Welcome to Close it now, the podcast that's revolutionizing the H Vac and home improvement trades industries.

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It's about the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement.

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This is Close it now, where excellence meets excitement.

Let's get to work now.

Your host, Sam Wakefield.

Hey, hey, hey.

Welcome back to Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield here guest today is hailing in from the incredible land of DFW in Texas and he is the founder of Top Serve Digital.

He also is a host of his own podcast, home service hustle.

2 times.

2 times best selling author.

This is Jonathan Bannister.

I've known him for several years now.

We met in 2020, in fact, during the right in the heart of, let's see, it wasn't even just in the heart of COVID It was right in the heart of two weeks to flatten the curve, I think is when we met.

And we were probably, I don't know, four or six weeks into that two weeks.

And that's when we first connected.

Did a webinar together back then and so now we've come back on the show here.

One of the cool things that I love so much about Jonathan one is he pulls no punches.

The name of his new book is and I'm going to have to put an E on this episode.

Name of his new book coming out, which we'll talk about is Fuck digital marketing.

Why building a memorable brand matters more than rankings.

And this is something I'm passionate about as well.

There is no such thing as a magic bullet or easy button in what we do.

And he breaks that apart and shows you the all of the things about it.

And the other thing that's really cool is he's the creator of what's called the bed method, which is brand equity domination.

So I 100% believe in the power of your brand.

That's why we've had Dan and Dan Antonelli on the show with Kick Charge.

You know, we're all about selling yourself first.

Being someone worth buying from means also creating a brand and having a company worth buying from.

So he is one of the experts in all of home services on this.

So thanks for being on the show today, man.

I'm happy to have you here.

Dude, thank you for that introduction.

I don't know who that guy is, but thank you.

It's all good, man.

It's all good.

Well, welcome.

So let's get into this a little bit.

So interview episodes like this, we always start with, give everybody a little bit of a highlight reel.

How in the world did you first of all get into, you know, this is when we met each other, you, you know, the company was under a different name.

You've rebranded since then.

But how did you get into the, the digital space and marketing and advertising and all of that anyway?

And alongside this, I always like to ask what is a driving philosophy that you run that drives your, your North Star, what drives your business, your life, all of these things?

What, what really keeps you moving forward in the right direction?

So I'll tell you those in whatever order you want to tell the.

I'll tell the quick story of, or try to make it quick on how I got into this because this was not the plan in 20, 2015 on my bingo card, it did not have being a digital marketing owner.

And so 2014, I'm a police officer and I'm standing in my front yard.

I've got pictures of this day where my now 13 year old is standing in my patrol car holding on to the steering wheel.

My wife's nine months pregnant with baby two and she's just looking at me.

And at that time, the state of the country was, you know, cops were being shot on a regular basis.

And I remember her that day, she said like, what are you going to do?

What are the plans?

She was like, you don't make any money.

And I'm, we're about to have baby too, you know, and here I am like looking at my kid in my, my patrol car and she's just like, like it would kill me, you know, but I would have, for the kid's sake, I'd have to figure out a way to, you know, stay sane and pull through for them.

But she's like, it's not fair for them to not have a dad.

You know, you just need to through this.

And like, so she planted the seed that day because it was like she goes, I know this is what you love doing.

And I hadn't been a cop but say couple years, three years or so.

My background before being a police officer was sales, okay.

In different, different sales jobs, selling real estate.

Like it Was just a casino host.

I was still sales.

I was always.

And a couple like six months after that day, I got into an incident with, with a suspect and got injured.

And from that injury, like got caught up in the small town politics with the mayor, chief and sheriff.

And I made an arrest and had to arrest the sheriff's son.

I was like forced to arrest sheriff's son.

And I was, I don't want to make the arrest.

He.

He had a gun illegally, wasn't old enough.

And I'm like, this is between y'all.

I was told a long time ago, like, don't mess with this kid.

Like, I want to go home.

And they told me to arrest him.

I was like, small town politics, right?

Arresting.

Because his dad's name's on the jail, out on the jail.

Y'all aren't even going to let me take him to the jail.

They weren't going to open up the gate to take him.

So like, why are y'all doing this?

And the next morning, my brother in law was actually attorney, or was it a lawyer for the law firm represented the jail, who now is an attorney for my agency and has been for many years.

But he called.

I answered the phone.

He goes, I know.

I said, I know where you're calling.

He goes, I know.

I mean, what can we do about this?

And I was like, we don't have to do anything.

I won't even show up to court.

I was like, this is some bs.

I wasn't, I didn't want to do this.

I was forced to.

So right then I just knew that I, it, it was time.

And so like a losing battle.

Yes.

And so I reached out to a buddy of mine.

I was going to a doctor.

And I remember exactly where I was.

I opened up.

The doctor's office had two doors, one from the outside, and there was this little gap.

And then the next door, I stayed in between the two doors.

So I didn't go in the office and talk.

And I called a buddy of mine that I went to grade school with and I said, hey, Justin, do you have anything you're working on right now?

Because I'm thinking about leaving law enforcement.

And he used to, he's one of the smartest guys I know.

And he was actually at the active event.

I don't know if you got to meet him, but he, he built, you know, he made movies to graduate college that made it to the Sundance festival.

Wow.

They're real creepy and horror, you know, stuff.

But he made a documentary, Hurricane Katrina documentary.

Because we're, we're all from Biloxi, Mississippi.

And he lived in an art studio that was right on the beach and been there for like 75 years.

And it got taken away in Katrina.

And so he made this awesome documentary.

And so he's just super, super smart and artistic and everything else.

So I reached out to him, I said, hey, you working on anything?

And he goes, man, I was getting ready to call you.

I'm building mobile apps and I was gonna see if you'd help me sell them.

And I was like, okay, well, when I leave the doctor, I'll swing by and take a look.

And so I ran by his house and he showed me, like, how the push notifications worked.

And he said, it's got these geofence you can put.

And if somebody drives in the geofence, you can make something push through their phone and right away.

I've always been big into two activities.

One's golf, and the other one is poker.

And so I was like, well, I'm friends with tons of golf courses or I know the people that run them or own them.

And I know a lot of business owners that I play poker with.

So I said, sure, let me go start selling them.

So I went to the golf courses, sold like 10 to 10 different golf courses.

And I told him, I said, here's what you do.

You could.

We're going to make you a QR code.

You're going to put it up on the desk.

You already have a fixed cost into the driving range balls.

And what you do is you offer everyone, they scan the QR code and download the app and that they can order food and everything from.

They get a free bucket of balls.

And I said, now what you do is when the weather cooperates or doesn't cooperate, and you've got an empty T sheet because it was supposed to be 80 chance rain, and it doesn't rain.

You send a push notification out and say, anybody wants to play golf today?

25, all you want to play.

I said, you get a hundred dollars in the cash register.

Well, you know, that's just money to the bottom line.

It wasn't going to be there.

And so I started selling them.

And then I started going to the guys I played poker with the business owners.

And this is where the story gets cool.

So I was already kind of cool to start with.

Yeah, this, this one's going to make you laugh.

So I go to this one business owner who sold 18 wheelers like big rigs.

And I went to his place.

I'm Sitting at his desk.

He goes, yeah, Jonathan, I'll buy one.

He goes, hey, look, he pulled out his phone.

He goes, my website doesn't fit my phone.

You got to, like, spread your fingers to make it to where you can read it.

And this is 20, 2015, early 2015.

And I was like, okay, let me look into it.

We'll fix it for you.

So we had to figure out how to find a web developer that could fix his site because it wasn't mobile compatible.

I didn't know what the hell that meant, though.

Yeah.

That was not long after the third screen came out and pull you forward.

Marketing concept, all of this.

I was right in that world.

Yeah.

So then a couple days later, I go to a buddy of mine.

His name was Scott.

He owned a really famous seafood restaurant where I was from, and I played poker with him all the time.

So I reached out to Scott.

I said, hey, I want to come talk to you.

He said, sure.

Showed him the app.

I said, hey, here's what you do.

We set a geofence that's 5 miles radius.

Anybody that rides in here that has the app downloaded, it's going to show them the special of the day and offer them a free appetizer if they come in and eat that day.

And he loved it.

Right.

And it was really good for his business.

Yeah, no joke.

About to leave, and he goes, hey, Jonathan, thanks.

You know, I said, yeah, we're gonna get started building the app.

And he goes, hey, look, my SEO sucks.

Can you.

Can y'all help me out?

My SEO?

And I was like, yeah, sure, Scott.

Let me get back to you.

Not a big deal.

I walked down.

I remember the little wooden steps going down because it was on stilts, because of hurricane area.

I got in my car and I Googled, what is SEO?

Cause I had no clue what it meant or what it was.

Yep.

And.

And that's what I tell people.

That's how my career got started.

And so from that point on, you know, this is our 10th year in business, and I feel like I've learned more than most people in.

In marketing, because I didn't know marketing.

It wasn't my world.

I didn't know digital.

And so I feel like I've had to work harder and call my way to.

To the.

The expert level because, you know, I knew how to sell shit.

That makes so much sense, knowing.

Knowing you now and knowing our conversations we've had.

You, you, the way that we've always communicated.

You come from this place of authority because you've made the mistakes to get there.

Yeah.

And I think that's partly why we resonate there.

I don't think there's a single thing that I teach or train that I didn't make the mistake first in the field.

It's not like I just read, took a course and then reteaching it or anything.

I think it's the best way to learn in the best way that, you know, I get more enjoyment out of teaching and working with owners now.

And I don't care if they do business with me.

Like, I'd love to, but it's like, if I can put the power back in you and teach, do something and leave you empowered because you feel like you're being lied to or you don't know what's going on with your marketing.

I love giving them that control back, and I'll spend hours and days with them and it's like I don't expect anything in return.

But typically it turns into a client that's still with us today, been with us for years.

Because I'm willing to teach them, because I knew I had to teach myself and I had to reach out to other people and learn.

Learn things because it wasn't something I was taught in school or I had to learn the organic way.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love it.

Well, speaking of organic, since you mentioned that word, let's, let's we.

This is almost a continuation of a conversation we started on your podcast the other day.

So for everybody that's listening, make sure to go listen to Home Service Hustle for one, because it's just an incredible podcast.

But also I was on there and we had this conversation, and I think I've had this conversation with two or three different people now in a week, since we talked about it first, about the.

It's almost this rise and fall of digital and organic, the conversation of organic versus non organic and all of these things.

So first of all, what I'd like for you to do, if you would, coming from that place of, you know, hey, what is SEO?

There's so many people that I work with, and I know there's a lot of people in the community that hear these terms that have no freaking clue what SEO is and what LSA is and all these things, could you give a super high level, quick little crash course on the difference between those different digital products and just super tight, and then we'll go from there because I want the to have for everybody listening to get a bit more out of the conversation that I feel like we're probably going to head.

I think that'll help.

And then they'll have a much better grasp of what we're talking about and why what we're about to talk about is important to understand.

So I like to tell people there's four pieces of real estate on Google and really just think of anything related to SEO, whether it's organic, Google Maps, and I'll tell you about that here in a second.

Just that is search engine.

So think of people have a problem or they've got questions and they're curious and they're asking a search engine questions, then social media is completely different, right?

Like you know, whether it's Facebook, YouTube, whatever.

Now obviously YouTube is the second largest quote unquote search engine in the world because people are using YouTube just like they are Google.

It's just like I don't want to read words on a page, I want to watch a video.

So it's just the same thing, it's just in video format.

So I tell people there's four pieces of real estate on any Google search right now, today, 2025, there's four pieces of real estate that is LSA.

You typically comes at the very top of your search page depending on what stands for local service ads.

Talk to us like we're kindergarten serving it.

Yeah, so stands for local service ads.

Some people call it Google guaranteed.

When it first was launched in 2017, I believe it was called Google guaranteed.

And you can still see the word Google guaranteed.

If you open up the ad itself and you'll see something say Google guaranteed and it'll tell you what the guarantee is.

And basically you have to submit a, an approval process or you got to submit an application with Google and you got to approve your insurance and a couple of background checks on employees.

And basically what it is, I think it's $2,000 that Google saying if someone files a claim and they actually are rewarded by Google to say they got ripped off or something, Google will give them $2,000.

That's their guarantee.

Now it's a double edged sword because if you screw somebody over, Google is going to rip you off their platform as fast as you can say Google.

So you, you know, you got to go and honor and do the work the right way.

So that's Google guarantee.

When it first came out, it was $25 a lead and it was this flat price and they only opened it up to like 12 cities around the country, the major hubs.

And then they started spreading it from those major hubs.

Well, of course a lot of My clients were in these major hubs and they're like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing ever.

Oh, man, I want to get more of these.

I'm like, dude, do not get hooked on these 25 hour leads because it's not going to last.

Google is going to change the game.

They'll jack those prices up.

It'll be pay for play at some point.

And of course Glenn's like, no, just get us more, get us more.

All right.

And it's all part of the book.

I talk, I call it Google Heroin.

And, and so many people are hooked on it, unfortunately.

And I asked the question like this because I'm setting up, we're gonna.

I'd like to talk about the book.

So I knew that this is, I'm teeing you up to be able to talk about the book because it, it's such a valuable topic that nobody's talking about right now.

That's why I really wanted to dive into it.

So the second piece is Google AdWords, which is also like what we know it as PPC, which stands for pay per click.

That's what the PPC stands for.

That used to be the search that Google had up until lsa and so now it kind of got pushed down.

So it's LSA's first.

Then PPC ads can either be, they can be top or bottom of the page, but if we're talking about top of page, it's going to go LSA, then Google AdWords or PPC.

The third piece of real estate is going to be Google Maps.

And Google Maps takes up right now today.

It takes up the largest space, a piece of real estate on either mobile or desktop.

And that has the map and it shows the Google reviews and stuff like that.

So that is when you search something that's like, you know, so and so near me, that's what, that's where it takes you, right?

Correct.

Or if, you know, if you just do plumber in Dallas, right, then it's still going to pull up Dallas and then it's going to have the ring.

So it's also called the three pack.

You know, little names and nicknames people give it, but the three pack, because there's three results that come up before you have to hit a button that says show more.

So to be in that three pack is super valuable because, you know, shows three.

You want to be in that three pack.

And then the fourth piece of real estate is organic SEO.

So it's.

Anything that happens underneath Google Maps is considered organic SEO.

So those Are the four pieces of real estate.

Okay, cool, Perfect.

Thank you for that crash course.

And honestly, I think I learned something just now as well.

But the, and it's so important to understand that because so many people, and especially in the last, say, probably 20 years, this has been where most home service companies have really lived almost exclusively.

You know, maybe 15, but somewhere in that range.

Yeah, 15 or so.

Yeah, probably 15.

I remember we, you know, 20 years ago, we definitely had some, you know, I was having the conversation and you know, 2006, 7, 8 with the owners of the company.

I was like, we've got to put money into digital and let's make a Facebook page for our company.

And can we please redirect.

We don't have to be the number one list on every single full page ad in every phone book anymore.

It's okay.

I remember having this conversation way back then.

Let's dive into this a little bit because, I mean, you were saying the other day about how so dive into the Google heroin.

You know, let's, let's dive into like this whole concept that this is all we have to do to have a successful service company.

Yeah.

I mean, look, the, there's a lot of reasons.

I wrote the book, but it was, it's out of pain and frustration and not, not all the frustration from our part.

Like frustrated with clients that unhappy and you know, they blamed on the marketing company.

But look, I see it online.

All the.

You see it online.

You know, a lot of people want to throw the marketing companies under the bus.

Dan Antonelli commented on someone the other day and was laughing at the same thing because it's easier to blame the marketing company or it's easier to blame the sales trainer.

It's easier to blame these outside people.

Now, are there bad marketing companies out there?

Absolutely.

Are there bad sales trainers out there?

Are there bad business coaches out there?

Of course there is.

Right?

They're humans.

They're going to be bad.

But what I'll say is when I talk to someone and go, how many marketing companies have you gone through?

Like, I want to hear them.

Right?

And they're named six.

I know that's a red flag to me.

And like they haven't, they weren't unfortunate to get six bad marketing companies, especially when I know some of them that they name and I'm like, you know, I know they don't get horrible results.

They may not be the best at everything.

Yeah, it's not a bad company necessarily though.

Right.

And so I say that the Google heroine comes from I think single handedly, this is the statement I'll make.

I think digital marketing has been one of the single most detrimental things to all businesses, probably globally.

Right.

And you know, just like I think social media has been detrimental to like kids and suicide and attention spans.

Absolutely.

All this other stuff, right?

All the numbers are in the tracking, the science behind it, they're all there, right?

Everything's gone up, you know, in, in, in the wrong direction.

So for businesses, what I'll say is when there was yellow book, billboards, radio and tv, you either had to invest into those verticals and you were successful if you continue to do it the right way, or you had to do amazing customer service, you had to do great sales in followup, you know, like you had to do business the right way to stay open, to keep your doors open.

And, and when digital marketing came, it was like, dude, it came fast, right?

Google came, Yelp came, Facebook ads came, Angie's List came, LSA came.

Tick tock.

It was like, so it's, well, I can burn this bridge, this bridge, this bridge.

Because I can go get more leads.

Man, you jumped over right over Ask Jeeves and like us, just kidding.

I mean, we're old, so we could, we know what that is.

For all you youngsters out there, look it up, you can Google it.

Google it.

So it's like it's been these shiny new objects where you can buy leads and it's, it's okay, you can, you can, you don't have to blame yourself for a shitty operation you run or poor sales process.

You know, you don't, it's easier to go, the leads suck.

Yep.

And so I've been battling this for 10 years and changing, evolving with everything that changed.

Because look, man, when Facebook first came out and started selling leads, holy shit, they were amazing.

Oh yeah.

They were all just like the original lsa.

It's dirt cheap and they were great.

Absolutely.

And so when they took the restrictions away of targeting and when more and more people started doing it, all of a sudden it wasn't as good.

Same thing with LSA.

When it first started, it was great.

Whenever 100,000 companies jumped on, all of a sudden there's only so many leads to spread out and give away with.

You know, demand has to be there in order for it to work right?

So I, I just, I guess I had a former client that triggered the book to come out, but obviously I've been writing it in my head for many, many years.

Just didn't really know it.

Yeah, that sounds like an interesting story.

So we, we, I, I get a client, he gets referred to us from one of my, one of my other clients.

He was in a complete shit show situation.

He goes, man, will you audit my stuff?

I said, absolutely, I will.

I probably spent 50 hours with this guy over a two or three week period helping him and generally did, you know, didn't know if he was going to be a client or not.

I didn't care because I knew he was in a bad situation and I hated it.

So we audited stuff and I'm like, man, it is, it's bad.

Like your, your, your rankings are horrible, your website sucks, the content's bad.

Like, there's just a lot of issues.

Well, he was with two very reputable marketing companies.

He was with one for like a year or two, year and a half or so.

And he said he wanted to go through a rebrand, Dan Antonelli rebrand.

And when he went through that rebrand or he went to the company he was with, he said, hey, I'm gonna do a rebrand.

How much will it cost me?

They wanted to charge like $50,000.

Some crazy number like, what are you gonna get for $50,000?

Anyways, it was basically be a new website.

I mean it was like.

So he decided to go move marketing companies, go to this other reputable marketing company and they, he goes, they only charge me 25.

I'm like, what is 25,000?

25,000.

Holy moly.

Then he was paying $7,000 a month for SEO only is what he was paying.

And I was like, your SEO is atrocious.

And I'm going to show you something that's going to like, really make you throw up.

And I said, I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you in and show you how to go check your own website traffic and Google Search console, Google Analytics, and I'm going to show you videos.

You go find it on your own.

I don't want you to, you know, I'm not going to do it.

I want you to have the power to go figure it out and see what.

I'll teach you where to look and what to click.

But you go and look.

Yeah.

You need your own transparency.

That's right.

I remember I was watching young Sheldon with my family on the couch and it's about 9:00 at night, I get a text and he goes, what am I supposed to click on this Google Search console?

So I told him, he texts me back and he goes, I think I'm about to Blow a gasket is what he text back.

And I said, oh, what's wrong?

And he sends me a picture and it said like 376 pages, not index, index zero.

So Google was recognizing that none of his pages were indexed and all these pages were not indexed, which is common to see pages not indexed.

But your marketing company should be going there on a regular basis to see Google's recommendation of what needs to be done to get them indexed and recognized.

Because so, so the goal, just for a little bit of foundation here, the goal is to have everything indexed, right?

Absolutely.

It should all be listed.

It should all be.

If it's not indexed, it's just there.

And the only people that can find it if they go to www.your website.

Otherwise Google is not recognizing it on their platform.

Not going to get picked up if anybody searches.

That is correct.

Got it.

So I just wanted to break it.

Down a little bit.

Oh my God.

Like you know this, you know, I said, hey dude, you got to deal with this.

I don't know what to tell you, we've spent so much time together, but I'm telling you, you're getting ripped off.

So it's like rip the band aid off, move on.

And I said, I'll give you recommendation to some good people.

If you don't want to work with me, you just need to move away from who you're with because you're paying way too much money for SEO.

Because that's all he was getting.

No paid ads.

It was SEO, only $7,000.

And, and Sam, we're talking about before he did the rebrand, unfortunately, he was like $4 million.

It was a 97 year old brand.

Oh good lord.

And he changed it.

Oh no.

To a brand.

And look.

And the brand looks good.

Dan obviously did a great job as always.

But because he didn't put any money and to tell him the story of the whole community of hey, I'm taking 100 year old brand and moving it.

He lost 50% of his revenue in one year.

If this wasn't a podcast, I'd be banging my head against my microphone right now.

So that's.

Anyways, when, you know, obviously when he came to us, my client, who he got referred to my client to talk to because my client, it was Billy Klein.

And Billy had went through a rebrand and had some disasters and you know, so he was referred to Billy as, hey, maybe talk to this guy.

He's gone through this.

Sure.

Guy.

Billy suggested move the brand back to the old brand.

And the guy Said like, no, it's, it's been too long.

Damage is done.

Like, we're just, we're gonna move forward and keep with the new brand.

And so he came to us in six months, in a six month span.

We obviously, first month we went up to his location, we shot video content.

And while I was up there, I noticed there were two brands that I kept seeing everywhere.

Every billboard, every ad I would get.

When I went downtown Cincinnati, all of the trams or trains, whatever they have down there, all of them were fully wrapped.

There's a company down there called, are up there called Arlen House and it's like a pink color.

And all of the trams were wrapped, fully wrapped.

And they look good, right?

Holy cow.

So it's like, man, the city let them wrap the whole train in this brand.

And so, you know, I knew who the powerhouses were.

And then you fast forward six months, his heat map for Google Maps.

We had taken the whole space, like from North Kentucky all the way to Cincinnati.

We were dominating, killing it.

Yeah.

And I remember sending him reports and sending Billy Clyde like, dude, look, look at his look for heating repair and heating, you know, heating services and you know, you know, air conditioning, you know, company near me and all this stuff.

And we're all happy, we're all, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Well, one day we get a, I get a text message from him early in the morning.

He goes, man, it's 12 degrees and my phones aren't ringing.

And I, and I immediately jumped on Google and here's what I'll tell everybody out there.

There is a, a chrome extension that's called GS Locator.

Look it up, add it to your computer, because GS Locator will let you actually change your location.

So like if you're in Dallas, but you want to maybe see if you've got a second office location in Plano, then you can change your location to Plano.

That way Google recognizes you and it drops a pin on Google's map and it shows you real as if you're sitting in Plano because it really thinks you're there by this manipulation.

So I changed my location to where his office was and I immediately put in heating repair near me, saying he came up in all four pieces of real estate that I told you about.

He was at lsa, he was top of PPC on Google Maps.

He was in the second place.

So now think about that.

There's three.

He's in the middle.

He was in the middle three pack of those two powerhouses that I told you about.

And that looks like he's one of the monsters.

And that's when the light bulbs went off.

And I said, oh, I made it the visual.

I'm a visual learner.

And right then I said, oh, so now I know how the human brain works.

All right, so someone wakes up and they go, my house is cold, it's 12 degrees, and their heater is not working.

And they have no brand commitment to any company.

They go to Google and type in heating repair near me.

The brain, though, is going to gravitate to something that is familiar to them.

So they didn't have any commitment to any company.

No one had earned them by the 16 more touches that we'll talk about in a minute.

But what I, what I know is when they saw Arlene House or that other big brand, their brain would just go to that, oh, I've seen something.

I've seen something on the tram downtown.

That's right.

Right.

So why would.

Why would my client get any clicks or, you know, would not get many clicks if the.

If there's someone who has earned brand equity already, even though it wasn't super strong?

So a couple days later, I was processing and I couldn't let it go.

And then, man, I went to.

I went to sleep and I woke up and I saw the whole book.

I saw the COVID it was black and white and it was fuck.

Digital marketing.

While building a memorable brand matters more than rankings.

It was like.

It was weird, it was trippy to me, it was like I wasn't dreaming.

But it was.

It happened.

And I just had the whole vision and I just started writing.

I just started writing and writing and I just dumped 10 years worth of frustration and 10 years worth of learning and knowledge.

And I said, we have to change this industry, and the way we're going to do that is through brand domination.

Yeah.

And we're not going to work with any clients any longer unless they're going to focus on their brand.

And I want to make.

If they don't want to be a local legend, I don't want to work with you.

Yeah.

And in order to be a local legend, you got to spend money on your brand and educating people and building trust and credibility with them without putting an offer or coupon in front of them.

There's a time and a place to put an offer in front of them, but it doesn't come until you work them through a funnel and you educate, you provide value, you build trust.

You let them see your past work and hear from your other people.

Then you put an offer in front of that person.

You don't go the other way around.

100%.

Everybody that's on YouTube, seeing me smiling and nodding over here, because this is 100% everything.

You know, I've, what I do, I'm all over the country at different companies and I see good, I see awesome branding.

I've worked at.

God, half of the companies I've worked at have been Dan Brands.

You know, I was just at one, you know, electric company in Michigan, incredible brand recognition, all these places.

And then I've been in some big companies that have horrible branding.

And I truly see, and I'm going to agree with you this, they spend this insane amount of money on their digital because that's the only source of leads.

Because they're after buying leads.

They're not after building relationship and creating clients for life.

And it's such a different model.

You know, it's wild because it carries through into the way that their comp plans are built for their sales guys.

It carries through into the tenaciousness of the sales team and the technicians.

They're like, you have to close it at all costs because if we don't close it while we're in the house, we're going to lose them.

Well, of course you are, because there's no loyalty anywhere.

And it's just such a different model.

They're solving for volume and not for quality.

And it just blows my mind when this.

And it's so apparent when it happens this way.

Well, and you, you know, you think about you and I've had, we've had this conversation before, like the, the trust or the, what you've built up before you get into that person's home?

Like it matters, Right?

What did you send them?

What did you, what did you show them that made you feel that you can charge the price that you want to charge?

Right.

And so if they don't know you, they've never seen you, but you pull up in a nice truck and your guys are not dressed nice and you throw some crazy sticker price at them, like, you're probably going to get a lot of objections.

And you know, think about if you had touched them 10, 12, 14 times, way before they were ever going to be a customer's years.

Then when something did break in their house and they called you, well, you've already shown them the value of who you are and they've heard from your past customers and seen video testimonials.

So now when you come up, it's like, this is what we charge.

Can you get it cheaper?

Yes.

But will you find better value in a better company?

No, absolutely not.

You can't just be a lead on Yelp or Angie's List and show up to somebody's house and think that you're, you're.

You've provided enough that you're worth to whatever you say, it doesn't work that way, but people think it does the lead suck.

That's what they want to, you know, the leads up.

And so I want people to get off of the Google heroin and I want them to start focusing on their brand equity.

And so in the book, I talk about there's three levels of brand equity.

So, you know, let's call it good, better, best, if you want.

Okay.

But the worst level is you've either touched the person no times or maybe once or twice.

Because here's what I'll also tell you.

Six to eight, that's how many touches.

Since the beginning of business, people have said you got to touch people six to eight times before they remember you, before they move forward with you today.

And there was a study that came out a couple of years ago, I think it was Princeton.

That number today is 16 to 18 touches.

Right.

Think about it.

You, you swipe right to get girlfriends.

You, you sit there on tick tock or YouTube shorts and you can pound through.

The attention span is so short.

Yep.

So if you think that you're just gonna throw an ad out there on TV or like, it hit them one time, dude, like the attention span of the people that are social media born and raised, it's a different world.

So I'm telling my clients, how do you touch people 16, 18 times?

There's a way to do it, but they also go, you want to focus on your whole service area that you're willing to drive to.

You don't have enough money.

And I told a client that the other day.

My wife heard me say it.

She was like, did I really hear you say that?

I was like, yeah, I can speak to him that way.

But I told him, we're going to focus on these two cities because you can't afford to spend it.

I said, I don't care if you're private equity.

Yeah.

You're talking about a area that's got 1.5 million people times 16 or 18 times.

You can't afford the touches.

No way.

So I was like, so let's stop and let's find the right people that can afford you, that have the right credit score, that make the right amount of Money.

And let's target those homes and hit them over and over and over.

When you spread your budget to, then you may get one or two touch points, but it's not enough.

So the three levels of brand equity, the worst is they have a problem with whatever service you do.

They go to Google, they type in plumber near me, AC repair near me, roofer near me, and they have no commitment.

But I think that the human brain works with, do they see anything that gravitates that feels familiar to them?

And then I call it the Google Russian roulette because there's 20 options typically on the page.

Mm.

What makes you.

Even if you get all four pieces of real estate, you're paying for two, and then organically you're into.

If you're in all four, you still have 16 competitors.

What makes you get selected out of the other 16?

So the second level I tell people of brand equity is you've touched them a few times, three to six.

So they, they remember they know you.

They, they trust you a little bit, but you haven't.

The, the, the trust in the familiar, the familiarity isn't strong enough that they are looking for you specifically.

So again, fight or flight moment, water heater burst, they go plumber near me.

And if they see your company, that's who they're going to go to.

But again, they're freaking out, there's water everywhere.

And their brain go, Google plumber.

Okay, you may.

Yeah, I've seen them.

If you're on page one, you're going to get the click.

And then the third, or, you know, the, the best option is what I call the McDonald's and chick fil a effect.

And what I mean by that is any kid I, you know, I feel 99% of kids that are 7 years old to 3 in a car seat rides past the McDonald's or Chick Fil A.

They know what that place has, but there's not a chicken nugget, a French fry, or a hamburger on the logo, but they know what it is.

And so I tell clients, you have to become the Chick Fil a or the McDonald's of your local market in the home service space.

And you got to think like chick fil A, McDonald's or Starbucks, where they're brand dominant and they still spend a ton of money on marketing.

Yep.

Right.

So don't, like, don't think it ever ends.

It may change a little bit.

You may spend more money on, on billboards or TV and less money on lead generation.

And it may shift like that down the road.

And it should.

But you can never stop thinking, how do I spend less money?

It's how do I keep strengthening my brand dominance is what you should be doing.

And so those are the three levels.

And I would say that the overwhelming majority of our clients are at the worst level or the middle level when they come to us.

And then I have to.

Me and my team have to really work on changing their mindset because this is where digital has ruined people is that you're now having to tell people, listen, the market you're in for, the area that you're.

You're looking at, there's 800,000 people that we need to focus on.

Yeah.

And in order to touch them two to three times per month or whatever that number is, we need 1.2 million impressions and we need to be omnipresent.

We need to be on every platform that your customers are.

So we're going to go after 1.2 million impressions per month, and we're going to get 300,000 from Facebook and 200,000 from YouTube and TikTok and we're going to break down where we're going to go get them.

And 60% of what we're going after is going to be top of Funnel brand awareness.

25% is going to be building trust and credibility in the middle of funnel, where we're going to show your story, brand video, we're going to show testimonials, and only 15 or 10% of the budget is going to go to lead generation.

And their mind cannot wrap around that because We've been spending 20,000amonth on PPC forever.

Jonathan, we need leads.

What do you mean we need leads?

We need leads.

We need leads.

And I'm like, then I will tell you another company you can go work with.

Because the days of me focusing on lead generation for companies only, and if you tell me I need leads only, we're just not going to be a good fit.

Because I want to work with the brands that truly care about their customers, their community, and they want to be the company that everyone thinks of when they have an issue that goes wrong in their home.

Not, hey, I need 10 more leads on Yelp or Angie's List.

It's like, man, that.

That to me is like just a sad way to live and want to run a business.

I don't know.

You know, it blows my mind to the.

Some of the things that it speaks to a lot of different elements of mindset and also the way the business is run.

You know, I Feel like that company, because I get the same thing when companies call me.

A lot of it's a very similar conversation.

The healthy ones have the conversation, and they understand that you can't turn somebody around overnight.

So when companies call me, like, man, Sam, this is awful.

We need you desperately.

We were out of town, and, you know, our.

While we were gone, they went 0 for 20.

And the last time I said, yep, let's go, and I'll get there.

And so all of this pattern continues because I'm there to coach.

I'm not there to sell for them.

Right?

And I'm like, okay, I'm coaching your people.

Okay, we're getting better.

Okay, you did better.

We still lost it.

But can you see how now, you know, the outcome would be different?

And, you know, we start the journey just like you're doing, to build organic and build brand awareness.

And it's like, when they call, it's like, there's no magic bullet here.

This is a healthy company.

Calls and says, all right, we're here.

We want to get to here.

What does it take to get there?

And understanding the journey is going to be a journey.

It's not an overnight magic pill, you know, And I think it's the same thing with companies calling digital, calling marketing companies.

You know, if it's, you know what, Whoever it is, it's like, okay, we need leads now because we're dying.

Okay, well, that means you waited too long.

You should have started this, started your process forever ago.

There's other things that have to happen.

That's telling us that your company is sick, not the fact that you're not getting people, not getting leads.

Let's get your company healthy first, because then who cares if you get more leads if you're not selling them anyway?

If you're taking care of people the right way, you would have at least referrals and would have word of mouth happening if you were healthy and serving people the right way.

And so at least that's where my mind goes with it.

I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.

Here, but no, because I usually ask the question, what kind of guerrilla marketing do y'all do?

And when they tell me none, that's a very yellowish red flag to me because I'm going, all right, so you're relying solely on digital at this point.

Right?

And I'm going, but why?

Why would that be your holy grail?

You're obviously having frustrations.

That's why our team's on this call with you.

And then it sounds like They've waited so long to make changes, and then they go, oh, you know, I was in a contract or something.

It's like, I get it, and I hate that.

But let me tell you something.

If my company was on the line and I knew that something wasn't performing right or whatever, then you break a contract, you deal with that legal stuff later, and you go and get things fixed, you know?

I mean, like, you can't just blame everything on some outside source and take no responsibility for it.

But when, like, why is.

Why are you not doing direct mail?

Why are you not knocking on doors?

Why are you not doing the clover approach?

Like, if you're.

If your guys are at that home, why are you not going to the neighbors and handing out a sales folder or some kind of information?

I don't get it.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and then now you're going to tell me if I don't get, you know, leads and fix this by this date, like, you're in all this trouble.

I'm like, yeah, you know, so look, we've just gotten different over the years.

Like, we.

We just.

We just.

I love this conversation.

Not going to be a good fit.

Unfortunately, like, we're not.

You know, I've told people for a long time, I've tried to talk to Jesus and I've asked him for the thermostat.

So I control the whole world's temperature, and I've never been given it.

So I can't control demand.

I can't control weather.

Right.

But what.

And I can't control what you do with your team and how you force them to go knock on doors and talk to people.

You know, it's.

It's weird to me.

I.

I want to say it was.

You were telling me this, and then I was like, oh, my gosh, I hear this all the time.

And it was like, yeah, man, we're.

We're so dead.

You know, like, phones aren't ringing.

And then you ask, well, are you doing outbound?

You know, the girls don't have time for that.

And I'm like, I said we were dead.

What do you mean, don't have time for that?

Is.

It's an oxymoron?

Is this a joke?

Am I being punked right now?

You're dead.

You don't have work, but the girls are too busy.

What are they too busy doing?

Yeah, exactly.

You know, so.

So it's like, it's hard to help people that don't want to help yourself.

But I'll just tell you, everyone needs to focus on their brand.

Brand equity is going to be the most important thing moving forward.

And I say it's the most important thing moving forward because I'm saying this on record now.

I think within the next five years, Google is extinct.

Right.

So what I mean by that is when Sam and I were making fun of the phone book just a few minutes ago, there was a time that people like you and I were using the phone books that still came out to start fires because we didn't use it.

We were using the Internet, but the older generation was still using the phone book.

So what's going to happen in the next few years is the people that are stuck on Google that will not use Chat, GPT or any other kind of AI software will still use Google.

But it's going to be like about as many people that use Microsoft as their search engine.

Right.

Which is very few and far between.

It is old people that when they bought a computer, Microsoft was embedded and they don't know how to change it, make it Google is what, who those people are.

Exactly.

Yeah.

How many people say, I'm going to Bing this?

Yeah, just bang it.

So I think Google is going to be the thing of the past.

And so Google has been a illegal, in my opinion, you know, operation that has had complete control over people and how they operate, selling people's data.

Everything else I hate about Google, how they change the algorithm and mess everything up.

But everybody used Google.

You Googled it.

You Googled it.

Well, now it's not going to be that way.

It's going to be, you know, you may use Perplexity, somebody else may use Gemini, somebody else may use Chat GPT, and there's going to be many, many other AI systems that come out that people are going to use.

So there's going to be this diverse use of AI so it won't be everybody going to one place.

And so I say more than ever, become the local legend in your market by brand domination.

Use video, use billboards, use tv, even use radio, whatever you got to do, but get the impressions and touch them over and over and over.

You know, one strategy that we're doing with our clients that I highly recommend everyone to do.

Glad you're going here because I was about to ask you, let's get a little granular.

Let's give some people something they can action on right away.

We call it addressable geofencing.

All right, what addressable geofencing is, is a strategy we're doing with our clients.

They do direct mail.

Right.

Whoever you use direct mail.

With our clients, we, we refer them to Mail Sharp.

They've been a great partner with us.

But we figure out the homes we want to do, right?

We want to do the homes that are worth this amount of money, that are this age.

Whatever search parameters we put in, boom, These are the 15,000 homes that we're going to do direct mail to each month.

Great.

Then we come in on the digital side and we lock on to the rooftops of all 15,000 of those homes.

And we tap into the Internet, into the cell phones underneath that house.

And now we control the frequency of how often we're going to touch the people.

So typically it's four times a day and it's on streaming devices.

So regular, you know, ott, big screen tv, Apple tv, Roku, Hulu, whatever.

Any website that they go to, there'll be a display ad on there.

They go to Wall Street Journal, they go to espn, boom.

They're going to see our ads and videos.

And then if they go to Meta, Facebook or Instagram, we're able to lock on to TV search, social media and we're able to touch them four times a day.

We're able, actually able to plug in, what is it called, a weather bug.

So we plug in the weather bug app and we can say if the temperatures get over 100 degrees or 101, change the frequency to 8 times a day instead of 4 times a day.

Nice.

If a hail storm hits, pump up the frequency to our roofing client.

Right?

I mean, so you, you put weather into it.

But now here it is, they're getting my direct mails, all casino offers from cruise ships and stuff, but they get their direct mail piece and now this comes in, and now there's familiarity there to this direct mail piece because they also saw this company on their TV or they saw it on social media.

Right?

So what we're seeing is that the open rate and the engagement rate of direct mail is going up way higher.

But you don't have to do use direct mail.

You can just tap into the homes and go, this home is the perfect avatar customer for me because their credit score, we call it credit worthiness.

So if we want only people that have a 675 credit score or higher that make over $150,000, the home is worth more than 300,000 and it's this age home, we pull those because guess what?

Addressable geofencing doesn't have the same restrictions that Facebook and Google has put on that you can't search and exclude Certain people, they used to allow you, you know, and they tried to put it in the name of, the name of security.

We're going to, you know, take, it's all right because they're selling all of our data out their back door and making billions of dollars off, of course.

Yeah.

So the data is there, they're taking what they know about us and selling it and farming it out.

But yeah, I mean that's the approach that I think is the future is you got to go, I'm going to focus on these 20,000 homes and you know, let's call it 50,000 customers.

You know, husband, wife, a kid in the house.

And I am going to brainwash, indoctrinate, whatever you want to call it.

But I'm going to make sure that when their water heater burst, their air conditioning goes out, their roof leaks, whatever it is you do, the first thing that pops in their head is going to be your jingle, your color, your truck, whatever it is, because you've touched them multiple times and that's an investment.

Like you have to invest into earning that, that customer.

Instead of going, I'm gonna go buy a shitty lead.

And that's what I'm trying to get people to get out of the thinking, well, wait, I need leads though.

And it's like, but there's, yeah, like there's a place for it.

But if you don't ever start transitioning to making sure that people come to you because they want, you know, you, trust you.

Even though they've never used you before, you've already positioned yourself as the person they're going to work with.

Unless you start investing in that, you're always going to be chasing the next platform that comes out to sell you the next set of shitty leads.

Yep, oh, 100%.

And it's, it's really interesting when those come in because I see the, you see it on the front side and I see it on the backside because I work working with companies that have both.

You know, I've worked with great companies that have lots of brand awareness and companies that are just starting or the ones that have been exclusively digital, you know, and doing ride alongs when I do all my trainings, I get to experience the quality of leads from all these different sources and you're 100% spot on.

That's why, you know, the company, just like I was saying earlier, the companies that are like exclusively digital, they can, they have to only hire these guys that are, you know, these, these laser beam sharks to go out and like force the Clothes because it takes such a hard.

It's such a harder job.

You end up almost in like a boxing match at the end because they don't know who you are to start with.

You didn't earn your way into that home.

You didn't earn your way in.

And, you know, yes, absolutely.

That's why I wrote my process to warm people up very quickly, you know, but when you have a great brand, it just makes things so much easier.

You walk in and people start saying things like, you know what?

We see your trucks everywhere.

We read, you know, we see.

See you guys all over place.

We read the reviews.

We didn't even call anybody else.

What are we doing today?

And I've absolutely experienced those appointments, too.

You know, our company was like that.

We were branded like crazy.

And it was so we owned our.

We were really starting to own our market.

But the.

And the companies that are like that, that are doing it right, man.

For everybody out there listening, if you want good quality leads, this is the way.

We're straight up, like Mandalorian right here.

This is the way to get the ones that you just.

It's a much higher rate where you walk in and they're like, okay, there's no price objection.

They're not shopping you.

They're not getting bids, because they've already built this relationship with you through all of.

And then you just show up and prove it.

And of course, the hook is you have to actually deliver when you actually.

I think this is actually the other side of this that I see in the industry, Jonathan, and I want to get your opinion on this.

I see what's happening right now is going to be a big weeding out of the companies that don't deliver.

And, you know, and for 20 years, my mentor years ago, Brian Winkelman, he used to say there's not the.

Because the whole.

There's lack of workforce, people can't find people to hire and work for us.

For 20 years, people have said that.

But he's always said, and I learned this years ago, and I believe it.

There's not a lack of workforce.

There's too many people that got pissed off at their boss, decided to open a company that should be working for somebody else.

And so I think what's going to happen is there's going to be a calling of people who are not delivering value or not delivering service that stay with this old digital mindset.

They aren't going to go out of business and shift back into, you know, we'll see really quickly the companies that are doing it right that are, are becoming the local star, local heroes.

That, that's my, that kind of my take on it.

What, what do you think about that, that kind of idea?

I think you're spot on.

It's like, I hope people listen and really process what you just said because I think in the very near future you need to take a, a real hard look in the mirror and look at your CRM dispatch software wherever you can see and analyze where your leads are coming in and go, okay, if this is makes up more than a certain percentage of where your leads coming in.

Like, you need to take an honest look of what's going to happen in the next couple of years.

What if the leads don't come from Google anymore like they were.

How do you make up for that, that lead loss and don't get sold by someone going, I can get you on, you know, AI and you know, like, I'm just telling you, stop that craziness.

Stop relying on platforms that you don't own, control or have equity stake in that you can make a decision, you're on their board and start focusing on your brand and use video to do it.

Because there's no better clear way to show who you are and how you do things than video.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

If that doesn't tell everyone enough, it was supposedly a social media platform.

That is the second people are getting educated on videos through YouTube.

So you need to make sure that you're showing people why you are who you are and why you're worth with your worth.

And you get to do that and you can become that local legend.

But it's not going to be, I'm going to spend this and I need to see X in return.

Like, and I, I know it's crazy to me.

I hear, you know, someone's like, oh yeah, I need, I need to see a 10x return on, on this lead source.

And I'm like, well I need a, you know, I, I, I need a unicorn for Christmas.

Yeah, I want to go golden toilet.

But I mean that's happening either, you.

Know, well, now I've got a, like a brand equity tool that I'm like, cool, I'm gonna run a number and see what your brand equity score is.

And that's like, and it, you know, you're not going to get a 10x return on that.

You're not worth, you haven't earned getting a 10x return.

So what hasn't built a business that can earn a 10x return on your investment yet.

And so it's like, I think people just need to, like, have a real honest, you know, talk with their self because I think things are going to shift majorly here in the next couple years.

And don't worry about what happens next.

Just be the person where you've earned the space in that person's mind and you've told the right stories and you've touched them in a very warm way and you've let them see all these happy engagements with other customers that you've had over and over and over and over.

And I'm telling you, you will be in their mind when they have their next problem.

That's how you need to position yourself.

This is so good, man.

I feel like we could talk about this forever.

And I'm just going to drop this on this episode.

If everybody out there, we'd love to hear from you, you can, of course email me samoseitnow.net John, before you do, I want you to definitely let everybody know how they can get a hold of you and give us a quick overview of the.

You kind of alluded to a lot of things, but get specific and tell everybody all the things that you actually do when you work with clients and the specific services that you're offering.

But I want to know from everybody, pop me an email and send it to Jonathan, too, if you.

Because we think so much alike.

If anybody out there thinks that there would be any type of value of Jonathan and I with working together on anything.

For those of you that know a lot of what I do and a lot of what he does at, you know, with the, with the agency, let me know.

I'm curious.

We're kind of kicking around a handful of ideas and would love to hear from all of you out there in, in the world what your thoughts are.

You know, where do you see the biggest struggles?

Do you resonate with what we're talking about today?

Is this something that you're seeing as well in your market?

And we want to hear from you of what your big struggles are and your big friction points.

Because we don't hear if I'm out there all the time.

He's out there all the time, but all of you are living it daily.

And so tell us about what you're struggling with and we can put together solutions to solve those problems for you to make your job easier.

So it's just a little bit.

I wanted to drop in there, but let everybody know what all the things you guys do and definitely how to get a Hold of you and also for everybody.

Jonathan is a sponsor of the was this is this episode's coming out actually after the event.

But he was.

By the time this releases, you and I will have spent a week together in Boston at the relentless.

Close it now Relentless, the ultimate sales transformation event, which is we're going to be deep diving into all of these things.

So for everybody that hears this episode, you missed it.

Watch for next spring.

We will be most probably 90.

Sure we'll be looking at another event and it's going to be bigger and better.

But floor is yours, man.

Let it.

Let us know, man.

Give us the.

Give us everything.

Yeah.

So we do things a little different.

When you talk to me or someone from our team, like you're going to be almost interviewed to be able to come work with us, you know, and I don't mean that in any kind of disrespectful or cocky kind of way.

It's just we just, we only want to work with certain types of people.

So you have to have a growth and abundance mindset.

And you, you know, you, you've got to have a clear path to where you're trying to get to.

I love working with the people that are just great humans that have unfortunately either been with the wrong marketing companies or just really had the wrong approach and strategy to the whole thing.

And we can turn that around quickly.

And you know, for us it's about a partnership.

So we don't.

We are not a marketing agency of yours.

We're not a vendor of yours.

We're either going to be a partner with you or we won't be with you because we want to make sure that you want to engage with our team on a regular, consistent basis, however often that needs to be.

It can be weekly.

Now, there's not a whole lot when a campaign gets launched that a week's gonna really matter, but we're gonna look at the data and we're gonna make changes to pivot here, there.

But typically to get a better holistic view of what's taking place, we need, you know, 20 or 30 days.

So every two weeks or once a month, you know, we're.

You're gonna meet with us and we're gonna go over it.

But more importantly, we put a plan together.

So what I mean by that is in our, with our clients that are, it's weather driven H vac roofing, you need that plan and you need like.

Because you can't just say, oh, you want to do 4 million this year, let's take 4 million divided by 12 and let's talk about it.

It's like, well, it doesn't work that way.

No, no.

Here in the south, it were that easy.

That's right.

80% of the clients that, where we live right In Texas, like 80% of the revenue is going to come out of four or five months of the year.

And so you got to be able to plan for that.

And so we put that plan together and when we.

In the first week, we're diving into what we call our map strategy session, where we want to know your average service ticket, your average replacement, we want to know your overhead expenses, we want to know your direct job costs or cogs on, on your equipment and things, because we want to reverse engineer the plan based off of your numbers.

Because if I've got a client that have as an average install of $12,000 and another one that's got an average install of $24,000 and they both want to increase their revenue by 2 million, well, the road and the map to get there is completely different.

I need half the leads essentially, you know, between the two companies.

So that matters.

So if you're not working with a marketing company that has properly mapped everything out based off of which month of the year it is and how much you actually your.

What your close rate is and what your average tickets are, that's a red flag big time.

Because otherwise they're just checking boxes and they're writing a blog and they're posting your social media.

And that's not what you need.

You need someone to look at.

Okay, you're trying to do $675,000 in revenue this month.

And here's what your capacity is.

Because also, just because you want to do 1.2 million in the month of July, if you don't have the capacity to do it, it doesn't.

That doesn't matter.

No joke.

I'm real quick to go, okay, so you're gonna go from 300,000 in February to 1.2 million in June and July.

That's cool.

Do you have the capacity?

How many texts?

How many calls?

We're asking these questions and they're, yeah, who's installing this?

We're gonna hire two more.

We're gonna, we need two more techs.

We're gonna hire in another install crew.

And I'm like, okay, when?

Right?

Because you're not going to wait until July and the leads get here.

Like, you know, so we just, we push back and we want to know and we lock the plan in and we go, listen, we want 60 day in advance planning.

So 60 days is locked in that we know how much revenue, how many book calls we need, how much money we're going to spend, where we're going to spend that money.

And it may change, but at least we've got a plan that we can see, they can see.

And we're all on the same team trying to hit that goal.

So I think that's really what makes us different.

But services, it's where we want to be the marketing partner.

So, like, when we put a plan together, we go, okay, here's what we need to get to.

Here's how we think your current SEO looks like.

Now, if the company can tell us, hey, we're generating X amount of leads on average from Google my business, and X from the website.

That's great.

Sam.

You don't know how many companies that really are good companies with a lot of revenue that just don't have the clean data and canceling that stuff.

And it's like, oh, how did you get to this place that you're at?

I would believe you, actually, I've worked with those companies.

I'll ask them for that.

And they're like, I don't know.

I feel like it's this.

You feel like you feel like.

But then it's like, so how much money did you spend on this?

Okay, well, how much revenue did you produce from it?

And I'm like, and it's the marketing company's fault, you know?

And, you know, I guess it is to some extent, because it's like, if the marketing company's not pushing you to get this data tracked a little better, like, you know, okay, but at the end of the day, like, if you can't tell me how much you spent on Google, ppc, lsa, Yelp, and then know how many booked calls you got, you know, how many calls, how many book calls, how many cancellations, how much revenue is produced.

If you don't have that, like, that you can spit out just like that.

That's a problem.

That's a big problem.

So anyways, we, we map everything out and we, we want to handle everything to hit your goal.

All right?

We don't do direct mail, we don't do billboards, and we don't do radio.

Right.

We were happy to work with your vendors on those partnerships, but what we do do is build websites or manage your website.

I don't like to build websites just to build them.

We don't come in and go, you need a new website that's only six months old.

We audit the website, we find out what's wrong with it.

We make sure that the right content is on the website because that's what's really important.

But we manage SEO really well.

We're really good at Google Maps.

And again, it's like, man, it sucks that we're so good at Google Maps and Google Maps may not be a thing in a couple years.

It matters, right?

I don't know.

So really where we've shifted is we are real good at video and you have to do video with us or we will give you all the video examples and scripts.

We'll build it all out and you can give it to your video company if they're local.

But we have to have these certain core assets or we won't work with you.

We prefer to come shoot it.

I think we're very, very reasonable with our video pricing because if you're going to be a client of ours, like, I'm not trying to nickel and dime you all over the place.

I want to make sure that we've got the right stuff that's going to work.

For example, when we're running ads and you think of dfw, well, I'm not gonna run an ad in Plano and it shows the, whatever that big ball circle thing is.

Downtown Dallas, right?

Reunion Tower, whatever.

Because that will cause a friction or a, a little like pattern interruption in the person watching it because they go, I live in Plano.

Why are you showing me downtown?

Yeah.

Or you're showing me Dallas.

I live in Fort Worth.

Because people in Dallas don't do business with people in Fort Worth.

It's like this weird thing for everybody.

That'S not in the country of Texas.

Dallas and Fort Worth are called the same as dfw, but if you're there, they are very different cities that are distance and separated.

So it's, it's, it's not the same.

Thing like Tampa and St.

Pete.

Like, you're not going to run an ad in Tampa and show footage, B roll background footage of St.

Petersburg because that will trip somebody's mind out and.

They'Ll know it's not me.

That's not for me.

They're not local.

They, they.

I don't even know if they come to me.

So little things like that that we want to make sure that we've got the right water towers or the right neighborhood entry, you know, footage that matches up with that certain ad that you're running.

Because if, if you get, you only have a small limit Amount of time when that person engages with that video of yours.

Like in, in that the, the number is actually three to five seconds.

You have seconds to win or lose a little extra time from the people.

And so it matters.

What you put out there matters.

And if you have ever done Facebook ads and you're go, Facebook ads don't work, they suck.

Take a look in the mirror and go see how you did them.

And if you jumped in your market and put a payments is low, new system payments finance and offer for payments as low as 89, you're the problem.

And that's why it didn't work.

It wasn't the Facebook ad.

I know $2,500 off full system.

Well, no wonder you only get the people that want the cheapest price.

Well, and here's the other thing.

You haven't earned anything else except for the cheap people.

Or they go, I called all the leads back and the people said they didn't even fill out this form or you know, whatever.

But it's like, look, when I travel a lot and I'm sure you get it based on targeting of what you search for and what your interests are.

Every time I go into a new city and I turn my phone back on from the airport, I start getting bombarded with air conditioned employment ads.

So I'm in Atlanta, Georgia, I get the ads coming in.

Well, they're all financing ads.

But here's the thing, you know, that's lead generation.

That, that lead, that offer, that campaign costs more money than just an impression only ad.

And so now they targeted me.

I don't live there, I'm the wrong person and it cost them more money.

But the approach they should have done is I should have been seeing a video and it should have been like here's five signs that your air condition's going out.

And they could have educated me if I lived there locally.

And then if I watch that video based on my engagement, they would have retargeted me.

And how we do it is the next thing that person would have seen would have been a customer testimony of how great the install was at their their home recently.

The next video they would have seen would have been another happy customer.

Like maybe we did a free system replacement for a veteran in that town or something.

And the next thing they would have seen would have been the brand story, the story brand of that company which would have been an emotional feel good video of why they're in business, what the community means to them, what the culture of their business is.

And so that's what they would have seen in the middle to build trust and credibility.

And maybe a week later, if that person kept engaging, maybe they then get an offer for a new system.

$2,000 cash back or payments as low as.

But people try to reverse that and they try to jump straight in bed with the customer on the first date like soon as they get picked up.

It doesn't work that way.

Yep.

Commission all day long.

Yep.

Oh, crazy.

Crazy.

Well, how do people get a hold of you?

Yeah.

So top served digital.com t o p s e r v digital.com.

so the, the, you know, here's the, the icon of, of our company.

So this is the V of sir.

So we, you know, it's no E.

It's served like serve pro.

You know, their, theirs is just scrb.

So top served digital.com you can email me at jonathanopserve digital.com and build Jonathan.

For us to make sure everybody gets it spelled right.

J O J O N a T H A N.

My wife calls me Joe because my golf coach used to call me Joe Nathan in high school because it's spelled Joe Nathan instead of with the h.

So yeah.

And all socials, my handles on socials is typically it's Jonathan is marketing on most of the social platforms.

But I'm easy to find.

And I'll tell you, I love helping people just like Sam does.

So you can come to me, you can, you can't abuse me.

Right.

But we, I will spend as much time as you want and if I can put the power back in your hands of helping you, helping your marketing, internal marketing team or helping you figure out, you know, if what you're doing is working or you get ripped off, that means more than me than picking you up as a client.

I've got some clients that are dear friends of mine at this point.

Right.

Started out, didn't know them at all.

And now I travel with their families and my families and we go to their lake houses, you know, take vacations together.

My motto is success to me is turning a client into a friend.

And so I've got a lot of friends that are clients now.

But it's because my team is dedicated and compassionate to wanting to truly help people.

So if I can help you in any kind of way, there's no pressure.

I will help you because I love this industry and I love the blue collar mentality of this industry.

And it's just good people that are looking to put food on the table and put their kids through college and they want to help their community.

But I think they've just been misled as most business owners have of digital, digital, digital.

It's leads, leads, leads.

And, and I think it's a lot of business owners that didn't have a business in the early 90s before Internet came out.

Because if they would have, they would still be focusing on the core of what do we do to strengthen our brand.

They may not still have to do billboards or radio and stuff but, but it would still be, we need to go to the little league team, we need to put hang out, hand out, hot dog out at the thing.

We need to go knock on doors, me and the wife and, and dress nice and give a sales folder.

They've gotten away from that because I can just go buy leads, you know.

So 16 to 18 touches of what I want to leave people with.

Let that sink in your head.

How do you touch however many people you want in your community 16, 18 times.

So if you want to try to go after a million people, multiply that by 16 or 18 and that's how many times, that's how many impressions that you need to touch them throughout the year.

Most people can't afford it.

So you're going to have to shrink your market down, get hyper focused on who is your exact customer avatar that you want and go find those people.

Love it.

Well, thanks for being on the show, man.

We got to land this plane.

So Jonathan Bannister with Top Serve Digital everybody, he is making some serious waves.

You know, he's just like me.

When everybody goes left, we go right.

If everybody goes right, we go left.

Or who knows, everybody goes one direction.

We might even just climb over the top because that's the way that we like to roll.

So thanks for being on the show man.

I appreciate it.

And for everybody if I will make sure that his contact information is in the show notes.

So if you are in Drive Time University like most of you are, I know you don't have to try to remember that and jot it down.

Be safe, keep your hands on the wheel and just pull over and check the show notes.

You can grab that link and be able to get contact him right away because I highly, highly, highly recommend if you want to exist and succeed in the coming next few years, you have to change the way you are doing things if it's only been digital.

So that is my message to you along with his fully endorse this, this gentleman and his company.

I don't say that very often when I have guests on the show.

As you know, and this is one that is definitely earned my trust.

So I'm excited for excited to see what you're doing, man.

There's lots of stuff coming out everybody.

As soon as the book drops, make sure to go sign up.

Go to his website and sign up for the launch of the book.

It's good to shake some trees, I know for sure, especially digital space.

So thanks everybody for listening.

Like always.

Like always, go become and be somebody worth buying from.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast.

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