Stop Posting Crap! Why Your Social Media Isn't Getting Leads | Ep. 313 w/ Jen McKee

Summary

To The Point - Home Services Podcast: Episode 313

Title: Stop Posting Crap! Why Your Social Media Isn't Getting Leads
Date: March 12, 2026
Host: Chris (RYNO Strategic Solutions)
Guest: Jen McKee (Keyhart Marketing)

---

Episode Overview

This episode dives straight into the realities of why social media often fails to drive real leads for home service businesses—think HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and more. Host Chris sits down with Jen McKee, founder of Keyhart Marketing, renowned for her bold purple brand and mastery of social media marketing for the trades. Together, they tackle real-world pitfalls, best practices, KPIs, and actionable strategies (organic and paid) to help contractors stop "posting crap" and start generating actual business results from social.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Who is Jen McKee? (04:48 – 07:07)

• Background: Jen is the owner of Keyhart Marketing, specializing in social media for home service companies. She stumbled into the industry in 2021 by helping a plumber go viral on TikTok.
• Experience: Worked 17 years in restaurants, 5 as a manager—skills in culture, storytelling, and habit-building inform her approach.
• Natural Content Creator: Self-described “documenter” and journalist at heart, always sharing and capturing authentic moments.

---

Why Social Media Fails for Contractors (01:51 – 03:45)

• Cookie-Cutter Content Doesn't Work: "I was never a fan of, like, cookie cutter graphics and like, the same heat pumps and all this other bullshit that nobody cares about." —Chris (02:35)
• Internal vs. External Teams: Internal teams succeed by being authentic, but many contractors don’t have someone in-house who can or wants to “own” social media.
• Value of Authenticity: “We want people to see who we are behind the scenes…Let’s have fun with it.” —Chris (03:54)

---

Where to Start: Just Document! (11:06 – 12:32)

• Start Simple: "Just start posting...document your life. Take a picture or video of whatever it is you're doing that day and share that. That is literally step one." —Jen (11:06)
• It Doesn’t Need to Be Perfect: Don’t overthink—realness resonates far more than polished, generic posts.
• Actionable Advice: Post authentic moments from the field, office, or meetings.

---

Choosing the Right Platforms (09:44 – 14:04)

• Top 3 for Home Service: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok are the "big three."
• Content Reuse: Most businesses should repurpose the same content across all platforms to maximize reach.
• YouTube’s Mixed Bag: Currently, Google mostly indexes video from FB, IG, and TikTok—not as much from YouTube Shorts (13:23). Still worth posting, but not the primary organic focus.

---

What Content Actually Works? (15:28 – 20:11)

• Engagement is King: “Our number one goal is reach and engagement.” —Jen (15:43)
• 3S Framework: 50% of your content should be crafted purely for engagement (“show up” content).
• Types of Content: Humor, trends, authenticity, and occasional memes—if relevant to your audience.
• Chris’ Litmus Test: “If nobody gave a shit about what I do, would they continue to watch this thing?” (18:54)

---

Metrics & KPIs (15:28 – 23:34)

• Organic Social: Focus on reach, engagement, and visibility. Organic is a branding play, but can drive leads too.
• Paid Social: Primary KPIs are cost per lead and booking rate (the latter heavily relies on internal team follow-up and process).
• Internal Accountability: “It’s not like Jen or you just create all these videos and stuff...No, you have some like lifting on your end. You have to do too.” —Chris (22:57)

---

Paid Social: Winning Offers and Budgeting (26:02 – 30:38)

• Winning Offers: Tune-up ads (despite being loss leaders) still provide the best ROI for new customer acquisition.
• Creative is Critical: “You have to have video and pictures that match the offer. We've stopped running ads if we don't have great creative because they're just not performing as well.” —Jen (28:34)
• Budget Guidance: $50–$100/day ($1,500–$3,000/month) is a typical starting point, varying by market.
• Lead Attribution: Best tracking happens when clients use tools like ServiceTitan, but monthly client reporting is the norm.

---

Recruitment & Culture Benefits (36:40 – 37:42)

• Recruitment Tool: Employees and new hires directly cite company TikTok as a reason they want to work there.
• Culture Spark: Involving your team in fun, on-trend social media not only builds brand but boosts morale: “Their team just has so much fun with it...it boosts the morale.” —Jen (34:46)

---

Overcoming the Excuses: Small Team, Fear of Camera, or No Time (44:18 – 48:59)

• No Excuses: If you’re too small or shy, that’s exactly why you need to leverage a partner, or just get started—even if it’s cringy at first.
• No “One-Size-Fits-All”: Authentic owner or team content always wins over paying for generic creative.
• Mindset Shift: “What are you willing to do to ensure the growth of your business? Sometimes you have to do things you’re uncomfortable with.” —Jen (47:56)

---

AI vs. Human Content (50:35 – 53:32)

• AI Tools: CapCut, Opus Clip, Canva, and ChatGPT are useful for editing and ideas but...
• Real Talk: “AI can’t do your social media yet.” – Jen (51:32)
• Authenticity Wins: “There’s only two directions that work: completely unedited, raw content or very, very, very polished…nothing in between.” —Jen (51:17)

---

Consistency & The Long Game (55:05 – 56:03)

• It’s a Snowball: “Organic social is like a snowball. It doesn’t do anything at the beginning...but over time people start to remember you that don’t know you at all.” —Jen (55:05)
• Leads Will Come: The more consistently you post authentic content, the greater your organic reach—and eventually, the leads follow.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I was never a fan of cookie-cutter graphics and the same heat pumps and all this other bullshit that nobody cares about.”
  —Chris (02:35)
• “Just start posting…document your life. That is literally step one.”
  —Jen (11:06)
• “You have to make sure the audience you’re trying to reach would find it funny. Sometimes what you find funny isn’t what the moms in your city would find funny.”
  —Jen (19:24)
• “If this growth is important to you, there’s just something about maybe doing it anyway. Even if it feels cringy, even if you’re uncomfortable.”
  —Jen (47:56)
• “AI can’t do your social media yet.”
  —Jen (51:32)
• “Organic social is like a snowball…it doesn’t make that big of a difference at first. But over time…that’s when it really starts to make a huge impact.”
  —Jen (55:05)
• "You don't got to do everything, but you got to do something."
  —Chris (59:32)

---

Practical Social Media Tips (Action Items)

• Start Posting Today: Use your phone, don’t overthink, and share authentic moments from the field.
• Don’t Wait for Perfection: Progress over perfection—your early content will be awkward, but you’ll improve.
• Leverage Team & Trends: Involve your crew, follow trending topics, and keep the tone upbeat or educational.
• Track What Matters: On organic, look for engagement and reach. On paid, watch cost per lead and booking rates.
• Invest What You Can: $1,500–$3,000/month is an effective starting ad budget, but do what fits your business.
• Stay Consistent: Treat social as a long-term investment; leads and brand equity snowball over time.

---

Additional Resources Mentioned

• Keyhart Marketing Freebies: Social media blueprint, video ideas, shot lists, and more resources available on [Keyhart Marketing’s website].
• The Growth Experience Conference: Event in San Antonio, March 30–April 1, focused on profits, people, and presence.
• Book Recommendation: "Atomic Habits" for building routines around content creation.
• Influencers and Friends: Gary Vee, Tommy Mello, Aaron Gaynor, Zach Car, Derek (TikTok dancing trendsetter in HVAC).

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [04:48] Jen’s backstory and entry to the trades
• [09:44] The top 3 platforms for home services contractors
• [11:06] How and why to start “just documenting”
• [15:28] The most important metrics (engagement, reach, cost per lead)
• [19:24] Humor vs. education vs. entertainment in content
• [28:34] Paid ad budget and creative requirements
• [36:40] Social media as a recruiting/culture tool
• [47:56] Mindset: Getting over fear and excuses with social
• [51:32] AI’s impact—and limitations—in social content
• [55:05] Embracing the “snowball effect” of consistency

---

Conclusion

Chris and Jen's lively, no-nonsense conversation delivers a powerful, reality-based look at social media for home service companies—demystifying what works, debunking excuses, and providing practical steps for anyone ready to increase their visibility, leads, and ultimately, their bottom line. The core message? Stop overthinking, start posting, and be relentlessly authentic.

“Effort costs $0.” —Chris (59:32)

---

For more, visit [Keyhart Marketing] for resources or grab a ticket to The Growth Experience Conference!

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

Hey, what's up to the point, listeners?

[Chris]

It's your boy Chris. I've got a friend of mine on here today, and she's got purple hair. And if you've ever been to a trade show and seen someone walk around with purple everywhere, maybe purple sequins, purple backwards hats, her husband hanging out, it's Jimmy Key, that's who. She has coined the purple, the color purple in the trades. You can't miss her. And I'll bet you, I'll bet you if you're thinking somebody asks, you know, asked you, one of the listeners say, hey, who do you know that does social media in the home services space? I can just about bet you that the answer is probably going to be Jimmy. Kate, you've created a name for yourself. Welcome to the podcast.

[Jen]

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thanks for having me.

[Chris]

Yeah. Founder of Keyhart Marketing. And you know what? I've known you for a little bit now and I've kind of watched the business grow and I talked to you early, early on in the business and I kind of seen you doing your thing and, and now like I've had, I. We just came off of Rhino X. Now you're putting on your first event, the Growth Conference from. It's at the end of this month, March 31 through the.

[Jen]

March 30 to April 1.

[Chris]

March 30 to April 1 down in San Antonio, which I think is where you live. Right. Don't you live down there?

[Jen]

It is, yeah. I figured bring it close to home.

[Chris]

Listen, I do Rhino X in Phoenix.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Because I live here. It's a. Heck, it's already complicated enough. Like, let's not overcomplicating it by putting in a different location.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

So, hey, I know it's really close to the event, but I'm assuming that you guys still have tickets and stuff like that. Maybe let our listeners know if you do. I'm assuming you do. Where they, if they can grab it real quick before, you know, everybody waits the last minute to purchase tickets. I know how this thing goes. So, yeah, maybe just let the, maybe let the listeners know where they can get tickets.

[Jen]

Yeah, we still have tickets to growth or the growth-experience.com, so it should be pretty incredible. We have some great speakers, including it. Prolific is going to be there. Zach Car is one of our speakers.

[Chris]

So you have, you have a bunch of great speakers on there. Obviously. I know like 90% of. I think everybody there. Actually, I might know everybody now, I think about it. But, but kudos to you for putting on something, you know, great in leveraging, you know, your own talent. Hopefully you're going to be doing some. Some social media specific stuff while you're there. But, yeah, I'm always interested in this. I think this is a. I've tried to tackle this. I think I told you this, Jim, when I. When you and I first started talking is. I tried at Rhino. Um, obviously I'm not there any longer, but I tried when I was at Rhino to build out a social media marketing team to serve the contractors. And I just never felt like it did what I wanted it to do. And maybe it's because I'm a poor leader of it. I don't know, maybe it's. Maybe this is all my fault, but I didn't know. I guess I was never a fan of, like, cookie cutter graphics and like, the same heat pumps and all this other bullshit that nobody cares about. Like, I really was like.

[Jen]

And then.

[Chris]

And then what mattered to me more was like, prove it to me. Can you prove it to me on that? We just did this and it delivered X amount of customers to or X amount of leads to our customers. Can you prove that to me, please? And I just never felt like we never got to that point. And I went through three leaders in that world. And this is the external team doing it. Internal is easy. Like, doing the internal stuff is fun because.

[Jen]

For your own stuff.

[Chris]

Yeah, because I have somebody in here doing it, you know, for the podcast. Like, we have our own people. We are the town. There's no cookie cutter anything. There's no pictures, there's no whatever. It's like. No, it's just like, we're using all this stuff, but it's a human being who's actually inside the four walls doing it.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I think this is where I can get complicated because if one of these contractors does not have that human being who wants to do it or can do it, well, then what? And then can they? And then should they still do something? Like, there's just so many questions I have around it and I could never. It would be a lot easier if I could just would have bought you and rolled you into the business, but it would have been better for me not, you know.

[Jen]

Yeah. And then you would have left, so then where would I be?

[Chris]

That's what I'm saying, actually. I'm so glad that it didn't pan out so.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

But the reason is, is I guess I believe in it, you know, and, you know, Chad and I have our roofing business, Redbird. Roofing. And, and we started leveraging social media and we got our, you know, the technicians or the sales guys and all of stuff involved and stuff. But like, it works because it's, it's. We want people to see who we are behind the scenes. Nobody cares about, like, nobody wants to have to hire a roofer, right? Like, they don't want to. So, like, let's have fun with it. But I want to walk through some of these things with you. So that way those listening, you're like, okay, whether I use, you know, Jen or not, like, just give me some, you know, some tips and then you're gonna find out, okay, this is complicated. I should probably just use Jen and call it a day. Yeah, that's the gist. But, but you're probably gonna be able to go through a lot of this stuff, you know, at the, at that growth experience because, you know, you. It's a couple days of you being able to pour into them maybe some, maybe a little bit more tactical than we can get on this episode. But I'm gonna do my best to try and dig in as much as I can. Okay, you ready?

[Jen]

All right. Yeah, let's do it.

[Chris]

So let's do this first, like right out the gate. I don't want to assume that everybody just knows who you are because if they're not big on social media, then they might know who you are, might not know who you are. So, so maybe just give the listeners, like a quick little high level background of why you're even, you know, the one to talk about social media marketing. Just share a little bit of your background, Jen.

[Jen]

Okay, so thanks for having me again. I'm Jen. I own Keyhart Marketing here. Marketing specializes in social media for home service companies. I got lucky and was introduced to a plumber in 2021 and we were probably, we like to think we were one of the first residential home service companies using TikTok for a business on. In a business standpoint. So we were creating content for the homeowner on TikTok and people started to see what we were doing and she was able to refer me to people. And that's kind of like how I got into it. But early on in my social media career, I just realized that social media was super necessary for business owners, but not easy to execute on on a consistent basis just because of what it required. Like, you have to do it every day, every week, every month. And as a business owner, you get caught up in all the other things. And so you, even if you get super Motivated for like a week or a month, it always ends up falling off. So I recognized really early that it was something that business owners needed. And. And then like I said, I just kind of got lucky falling into this industry.

[Chris]

Well, hang on. You gave me the elevator pitch. That's not what I'm looking for. Actually. What I want is what you did before that. Like, did you.

[Jen]

Or.

[Chris]

Or was it nothing related whatsoever? You just jumped into the social media game and started figuring it out? Like.

[Jen]

Yeah, well, I actually, I worked in restaurants for 17 years and I was a restaurant manager at a corporate chain for five years. So that helped a lot with like building a business and culture type stuff when I was. I also am just like naturally a documenter. So I was like in journalism in high school and stuff. But I'm always somebody who was taking pictures of things. Like, I'm like the person in the group that's like, hey, we should take a picture right now. Or like family Christmas. Like, I bought my whole family tripods. Cause I'm like, you know, you gotta put the camera somewhere. So every. I. I don't wanna bring it around if I forget it or something. So I just naturally am like a journalist at heart and I think it just lent itself to social.

[Chris]

Got it. Okay, so the real quick, you mentioned TikTok out the gate. So right now, like, there's probably some people on here. Like, I don't even get on TikTok. I'm gonna be honest. Like, I'm. I'm barely on TikTok, but it's because I just am not. Like, if I hop on there, my brain goes. What? I could be doing something better right now than being on TikTok. So I've trained my. Hey, have you ever read a book called Atomic Habits?

[Jen]

Yes.

[Chris]

So I read that book recently because I'm in a. I'm in a. I'm in a. An accountability group with Tommy Mello, Aaron Gaynor and a few of other of our buddies. And one of the things was we wondered Atomic habits and then go through it.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And that's a great book for somebody who needs to run social media because you gotta create some habits to be able to continuously record content on nonstop. Like, it is a. It's a great book. But you mentioned TikTok. Now maybe let's talk about just the mate. Like I think you call them the big three on the different platforms because there's so many different social media platforms. And if these guys listen to a Gary Vee, he'll talk about all kinds of different platforms. But like in the in the home services space, in the contractor world, to you, the big three is what?

[Podcast Host]

In home services, speed to lead is everything. Chirp stands out. By transforming your communication strategy with Chirp, accelerate your lead response time with instant sms, text messaging, email and ringless voicemail automation. Chirp's cutting edge technology ensures you're the first and the most persistent, helping you close more deals than ever. But that's not all. Say goodbye to missed opportunities with Chirp's incredible follow up system. Keep your leads engaged and moving smoothly through your sales funnel without lifting a finger. And with Chirp deep integrations with top CRMs like Service Titan, Housecall Pro and Jobber, you can launch laser targeted campaigns to connect with the exact right leads at the exact right time. Automation creates efficiency. Efficiency unlocks scalability. With Chirp, you can automate speed to lead estimate follow ups, rehash abandoned call follow ups, canceled job follow ups, review requests, outbounding to your list, annual reminders, membership expiration, follow ups and so much more. So stop chasing leads, capture them, connect faster and close more deals with Chirp. Contact Chirp today and elevate your communication game.

[Jen]

Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok.

[Chris]

And, and are you recording different types of content for each of the platforms or is it kind of like the one piece of content and you rolled out the same thing?

[Jen]

Okay, so it depends on what capacity you have. So for what we do, we are using the same content across the platforms because there's different people on every platform. We reach different people every time they open up the app. And if we're going to create a video, we might as well put it everywhere where videos are accepted to get in front of the most people. So our strategy is really TikTok and Instagram forward, but it works on the different platforms. If you are starting to build out your social media team internally and you have more resources where you can really differentiate, all of the platforms are a little bit different with a little bit different audience and a little bit different culture. So you can definitely, depending on the resources that you have, start to kind of like make a different strategy for each platform.

[Chris]

But I would say most don't. So like maybe let's. Because I bet you the majority of people on here aren't in that situation. Right.

[Jen]

So no. Right.

[Chris]

So yeah. So how do we do? Like, because you, I mean, yeah, I think that half of the battle is well, what do I do? Right, yeah, how am I going to do it? And then what am I like what's the outcome, like what am I supposed to be? Like what's the freaking. Am I even doing the right thing thing. So yeah, let's just think about this because I think the majority of listeners right now are going to be in a position where they needed, you know, DFY.

[Jen]

They're not building like a 10 person team.

[Chris]

I think so.

[Jen]

So the first thing to do is just start posting and if you were to just start documenting your life. So like getting in the habit of taking a picture or video of whatever it is that you're doing that day and sharing that, that is literally step one. Like it. Is it not edited? It's not overthought. There isn't like a ton of. It doesn't need to be perfect. And, and it's just the goal is for people to know what you do and know who you are. And if you just start to document your life in little ways like that, it's a great place to start. So we have a strategy. But like I don't like if you're not doing anything, that's the first thing that you do.

[Chris]

I'm gonna do it right now. You ready?

[Jen]

Yeah, let's do it. And then you post that.

[Chris]

So I just took a picture of my phone of me interviewing Jen and I'm just gonna make a post with it. Right. Something. So this is what I'm doing right now. So just take a picture. It's as simple as that, right?

[Jen]

Yep.

[Chris]

Okay. I didn't overthink it.

[Jen]

That's it. And that. And, and so depending on where you are in the business, like if you're still out in the field in the truck, that's really easy. Right. Because you can take a selfie or whatever at a job. Um, if you're in the office, behind the scenes at trainings that you're doing at meetings that you're doing at whatever it is that you're doing that day starts to tell the story of who you are.

[Chris]

What are the septic guys do?

[Jen]

Honestly, gross stuff works really well on social. So yeah, tell, tell this story of like what you found. I mean why it was there, what they should not have done. There's so many things.

[Chris]

That's what the drain cleaning ads, drain clearing ads always have like the big hair balls and like that like in it or it's right, it's disgusting that they're pulling out of it, but you're just waiting to see what comes out of the drain.

[Jen]

Yeah. Or like rats. Trees. There's so much in there. Trees, tree. You know Tree roots, like coming through.

[Chris]

Oh, got it, got it.

[Jen]

The inside of it.

[Chris]

Yep, got it. That break the sewer lines. Yeah, gotcha. Okay. I love those jobs. Those are great jobs, by the way. Um, okay, so. So you, you didn't mention YouTube. I gotta know why? Because I felt like the reels do really good.

[Jen]

So what's really interesting right now on Google is Google's indexing videos in two different places. There's like a video feed and a short form video feed. I'm not seeing very much from YouTube there at all. It's a lot from Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, which really surprises me. And even off of websites like pulling directly from your website. But I'm not seeing a lot of YouTube. And so while six months ago I was like, yeah, YouTube. And we still post on YouTube because then it's part of Google. So we're still posting on YouTube, we're posting shorts. But it does interest me that while Google is indexing these videos, it's not necessarily pulling from YouTube shorts.

[Chris]

Got it. But are you still kind of. We just talked about the big three, but that doesn't mean there's. And there's obviously more than three. So there's other things that you can do. And yeah, I felt like we tried on the podcast to do long form and a lot of short form stuff. And the short form stuff was always the. The better for. Was always best for us. Um, but I get it. Cause like, to me that makes sense. Like I think about myself as the consumer who has adhd. Right. Who is not. You know, I might have a very short attention span, so I had to stay interested. Which is why it has been difficult for me over the years to read a book because I. My brain wanders.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So, but when I think about short form video, it's like you almost have like a half a second to keep them engaged to get you to the. The next. To get you to the next second. Almost kind of feels like you got to keep them engaged to get to what, you know, there's gotta be. So. So that's one thing I want, I want to talk about on here too, is the boring part. It's the boring part to talk about for I think a lot of people. But it's probably the most important part. And that's like the actual metrics behind this thing because I think that's what allows you to know what should you continue to do, which one's getting the best engagement, things like that. So do you have like, do you have like a set set group of metrics or KPIs. You're like, hey, this is how we gauge success with the campaign.

[Jen]

Okay. I feel like you just touched on a whole bunch of different things and then your question was even like a different thing to talk about.

[Chris]

But maybe just let me put it this way. What are the main metrics or KPIs that matter the most to you?

[Jen]

Okay, so if we're using social media as a place to gain visibility, so we're working to get in front of more people so that more people know who we are, which is what a lot of organic social is for. So obviously we want that to eventually lead to making more money. But it has to start with people even knowing that you exist. One of the most important things is that your content's actually showing up in the newsfeed or on the, on the feed. So what happens is that if you're just posting it a bunch of graphics and stock photos or whatever, like no one's actually seeing it and that's why you never have any engagement. So if no one's seeing it, it's just a waste of everybody's time and energy. So our number one goal is it reach and engagement. Like the more engagement that a piece of content has, the more reach that we can get out of it. So that's like what we're always looking for is it is this is our content getting into the newsfeed. So we use a strategy that it's the 3S framework, but it's our social media strategy. And 50% of our content should be content that is meant to get engagement. So that's our show up content. That's content that should be getting us into the newsfeed. So if so like not every piece of content is going to hit. You're going to put stuff out there that people don't see and that's okay. But we want about 50% of our content to be engaging and showing up for people.

[Chris]

Do you lean into humor that much on, on anything that you do or give that kind of guidance?

[Jen]

It. There are some people who are open to it and some people who aren't. And so it's really like if it works for the company that we're working with, yes. Memes used to do really well and they're a little bit harder to work out. Like we kind of took them out of our strategy a lot. Unless it's a really good one. Video memes work a little bit better. And then if you can really, if you can have fun and TikTok trends really lend itself to having fun. If you can add that into your content, that's going to. That's a really big, like, culture shows your culture gets into the newsfeed, reaches new people, can be really relatable. There's a lot that can come out of that. So if you're willing to kind of like, push the boundary and be a little bit relaxed in who you are as a business, that, that helps a lot.

[Chris]

Okay, so a couple things you had said organic. So for our listeners, it's. You can do a paid version of social as well. What's kind of like your pay per click campaigns, but you can do a paid version on social as well. And she's talking about organic, which is just your normal posts. You're not paying anything for that. But you still, like, that's. That's got the best cost per lead if you're, if you care about that metric because it's organic posts. Yeah, but, but two things I would ask you if, if I was your customer, I would say, will you tell me what's best? And then I would make sure that that's what we're doing. So, versus, oh, this is what I want to do. I would say, what am I supposed to do? You know, so, yeah, that's why I'm asking you that question. I tend to lean into humor for everything because I think it's funny and people like to laugh. And so. So the two things that Gary Vee told me in my time with him, I think I told you I had a partnership with him for like 19 to 21.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

He said, if you can, the two pillars are education or entertainment. And if you could do both, if you could do both combined, it's like the perfect storm. And I always thought about that because I thought about that from when I'm on stage speaking or if I'm doing a podcast or if I'm doing content, I'm always like, if, is this educational, is it entertaining? You know, and not that it had to be both every single time, but I always just thought about, thought about, how do I make this thing, like, really, really fun, like, entertaining to watch? If nobody gave a shit about what I do, like, would they continue to watch this thing?

[Jen]

Right? That's what show content is. Because nobody does care what you do. Like, until they need you, they don't care. And so how can you create content that people do care about, something that fits in with the newsfeed? And you're totally right. Like, yes, like, what should you do versus what do I want to do? But not everybody sees that. The other thing I'll say is when it comes to being funny, you have to make sure that you're. The audience that you're trying to reach would find it funny. Because sometimes what you would find funny is not necessarily what the moms in your city would find funny. And so then, you know, if you're creating content that they would not find funny at all, then you're not really reaching your target audience with your content, which could eventually cause a. Somewhat of an issue.

[Chris]

This is interesting because I feel like debating you right now on this, because

[Jen]

I, I listen, I know it's great. I'm just saying, like, from a, from a, like, yes, then you could reach other people. But in, in like having a lot of visibility versus a little bit of visibility can be super beneficial and it can get you other opportunities. I get all of that. I'm just saying it. It's also important to try to create content that you're. Your customer would appreciate. Sure.

[Chris]

Who is to say what they appreciate? Right. Listen, the human behavior is the human behavior. Right. So you can't say, oh, it would work in this market, but not in this market. Maybe if you're in the south or you're in the Bible Belt or something like that, you don't put out some content that might go too far. I know I've. When I've. Early in my speaking career, I have always been the same type of speaker. Doesn't land as well in the Bible Belt. So I had to modify how I would speak.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

To not offend anyone. So. But I think with like, overall content, just in general, it's, it's. I don't, I always get nervous about people overthinking it. Right. Like, oh, right. I don't want to upset this for sure. This demographic, I don't want to upset that. So then they just do nothing. And I'm afraid that people listening are going to feel like, oh, God, now I don't know, I should do nothing. So when I would say, you just tell me if, if you're the professional, you tell me what to do or tell me, tell me what's best. Because I think that in my opinion, the outcome of all of this is to one, to get attention. That's, that's what we're trying to do, get attention. But to get customers, like, that is the game, like we're trying to accomplish here is how do we get someone's attention to get customers? And, and that's where my head's always been with it, whether it's organic or paid. Either one. Paid's like the cheater way of getting it and is even the right type of customer. I say, do y' all even know? Do you, do you even do paid media? I have no clue. If you do paid social.

[Jen]

Yeah, we do. We do paid social media.

[Chris]

So then, so then are you measuring metrics differently based paid versus organic?

[Jen]

Yeah, our paid team is different than our organic team, all of them. Just because it's such a different type of content and the goals are much different. But what we're looking at at the highest level is cost per lead because. And then from there, booking rate. Even though we don't really have, we don't have control over booking rate. Cause it's not something that we do internally, but we do educate our clients on how to increase that booking rate because it's just a different game. It's not like a Google lead. Like no one's searching for this solution. You're putting an offer in front of people while they're zoning out on social media.

[Chris]

Yeah, it's, it's creative marketing, not like direct because we're trying to create interest when there's no intent.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

And. And that's where the education entertainment comes in.

[Podcast Host]

I agree.

[Chris]

Listen, like forever, you know, the whole time at Rhino, it was always about cost per lead. You know, I needed to make sure I knew what the cost per lead was for, like a real legit opportunity. But I always tracked the booking rate, always, because there's accountability on both of our ends. So like, to you, listener, it's not like Jen or you just create all these videos and stuff and put it out there and like, okay, cool, it works. No, like, no, you have some like lifting on your end. You have to do too. And that might just be something as simple as answering your phone or responding faster, you know, or replying faster. Which is probably where I'm guessing you see a lot of the, the pain points is in the. And the response times or lack of

[Podcast Host]

response attention to the point listeners.

[Chris]

Branding has never been more important.

[Podcast Host]

Is your brand in serious need of an upgrade?

[Chris]

Do you have a new company and need a new brand but don't want

[Podcast Host]

to wait six months or pay a ridiculous amount to get it done? If your brand looks like everyone else's,

[Chris]

well, guess what, you are everyone else. But Prolific, they build brands that dominate from the first Google search to the driveway. Prolific brand design can help you be more of you because you are the unique difference that sets you apart. From all your competitors. So let's be real for a second. Your brand is either winning you customers or costing you money. Just ask some of our clients, like Ken Goodrich, Ishmael Valdez, my boy Chad Peterman, and even myself.

[Podcast Host]

Olific Brand Design is the creative pros

[Chris]

behind some of the best home services, logos, truck wraps, websites, and now email marketing campaigns. Wouldn't you love it if your email

[Podcast Host]

marketing open rates were 30, 40, 50%? And don't go into the spam folder.

[Chris]

Hell, that's how we roll at Prolific. So check them out@privific brand design.com and ask for the to the point promo. Prolific Brand Design be more of a. You be Prolific.

[Jen]

That's a big one. Like we are this year. We're only doing ads if you have an automation in place. We're only doing ads if we're, like, fully educating. We have an educational little. What you know, series that we're taking you through and then making sure that the team internally knows what the offers are and how to convert them. Because it's crazy. We were just looking at one of our clients who has it. I can't remember, maybe 40, 60% booking rate, like one of the highest that we have. And so I was like, how do you. How are you booking all these leads? And, like, no one else is. And. And he pays them per booked lead. And so that's what they do is they literally just book all the leads. Whereas, like, some of our other clients, it's more passive. Like, oh, well, I tried to call this person and they didn't respond, or they said that they wanted something else or they weren't having this issue or, you know, like. And so it. It's. It's interesting how different your internal processes can impact these. These leads that are coming through on Facebook. And that's really for everyone who's ever said Facebook ads don't work. They do. But it. It's just a different type of system.

[Chris]

So can I share my experience with you on Facebook ads?

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

As somebody who's tracked everything all the time, the thing I was struggling with, and this is. And this is assuming we knew how to run Facebook ads properly. Okay.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

So I'm not saying I am. If I did, I would have figured the team out, but I didn't. But I understand how. I understand consumer buying habits. And so I would just put out ads that would say, you know, 79, you know, you know, new air conditioning installation as low as 7amonth or something like that. I'm basically playing to the monthly Amount to set the hook.

[Jen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Chris]

To get them to take action. And while the lead volume looked great and the cost per lead cost really looked great. It was. It was. They couldn't afford to.

[Jen]

Yeah, that's a hard offer because of that.

[Chris]

So I was like, dang it, man. Like, this was looking really good. Until they're like, hey, like, these aren't closing. And I'm like, oh, okay. So that's not. The answer is every time these guys roll a truck out to the home, it costs money for them to not sell them. Like, that's not good. So. So technically you could say, yeah, yeah, I got you the lead. But it really wasn't. It was. It really wasn't a good one. Like, and. And nobody knows. So you would Change it to 89 to 99. Like, you would just keep changing the numbers to find out is there something there? And it's just too risky. So I. I just wonder. You probably have an idea of if it's not if of an offer that works best. And I mean, you're mainly H vac, plumbing, electrical.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

In the industry. Okay. You probably have an idea if they're wanting to put an offer out there of where they should, like, what they should do. I'm hoping that you do, and maybe you don't need to do that. Maybe you were thinking about it all wrong. Or maybe that's just a paid strategy. That's just a straight patriarchy. And so, like, I think maybe. Let's just talk about that for a second. I'm selfishly asking this question as I'm thinking through this, when you. When somebody comes to you and says, hey, Jen, I got, you know, five grand a month I want to spend with you on paid. On paid social media. What, you know, what do we do? Does that. Is that. How do you give them the budget? Do they come to you with. The budget is a mixture of both. And then, like, what do you do? Like, maybe just walk me through what that. What that looks like.

[Jen]

So as far as budget goes, we start off like $5200 a day you could spend, depending on your market.

[Chris]

Did you spend $200 a day?

[Jen]

52.

[Chris]

Oh, 5200. Got it.

[Jen]

It's a good place to start. I was like, damn. You know, the thing I just want to say, too, about Facebook ads right now is they're really heavy on creative, and so you have to have video and pictures that match the offer. That's going to make a really big difference. And so we've stopped running ads. If we don't have great creative because they're just not performing as well as far as offer goes. We have some clients that are doing really, really well and continue to do well with tune up offers. I know that some people don't like to go that direction, but that's a direction that we see a pretty high ROI on consistently across markets and across seasons.

[Chris]

So the win is getting in the home.

[Jen]

Correct.

[Chris]

Right.

[Jen]

And having a customer, a new customer.

[Chris]

Yeah. And then it's there. Ultimately this is when it's you, the listener, the contractor's job to sell it like. Right. And to get it sub. So that way you can continuously go back in that home through membership or whatever.

[Jen]

Yeah, exactly. And. And we continue to see an ROI in it. That's it. I understand that it's a. A loss leader, loss lead, but you can make money on them.

[Chris]

So are you tracking this for your customers? Like will you track the whole funnel?

[Jen]

As much as we can. We have eyeballs on some stuff and not on other. And it's unfortunate, but that's just the way that it is.

[Chris]

But you should. But you know, like you can get into service titan and look at the lead attribution and revenue and stuff like that. Are you. Do you have that capability or is it something that you want to do or do you guys do it already?

[Jen]

Now usually we get reporting monthly from our clients if we can. That's more.

[Chris]

So got it.

[Jen]

How we get it.

[Chris]

Got it. I've always just struggled with like, do you call it branding or do you call it Legion? Man, I bought and I'll tell you, I know. Here's how I've thought and you can tell me you disagree and I would completely understand. I legit think it's. Social media is a branding play and we hope we get some Legion from it. It's kind of like the way I've always positioned it.

[Jen]

You know, I have it. I mean we have a CL client in Florida who Facebook is his biggest lead source. Like he. About 40% of his revenue came from Facebook last year. So it's not impossible. But you have to treat it as like that type of lead source. Like he has people who are dedicated to these Facebook ads on a daily basis. So it's just a different. Like if that's what you're using, that's. It's different than just casually running some ads. Maybe you get some leads off of it, maybe they convert. There's different ways to do it.

[Chris]

We had a guy on here from Florida. I wonder if it's the same. I wonder if he's one of your customers. And he, they were great. Can you say who that customer is?

[Jen]

Fast Air.

[Chris]

Oh, no, beside him. Damn. Remember that guy we had on here, guys that was a claimant. Is it climate control or something like that? It was where a guy does. They do all the little fun tick tock dances and stuff like that.

[Jen]

With Derek.

[Chris]

Yes.

[Jen]

Yeah, yeah, no, I, Derek's awesome.

[Chris]

Yeah, he's got like those guys dancing, like doing all the fun stuff. I was like these, like, it was pretty funny.

[Jen]

I know. And a lot of what he does, not all of it, but a lot of it are tick tock trends that they just do and they do them consistently and that's, they do a little bit of educational videos, but that's what I'm saying. Like you can, that's fun. He leans into it and it, it's, it works for him.

[Chris]

Well, and, and so this is gonna sound like probably silly to you, but I didn't know, I don't know the trends, right? So like I have no idea what they are. So one, I had one person tell me one time, like, oh, I just follow this one Instagram page, this one page. And then they put out all the trends. Like they show all the trends. I was like, oh, so you can just go one place. I have no clue. I'm like six months behind on trends. And then they're not trends anymore.

[Jen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean we watch em, we have some AI tools that watch em. Our, our team like weekly get. Puts trend ideas and stuff and then we send them to our clients.

[Chris]

Well, and then you have to go like kind of fast on it too, right? Because it's only a trend usually so long.

[Jen]

Sometimes. Yeah. Some of them are bigger than other ones and they last a little bit longer. And some of them, you really gotta, they're really niche and you got to get on them fast. But a lot of them are like, a lot of them will go for a little while. You have, you have a little window.

[Chris]

Do you remember the first trend was the, the thing I ever remember the first time we did was the Harlem Shake. Or it was the Harlem Shake. Is that what that thing was called? It was like where everybody just was like working at your office and the next thing you know when the music part changes and then everybody's like dancing to it and they're all, oh, yeah, was it a Harlem Shake?

[Jen]

I remember that. I, I, that doesn't sound right, but I don't, I think I know what

[Chris]

you're Talking about, I think it's a Harlem shake. Now. It's gonna bug me, but that was, like, to me, the first time I ever did anything that was trendy.

[Jen]

That's funny. Probably like, in 2021.

[Chris]

It's a Harlem shake. No, yeah, Harlem. That's it. Harlem shake. Okay, good. Look at me.

[Jen]

There you go.

[Chris]

Anyway, I, I, I saw ours up at Rhino. Like, I think it was, like, maybe last week or something like that. I saw it pop up as a memory. I was like, oh, my God, it's forever ago.

[Jen]

That's fun.

[Chris]

See?

[Jen]

And it's fun. It was fun.

[Chris]

A good time with it.

[Jen]

Yeah. We have a client that's really, really good at doing trends and some of the feedback that they give us. Like, so we'll send trends. So we have different ways of getting content. One of them is we bring in a videographer. But that's on, like, a bi, yearly type of situation. So it's not all the time. And sometimes trends pop up. So we do have clients that we'll send the trends to, and they'll do them. And it, their feedback is like, their, their team just has so much fun with it. Like, they feel like it, like, boosts the morale because they're, they're playing. Like, you get to do a little bit of play. And it's marketing. Also.

[Podcast Host]

We, so we.

[Chris]

So I think, you know, I'm actually bum. Chad's on here. Peterman's on here. He's my co host, obviously, normally on these podcasts, but this was an impromptu episode.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

So we, I was out in Indianapolis a couple weeks ago, and we were shooting. We were shooting some social media content and some TV commercials. Like, all. Basically, it was just full on production day.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Which is always fun with Chad because I like to get him out of his comfort zone. And that's. And, and he such a, Such a good sport. But one of the, one of the things that we deal with with our roofing business is our brand looks very similar to the Peterman Brothers brand on purpose. So people always think that Redbird Roofing stole the Peterman Brothers branding. Like, we're just trying to copy them.

[Jen]

So.

[Chris]

So we had fun with it, and we parked the two trucks together, and Chad's in the middle of it, you know, kind of saying, yep, that's me. Yep, that's me too. Like, it's. We're having fun with it.

[Jen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Chris]

People know that, like, he's a part of it, you know, but we lean heavy into, like, the funny, the humor stuff, because Chad is like pretty straight laced anytime and he. All this commercials in the Indianapolis market are pretty straight laced. Now. They have a little bit of fun with the humor. So I like it whenever he gets to let his personality out because it's. It to me, it's like, okay, you don't normally see him like this. He's so like straight laced and put together. And then I make, you know, make him do stupid TikTok trends, you know, or.

[Jen]

That's fun.

[Chris]

And so we have. We have fun with it, but it's also fun when we. We got all of our. We have all of our employees involved in this last one, in this last round, and everybody had the best time and it was like, it's like good for the culture of your company too. Everybody's kind of, you know, everybody's like chipping in on the content and we just made it like we had a fun day out of it. It was pretty cool.

[Chad Peterman]

Hey, Chad Peterman here. I've been all in on Blue on for quite a while now. And it's not just me. Contractors all over are seeing similar results. Tony at Just In Time Heating says their support calls dropped immediately once they rolled it out. His techs get reliable answers from Bluon's AI faster than what they get from the OEMs and their parts guy, he's loving it too. It's made his job way easier. They're saving time, solving problems quicker and feeling more confident in the field. Blu on just become part of the process. And yeah, Peterman Brothers is definitely seeing that impact too. Click the link in the description and book a quick demo. You'll get it.

[Jen]

Yeah, and not only that, that's how you attract better people to work with you. Like, they see the type of place that's like, willing to let loose a little bit and have a good time, and they can see that people are interacting together. And a lot of our clients have said over the years that they're able to hire better people because people literally come in and say, hey, we want to work here because of your TikTok.

[Chris]

That's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up because that's the way I kind of looked at even. Even with Rhino over the years is we. It was such a great recruiting recruiting tool because we had so much fun. You know, we did so many things and like, we had fun and we always had somebody filming everything that we did in our custom or if it was our community service days or whatever it is, we recorded everything. That way people could kind of say, like. Okay, cool. Yeah, like this looks like a really fun company to go work for, right?

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Oh, the good old days.

[Jen]

Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy.

[Chris]

Okay, so. So I'm going to transition just a little bit because I think we're about 30ish minutes or so into this thing. You have something I don't know how much you can or can't share on here and if you want to guide the listeners to like down a certain path, you can. But I saw this on your website and it was around the nine ways to get your next sale off social media.

[Jen]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Chris]

So. So I don't need you to give me all nine ways to get your next sale off of social media.

[Jen]

But can I be honest? I think that is a. That is an old thing that I created. Not to say that it wouldn't work anymore, but I don't even really fully remember, so.

[Chris]

So then let's look at it this way. So number one, update your website.

[Jen]

Okay, like you tell me what are my nine ways again?

[Chris]

Well, it didn't share it. You actually had to submit the form. It was like a hook. And I'm sure you're probably gonna give some. So listen, don't go to the website and click on Nice. Anyways.

[Jen]

I know, right? I'm like, I'm ashamed. No, but I'll be told, like, honest about my website. It's been in the process of being updated for a year now, which it's just been like a crazy long process and we are almost at the end of this road in this journey of my website. But we do have a ton of resources for, for contractors. We have a. The social media blueprint, which is like three different freebies in one. It includes it. What does it include? 57 different video ideas. The viral TikTok framework. We've got another one that teaches you like what you need to have in your bios, which is, I think which is what Google is indexing right now is your social media bios and that's how it's pulling that content. It also has a shot list that you can give to a videographer, a photographer that come in and seven types of content that we're seeing are working really well on social. So I do know what are those the nine things. I remember that, but I can't quite remember what's on it.

[Chris]

That's fine. I really boils down to what are the resources and are you giving them away for free regardless if they're working you or not?

[Jen]

I mean, I just I hope that one is. But yeah, we do, we, we do have those two free resources.

[Chris]

Well then take advantage of it. If it's free, it's for me. You ever heard that before?

[Jen]

And social media, it's all social media stuff. I also, if you go to my website, there's like, there's, if you're like thinking about whether or not you want to work with us, there's two roads you can go down. And one of them is if you are under a million in annual revenue or over a million. And that's not because for any reason, but the investment to work with us is a little bit high if you're still trying to reach that million dollar mark. If you do that, you get sent this email that's got like every single resource I've ever created along with like podcasts that you should check out, like all kinds of stuff and then some different stuff from us.

[Chris]

By the way. I think it's important to, to, I just want to reiterate on that. You, you had said earlier 50 to 100 bucks a day. It was called three grand a month. So regardless of size of your business, that's kind of where it's mostly around the investment. So that I think that's really what you care most about is do you actually have what you should invest to max the success potential? Right?

[Jen]

That's kind of what you're saying, right? I mean, social media is important at every level. Like if you're just starting, I tell people, like, you should be posting on your personal Facebook day every day and your personal Facebook page every day. Hey, this is what I'm doing today. Every single person in that network should know what you do because you don't want them to call some random company on Google when you could literally go and get that job yourself. So, um, it's important at every level. It's just like, when can you start investing your, your money so that you can get your time back in doing it?

[Chris]

So, so let me ask you this question. I'm going to pretend like, okay, Jen, all this sounds great. I know I should be doing social media. I don't know if it's organic, if it's paid, if it's all the above, Jen, what should I be doing? Like, and what does it look like when they, when somebody starts to, to work with you? Like, I'm trying to think through this again. I'm thinking selfishly, you know, since I own a few different businesses and it's like, okay, man, I know that we're not doing enough on social and I also know that the company can't afford to have an in house social media person at this moment. So there's like, this is when you would leverage a partnership like this, a relationship like this to do it for us. So we move forward. What does the next step look like? Like kind of I want the listeners to understand what the journey looks like so they can say, okay, this is what, this is how it's going to go and here's what I'm responsible for. To the point.

[Podcast Host]

Listeners, listen up. What if the biggest thing holding back

[Chris]

your business isn't marketing or hiring, but your bennies? The benefits for home service companies, a better 401k can be the difference between great techs and losing them to the shop right down the street. Basic Capital, our newest sponsor, is the only 401k built to actually put your team on a real path to retirement. Companies that switch over see higher participation, happier teams and dramatically low turnover because your crew finally gets a plan that's a true benefit, not just a checkbox. Don't wait until your best people walk, make the move and click the link below to get 12 months with 0 employer fees when you join Basic Capital.

[Jen]

Yeah, so our journey starts off in the first 30 days with our onboarding and content. So we get to get to know you and learn more about your market and your brand and your company and why you started it and who you are in it and all of those things. And then we bring in a videographer and photographer for a full day content shoot where we get like all of the morning stuff and then we get to go out on a job or two so that we have content that we can use over the next three to six months or so. From there we start off with organic, so we no longer start anywhere except for organic and we start building that consistency on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. And then we can start to add in some, some Facebook ads. So at the first level we do brand awareness. So that's like getting in front of the zip codes that you want to get in front of, retargeting your customer list, retargeting your website visitors, just making sure that your brand is out there more. There's only so much you can do organically, especially on the meta platforms. Facebook and Instagram, they're just like, there's so much content on them, it's hard to reach new people. And so by spending $20 a day on Facebook, you can reach the zip codes that you want to get in front of. And get your brand out there. And then. And then we can start looking at Facebook ads from a lead generation standpoint, kind of looking at all of the things that we talked about before, making sure internal systems are in place at this point. We have content. We know you pretty well. Like, we can. We can really do some good stuff there.

[Chris]

Do you actually fly in and do that? What do you. Are you. Do you actually fly in and do it?

[Jen]

The content?

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Jen]

No, we partner with local videographer.

[Chris]

That makes more sense. That's the thing I've struggled with is like, how. Because just overall operating expenses gets a little crazy if you're having to fly.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Do all these. Yeah.

[Jen]

For sure. And that's not. Yeah. And so we've created a system where we connect with the local videographer. We set up like the shot list, the run show, all of those things, and then we get the content from them.

[Chris]

So no way. I said, jen, can you please come be my talent?

[Jen]

I mean, that. That's of course, another direction. But I. It's just. No, it doesn't have to be the owner. It doesn't have to be your team. But it's just so much nicer when it is. There's something so much more authentic about it.

[Chris]

I know. I totally agree. I'm just saying if somebody's like, listen, I know, but I am a total introvert and I've. Nobody on my team wants to do it because they're small and their team might be small. And so just try to think through, like, you know, I look at our. Even our sponsors on the show. We got Chirp, Contractor Commerce, Prolific, Blue on Evoka Basic capital. And I'm thinking, man, I. When I look at their. Their social media content, it's like Chirp. Probably Chirp does a great job. I. I own Prolific and we do a terrible job. That will change. But I also have more time to spend on it. Okay, just so it's clear, I think Contractor Commerce tries. I know Tall Paul used to be my old co host on here, but I don't know, like, if I'm blown away by anybody's social media content again, I'm as guilty. But I just. Even Redbird Roofing, I've had it for a little over a year, year and a half. Excuse me. And shame on me because I avoided social media because I'm not there to do it.

[Jen]

Yeah. And makes it harder.

[Chris]

Yeah. And because I'm also not doing this every day. I don't have a plan and I don't know what to reach out and say to a local like, you know, videographer or yeah, give them run a show or to give them a shot list and all those types of things. I know that at Rhino because I have a production team, right. The podcast is, you know, has, we have our team and like, so I don't have to do any of that stuff. So it's easy for me. I just got to be the pretty face.

[Jen]

Right. That makes it so much easier when someone tells you, tells you what to do.

[Chris]

Exactly. But I just at the point, the point I want to get across is, and why I'm coming down this path is I don't want to let the listeners who are stu. Are too small and like maybe too reserved off the hook of, of ignoring social. Because I do think it's super important to, to have some social media presence because you have it one way or the other. Right. It's. Yeah, it's whatever you've got out there or if the lack of things that you've put out there, people are like, oh, it's been a year since they post anything. Is that, is there a problem with that business? Like you could think so. I don't let anybody off the hook. I just want them to like be thinking through, hey, yes, I get you might not want to be on the camera. So yes, there's an option. I get you might not have people, yes, there's an option. I don't know what to do. Well, there's somebody who can help you. There's. There's an option. So do something and do you do, do you have to have, do people work with you? Is it like, is there a set term that you want to work, like a 3, a 6, a 12? Do you have a term that you like to commit to? Because I can imagine you can only take on so many people at the same time.

[Jen]

We like to a 90 day commitment to start off with and then after that it's 30 days at a time.

[Chris]

It's monthly after that. Yeah, see, that's easy.

[Jen]

But I got to say something because even though like nobody, most people are not comfortable right off the bat being on camera. That's not like, most people are pretty uncomfortable with that. But it's like, what are you willing to do in order to ensure the growth of your business? And sometimes you have to do things that you're uncomfortable with. And so I'm not saying like, maybe I'm a little bit more outgoing than some people, but I know the power of visibility, of putting content out there. And so if this Growth is important to you. There is just something about maybe doing it anyway. Even if it feels cringy, even if you're uncomfortable, even if you don't know what to do, especially if you're just starting out, it's your responsibility to build this business and. And get opportunity out there. And social media is a free place for us to. To get opportunity.

[Chris]

Well, last I checked, if you're running a business, there's oftentimes when it has to be when you have to make uncomfortable decisions and do uncomfortable things. So this is another one of those things. You know, it's interesting because, I mean, you know, my wife Anna, she took her a while to get warmed up, you know, to be in front of the cameras. And it is. It's like you. I could be having a conversation with you right here, but as soon as you put a camera in front of someone's face, they change. Yeah, it changes. And you. And there's no way that I know other than just doing it, like, just doing it over and over again and you get comfortable. I can remember, even for myself, who is very outgoing, and there's not. Don't. I mean, I. I've never been afraid to be. To speak in public. I've never been afraid to be on stages and things like that. But it took me a little bit to, like, adjust to shooting content or even hearing my voice.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Or like, re.

[Jen]

Watching it or being okay with it being out there, but totally. And not like, everybody's uncomfortable.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Like, at some point, constantly, you know, like, judging yourself. I'm like, God, what the hell did I say? That wasn't even true.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

I'm like, wait, why did I say that? That was so stupid. I could have said a totally different way, but. Yeah, but that's where people get hung up, is I think that, you know, they say it's progress over perfection. Right. Like, you're not gonna nail. Just go out there and kind of be you, you know, and do the things. I think the thing that you said that's probably the easiest thing for those people to do is if you're going out on a job doing a normal. A normal service call that day, we'll just record something on the normal service call. Actually, I would argue that it's better when it's not staged. Right. It's not professional. It's just you kind of doing your thing and people watching.

[Jen]

Yeah. I think we didn't talk about AI at all. And that's totally fine. But I will say that bullet point, that's Your next bullet point. But the thing about. Well, I'm going to jump your bullet point then. But the thing about it is that like we. You have the opportunity to be like, authentically connect with people online, which AI can't do. And so I was just talking to somebody about this and I think there's only like two directions on social that really work. And one of them is like completely unedited, just like raw, throw it out there content. And the other one is like very, very, very polished in like a series ongoing. And anything in between just doesn't work very well.

[Chris]

So that's where I was going to actually try and end with is I literally wrote AI or humans or both. Yeah, because I, I thought when I was asking some of these questions that you would jump into that as a solution for production.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

And which is totally fine because I'm legit curious to know that. I mean, some of it you can, I think if you're having fun with

[Jen]

it, like, maybe there's, there's AI trends and like you can jump on AI trends and they're cute and they're fun and people like that. That's super cool. But like in AI is great. There's Opus Clips AI, which is a really easy, easy editing tool. Like easily take out the stuff you didn't mean to say edit your videos. Cap cut has AI capabilities. Canva has AI capabilities. Of course we have ChatGPT that can help us write really terrible captions for social media. But they're like, AI can't do your social media yet. This is what I've been telling people recently. You were at home Service freedom. Did you watch Kevin O' Leary when he was doing that? A.I. kevin.

[Chris]

And I could tell which one was A.I. kevin.

[Jen]

Oh, I failed. But the thing is, is that it was good. Like, but we do not have that yet. Like that, that's not like what you can just go, Sora doesn't do that. Google v03 doesn't do that. Like, we don't have access to that at this level yet. So because of that we still need to be creating our own content. There could be a day in the future and I'm sure there will be where we could use AI to do it, but that's going to be novel. It's going to go fast and people are going to really want like realness again, because we don't get on. Nobody wants crap on social media. Like no one. When you see a bunch of crap on social media, you get off of it. Like you, you want Stuff that you actually like that's interesting, that's behind the scenes, we're like voyeurs into people's life. And so if it's not that and it's just some made up stuff like that's not, that's not why people are on social.

[Chris]

Yeah, I'm 100% on board with that. I think the authenticity always is going to win the day if you're willing to do it. And I don't think social is. I mean the human behavior is the human behavior. There's shifts to it. But I do think that when something is fake for so long, people miss the authenticity of it.

[Jen]

Yeah.

[Chris]

And at least maybe, I mean, I know that I do it can be entertaining. Like it can be entertaining to see that. But like it's like, you know, when I really want, when I really want something, like I want to see some authenticity, you know, and to me that, you know, it matters to me, I mean, I guess I just, I try to think, I've always constantly tried to think about. Because what I've been responsible for for so many years, almost two decades was lead generation for contractors. So how I gotta do that, I gotta get somebody who wants a contractor and get set the hook for them and like make sure their brands in their face constantly. So like all the things was tracking human behavior and how can I take, how can I create ads that answer the questions. I know that the humans are thinking to get them to choose the contractor and then how do I chase it all the way through? And so that's been my life forever is that. But I'll say this. The of, of the customers that we had had over all those years and those who actually leaned into social media for more than, you know, 90 days and continued to put their own, put themselves out there, always had really great success with social media. Now maybe it took a little bit, a little bit longer because of the buy, you know, the bicycle of you know, the, the sale. Like people aren't buying roofs every.

[Jen]

Right.

[Chris]

Twice in your life. Maybe once, you know, but, or maybe twice. Once probably. But you just gotta stay consistent with it. Right. And, and, and follow the plan and do it. That's probably half the battle that people phase out, you know, of doing it.

[Jen]

Yeah, there's. We have clients that don't run lead generation and they get leads from social all the time and they're. Their customers say like, oh we saw you on TikTok or we saw you on YouTube or whatever. And so it's that. But we've been Working with them for like two and a half, three years. And so it's just that really long consistency. And I tell people organic social is like a snowball. Like, it doesn't do anything right at the beginning. Like, it doesn't make that big of a difference. You might hear from your family and your warm network, like, oh, I've started seeing you post all over the place, but it's that big over time that people start to remember you that don't know you at all. And that's when it really, really starts to make a huge impact.

[Chris]

It's just another avenue, you know, where you can get someone's attention, that you can completely control the content. Like, and, and it's not, I mean, it's not going, it's not going anywhere. It's like, yeah, I'll be curious to see what other social platforms start to emerge over these next.

[Jen]

I know someone asked me the other day, like, what's the future of social right now? And besides, like, curious to see what happens with AI and how social. I mean, meta's already implementing like different AI tools that although, like for running ads, they're still just as terrible as all of the other stuff that they've put out there. But I, I think that it's more about, like I said. So Gary Vee talks a lot about social selling from like an E comm perspective. And one thing, and I'm, I'm going to keep saying this and someone's going to do it and it's going to work out for them. But I think like live jobs, you know, like full day, look at what you're doing. So instead of live streaming E Com, you're like just live streaming the jobs that you're going to. And I think that people would watch it. Like I used to watch this like restaurant cooking eggs and bacon. I think the liability is a little bit uncomfortable and that's what people would shy away from. But I do think that people enjoy that and find that really interesting and, and you could probably end up just making money off the live stream even more than getting customers from it.

[Chris]

That's interesting. So almost you think of like the meta glasses, like somebody's just wearing them.

[Jen]

Right. And yeah, you're just watching their whole day.

[Chris]

So prolific. Did a eight hour.

[Jen]

Oh yeah, I went. I was a part of it. Did you? I will like anything that. I'm a big fan of Zach's. Anything that Zach does, I will like, jump on.

[Chris]

He's such a great guy. I was like, you're gonna do Eight straight hours. I was like, dear Lord, like, that sounds awful. Actually, it was pretty. It was like, they did a good job. Like, it was. It actually did pretty well. Like, I mean, ultimately did pretty good. So I. I didn't want. I wouldn't want to do that, but.

[Jen]

I know it's hard, but, I mean, yeah, meta glasses makes it easier. It's going to be easier and easier for us to do that sort of thing, and I think that. I think that could be something that's gonna be interesting.

[Chris]

Well, then I guess we'll wait to see who the first one is to do it.

[Jen]

I know, right?

[Chris]

Okay, well, listen, I already went way over that time. I thought I was gonna go. But, hey, we're having a good conversation, so might as well.

[Jen]

Yeah, thank you.

[Chris]

But I'm excited for you, you know, like I said, for your event. And I know it's hard to put on, but I promise you, it's so much worth it, you know, and. And I know that you're trying to do a good. Just do more good for the industry that I love and that you love, and. And I'll be curious to hear when it's all said and done, you know, where. Where your. Where your head's at with it.

[Jen]

Take a deep breath.

[Chris]

I'm grateful that you let Zach be a part of it, so thank you for. For that.

[Jen]

Thank you. I am, too.

[Chris]

I'm so excited, and I appreciate you giving me an hour of your time on a Monday.

[Jen]

It's been great.

[Chris]

On a Monday when we're recording this one, actually, it's been great. Those of you that are listening, it's Thursday. We record this on Monday, so quick turnaround. Nice job.

[Jen]

To my team.

[Chris]

Nice job.

[Jen]

I appreciate it. Good job, team. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[Chris]

Well, Jen, I appreciate you coming on here and sharing everything and. And I'm assuming that people go into the. The growth experience, you know, that they'll learn more about these things and possibly even more in depth to some of this stuff and actual more tactical things, too. So get a ticket and go. What are you waiting for?

[Jen]

Yeah, it's going to be great. Profits, people and presence.

[Chris]

Profits, people and presence. All good things. The three pieces.

[Jen]

No kidding.

[Chris]

All right, well, listen, I'm surprised it took us this long to do this, but I'm glad we did it.

[Jen]

Thank you. Me, too. I'm grateful and I'm.

[Chris]

And I'm genuinely happy to watch your. You grow the business and you start to continue to have some more success and things like that. So I keep kicking ass, Jen.

[Jen]

I appreciate it.

[Chris]

All right. And to our listeners now, you got no reason to not do social. There's always an opportunity. There's always something that you can do, no matter what size of business that you're at. Right? So the one thing you're not doing is because it's you. It's a will problem right now. It's an effort. You know What? Effort costs $0, okay? Effort costs $0. So take advantage of it. So, Jen, good luck at your conference. And to all of our listeners, you don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. No.