as what Jason's wearing.

[Tersch Blisset]

He has got some suits. Like, he'll have that bright purple or. Yeah, purple, Dark, deep purple. But it's. It stands out and it on brand, which is amazing. Like, y', all. Every time I see y' all at events, you. You're. You're always on brand. And I know that's on purpose. It's not by mistake. Yeah. But for those who do not know who you are, can you give an introduction of yourself and. And what you're doing? And make sure you mention your podcast, too.

[Jen McKee]

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. I'm Jen McKee. I am the founder of Keyhart Marketing. So we specialize in social media for home services. Um, we do typically wear really bright stuff out in sequins and sparkly things. And the goal of that is because it. If people don't know who you are, then they can't work with you. That's our first lesson with social media and marketing. I also host a podcast called the Key to Growth Podcast, which is produced by Tersh's team.

[Tersch Blisset]

Not Tersh. Tersh's team.

[Jen McKee]

Tersh's team servant.

[Tersch Blisset]

Skilled ways in the.

[Jen McKee]

Skill traits in the cake. So many S's. I am also the founder of the Growth Experience Conference, which is coming up this spring, March 30 through April 1, in San Antonio, Texas. Put it in your calendar right now.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yep. I'm one of those people that, like, I don't. I rarely ever go back and read my notes, but if I don't write them down, I'll never remember them. Does that make sense?

[Jen McKee]

Yeah. Yes. Actually, there's like a. I think there's some neuroscience behind that, but that's why when you're. And this is kind of a different topic, but when you are, like, when you write down gratitude or when you write down the things that are like really bothering you, you know, like something's just churning in your head. If you get it out of your head, there's just something about writing things down that actually solidifies it more. And then for me, also helps get things out of my head because otherwise you're just thinking there's too much thoughts. You got to get them out.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah. For years and years and years now, I' had these notebooks beside my desk or beside my bed on my nightstand. And I say, probably for about 10 years. And I still have the same notebook because I never write anything down in them.

[Jen McKee]

That's funny. I. Well, you know, you always get those really good thoughts before you fall asleep or like when you're in the shower. I. What I start doing is I slack them to myself. But I also just don't. I don't, like, give enough details. It's so bad now that I have. I have this whole team, you know, and people, like, sometimes we're like, reading notes and these are like, to dos in our level 10 meetings. And I'm like, I just don't even know what that meant. Like, I don't know what that.

[Tersch Blisset]

I laugh so hard because I've done the exact same thing so many times. I'll go back and look at something the next day and I'm like, what was I talking about?

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, like literal. There's, like no context. And I'm like, I can't even begin to. I have no idea, like, not even a sliver of an idea of what I was thinking.

[Tersch Blisset]

Oh, let me reach this thing. Okay, so this is not a plug for this product. Like, I don't have any kind of affiliation with this product at all. But it's called the B. And this is actually not even opened. It's. I. I love this product so much that I bought like five of them and they're just sitting on my desk to give away to people. Because it's a. It's a wristband, like so. And it's a. It's just a recorder in there, and it will add notes and tasks to your calendar. So.

[Jen McKee]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Tersch Blisset]

While you're talking all day and it geotags where your conversation's happened. So you leave it on all day long and it just listens to your conversation and then says, hey, do you want to add this message or this task to your calendar for tomorrow? Like, I literally have one this morning that's like, hey, follow up with so and so about this automation. And it's because I was talking, I. I was thinking about it. And I said, you know what, let me say it out loud. And so I started talking to myself, which is kind of weird sometimes. If you ever see me talking to myself, just know I'm having a company meeting.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, but it's also. You're talking to your robots, which is kind of a whole different thing.

[Tersch Blisset]

It is. It's weird because you have to add more context because it'll try and fill in the blanks otherwise. And so yeah, it, it'll come back later at the end of the day with a list of things that like do you want to create a. An email? And it'll create a full email for you based on the.

[Jen McKee]

That's awesome.

[Tersch Blisset]

Or do you want to create a new task inside of your Google Calendar? And it's really awesome. Like it's. I. For those who listen and regularly to the show and to the podcast, they know that I have a ton of gadgets. I have a ton of automation gadgets and AI tool like the plods, these devices here for recording notes and stuff. This. I will say the plod device is much better at creating a detailed outline of the conversation after the fact. But I just. You don't leave it on all day. And then there's this other device here that would be really cool. Jen, I don't even think I'll be able to talk to you about this. It's just ugliest homemade sin. And that's this thing here.

[Jen McKee]

Is it a camera?

[Tersch Blisset]

It's a camera and, and it's a device that you would wear. So like if I'm going on service calls or anything, I'll wear it on me and it will take short burst throughout the day and then compile those together to make like a. You can make a social media video.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, that sounds really cool actually like your whole. Although my day is a lot of just sitting at the computer, I. I.

[Tersch Blisset]

Have it sitting right there looking at me and it, it'll do like a. It'll do 10 second every minute. And yeah, then it'll compile the things that you're doing and then it'll make a montage of like over the month, like this is. And then there's times where it's like got three hours of recording where there's nobody sitting in my chair.

[Jen McKee]

Oh no.

[Tersch Blisset]

Whoops. My bad. But yeah, it's it. But on a service call it's really cool because it like does a montage of like the different things we did on the service call and stuff like that. And yeah.

[Jen McKee]

And you should send Me that link. Maybe our clients can try it. That sounds really cool.

[Tersch Blisset]

I will, I will. It's. I just wish it was smaller and didn't look like a starburst hanging out on my shirt. Um, but we, what I really want to talk to you about is the conference that you have coming up. The. We're going to talk growth in, in general, but the putting on a conference is a lot and.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, no kidding. Honestly, I was inspired by you guys.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah.

[Jen McKee]

By the TAP conference. Yeah. I was like, if they can do it. No, I'm just kidding. But really, like, I, I was inspired by the, like, the size of it, the, the, the whole flow of it. Like, for sure. That was where I was like, this is what it's going to be like. It's going to be like this conference because I really love that there, it was like intimate there were you, like, were able to talk to every person that was in the room. The content and the sponsors were all like, very intentional. And so I, I, I'm not joking. I really was inspired by that whole thing.

[Tersch Blisset]

Well, good. I'm glad, I'm glad. I put a lot of work on your plate, so.

[Jen McKee]

No kidding. I know, like, it'll be fine. It's like every corner, I'm like, oh, my God. That's just like something else so small that you don't even think about that is an actual thing that is important.

[Tersch Blisset]

I think one of the most important things to me. Well, I, I don't think this. I know that one of the most important things to me both and Julie, for those who weren't, did not attend the event. Julie and Carol and Nadine, they did a lot of this. Like 99.999% of the work on the back end, they did it. And it wouldn't have been possible without them. But one of the things that I really emphasized to them was that, like, if we have a presenter, it's not a sales presentation. Like, I.

[Jen McKee]

Right.

[Tersch Blisset]

I cannot stand going to a conference where I have to pay what I feel like is a significant amount of money and then go sit and listen to people, sell to me. And I'm like, you should have paid me to come to this conference. It's like going to the.

[Jen McKee]

Well, those people did likely pay, you know, also.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah.

[Jen McKee]

To get your ears. So then there's just like a broker in between that's like, I'll sell you all these eyeballs, all these listeners.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah, absolutely. So. Oh, I just got a cramp. Oh. Oh. Anyways, yeah. So like, that's One of the things that I love and I know that your conference is, is aimed the exact same way and yeah, that based on your personality too and. But you're talking a lot. Profits, people and presence. And for everybody that's going, I don't have my tickets yet because I'm a slacker and I haven't paid for it yet. But I am getting a ticket and I will be there.

[Jen McKee]

Yay.

[Tersch Blisset]

So can't wait. I just want to know what presence I'm getting.

[Jen McKee]

I know. Okay, so you're getting my presence there. So the whole conference is around profits, people and presents. So all of our content, all of our sponsors will support you and your business in those three pillars. Arquino is a well known author who we're actually announcing to tomorrow. So anyone that's watching this live, if you're following me on Facebook, we're going to announce it tomorrow. We've like dropped some hints. I don't know if you've seen them. Well, they're on my Facebook. You can go look at them and see if you can guess who this person is. I'm super excited about it. We also have a VIP experience where our two leaders are going to be basically breaking down who you think you are, moving you into who you actually want to be and then applying that to your personal and professional life. And this like off site VIP experience. It's going to be really incredible. And all of our VIP goers will get to do a Q and A and like photo opportunity with this keynote too, which is going to be super cool. I hope I can break away for it. Like, do I get to go?

[Tersch Blisset]

I know. I will tell you, as someone who put on the event for the first time themselves, there's a lot to do in the background. Like I was running around, I wanted to talk.

[Jen McKee]

I know. I'm like, we need somebody doing this. My, I'm lucky I have someone else that lives locally to me. We're doing the conference local. Someone on my team is local. She's our coo. She's our director of client experience. She's also our on our sales and marketing team. She does all the things and she's like, Jen, I'm going to be like running around. I'm like, no, no, we need to find someone else who's going to be running around because I need you to be doing things that are like higher level than running around during this conference. I mean, yes, we're going to be running around, but someone else needs the responsibility of running around so that it's not falling onto us.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah, I mean, you're 100% correct, though, because I. I felt so bad because I wanted to talk to, like, every single attendee. Because, I mean, if you signed up, I seen your name, I seen your. Your contact information. Like, it came across my desk. I put it into an Excel spreadsheet, right? So, like, I know your background.

[Jen McKee]

And it's not like this isn't like Pantheon. It's like, thank you so much for coming to my event. You're, like, basically coming to my party. Like, you're absolutely.

[Tersch Blisset]

And I want to be the best host and I want to hang out with you, I want to talk to you, I want to catch up with you, but it's like, oh, the elevator doesn't work in the hotel. Can you figure that?

[Jen McKee]

I'm like, what?

[Tersch Blisset]

You know, how is that your problem? I know, but it becomes my problem. And so, yeah, I. I forgot that that happened.

[Jen McKee]

And then every time there was like, so good thing, I forgot that that happened. So it wasn't a big deal, but we were like, going into the service elevator in the laundry room to try to find an elevator that would work, and we ended up in there, like, with the bartender. He had an entire cart of liquor with him because the elevator wasn't working. I forgot that that happened. That was crazy.

[Tersch Blisset]

It did. And I was on, like, the. I was on, like, the seventh floor or something, but my kids and my. My mom came to hang out with us and they were on, like, the 18th floor or something.

[Jen McKee]

Oh, no. They were just stuck up there constantly.

[Tersch Blisset]

Well, they had to walk the stairs. And I was like, oh, that's terrible. You need to exercise anyways. But yeah.

[Jen McKee]

Oh, my gosh, that's great.

[Tersch Blisset]

Okay, so before we get too far into to talking about growth and. And whatnot, I do want to make sure that we don't miss opportunity. Where can people sign up for the event?

[Jen McKee]

Okay, so the Growth experience is the growth-experience.com. oh, I see ever he's saying hi. I don't know where these comments are coming from, if they're mine or yours, but I'm excited I linked it to my. But thanks for. Thanks for joining us, Everett. So the growth-experience.com we have tickets on sale right now for our VIP and our general admission. I didn't even like the other thing that's really cool about the content. So the content has been so important to me in this event. It's actually a much harder thing than I thought that was going to be too, but hey, whatever you learn, you learn as you go.

[Tersch Blisset]

So you grow.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, you grow as you go. But it's important to me that we have people who are sharing from what they've learned, what they know. Because I think that the way that I've always grown and learned is by finding people who have done it before and asking them what they did. Like there's so much leverage in other people's experience. And so we're going to have a couple of different panels, one around sales, one around marketing, one around operations, to really just bring in people who are like awesome at this thing, awesome at marketing, awesome at sales, and, and I own a marketing company. All of my friends are marketers and I'm purposely finding contractors who have done their own marketing to ask them what they're doing. Not because I don't love my friends and I don't think they're incredible, but because you can get more of an opinion that you can trust from people who were in the field and have done the thing, I guess, you know.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah.

[Jen McKee]

So that's what my, that's what the content is going to be. Like I said we have an incredible keynote. Gosh, I can't wait to share that tomorrow.

[Tersch Blisset]

At the bit.

[Jen McKee]

I know because it's so good. I should have told you before, but it's probably better that I did it because now you.

[Tersch Blisset]

Because I would have said it already. Oh, it slipped.

[Jen McKee]

Oh, no. And we're alive. We would have had to delete it, go back and edit it. This is like this live TV where they give us like a two second thing delay. No, probably not.

[Tersch Blisset]

Hey, mom, what's up?

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, anyways, okay, so, yeah, so the growth-experience.com I also said earlier, like be sure that you're following me on Facebook or we're friends on Facebook. I'm friends. I want to be friends on Facebook. And that's where I'm sharing like a ton of up to date stuff too.

[Tersch Blisset]

What happens if we don't have Facebook though?

[Jen McKee]

Like we're on Facebook right now. Yeah.

[Tersch Blisset]

So there are people who don't like. Really?

[Jen McKee]

Yeah. Who just listen to podcasts a lot.

[Tersch Blisset]

Of time on Facebook. Like I, I.

[Jen McKee]

Right.

[Tersch Blisset]

If for those of you who are. I'm kind of letting the bat, the cat out of the bag per se, a little bit here. For those who follow and engage with me on, on Facebook, I want first.

[Jen McKee]

I don't feel like you should say this. I think that wherever you're going with this, I don't trust it.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah, I don't Trust either say thank you. And I love the fact that you follow in and engage with me, but sometimes it's not me, so.

[Jen McKee]

Well, like, like your automation robot that tells dad jokes.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah, perfect example of it. So if I do not respond to you, if you make a comment on that post, please do not take offense to that because that is 100% an automation that I built out to annoy Josh. Yeah. And it's great because it does simple.

[Jen McKee]

Purpose just to annoy Josh. So it's funny because I, I was, I was reaching out to one of my friends from the women in hvacr, and you know, with women at hvcr, there's a lot of women who work on the distribution side or the supplier side, like, not on, like the contractor marketing side. And I message everyone on Facebook. That's how I, like, reach out to.

[Tersch Blisset]

People every time we talk.

[Jen McKee]

Well, that in Slack. I think it's funny. You're someone I multiple, I like, reach out to in multiple places. Like Ryan reading. I'll have, like three conversations going on with him at the same time on different. Like, one of them's in text, one of them's over here. And I'm like, this is so messy. But, but anyway, she was like, jen, why do you, why are you messaging me on Facebook? I'm like, I literally spend my whole day there. That's, like, what I do. That's how I communicate with people. That's the thing. But I recognize that not everyone does that. So if you don't, if you're not on Facebook, you can go to my Instagram. I'm just kidding. The growth-experience.com is where you can find out more about the conference.

[Tersch Blisset]

All right, cool. That's awesome. I, I, I do not spend any time on Facebook at all, hardly at all, unless I get a notification. And it's 100% Facebook's fault. What was that? I didn't even see it. Oh, Everett.

[Jen McKee]

Is this even you? No, this is your AI.

[Tersch Blisset]

Even though the AI you, this is my avatar popping up here talking. So it's. I will 100% blame Meta for the reason I don't spend time on Facebook because I spend a lot of time on TikTok.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah. Oh, like the algorithm.

[Tersch Blisset]

The algorithm's better notifications. The, like, if I get one notification, I get 30,000 notifications a day that I don't want to see.

[Jen McKee]

And no, I turn off all my notifications. I just, that's what you do. Well, I, you should not have any. You don't need them. Just turn them all.

[Tersch Blisset]

I try my best. Like, I don't want to be notified that somebody just changed the background of a group.

[Jen McKee]

Like, I know.

[Tersch Blisset]

I don't want to know that. I could care less. Don't send me a notification for that anyways. Like, that's into my rant.

[Jen McKee]

But that happens to Jason too. Like, he'll get. His phone's like, ding, ding. And I'm like, what is that? He's like, oh, so and so. Just posted in a group. I'm like, that is horrible. Like, turn that off. That's unnecessary information.

[Tersch Blisset]

There's not an easy way to just go in and turn them all off.

[Jen McKee]

Like, you do it from your phone settings.

[Tersch Blisset]

Well, like, you just turn on notifications. Yeah, my phone notifications are all turned off, so. But when I.

[Jen McKee]

You just mean when you log in.

[Tersch Blisset]

It's like when I logged in, it's like 99 plus notifications. I was like, I was just on yesterday.

[Jen McKee]

Well, so I have admin access to like a hundred Facebook pages. So the amount of notifications that I get are just. That's probably why I have to be on Facebook all day, is just to keep up with the actual notifications that matter. So that I think I got the ones. They're not like, my business, basically.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah. And those are the ones you can't ignore.

[Jen McKee]

So, like, well, our account managers take care of all that, so we're good. Luckily, if I had to pay attention to those, that would be very, very hard.

[Tersch Blisset]

It is. It's so stressful because you. You don't want to miss things. And I'm sure there's great stuff out there and I don't.

[Jen McKee]

But the tick tock algorithm is better, which is why. Which is why Jen McKee says, you should be on TikTok.

[Tersch Blisset]

You should be on TikTok. And TikTok, they do a good. I feel like, okay, this is my opinion and Jen, you correct me if I'm wrong. TikTok does a lot better job of making sure that your post gets seen. So then you want to make more posts or make more videos.

[Jen McKee]

And there's a lot of reason behind, like, there's a lot of, like, science behind that. And some of it is just the amount of content that's already in meta. Like, they can't even if they wanted to award us that way. So instead of meta, rewards us by paying us for posting. So that's what they say. And everybody thinks that's so fun. You know, like, how cool is it that I get paid by Facebook every month just because I post content. So that's how they like reward the creator. Whereas TikTok isn't doing that, but they're actually showing my content. Yeah, no, it's like nothing. It's like. But it's still fun.

[Tersch Blisset]

My blue check mark, like, yeah, right. Or barely does, but it's still something.

[Jen McKee]

To brag about, you know, and then you realize like, oh, everyone's getting paid, everybody's getting paid.

[Tersch Blisset]

Oh, where's my 1099 at the end of the year? Oh, you don't need more for $3.

[Jen McKee]

They're like, we didn't give you enough money for that. We cap everyone out at 4.99. But.

[Tersch Blisset]

Hello, home service professionals, do you want to maximize your marketing budget? Then you need to be using call tracking from CallRail. Let's say you've noticed a spike in new leads this month. To find out what's driving them, you just log into your CallRail dashboard. Is my new Facebook ad outperforming my other ads or is paid search knocking it out of the park? Or maybe it's time to retire those newspaper ads. Since CallRail assigns a unique phone number to each of my marketing efforts, I know where my best leads come from and which efforts to scrape. CallRail shows you your most cost effective marketing channels so you can get back to business. Go to CallRail.com sbmpod and try it for free.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Today's episode is powered by Ciro Systems.

[Tersch Blisset]

Cira is all about removing the clutter and unnecessary touch points to run your home service business profitably.

[Sponsor Announcer]

They use AI dispatching to get the right tech to the right call automatically and job time efficiency to ensure your entire team runs like a profit generating machine.

[Tersch Blisset]

Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Sarah Tech Service Business Mastery. I do want to talk a little bit about growth in general though. You, you've had some really great growth. I know that you, in the grand scheme of things, in grand scheme of life, you haven't been doing what you're doing right now for an extremely long period of time. Is that correct?

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, maybe it's just like, why this is what's interesting. So the podcast that I host is called the Key to Growth podcast and it's a marketing resource. And then we created the conference and called it the growth experience. And although I'm sure part of my brain knew that they were both, they both had growth, it, it wasn't, it wasn't obvious to me. I didn't do that on purpose. I wasn't like, oh, the key to Growth and then the growth experience. But I think that having a growth mindset is just something that I am always thinking of, of like how that's how you find success in life is like thinking about what else could be or what more could you do and then surrounding yourself with resources that actually can help you get to that next level. And that's really what the purpose of the conference is, is like surrounding yourself with other people who have that same drive of not willing to settle, but looking for something new, something different, some new ideas, some new connections, some new something that's going to take them to the next level. And whether it's like, like profits, people, and presence, those are like the three most important things in your business. You know, like, you can bring in sales all day, but if you're not bringing anything to the bottom line, you're literally just like on a hamster wheel that isn't getting you anywhere. You would be better off having less sales with higher profits than pushing your sales with no profit. So figuring out how to, like, actually create a business that can be an asset, I mean it, with so much private equity and whether or not you want to sell in the future, we all should be building a business that is sustainable on its own. Otherwise, it's just a job that you have to go to, you know, so like the figuring out how to bring money to your bottom line, increase your EBITDA and actually have a company that's worth something. We should all be striving for that whether or not you want to sell your company at some point in life. Yeah, so that was where that came from, the people part of it, like, that's everything. That's the internal operating part of your business.

[Tersch Blisset]

I, I so even a little twist on that is like, the people at the events and you mentioned, like, rubbing shoulders, elbows with other people who have been there, done that. And there's sometimes at some of the events where I'm like, all right, some of the best times that I had was when I got to talk to somebody, like, and I'm an extreme introvert. Like, yeah, people don't understand how extreme of an introvert I am. But it's like, if I'm talking to you, please feel honored because I don't want to like it. I don't believe that for a hundred percent. I am not somebody who likes to go out and talk to people. But when I go to an event, that is almost what the cost of the tickets for is to meet people. And I know your network, your net worth is your Your network is your net worth. So like.

[Jen McKee]

Right.

[Tersch Blisset]

The more you grow that network and it's not like it cannot be a just a give me, give me, give me type mindset, but also like mentor mentee relationship. Like.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah.

[Tersch Blisset]

Mentor other people too who have been where you're at or where you've, are where you've been or they're, they're there now, whatever. Yeah, but that, the, there are some of the events like even coaching groups where I've gone. And the, the coaching group itself was okay. It wasn't amazing, but it was, it was good. It was worth the price of admission. But what really set it off was the people and rubbing elbows with each other and saying, oh, I have done this and that. I would challenge you if you, if you attend the event, which I expect everyone listening right now, you'll be there. I challenge you to be vulnerable.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah.

[Tersch Blisset]

Like nobody's perfect in that room. Yeah, you're gonna see some $10 million a year company, some $20 million a year company. Like, you're gonna see people who maybe even more than that, like they, they just generate a ton of revenue. But they had, they've made mistakes. And you, I challenge you to be vulnerable and say, hey, I am, I am struggling with X. I just not figured this out. Like, I don't understand why this doesn't work for me, but it seems to work for everyone else. Don't be afraid to say that. You know, that's one of the ways that you're going to grow as a contractor, as a person in general. And I can almost guarantee you, I can pretty much 99% guarantee you that someone else in that room has experienced exactly what you're dealing with. And I know that the first thing you're gonna say is like, no, my business is different. We're different. I get it 100%. I've even said it myself. But it's not like it's. Yeah, somebody else in that room has experienced it. Be vulnerable and say it out loud. Because the worst thing in the world is to sit at a table and even if you mumble it under your breath, like sometimes I'll be listening in like a little creeper. Like, did you say such and such? Like, yeah, actually I did. I was like, sorry for being a weirdo, but I've experienced that too. And yeah, here's what I did. And when I went through it and looking back, this is what I wish I would have done differently. And I, I will be on an airplane and having conversations like that. And it's like, did we just become friends? Like, right? Yeah. Like, quit touching my elbow. But, yeah, we're friends now. Like, so, like, I. That's one of the things with the people at the event and the growth in general. I think that's what I would challenge you if I. If I don't get to talk to you personally, just know.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, I think. I think you're right. I mean, I love that you took that from the people part, because it is definitely about connecting. And I know one other thing I wanted to say when you were talking, it made me think of this, but I think so often people don't feel like they have anything to offer. Like, you don't. Not only that you don't want to ask questions of people that you don't know, but, like, no one cares about what I know. Like, nobody. I. And. And so I. I have. My whole life, I always. I purposely, intentionally look for groups of people that are where I want to be so that I can just, like, learn more from them or ask questions. Like, have somebody to reach out to and ask questions to, which is incredible. And it's great to do that in real life and meet people that. That maybe you've been in the same Facebook group for years or you've seen them other places and you've never met them. It's great to be able to do that. But also, every person listening has something beneficial or it's something that you can share. Like, no matter where you're at, even if you are still starting off, like, there's so many. There's things that, you know in, like, little. What is that word? Like, genius areas of genius that you have that other people would. It's incredible. I was. I was in a. I went to a. It's not. It wasn't even a vet. Like, I was invited to someone's house, but all of the people in the room were, like, the way further than where I am. Like, and I'm like, okay, a little bit of imposter syndrome here.

[Tersch Blisset]

Oh, yeah.

[Jen McKee]

But my. Like, I was still able to share things that were around the things that I know, which is social media and personal branding and how important it is to put yourself out there, where a lot of these people were, like, either super intimidated by what I was telling him or, like, asking me for help with it, and I'm like, okay, cool. I have things that I can share, too. Everybody has things that they're good at, things that they wish that they knew more about. And. And no matter where you are, when you're when you're in the same room as somebody and you're. You're on the same path of, like, what it is that you're doing there, which is, like, the growth experience is a place for you to learn and grow in your business. And as a person and as a leader, these are other people who want to do that, too. Like, you should get their phone number. Like, you should be friends with them on Facebook. You should, like, try to start building a relationship with them.

[Tersch Blisset]

Absolutely. Yeah. There's been times where I inadvertently got into a conversation with somebody that's way further along in life than I was. And that happened to me recently in same. Almost the same situation as you described there. And I. I start asking questions, and then I'm like, I just realized I'm in a different. I'm in a different tax bracket here.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Tersch Blisset]

And then. And then I'm like, all right, I don't think I feel like I have anything to offer to y'. All. And then we start talking a little bit about AI and some automation and things, and they're, like, asking me a gazillion questions, and I was like, like, are y' all just being nice? Because I don't feel like y' all need my information, but they do. They really? Yeah. Everyone has something to offer just based on life experience in general.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, for sure. I agree. And then the presence part of it is the part that Church was confused about earlier because we won't be giving out Christmas presents, but the whole event itself is a present. But it's more around your.

[Tersch Blisset]

The last day of the event is on April Fool's Day, so maybe. Oh, right off out with surprise.

[Jen McKee]

Exactly right. But it's about your presence. So here, marketing is a social media company. Your presence, who you are in your community, who you are as a leader, who you are in your market, who you are in the industry. Like, your presence matters in so many ways, in so many shapes and form. So that's the other pillar is your presence in. As a business owner, as a. As a brand, as a person.

[Tersch Blisset]

So how. So with things going, moving over to AI, and I know that this is a hot topic, how important is it for business owners or businesses in general to still do their own stuff, like their social media?

[Jen McKee]

Like, I think about this all the time. Yeah, well, especially because I'm. I speak about AI and social media, and I feel like it's like a trick. I'm like, don't use too much AI with your social media. But it's because There, there's so many tools that AI can help you be more efficient, more effective, make it easier. Like, there's so many, so many things. Like, even, like, the simple things that we use, like ChatGPT. Like, obviously, you're everyone's chat. You know so much about you, you know, so there's like, so many things that you could use that for, even for content writing. But I. Somebody posted the other day on Facebook, they were like, do you read an email if you know it's written by AI? And like, every single person's like, no, because it, like, I don't. Because it's. It's miss. And not, like, on purpose, but I'm just like, man. And it's not even just emails because I'm not even opening my emails, but it's like, open on the, read on the. Anyway, yeah, you gotta open them. But it's, it's Facebook content more so, like, when you can tell that somebody, like, wrote this whole thing with AI. And if. And it's not like I'm looking at it like, well, this was AI, I don't want to read it. It's like, typically, it's not something that I'm interested in reading because it's like, there's no genuine storytelling in it. There's no, like, there's this, like, weird cadence to it that we recognize as being, like, how chat GBT writes.

[Tersch Blisset]

And so why is that? Like, how do we instantly. Because I'm the same way. As soon as I see a post, I can immediately tell you that the AI wrote it. And people. There's other people that I've talked to and. And they're like, no, that's. I. I didn't realize that was AI. I'm like, it's obvious it was written by AI. Like, and they're like, how is it?

[Jen McKee]

The more time you spend with it, the more you recognize.

[Tersch Blisset]

They're like, how is it obvious? I was like, I can't tell you how it's obvious. It's just.

[Jen McKee]

I know it's the cadence. It's like the structure, specifically Chat GPT has a very specific structure that it uses with, like, the way that it writes things. And the structure, to me right now, annoys me. But that's just like, we all were annoyed by the M dash of ChatGPT. Like, there are always going to be things like that with AI and that. That's why, like, it's still so important to have realness in your content, especially if you're trying to, like, build relationships. And. Yeah, and build visibility.

[Tersch Blisset]

Well, what about using even like your avatar to create videos or maybe use your AI avatar to create a podcast.

[Jen McKee]

So like okay, most of what people can do right now just playing around it. It looks like AI or computer generated. There is some incredible technology. Like they're even. I was on a shop tour in their marketing department, used AI to create some commercials. And the commercials were really good. Like I. They were. They were running them on TV and they looked really good. That. So that is 100% impossibility. It took a ton of time. Like if. If you saw the thing about Coca Cola making those AI commercials and how it took like I forget what they said, like 60,000 prompts or something. And that was just like the prompting side of it. Not even the editing and everything.

[Tersch Blisset]

And it looks terrible still it.

[Jen McKee]

Right. Like the one that I'm talking about looked better than that one. That one looked like Google v E03 that you were just like continuing to give it the same prompt or whatever. But. And then Sora, like you can always tell when it's Sora and it's like this is so fake and like the most ridiculous like idea that somebody came up with. So. But when I was at. Did you. I don't think you went to Home Service Freedom this year.

[Tersch Blisset]

No, I didn't make it this year.

[Jen McKee]

Kevin o' Leary was there and he was. He showed us his avatar that he's been having built in Dubai. And so he went through a huge process where like he went over there, they recorded him. They like have all of his. Like the way that he moves, the way that he talks like. And. And he said it wasn't that expensive. He said it was like two thousand dollar investment. I'm pretty sure that's what he said. Which is crazy. I mean that doesn't include flying to Dubai and like doing all this, but like what he paid for this and that. That avatar looked really good. That was like very, very realistic. I couldn't tell the difference between it. And he said his. What he was figuring out is if his wife could tell the difference. That's how he knew whether or not it was like a good one. And his wife, the most recent iteration. His wife couldn't tell the difference. There was like. And so anyway, so something like that.

[Tersch Blisset]

Like okay, so I started. I was at an event in Florida and there was. We were going to dinner or we just got finished going to dinner and I was showing everybody there how Jim and I can take a photo and make it into a video. And immediately the Wives were in the third row of our car, and they were like, what if somebody made this? And it looked. They made two people that had just randomly taken a picture together. What if it made them interact as if they were a couple?

[Jen McKee]

Right.

[Tersch Blisset]

And because the video was really realistic, like. Yeah, you could not. You could. Some of them, you could tell when they edit it, but other ones, you. You really couldn't tell unless I had told you that it was done by Gemini or Nana Banana, whatever it was. And so I'm thinking, oh, man, people are going to start getting in trouble if they start.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, there's some implications.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah. So that's. That's kind of scary. I just. That random thought, for sure.

[Jen McKee]

No, I know. And that's always been the concern, more so with, like, leader, like, world leaders, country leaders, and what. What type of, like, chaos could come to be if they were. If they were put into a video and look like they were telling something that they weren't.

[Tersch Blisset]

Well, there's. Yes. I mean, I was gonna say there's a laws. There are laws against it, but if you're, like, really trying to make something bad happen, you don't care about that anyways.

[Jen McKee]

But correct.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah. No, for sure. And so I say it, like, everything to say, like, there's. The tools are getting better. Like, there's no reason not to keep playing with that and trying with that. There's some really cool stuff. Sarah Gerardo shares. She shares a lot of, like, fun, like, tools that you can use. One of them is a song creator, which is so fun. My kids love playing with stuff like that too, where you like it, like, writes a song for you. What did you say?

[Tersch Blisset]

Sono S U N O. Yeah.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah. And so, like, you can use something like that, which is cool and easy and, like, maybe not the best, but kind of fun.

[Tersch Blisset]

I gave my daughter my account. Like, I put it on her phone, and she actually uploaded. She's a really good storyteller, and she's our only artistic child in the whole family. Like, but she. She wrote this story that ended up being, like, in the Georgia Young authors thing. And so she actually just uploaded that story as the. The lyrics of this song. And it was a really good song or that, like, with those lyrics and stuff. So it was a. Yeah, it was really cool. And that was like, three months. Yeah, it was like three months ago, so I can imagine how it would be now.

[Jen McKee]

I know. And so there's a lot of, like, cool stuff that you can do. So Everett came in YouTube and said there's good data to support customer capture gains with AI. Lots of time being spent on it. Wonder if it actually results in higher roas than standard marketing channels.

[Tersch Blisset]

That's a great question for Jen. So what's the answer?

[Jen McKee]

Well, I'm honestly a little bit confused by the question. Is there good data to support customer capture gains with AI? Well, what I think is really interesting is the ads that ChatGPT is going to be rolling out, which we knew that this was going to happen. And so what is that going to actually look like and how much search is actually being used over there? That is like is this worth your time as far as like figuring out AI? I mean tersh can attest to this. Like people are looking for people who can create using AI, agents, using automations and all of these things and people are paying really big money for that. So I think like from that standpoint of understanding how to use AI, but if you're talking about it from a marketing standpoint, I think it's still in limbo. But there's also just like so much that's constantly changing. Another thing, and I don't know what time this ends, but I think it ends really soon, this conversation between us, like in five minutes. But another thing that I want to bring up is something not even super related to AI, but related to search, that videos are being, all videos are being indexed by Google right now, like in its own little video area. So videos from Facebook, from Instagram, from TikTok, from YouTube, social media. And so like if you are not posting videos as a home service company or who, wherever your customers are, if you're not posting videos that if your bios aren't filled out, if you're not like geotagging, if you're not using hashtags in your area, if you're not using keywords in your captions, you're missing out on an entire area. And we know that AI search is.

[Tersch Blisset]

What we do need a geotag.

[Jen McKee]

Still I, I would do all of the things because we know that AI search is pulling from search. Like we know that Gemini just made a deal with Apple. Like we know even though chat GPT pulls from other sources, like there's we still know the markers of how things are found. And with Google like fully indexing all of these videos from Facebook, from Instagram, not just YouTube, it's important that they can index your videos and they're pulling from the bio. Honestly. So I someone posted the other day.

[Tersch Blisset]

What do you mean the bio?

[Jen McKee]

Like, like your bio on Facebook or Instagram for your company. So like someone posted the other day that this really cute bio, but it didn't say anything about literally what they did, you know, like H vac. In what kind. What city are y' all in? San Antonio, Texas. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, yeah, you know, like heating and air conditioning in San Antonio, Texas. It didn't say that. It had like their tagline and like stuff that wouldn't be good searchable information. And like you need, it needs to be more specific. And then if you can fit in.

[Tersch Blisset]

It doesn't look cute on your Instagram.

[Jen McKee]

I know, but these videos are being tagged and I. Anyone who's listening to this, go to, go to Google and search plumber in your area and go to videos and see if your videos pop up. If you don't have videos, they're not going to pop up. If you're not using keywords, they're not going to pop up. And your competitors, even if they have not as good marketing as you and not as good search results than you, they're coming up higher than you.

[Tersch Blisset]

That's pretty wild. And that's. Is that pretty new there? Because I know they were pulling a lot from YouTube.

[Jen McKee]

I know, I know. I. I can't tell you exactly when this happened. We've been watching it for the last couple months, but yeah, it was YouTube and then they started indexing Tick tock. But it's surprises me how much Facebook and Instagram gets pulled.

[Tersch Blisset]

But you don't upload a transcription on those platforms though, so that's what.

[Jen McKee]

No, but they auto, they all auto transcribe.

[Tersch Blisset]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I know.

[Jen McKee]

It'S not like the same, but.

[Tersch Blisset]

Right, right.

[Jen McKee]

The hashtags, they're pulling hashtags. They're pulling from your bio.

[Tersch Blisset]

Okay. Wow, that's good to know. Good to know.

[Jen McKee]

I know.

[Tersch Blisset]

All right, what's the name of the. The event again?

[Jen McKee]

The Growth Experience. So if you go to the growth-experience.com San Antonio, Texas, March 30 through April 1. And that's only 70 tickets. Once our keynote gets released, it. It's gonna be fast. Yeah, yeah. Gonna be good.

[Tersch Blisset]

And now that everybody knows that I'll be there, they might.

[Jen McKee]

Yeah, exactly. That was all we needed. Tersh will be there. Well, actually, we're gonna set up a photo booth with him so that you can take a picture, you can talk to him.

[Tersch Blisset]

He'll be my avatar.

[Jen McKee]

No, it'll really be him.

[Tersch Blisset]

Cool. Jen, it's always great to chat with you and hang out. I look forward to seeing you in person in a couple weeks now, and me too. So if anybody has any questions at all, if you if you have questions, especially about social media marketing, make sure that you reach out to Jen and the make sure you follow her podcast Key to Growth podcast. And with that being said, I hope everybody has a wonderful and safe week. Until we talk again next time. We'll see you later.

[Jen McKee]

Bye.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with essential business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your Business business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating, and share it with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.