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How I Grew My Company To 8 Figures Through Marketing
75 Plays1 month ago
In Episode 83, Brent Oberlink shares how he grew Lanracorp into an 8-figure company through the power of marketing. From the early days of relying on relationships and word-of-mouth to building a personal brand and embracing social media, Brent breaks down how his approach has evolved over the years. He discusses what worked when he was getting started, why marketing became a priority, and the strategies he uses today to continue growing the business. If you're a contractor or business owner looking to stand out and build a stronger brand, this episode is packed with practical insights and lessons learned.
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Transcript
Introduction & Nashville Trip
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Better Contractor Podcast. This is episode 83. This episode, we're going talk with Brent and his story with marketing, what he did when he started 20 years ago, what he's doing now in modern times and everything in between.
00:00:12
Speaker
So if you love the podcast, all we ask is you share it and I hope you like it. All right, welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. As always, joined by my co-host, Alex. What's up, dude? How's it going? Glad to be here. It's Friday.
00:00:25
Speaker
It is Friday, Juneteenth. Great day. Yeah, it's good day. Yeah. um So, what are we talking today? First, want to chat about Nashville. How's Nashville? You went on Nashville for a birthday weekend, birthday trip? We did. We did. Nashville's always awesome, dude.
Fashion & Food in Nashville
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm not really... Well, i like country music, but that's not why I go. That's why most people go. I can't line dance, so that's out. But... ah Good food, lot of good shopping. If you guys know me at all, you know I like some weird like dapper style clothing. we We had a barber shop for a while called Dapper Gents and that's what we kind of did with it was clothing that was not your norm.
00:01:02
Speaker
yep So I like that. Double RL is there so we'll give them a shout out. It's one of my favorite brands. As you know. This guy can't get over Double R. Any of you have a connect with them, let us know. Dude, if you don't know the brand, stay away from it because they do a lot of limited runs and I don't need the competition. So i want to buy it when I want it. so Don't shout out Double R. Don't shout out. Forget that. that But no, the food was great. i Noah, what was the Italian place we went to, man you Remember the name of that? We will give them a shout out because was good.
00:01:30
Speaker
So we had some awesome food Yolan. I think that's how you say it. Y-O-L-A-N. And then Jose Andres just opened two new restaurants in Nashville. so he's A celebrity chef of sorts, and we got to know his restaurants in Las Vegas and also in Chicago. He owns Bazaar, so like incredible steakhouse. Yeah. So anyway, but he just opened two new restaurants literally a month before I think we were in Nashville. So Bar Mar and Zaytina. So his take on Spanish and his take on like Mediterranean type food. That's awesome. Amazing. Yeah. I'm a foodie. I like weird foods. So my that was met.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah. so fair thing Food and shopping, and this guy's set. Yeah. So anyway, great town, great city, good people. so Good birthday weekend. Yeah. Awesome, man.
Evolution of Marketing Strategies
00:02:14
Speaker
Well, let's move from food and shopping over into marketing. yeah So you have figure company. You have other companies. Marketing is how you grew your company.
00:02:26
Speaker
um What did that look like when you started? Like, obviously, like you're old. this This will date me by answering this. What was marketing like 17 years ago when you started your company?
00:02:38
Speaker
So social media. So if you're in your 20s listening to podcast, you only think maybe social media is the only thing that ever existed for marketing, and that is not to kiss. um So back then, The number one way for us, and every industry is different. Like if we were a local company, so we're national, but if we were local only, back then you probably would have done newspaper.
00:02:58
Speaker
For us, obviously in 2007, the internet was still very much a thing, but social media was not something you advertised on much. And a lot of people weren't really on it as far as businesses.
00:03:09
Speaker
But for us, SEO back then was huge. But probably for us, print was a big deal. So a lot of our clients are in like an HQ building somewhere. So we would create the coolest brochure we could create. I mean, we would literally try to send it out to like these nicer printers. And it wasn't as popular back then to do this, but we would do like the higher end, thicker, you know, cardstock.
00:03:32
Speaker
We would do like a matte finish with a texture. you know, the letters would pop up off the page a little bit. So We tried to wow them with that so when they got it, it stood out, especially from other companies that were like us.
00:03:43
Speaker
So we put a lot of our money behind that. And then we had a really good marketing team back then, agency out of St. Louis. um And we basically went through and just told them. Because we were brand new. Like, we were back then, I think, five or six employees and probably...
00:03:59
Speaker
1 million in business, 1.5, 2, somewhere in there in this timeframe. And we basically told them, we need to look bigger than we are because we're dealing with enormous you know clientele that huge corporations that spend a million dollars in a couple hours. yeah So not that they won't do business with us, but we need to make sure they feel comfortable with it. And so we spent a lot of our marketing on that.
00:04:23
Speaker
We knew it mattered. And overall, we saw a need in the industry that A lot of our competition was not doing that. So a lot of them didn't even have a website. um So it was a way for us to differentiate right off the bat. yeah So we put a lot behind it. But again, to answer your question, a lot of was print.
Challenges of Rapid Growth
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. so So I feel like blue collar industries are usually pretty slow to pick up on the trends. Were you guys pretty the opposite? Were you pretty quick to pick up on those marketing trends as they were evolving? I think so. And I think that's what helped us a lot in the beginning. We grew by 100% for several years in a row in the beginning.
00:04:58
Speaker
um Which will honestly will create some issues as well. You know, we had some cash flow and just training and personnel issues in the beginning because you're just so rapidly growing that any income you produce, you put right back into the company. And then it's just be honest, it's hard to train that fast. And you're brand new at the time. So you don't have a ton of culture yet because you've been in business for a year. Yeah. So there's lot of that stuff we had to work through. But definitely.
00:05:24
Speaker
we were ahead of the curve in that business and honestly even like we had a barber shop even it was way ahead of the curve and a lot of them followed that suit afterwards yeah so How long did it take you to start hiring out your marketing? Like when you first start a company, you want all your expenses to be as little as possible. So like in my company, I i want to do all my marketing. I don't want to pay for anyone to do it because one, I thought I was the best at it. But two, I wanted to save as much money as possible. Yeah. So when how did you know when you were like, all right, it's time to either hire and bring this in-house or find a marketing agency to help out with this?
00:05:57
Speaker
So for me in the beginning, we always looked at, I've always had in my head that you look at what you're good at and what you're not good at. My wife and I are both good at marketing, I think, overall, for not having any training and not working in it.
00:06:09
Speaker
We understand the big picture of it. When it comes down to the details, that's where we're not. That's not what we do. So for us, we did the same thing with accounting. I hated accounting in school. I do not enjoy doing it. It is not my cup of tea.
00:06:23
Speaker
So that was two of the things that we immediately kind of hired out. So we actually hired out to an agency, i believe, at the end of year one. So wow really quick pretty cool for us. So we we opened in 2007 for Lander Corp. And it wasn't called Lander Corp back then. But 2007 was really just me by myself and just trying to secure some clients and stuff. So all of that year was just us.
00:06:47
Speaker
We added another employee the next year. And then by the end of that second year is when we started doing this kind of stuff. Okay. So, yeah.
Modern Marketing Tactics
00:06:54
Speaker
Fast forward bunch of years to now, current.
00:06:58
Speaker
What are you currently doing for marketing? What's working the best for you? So, obviously, it's changed a lot, as we kind of hinted at earlier. So, we were a little bit later on the social media game.
00:07:09
Speaker
Look, you can't really tell it now as much. I think we're probably one of the better ones, especially in our industry, specifically, at social media and just marketing in general. But I do wish we had started it in the podcast a little bit earlier. Yeah. And funny enough, of a funny story, the marketing company we hired that I mentioned earlier when we first started.
00:07:26
Speaker
i remember we had a conversation and this was gosh, at least a decade ago. And he came to me. He's like, you should probably consider doing a podcast.
00:07:38
Speaker
I said, what's a podcast? Because they didn't exist. I mean, they were brand new. So was telling me about it. I'm like, who wants to listen to some contractor dude on a podcast? Like, know, you got all these talk shows back then and stuff like that. But who wants to listen to a contractor dude talk about stuff?
00:07:54
Speaker
You know, ah I was thinking if you're going listen to somebody talk, it's going to be comedy. It's going to be dudes. It's going to be something like that. He's like, I don't know. I just feel like this is coming. Anyway, I didn't take him serious and i should take him serious. Yeah. Because I think this podcast would be so much further along back then because the algorithms were different. Everything, there was no competition. 100%. You would have been in the very beginning and built that stuff up from the beginning. So little bit of a lesson learned there. And that would be sometimes you got to think outside the box, even if you haven't heard of it, dig in a little bit deeper.
00:08:22
Speaker
maybe give it a try and see if you can be in the cutting edge of something. There'll be some things that doesn't work out, but every once while you may hit a home run. But anyway, what's your question? What are you doing now for marketing? What's working for you? now I think for us, we did obviously embrace social media. i mean, we obviously embraced the podcast because it's what you're listening to. um So I think now, I think that's probably been the biggest thing. I think the personal brand has been interesting. That's something I never wanted to do.
00:08:49
Speaker
And if I'm being totally blunt still, don't enjoy doing. I'm a private person, so that's not... It doesn't come natural to me. The lesson learned there for you guys is just because it doesn't come natural to you does not mean you shouldn't do it.
00:09:01
Speaker
Sometimes you got to do the uncomfortable. So for me, I just decided to do it. And thankfully I have an awesome team that makes me come up here and do it once in a while. And I don't want to. So, but that's what we're doing now. And I think this again, especially in our industry, I think we are leading that. It's got a long way to go. want it to be a lot more than what it but I don't know if any competition is doing things similar. So, yeah. Can you imagine if you started the podcast 10 years earlier? I know, that's what I'm saying. We just had 15,000 subscribers on YouTube, which is awesome. We love every single one of you. But imagine if we were 10 years earlier. and we'd be on episode 500 right now. Yeah, where would we be? Yeah, I know.
00:09:38
Speaker
Now hear you. We'd the Joe Rogan of the blue-collar industry. um yeah So, yeah, lot of social media, a lot of personal brand, just kind of getting yourself out there as much as possible. Obviously, social media is booming, and it has been the past few years. So, that's what's working. Keep doing it. yeah But,
00:09:57
Speaker
In our industry and I feel like the blue collar industry in general, when you go from marketing and you get into sales, it's hard to track that sale.
00:10:09
Speaker
It's very hard because you got to go bid the project. They think about it. They get other bids. like In our industry, it can take up to a year, two, three years. Oh, yeah. um How do you...
00:10:20
Speaker
track that. How do you know, hey, I got this sale. How do you know, is there a way to know where that sale came from? And how do you know if that, what you put into that marketing, whether it's a mailer, email, send out, whatever.
00:10:33
Speaker
How do it's effective? So some that's rougher. Yeah, some of that's rougher than others. And I can tell a story of when we asked the very beginning of the podcast, you asked what we did a lot, and did a lot of print. So this is a good example of we had a brochure And it was one of the ones we went all out on.
00:10:49
Speaker
And the printer had like a minimum quantity. I'm like, shoot, that's a bunch. And and ah obviously it made the bill very high. And I wasn't going to do it. I remember my marketing friend at the time was like, dude, how many sales does that take?
00:11:03
Speaker
I'm like, one? He's like, then do it. Surely we can land one. yeah So anyway, so we sent this thing out to a bunch different places. And there was one specific client. that I had, and again, we work on oil and gas, which means sometimes they're on like a procurement or RFP cycle of a year.
00:11:21
Speaker
So if they had bidded out in May, and you hit them up in June, that means you're waiting till next May for the next bid opportunity, probably. yeah So I've always been aware of that. And it's a very slow cycle. Anyway.
00:11:33
Speaker
We sent this out. I emailed this company, called, I've texted, no response for about three years. We send this thing out about year two of those three.
00:11:44
Speaker
A year later, I'm at home. It's like 6 p.m. in the evening and my phone rings. And normally I would not answer it, but it was a zip code that was this place. And I'm like, I'll answer it. Yeah. I answered it.
00:11:56
Speaker
And it was them saying, Hey, sorry, we've never replied to your text, phone calls or emails. Um, You sent a brochure about a year ago, and that brochure was so high quality, I felt I could not throw it away.
00:12:11
Speaker
So I have a space in my desk for contractors and stuff that stood out, and if I ever need them, I look there for them to see if they've ever sent me anything. So he said, i have had some issues with my current contractor. We've been using them for years.
00:12:25
Speaker
I want to try something new. And I remembered your brochure. So I pulled it out. Your phone number's there. I called you. So all of a sudden, that brochure, one year later, and it had made other sales prior to that.
00:12:36
Speaker
But that was the one that resonated. It just said, hmm, okay. And he specifically said, that's why I called you. yeah So I think it's stuff like that. You never really know on some things, unless you specifically ask, especially with Trent or like Billboards, some of the older school marketing methods,
00:12:51
Speaker
It is hard to know for sure that is specifically why that they reached out to you unless you say, how did you find out about us? Which you can do, and a lot of places do do that. I have trouble remembering to ask that sometimes. I'm just glad you reached out, so I'm going to make you as i' try to do a sale yeah and help you as much as I can.
Branding & Marketing Methods
00:13:07
Speaker
Social media, obviously, you know, there's a lot more metrics there and stuff that you can track and analytics, which is one of the beautiful things about social media and just internet stuff in general compared to the old school world of print and billboards all that because there is no tracking unless you ask. And you can tweak the online stuff, you know, so you can find out, hey, this works better than this. Let's edit this. Try this now. you just keep doing it over and over. Exactly.
00:13:31
Speaker
So that's hugely important. But I think for our industry, It has to be more of a mix of all that for us. you know in In the contracting world, it depends what type of contractor you are. So like for us, we only work usually big corporate accounts.
00:13:46
Speaker
So I can't jump into a community Facebook group. It's not going to me much good. yeah that's not my i don't have it Most likely, there's no clients in there for me. um and when With the procurement and RFP world, there's also not going to be a whole lot of social media fines.
00:14:01
Speaker
There can be some and I'm not gonna say we haven't had any. So for us, we still do some of that old world stuff. And that's still worth great for us. And we still do cold calling and we still do I call it gate knocking because our places are usually gated.
00:14:15
Speaker
um And that is still highly effective, though, for us. um And it's because I think you have that in person interaction, you're able to sell that product that service.
00:14:26
Speaker
And But that doesn't mean the other is not important. I think what the other is important for us, again, knowing your industry, is more for hiring and culture. Because that's who is on social media for us, is you know the employees or potential employees.
00:14:40
Speaker
And I do know some of our clientele does go gut it does go out, and they do see our social. They may not engage with it. But when I have meetings and I reference, hey, like a Marshmaster, they have said, oh, yeah, I saw that on your social. my They didn't comment on it. that you know but but But at least they're looking. Exactly. And I've always said with marketing, there's a lot to be said for just brand recognition.
00:15:00
Speaker
And I think... There's so much of marketing that's difficult to say this value that I'm putting here works. But again, if I go back to that very first question I mentioned where how much does it take to justify, it's usually, like for us, it's one client. yeah So I should be able to make that work. so And it's in our industry, I feel like we are good about doing a mixture of marketing. Like we do the mailers, we do the social media, we do the billboards and they're tough to track. So I remember when I was in college, this would have been two years ago. i had a professor, marketing professor, supposed to be my like final marketing class before before I could graduate. And we spent a whole two days on bus ads.
00:15:42
Speaker
And I remember sitting in class and I was frustrated. I'm like, why am I here learning about bus ads? Like, this is completely outdated. I should be learning about social media. yeah When the kid asks her, he's how do you track this? Like, people see it. Obviously, buses are huge. You're going to notice that ad. They still work. But how do you track it, like social media?
00:16:03
Speaker
And her answer was she didn't know how to answer. So she like, send out surveys. That just doesn't work because people don't fill out surveys unless you give them something to fill it out. Yeah. um So in class, i was like, this is stupid. And then I come here and I realize, hey, like,
00:16:17
Speaker
Old tradition, don't want to say old because they still work, but traditional forms of marketing, they still work. um You just have to do the mixture of things. And it's tough to track, which makes which might make you think, oh, that doesn't work. I didn't have anyone come from it. yeah But it's brand recognition.
00:16:33
Speaker
It is. And I don't think people fully appreciate that value. And and like you said, it's hard to track. But the end of the day, no matter what you're selling, if your branding works, meaning that it's simple, you have your logo, you have your brand, and you have some sort of description of what you do.
00:16:49
Speaker
Someone someday is going need to need that. And if your brand recognition is strong enough and good enough, they're going to remember, hey, yeah, I need this done. And that was a company. I need to give them a shot at it. Number two, I think you're you know, and no one I were talking about this the other a day, you may see a slight shift. So even just five years ago, I don't think social media and stuff was quite as saturated as as now.
00:17:11
Speaker
That's a very, just like with competition and business, it's extremely saturated now. um That doesn't mean that there's not maybe an opportunity for a little bit of the old school way because people moved away from that. yeah So like I know it for me personally, I don't get the pop-in doorknobs anymore. I mean, I'm not at the office in person that much, but when I'm there, there's not nearly as frequent as they used to be.
00:17:32
Speaker
Like that used to be a daily, sometimes multiple times a day. Really? We turned down because I don't like talking to people. but But that was prevalent. I would get stuff in the mail. I would get just like a free goodie of some kind in the mail, and then a phone call the next day.
00:17:47
Speaker
You know, like, hey, I sure my package was delivered, you know, that type Because then they kind of guilt you into like, ah, she sent me this. I need to answer it now. Exactly. I can't be that guy. Yep. So you have a lot of that out there too, but I do think there's room, becoming more room for that because there's less competition there and more on the other side. But either way, I think the more avenues that you can hit someone with, the better Mm-hmm.
00:18:08
Speaker
So we touched on brand recognition and I think what goes along with that is your personal brand. I know when I'm buying a product or hiring somebody or wanting to do business with somebody, um i wanted them to be a good person. I want to like the person I'm doing business with. And I think that's what's so big about a personal brand is they can go look at Lander Corp's Instagram. they be like, oh, that's cool. A bunch of machines, cool right away sick. And then they see you and what you're about.
00:18:38
Speaker
Faith, family, fitness, everything. um And most people will appreciate that. Um, I think that's awesome. But is that like when you started your personal brand, was that what you looked for when you were starting it? or were there other reasons you were like, I want to get big on my personal brand and For me, it was realizing that from ah like a hiring perspective with with potential employees.
00:18:59
Speaker
So again, our company is more of a national, so we hire also across multiple states. So do I go into my office ever and see 40 or 50 employees that I can just immediately interact with? The answer is no, I can't. So originally it kind of started out as more And our our customers are spread out and a lot of them don't necessari necessarily want to meet you more than once a year.
00:19:20
Speaker
So then it becomes, well, how do people ever get to know you?
Authenticity & Personal Branding
00:19:24
Speaker
You know, well, it's going to be this way now, especially with the younger generation. So that's kind of the why originally um over time, I think it's evolved a little bit. And for me,
00:19:34
Speaker
It's become one of those things that is the easiest and simplest way to kind of let people know who you are. And I am like you. I want to know a little bit about the company I buy from. You know, I'm a little bit of a brand guy. So I at least need to know you're laughing for. I'm a big brand guy.
00:19:49
Speaker
So, but what matters to me there is usually a few things, but what does the brand stand for? So some brands I buy from them. because of what they stand for.
00:20:01
Speaker
Other brands is because, and I love like quality stuff. So it may be that they still make stuff in America or, you know, or the country like Japan that really values like the craft of things.
00:20:12
Speaker
So there's that whole element too. And I will buy from them because they still value craft. yep So in a service like this, in a contracting world, how do you do that? Yeah. So it's still going to be quality for us.
00:20:24
Speaker
For us, it's going to be safety. But you still want to know who is this dude or gal that runs this thing? Are they a good human? Do I hate what they stand for? Do I love what they stand for? So that is something, too, we decided to go out there and do. and then the other aspect of it is, you know, we've been involved with the CEO program. My wife and I both love to just help other entrepreneurs. yep So the other aspect of that, and that's why you see podcasts like this, does this directly benefit my main business?
00:20:50
Speaker
No, not really. Does it put us out there? It does. But at the end of the what someone had told me, because I was second guessing, like doing this podcast and like, who wants to listen to, because some may look at me and view it as successful.
00:21:04
Speaker
I don't necessarily view it that way. yeah I still view me as very much a peon dude. But if you look at just statistics, there's a very small percentage of businesses that have made it to the to to the year that we're at, number one, or to the dollar amount that we're at, number two.
00:21:20
Speaker
And when you look at that way, that means statistically speaking, there's a ton of people out there that are striving to get to this level. I may be striving to get to a different level, and I may think this is nothing anymore.
00:21:31
Speaker
But there's a ton of people, myself included, when I was 23 years old, 24 years old starting this, that would have loved to have spoken to someone like myself and listened to them. Because that's the next step. Now, I'm hoping you know the people listening make it to where I'm at.
00:21:45
Speaker
And this helped me or I help you do it quicker than why I'm 44. If I can give you some tips and some advice that helps you do it by 35, and then maybe you outgrow me and you find someone else at that point to go listen to.
00:21:57
Speaker
That would be awesome for the country, for the future, for all that kind of stuff. So a lot of it then became just – so anyway, so this person told me, do you have things that you can teach all these people who are not have not achieved what you've achieved yet? I'm like, probably. Probably.
00:22:12
Speaker
He's like, dude, you have plenty to tell people. You don't have to be a billionaire to teach the mass amount of people. yeah You just need to be someone that's been that's doing something so they haven't walked in your shoes yet. You're helping them get through that area. So that's a whole ton of people. So that has been a big part of it, too, is realizing that, okay, and that's where I think earlier I mentioned like podcasts and stuff like that, and a lot of people thinking, ah, i don't really have anything to say.
00:22:38
Speaker
You probably do. you know Whether it's business or it's something that you went through in life, if you think about it statistically, there's probably a ton of people out there that are struggling with something you struggled with. yeah And if you've walked through it and made it through it, and now you can help them,
00:22:53
Speaker
then help them. So that's the beauty, I think. lot of people kind of hate on all the social media and all these people out there that pretend to be gurus. I think if your heart's pure in your mind and you're actually wanting to help and you're not just doing this for clickbait junk, i I think that's what people will want. And I think that's where going to go eventually. I know myself, if I feel it's clickbait now, I don't follow anymore. I've actually unfollowed a lot of people because i feel like It's just that's all it's about now. I don't feel like it's actually about helping people and stuff like that. yep So for me, and and I think you'll see a trend away from that. I think it's already begun. So I think there's a lot of room for authentic people online right now.
00:23:32
Speaker
So even though it's crowded and a little bit crazy, I think everyone desires that more authenticity. And I think that's what's going to shine in the next few years. That's the tough part about social media, though. Like I can start a social media account and I can portray myself as However, I want to portray myself. I can use AI, edit myself, make myself look like this or that.
00:23:53
Speaker
So anyone can make themselves look like... You have eight-pack, right? Yeah, of course. Anyone can make themselves look like something, like that guru they want to look like. And then you meet them in person, and they're completely different person. But that's not the...
00:24:09
Speaker
personal brand that we are talking about. Like we're not trying to do the personal brand where you post in front of a Lambo and sell a course. That's not what we mean. That's not what we mean when we talk about personal brand. With the personal brand like Brent is authentic to his self when you're posting, which is what I love about it. Because Faith Family Fitness, if you go through your social media, like that's pretty much all it is. And then you in a hard hat here and there. um and But then whenever you meet you in person, you're like, this is true. like This lines up. And I think that's when the personal brand gets more effective.
00:24:41
Speaker
Because you see it online, and then you meet and you're like, okay, I know a little bit about this guy from his personal brand. He's the same way in person. I want to do business with him.
00:24:52
Speaker
And I think that's the meaningful part of about a personal brand yeah that people don't really understand. Yeah. And I think the more you can find other like people like it online, I think the better, you know, because those are the people I think that have the true content that are willing to help you. If you look at like a lot the ones you mentioned, most of their content just motivational. Mm hmm.
00:25:10
Speaker
motivation only gets you so far without the tools to actually go through and actually implement all that stuff. Yep. So a lot of the ones I follow now, I've kind of gotten away from, because to be honest, I motivation is great. I don't need, I'm intrinsically motivated to an extent.
00:25:24
Speaker
I just need the tools. Like I want to go do it. I need someone that's been at a nine figure company to say, dude, This is what I did to go from eight to nine and not sell me a freaking course to do so. Like just share the knowledge. Like you're already a nine figure company. You're making your money. Just be a good person to help other people get there. Exactly. So that's kind of how I see it nowadays. Yeah, I get it.
SEO & Social Media for Contractors
00:25:45
Speaker
um So if you're talking to other business owners, what's like one form of marketing, say a smaller contractor, for example, um they're doing well, they're making money, but they need some marketing get to that next step. what Obviously, changes depend on depending on industry. But what's one piece of marketing that's worked so well for you that like, hey, I want you to focus on this. This will be the most effective for you.
00:26:08
Speaker
So for us, and then I'm going to go off a little bit of a tangent for, I think, general contracting. So for us, it was putting a lot of money in the very beginning and really honing in on SEO. Because for the most part, our clientele is just going to Be sitting in an HQ somewhere. Hopefully they've gotten some of our marketing materials and they're going type in because some dude sent them, hey, I need this service done in the next six months. Please put it out for a bid.
00:26:30
Speaker
They already have probably two or three contractors. They're going look for probably two or three more for a pool of six. If they only have three, they're going Google. They're going to type in a few keywords and hopefully we pop up. So a lot of our best efforts have been towards SEO and it's been towards making sure that we come up on page one and at the top of page one. So a lot of our earlier efforts, that's all I really cared about. but I would go through once every couple weeks to just type in every different keyword type I could and make sure we popped up on page one. And then if it wasn't, we just we did what we needed to do to get there.
00:27:02
Speaker
For the general contractor that maybe is not working with procurement, which I feel like statistically speaking is probably not... Most of our audience, I feel like a lot of contractors are working with homeowners or individuals or smaller businesses who are not going through procurement and ah RFPs. For them, i can't, like, from just a cheap standpoint, like most towns have these private Facebook groups.
00:27:26
Speaker
There's been a lot of things I've used locally or heard about locally have a favorable opinion of because of the amount of favorable stuff I see in these Facebook groups and shares and stuff like that. I think people don't realize how important that is, especially in a town of a medium of smaller size, and that's free.
00:27:42
Speaker
you know For the most part, you can get in there and post, depending on what the rules are in the Facebook group. You can usually post at least once in a while, and if people like you and you've done well, then you're going to get all these shares and comments, and all of a sudden, People are what? They're familiar.
00:27:55
Speaker
They're comfortable because they've seen 30 posts now that you put in a really good pool and there's no and they seem to love you. So I think that's huge. I think in smaller world like that too where you're in a community, I think having a good personal page some branding on your vehicles, but a good personal brand as well so they get to know you and they see you out in public once in a while and you present yourself in the same manner.
00:28:18
Speaker
But I think that one of the best things you can do from a personal brand, especially in that area, is I think be the expert and educate. So if, for example, I'm going to do like a stared retaining wall system down my backyard, which our backyard has because it's hill,
00:28:35
Speaker
I want to know you know what you're doing because I know it's complex because like when we bought our house, we had to reduce some of it because they didn't do tie-ins. So it started to move. So what do I want to know? I want to know you know what you're doing.
00:28:46
Speaker
So if I see all this stuff in this Facebook group, I'm like, it's clear that this place knows how to do this. That comfort factor is now completely, i'm I'm okay with it. I'm good with it. Let's give this guy a try.
00:28:57
Speaker
So I think that's probably one of the easiest ways to do it. But again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier. It's brand recognition. You've got to get it out there, multiple different formats, unless you're only dealing with, like, I view Facebook as kind of like an older crowd thing now.
00:29:14
Speaker
So, you know, but if that's all you're doing, you're mainly probably going to see that age group seeing your ad. Exactly. So the reason I think it needs to be broad, unless you're specifically selling something that that age group only is going to want, I think it has to be broad so you're hitting the 20-year-old, you're hitting the 40-year-old, you're hitting the 60-year-old. You're even hitting the 80-year-old maybe. yeah So I think that's key. I think a lot of people, because social media is so easy is sometimes free, I think they think, hey, I can do this and it's going to work.
Encouragement & Final Remarks
00:29:45
Speaker
yep
00:29:46
Speaker
It is still pay to play. And I think a lot people don't realize that enough. It's not free. Unless you're that good and you're creating viral content, you really can't do a whole lot with the free stuff. You've got to pay to play. So I think that's something people need to realize as well. It's tough to create viral content while also maintaining a good look on your company. Yeah, yeah. I feel like a lot of the trends – whoops, broke my pen. I feel like a lot of the trends are like – they just give a bad look to the company. It's like, I don't know if we want to do that look, but I want the views. Oh, yeah. It's tough. It is tough, yeah.
00:30:18
Speaker
um Yeah, so contractors, like, that's your your one thing. If you're wanting to get into marketing, there's Brent's one thing for you is brand awareness. Get on social media. Don't hate on it as much because it really is a good thing if you do it right. Yeah. um Just start posting.
00:30:36
Speaker
Just do it. That's what, ah when I was struggling five years ago-ish to think about doing personal brand. There was an influencer that I followed and in his personal brand. it was very good. That's how he built his business. And he just did like a story or something one day. And he's just like, and for all of you struggling on when to do it and all this other stuff, and I've heard this throughout business on many things.
00:30:57
Speaker
He's like, just do it. Just start. You may be terrible at it in the beginning. And you probably will be. And he said, I was. He said, but you fine tune it but you and you do it. But just like in business, for those of you that's done it, and not just business, in life in general, once you start and do it, that's the first step. Yep. A lot of times it rolls smoothly after that, but you will never know if you don't just do it. so Exactly. Yeah. So anyway.
00:31:22
Speaker
Exactly. Well, that's all I had for you on marketing. Unless there's another point that you need the world to know. I think that's it. Know what you got in there? All right. Well, guys, if you enjoyed this podcast, which I hope you did, please do share it. You know, we've got a private Facebook group. We'd love to see you guys out there and promoting that.
00:31:39
Speaker
As you've heard me talk about in this podcast, I believe there's a lot of power and value in helping others. So in that Facebook group, i don't know what, what up to 3,000 members or so. Over. Oh, sweet. So over 3,000.
00:31:51
Speaker
But get in there, actually you get engaged. If you see someone post something that you know an answer to that you've walked through, help them. If you're walking through something and you think nobody cares, most likely they do care. So ask them.
00:32:02
Speaker
So guys, jump in there. Other than that, we'll catch the episode.