Episode 3 - The 3 Biggest Mistakes When Marketing Your Business - Guest Is Joseph Hughes From Contractor Dynamics

Service MVP Sales Training Podcast with Joe Crisara

In the latest installment of The Service MVP Podcast, host Joe Crisara, America's Service Sales Coach invites Joseph Hughes from Contractor Dynamics on to the podcast. What are the 3 biggest mistakes home service professionals make? Well, it's all here on this episode of The Service MVP Podcast with Joe Crisara!

Contact Joe Crisara Service MVP.

Podcast Episode Transcription:

Here is your host America's service sales coach Joe Crisara alright everybody welcome to the service MVP podcast. As you know out there I'm always on the lookout for new talent and people that can help contractors succeed and I happen to run across this gentleman who are going to have on our show today I his name is Joseph Hughes from contractor dynamics and I saw a lot of those little short videos and he inspired me you know you kind of see uncle Joe's tick tocks or when you see my tick tocks with my reels that are out there oh this is the guy who kind of got me kicked in the rear end I'm like geez Joseph what are you doing out there and how can I tap into that yeah he was so generous enough to give you a few tips the pro tips and I grew from there and it's been a huge success just first I wanna say thank you first of all for taking the time and meeting with us here and thanks for all the help you've already given you already provided value to our members because all those little short things that they see from me kind of started with well you was my saw something so I wanna say thank you alright yeah yeah absolutely welcome I just you know shoot me that royalty check whenever that comes in and we're good to go but that's seriously New Jersey that's a jersey that's a jersey boy inside of you right you got you get paid for everything I'm just teasing you know this guy so generous they're seriously I know he's joking right now but seriously I he provides value from the time you meet him just just watching and observing them you get dry from him just ensure you never know specifically if I could make a profit on this myself I'd definitely be able to cut you some checks if I could do that just showed the father Joseph oh shepherd Thomas about yourself and about you know how you got in the business of helping contractors succeed with their marketing that's really what your focus is on how they can how they can just do the little things I've noticed it's not some big overreach approach we talk about the little things which are common sense that I really like a lot tell me a little about how you got started in that area and how you what inspired you to help the service industry succeed yeah cool we are marketing training companies so like a lot of people listening watching they're probably like yeah I've wasted a lot of money on marketing agencies and buying leads and this that the other thing and I just don't like this marketing thing is like a four letter word now I just don't understand it I know it's a crucial part of our business so we're training company much like you guys are Joe and your team we we equip people and companies with the tools to transform and grow so we basically teach you how to fish instead of selling your fish and then we'll come up on 10 years of business contractor dynamics based here in New Jersey on the opposite coast says as you I've got seen all over the country and the reason that well the reason I'm focused on the contracting industry is because I grew up in it as I know a lot of a lot of us did grew up in my families commercial construction business as a a 6th generation family member so that business use marine farms is 128 years old this year and so I grew up in that got to got to learn to love that and I struck out on my own about 10 years ago because I wanted to create something on my own as I know a lot of the entrepreneurial listeners will relate to and had a passion for marketing saw the gap for marketing and the construction industry which they're there still is so yeah we trained contractors on how to do their own marketing how to run their own content how to generate their own customers how to build their brand how to get more people to know who they are and we have a lot of fun doing it so that's a that's a quick overview yeah it's interesting I really like the approach too just that it said you're training people how to do marketing and I truly believe that the owner of the company that job of picking his brand which is at the top of the pyramid I say that the brand is like the promise that we're making to the community and I don't think I've ever gets away from the ownership or the top professional ones of the company to make sure we're communicating the brand to the in a way that it's personal and customized to the community right so I think I don't think it could ever be handed over to some guy in Florida or Texas or California or even in New Jersey you couldn't find somebody locally who would understand the business like the owner today we're going to talk a little bit about sorry to hear more about that training element you can probably tell us clear we're going to do the three biggest mistakes when it comes to marketing your business and mistakes that which I'm sure a lot of people are going to be familiar with because every marketing every contracting business or service business including ours has made these mistakes and definitely I can't wait to hear now what the mistakes are but also what are some of the things that the contractor could do to avoid overspending and making you know making those mistakes and getting on the right path to begin with so tell me a little about the the training element and the this is not this is a training for you not a done for you service you're talking about so tell me a little bit about that and also tell me about these big mistakes what's number one would you say and also tell me a little bit about how the training element works into that alright yeah so I'll start with the training and get into the mistakes there and I'll frame this up in the lens of like I know like marketing can be this very scary intimidating thing right someone listening watching to this is like hey I run a service business I run a contracting business like start marketing aspect how am I supposed to like learn how to do this it doesn't have to be complex I think a lot of marketing agencies and people online will try to sell you on the fact that like they've got the secret sauce this is very complex like back end stuff and you and never be able to figure out so you have to pay me to do it as essence really like you said Joe it is your reputation it's your brand it's getting people to know who you are and getting people to know who I can trust you at the end of the day it's very simple and for most companies regardless of whether you're startup or $100 million company or anywhere in between like the goal is just to wake up every day and say hey how can I get more people to know about us and that's really like what it comes down to so we ran a full service agency for seven years from 2013 through 19 and you know built websites and ran ads and did SEO for companies and things like that we built up a nationwide you know agency and it was great what we saw however in 2018 was like we had a bunch of clients that were doing really well with the services that we were providing the as we were running and we have a bunch of other clients that are paying us every month but they weren't collaborating like they weren't creating any of their content they weren't they didn't care about marketing they just wanted to kind of outsource the US and you know have us produce magic and you know 2015 2016 that worked you know it's pretty easy nowadays are just so much more noise out there so in 2018-2019 we said alright well in order for a contracting company to be successful they can't just outsource this stuff like they have to be doing some of their brand building and their content a lot of it in house right so that's where we completely shifted our model from a done for you agency into a training company where we train we train you on how to do it yourself because it's that it's that important to do that like I think a lot of companies today this might be the first mistake is a lot of companies just wanna throw money at the problem right like you don't know how to do marketing and you just wanna pay someone a few grand a month or you know whatever it is and have them like produce leads for you and sales for you and that just does not work like it's not about it's not about having the biggest marketing budget it's about how you can get people to know who you are and how you can differentiate by you know showing off your team and telling your story and sharing your process and showing off your you know video testimonials from your clients and your customer reviews and just building that trust and building yourself up as a risk free option to do business with and so you know all the money in the world is not gonna solve that problem you've gotta be dedicating some time to it and if you're looking for a solution there in terms of like the mistake being too many companies just throw a bunch of money at it OK the solution would be invest 6 to 10 hours a week every single week to market your business to build your brand to get people to know who you are now that can be social media that can be going to BNI networking events that can be you know building business building relationships going to coffee with people other contractors like that sort of thing and it could be everything in between but someone in your company whether it's you the owner or it's a spouse or it's an in-house marketing person or admin person someone in your company should be focused on marketing for six to 10 hours a week every single week and that's going to make a big difference I'm not saying you can't you know spend money to help have someone you know run some Google ads or SEO some of the technical aspects right like that that helps for sure but like you should be the general contractor of your marketing you should not just sub it out to a bunch of random subcontractors you don't know your business who frankly don't care about your business right you've got a general contractor marketing otherwise it's going to be a complete mess you guys are able to communicate yeah only you know how you would speak from the heart and so basically marketing is a conference conversation you're having with potential clients now we say you're speaking from the heart as to the motivation as to why you're even in the business that you're in and it's for a third party to understand your motivation to help your community and your clients that's the disconnect is that you know truthfully I'm guilty of that too and you probably are have been too that but it's like man maybe I just pay more somebody would dig in and learn about our business a good sound like I've ever hiring people for several $100,000 and yeah this was enough money where they should be able to dig in and sure enough they just it fell short and I I do it that's why I'm doing tick tock and stuff like that myself because it's like you know what only I can speak about the way I can help contractors and I think that's why you do these take tracks and stuff like that too which are small little bites that people get to learn about you and that's what I did I like you sold me before I even met you truthfully I I just had a good sense of who you her I felt like I got to know you you're speaking from the heart and I can tell when people are doing that could all be authenticity behind it alright Joe that is a good one that because I think you're saying I'm marketing assistant or somebody who could place the advertising as a good idea do you but you got to be the person who is saying the things that you want to say to the market the promise that you're trying to make to your community in a way about how you're going to do business Joe what is number 2 if you can move on from there sorry about that I move rapidly to this is we have a podcast only 20 minutes I wish we accept them too we should be longer but then people are telling me that it's the shortage better so I'm going to see how that works what's number two would you say yeah you actually teased it already Joe we didn't we didn't prepare for this but you said that I sold you before you even you know even like met and that's what you want to do with your marketing right the mistake would be waiting until you need business to start marketing is not about going out and hunting for someone today who is ready to get their eight track system replaced or ready to get a room for whatever it is right if you want that you're gonna have a cold calls or knock on doors or you know whatever it is and that's never a good situation to be in you've got to I call it digging your well before you're thirsty OK so start digging your well now because the work that you do now is going to come back to you in 30 days 60 days ninety 180 days so spring season is coming up right so now for example is the time to start planting these seeds to start building those relationships to start getting people to know who you are so that when March and April comes along then you're in a good position you've already put out your content you've already got people to know you've already got people to see you as someone that's different not just any old contractor or any old service company the mistake is waiting until you need it waiting until you need to need water to start digging your well whereas the solution is to start digging your well now so that when you need water in 60 days then you've already got that water flow and you could just go into that well and get as much as you want when you drink that well like you're talking about Joe I tell us about how I mean seriously I teach sales training so I mean a little bit but he to say this because it's kind of like a conflict of interest from what I teach right but that's why I tell you what this is interesting that I found that when you're right when I start doing what you're talking about and deciding your lead and you kind of led me in this direction but now the sales conversations aren't having the cell people they're coming to me saying yeah I'm ready to buy II I just need to get the prices I already want to I know we're going to use you we already we already have it in the budget for you we just need to figure out what the exact budget is right now and have you found that to be through Joe and I do #2 and you dig that well ahead of time and people get people the familiarity with the company and the brand that they can speak from the heart they know what you're all about that that sales price how much does that affect the sales process is a good question yeah it's it's night and day I mean so for example right now this morning I have two I have two leads in my inbox so one of them is from a guy who someone had just tagged me in a Facebook group yesterday and this guy reached out he has no idea you know who I am what we do that sort of thing OK so that's one lead and then we have another one that's like hey Joseph I've been following you for a while you know I I need help with my marketing I'd like to talk so like which one am I gonna get back to you first like which one has #2 I think #2 on that one yeah which one has the higher likelihood of posing you know which ones gonna be you know not just closing but like which ones gonna be a better customer better client because they're already brought in so like our they're doing things it's night and day so yeah there's no example right there and you are like a brother from another mother I can't even believe this you know my family originally from New Jersey too you never know we might have a small overlap somewhere you just never know from Trenton NJ it's goodbye now and that's a great advice that the familiarity of it and this kind of pre sold though it's like people they sold before you even met them as opposed to get stranger customers are now shopping for everybody and they kind of got this familiarity with your brand that's why I think the impact of the brand is such an important factor because it does put the grease on the sales process for sure people want people sold themselves before they even got there #3 Joe what are we talking about here what would you say the third biggest mistake is alright man so many I can list but so #3 would be waiting till running to like wait till everything's perfect and and lined out before you do it right so you don't have to have like a professional video crew you don't need to have you know all your ducks in a row you don't need to have the perfect website you don't even need to have a website OK just get out there and one way to do it is get out there on social media like we talked about the beginning Joe get on camera guess what everyone's scared to get on camera I I am too I still am nervous about it but I've been doing it for a bunch of years I've gotten the reps in I get comfortable with it and I know that the impact it has on on our market and on our business on the people that we get to work with so if you can get out of your comfort zone and get on camera and just start getting the reps in it's like going to the gym you don't go on you know January 1st and you're not going to you know have any personal records at the gym you gotta show up day in and day out week in and week out and then you get stronger you get better at it those weights never get lighter you just get stronger you just get more capable of doing it so don't wait don't wait do it today if you're listening to this watching this do it today do something today get on your smartphone get on video talk about the services that you provide people solve problems give them some education and just go from there just get started you've gotta start and that's where a lot of people just they don't start you know wait for perfection it's progress not perfection right you're not going to get it truthfully if it was perfection it probably wouldn't be you because you're probably not perfect right it's if they wouldn't be wouldn't be optic anymore you'd be taking away that number 2 aspect of it which is that authentic you that you're getting there right and you're losing that authenticity when it's too slick in a way that makes sense oh absolutely like even on stage I got up on stage and talked about you know I opened up with how nervous I am and things like that not just immediately kind of breaks down that barrier and people can connect with you so authenticity is is so key yeah it's like sharing your feelings about the way things are you know truthfully when I when I took your lead and started doing it myself I noticed that like I'm like man like I look awful on camera alright I saw like I didn't like the sound of my own voice like the way I looked I'm like screw it I'm just doing this and then I started modifying a I got a program that the subtitles for me and I'm like that's pretty cool and then I got you know I found a way to commit my face look a little bit prettier at the so that I'm like OK I can live with this and then truthfully nobody gave a crap that really I was like I'm way over but I think the biggest thing I did like you're saying is that kind of like I'm just gonna do I've gotta take something that happened today I think a good tip would be guys I know we figured this job go get a pro tip for myself I from my I'm listening to you and what I learned from you is that take a problem that you're currently going through today and how you solve that problem and make that problem public as content or your what do you think of that advice Joe use that as sort of a content idea generator we think I mean that's the that's the best absolutely so take the FAQ that you're getting from your customers your market from other people like how does this work or how do I make a good decision about this how do I choose the better of the you know the best contractor for my job or whatever it might be just answer questions a lot of times I'll sit here right here in my studio at the end of the day and just kind of recap my day and I'll you know pull out my phone and I'll do it Instagram real or story or Facebook and I'll just say hey you know we helped this client out with this problem today this challenge I know this is a common thing that a lot of people go through so I want to help you out with it too and like it's as simple as that you don't need to like write a script or anything like that just to kind of recap your day but like 3 minute in terms of like how is your audience going to benefit from this info and if you frame it in that lens and you're that you're going to always like be putting out valuable content and I think that you know we could have taken a lead from TV stations they've known this for many years but the future really has about attention span of about 17 seconds even 30 seconds is like forever you know I do 60 seconds on those things I've some of might do but I and I I realize that you when I'm doing like I used to think like 5 minutes was short but truthfully I start realizing that even 30 seconds so I'm trying to figure out how to get in the 15 seconds so if you got something that's just an idea of lesson that you learned from a mistake that your company made you say Here's something that a common mistake that roofing companies or heating companies make but our company here's what we did to offset that so we're going to do this for you as our community department to take 17 seconds 15 seconds that I think the attention span of the average person got realized that you know it's this thing you're putting out there it may not be perfect but it's you know showing people that you're putting thought into creating solutions for your community that's really what business is about without creating solutions this is really nothing right Joe absolutely yeah I mean you're helping people solve problems I know you talk about that in your sales process the pure motive right like going through the whole process and you're not just selling you know an air conditioning unit or a roof like you're really truly helping people solve their problems so absolutely so Joe tell me what's in your heart why is it So what triggers you as your pure motive I know I got home clear motives for the contractors and we have ours too for service MVP but tell us a little bit about Joseph Hughes and the motivation that gets you every morning to make these tick tocks and hit Facebook and it's still do a full time job working with your clients to teach them and train them well let's think motivates you what gets what's the reason what's better some reasons why you find it so important and you have so much passion for this job because I struggle as a business owner the first three years because I I try to figure I thought I had to figure out everything on my own I thought somehow my business model was unique and I had a I had to figure out all my own and maybe that's my blue collar kind of work ethic coming through and it wasn't until I kind of tapped into you know my first mastermind group got my first business coach three years in I was like wow like my problems are not unique like I don't need to figure out everything on my own right so when you get out of my own way let me trust other people let me leverage the experience of others I'm not going to eliminate all the mistakes of course but can I limit them can I limit the downside can I shorten my learning curve can I get a community of people that really understand my problems and realize that like hey we all go through the same stuff and that's a big part of it I know there's so many business owners out there and other leaders just trying to figure things out right whether it's business whether it's managing business and building a family and trying to stay healthy and all those things like it's all it's all connected so I just like to share my experiences and it worked for me because I know that other people go through a lot of the same you know challenges upsides downsides that sort of thing so yeah I can help people on their journey like that's I can help one person with a piece of content and that's you know shift their mindset around a particular thing or believe in themselves a little bit more or get out of their own way like that's a that's a win every day what's that like for you when you get feedback from clients that said Joe your service is really helping me what's that like when they give you that kind of feedback for you what's that is that the home you're looking for is that is that is that really what you're after what you think yeah words of affirmation or my love language so like if you say thank you or if you let us know that you know getting clients to the point where they're generating more sales and making more money like that's cool you know that's great uh we have young clients who are you know they're hiring their first employee because of you know the guidance that we've given them and now they can you know now they can you know take some more time off or maybe don't have to work 14 hours a day maybe they can spend more time with their family or they can you know we have one client in Texas he's actually a a full time contracting company owner and a full time fireman couple of his fireman in his department passed away on fire and he was able to take a couple weeks off and whatnot his business still ran because he was you know he had people in place he had processes in place he was generating business because of the training and coaching that we provided so that's like life changing stuff so that's an awesome impact that is that's really rewarding I don't think anything can replace that feeling that you helped another person and it just changed your life in a way and so give us a little verbal picture paint a verbal picture for us as to if somebody does in this training process like one or two player combination question here one is that if people are currently have a digital platform or using a digital company it sounds like you're helping them use that platform better it's not like a replacement for somebody who's already got a digital firm I may have their website or Facebook ads you're just going to help them communicate with inside that framework is that am I on the right page or do you is that something that you want to provide that framework too or do you have that available and then how's that work there yeah it could be a little both so like we train our we train contractors on that have to do their own marketing as a 12 month program and I will say at least half of our clients that training but also still working with like an outside marketing agency whether it's like google ads or SEO and things like that we will focus on the social end of things helping them create that content to build their brand run social media ads on facebook and instagram generate those leads you know recruit people to join their team and so yeah that's part of so, but it's you know showing people that you're putting thought you think yeah it words of affirmation or my love language so like if you say thank you or if you let us know that you know getting clients to the point where they're generating more sales and making more money like that's cool you know that's great we have young clients who have you know hiring their first employee because of you know the guidance that we've given them and now they can you know now they can you know take some more time off or maybe not have to work 14 hours a day maybe they can spend more time with their family or they can you know we have one client in Texas he's actually a a full-time contracting company owner and a full time couple of his firemen in his department passed away in a fire and he was able to take a couple weeks off and whatnot his business still ran because he was you know he had people in place you have processes in place he was generating business because of the training and coaching that we provided so that's like life changing stuff so that's a that's a that's an awesome impact that is that's really rewarding I don't think anything can replace that feeling that you've helped another person and just change your life in a way and so give us a little verbal picture paint a verbal picture for us as to if somebody does in this training process now 122 player combination question here one is that if people are currently have a digital platform or using a digital company it sounds like you're helping them use that platform better it's not like a replacement for somebody who's already got a digital firm may have their website or Facebook ads you're just going to help them kind of communicate with inside that framework is that start the right page or do you is that something that you want to provide that framework too or do you have that available and then how does that work there yeah it could be a little both so like we train our we train contractors on that have to do their own marketing it's a 12 month program and I will say at least half of our clients that we're training they're also they're still working with like an outside marketing agency whether it's like Google ads or SEO and things like that we really focus on the social end of things helping them create that content to build their brand run social media as on Facebook and Instagram generate those leads you know recruit people to join their team and so yeah that's part of it so for example we have a new client out in California actually there they're doing a lot and they're spending you know several grand a month on Yelp ads which are just not producing you know they reallocated their Yelp budget into us and to social media advertising so they're you know they're not just generating random leads from Yelp but they're generating leads through their brand through people seeing their content so it could be a combination but I would say yeah I mean that that's a valid point like our clients that understand marketing now they can more effectively work with an agency and say hey here's how we're going to collaborate I'm going to call you out on your BS if you're giving me the runaround or you know I need I need to have better tracking and reporting because I need to know my numbers you know there's so many companies out there that are you know paying a marketing agency to do marketing and they're not getting reports they don't understand their numbers they don't know what they're getting from their money and it's just like this big black hole it's this big like unknown in a way you're like the liaison between the you know even if clear teaching these things here but you're also going to be able to say hey you should be getting you should be kind of a keeper of the Pi and saying hey you're not getting this telling this or whatever kind of helping with that little bit of a mentoring to give those that missing piece like I don't know what they should be doing and you would know more of that kind of a middle piece of that to give advice to people that's really I mean and whether you use your resources which I'm sure that you do have correctly that if somebody needed the whole thing is that we can give you resources of people that will do this for you we will you know get teach you how to how to use those resources apparently if you have your own resources right with each how to use those too is that something the right person yeah we have trusted partners that do you prefer you know if someone needs SER or website or whatever it is we have partners that that we refer just because we know them we trust them and we have 100% conviction in them so absolutely yeah I mean there's we have a company out in the Iowa I was out there this summer visiting them they're spending 100 grand a year on Google ads and they're like they don't they don't they don't even know what they're getting they don't even know how to read the report so we'll sit down with them and you know we're not at odds with that marketing agency we're like hey you know why don't you get double reporting this is how you need to track this is what questions you need to ask like you should demand that you're having you know weekly phone calls with them to understand your data you're spending six figures on this stuff like it needs to be producing you know right what is the process to work with you I mean it's a 12 month I think I heard you whisper out there we leak it out there for us tell us a little bit about the glide path that when you work with contractor dynamics what does that glide path look like for contractors and is it only 12 months or is it ongoing tell me a little bit about that so yeah we're happy to work with you forever if you want but yeah it's 12 month initial today we want you to be brought into this this idea like we're gonna help you build out a marketing machine in your business and train your people you know train your sales reps that they're going out great content as well but it's heavily focused on one-on-one training with our marketing trainers heavily focused on that or you you'll go build you a game plan for the entire year and throughout the year you'll meet on a cadence of every week or two and continue to build that out and to run it the way our small group calls we have a private Facebook group we have a whole online university and then we also included in all that is business coaching from an active 8 figure contracting company owner rather that in this year job because we realized that our clients have you know challenges that are not just marketing related so we brought in brought in a guy named Ben Fisher who owns a successful contracting company and he's a part-time member of our team and he'll provide coaching to our clients on you know personnel HR financing finances you know margin things like that so process so we do a little bit of that as well included in our in our program well Joe it's good I'm good meeting start time but a great one ends up time a little bit late for that because I I'm sorry I could talk to you for hours and our time is up but go ahead and tell people how yeah how can I contractor get involved with contractor dynamics and what do they do how do they get ahold of you yes simple contractor dynamics.com we got all our socials link there we go to YouTube final podcasts although everything there you can follow our content we got a lot of free training ton of free training out there just as you do so yeah get it says for that feel free to reach out if you wanna hop on a zoom call we can help you out some insights there alright Joe we're gonna thank you so much for taking your time and enlightening our listeners to some of the things that mistakes they could make and my greatest hope is that you're going to help them avoid those mistakes and I would definitely highly recommend here's what I can tell you is that I have Joe gives me the feeling like just by watching him and seeing him work that he's kind of undefeated in creating value because I know that he's not going to get out of work he's not going to stop the effort really marketing companies or people teach how to do marketing only fail when the effort stops truthfully and because marketing is an effort it's not like it's not ever perfect the first time you do something it's gonna take time to kind of adjust I think that's what really impresses me Joe about you is that you are relentless in that effort to make sure that contractors get across that goal line that's a great point yeah man amazing team that that that enables that so yeah that's a huge point so thank you Joe I appreciate it the privilege is mine thanks for having me on thank you so much Joe we'll see we'll see you next time we'll see you on Facebook OK alright see you on the socials!