Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Ross McDaniel, Founder of Fencepost

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Ross is the Founder of Fencepost, a digital marketing agency that helps small businesses grow their revenue by increasing their visibility and connecting them with more high-quality customers.Fencepost has generated 25K+ qualified new leads and 3K+ new 5-star reviews (just last year) for their clients. They use the Local Growth Formula- a proven method created by Ross that leverages paid search, online reviews, business listing optimization, and more to ensure their clients’ businesses show up when their ideal customers search for them.Passionate about developing communities by helping local businesses thrive, Ross has nearly a decade of experience running digital campaigns for businesses, large and small, managing millions in ad spend. He is also the Co-Founder of Trellis Coffee Bar, a local specialty coffee shop that is using Fencepost’s Local Growth Formula to grow sales.On the podcast, Ross would love to talk about:The value of online reviews for local businesses. Customers are willing to spend 31% more at businesses with excellent reviews.The difference between passive and active referral systems.When to use ads and when not to, and the value of Google business.How to answer calls effectively to close new leads.Why growing local businesses are the most vital part of community revitalization.Learn more: https://www.fencepost.co/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-ross-mcdaniel-founder-of-fencepost

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. Influential Entrepreneurs is sponsored by Marketing Huddle, where we build an authority positioning portfolio for entrepreneurs using podcast and TV interviews and guaranteed press coverage. For more information, go to Mike Saunders360.com. Today we have with us Ross McDaniel, who's the founder of Fence Post. Ross, welcome to the program. Mike, thanks for having me.

I'm glad to be here. Hey, you're welcome, and I want to hear all about what you do and how you do it and why you do it, but get us started first with what's your story, what's your background, and how did you get into the business industry? Yeah, like a lot of people, my background starts from pretty unassuming, unassuming origins. I got to, I don't know, junior, senior year of college, getting a classic business administration degree, right? Nothing. Not to discount bachelor's in business administration, but.

But when you don't know what to do, you major in business. That's right. That's what you do. Yeah. Or psychology. That's right. That was my wife. So there you go.

Yeah. We covered the bases. And yeah, I just found myself like, what in the world? And my best friend and I took a marketing class with, to this day, my favorite professor and still have a close relationship with her Dr. Loda. And she turned us on to at the time the really brand new world of digital marketing. This was, you know, 15 years ago. And yeah, that was still a niche because just being a digital marketer was a niche in it of itself. And ended up freelancing, or I'm sorry, ended up.

getting hired on as an intern at a budding agency, digital agency in North Augusta, South Carolina. Fast forward to several tens of thousands of dollars and student loan debt later realized I needed to supplement my income and started freelancing. In Google ads, that was the world. And when you fast forward from there, really just found a love for helping local home service businesses generate better quality and honestly predictable leads using Google ads, meta ads, and local SEO. And today we've got a awesome coffee shop that kind of espouses our local growth formula alongside

our digital agency fence post. And we're just trying to serve local communities all across the United States. I love it. And I know that a lot of businesses think that, oh, I'm going to start my business doing, fill in the blank, whatever it is, hang up my quote. unquote shingle and you know if you build it they will come and many times that's not the case you know you get that initial burst because your fengen family know you opened up the whatever shop and then all of a sudden it's like ooh what do i do and then i feel like people feel like um well i'm online

all the time and i see this person said this should work so i'm going to try that for 10 seconds and when it doesn't work in 10 seconds then they're going to try something else and they actually are trying things that might even work but they never gave it enough time but But until they come up with a plan that is tried and true and really effective and give it the time to work, I think that they just start getting frantic and they're just like shiny object syndrome. Is that kind of what you see as well? Yeah, 100%. Let's take a roofing company, for example. It's not a metaphorical shingle. It's literally a shingle, right? Yeah. And they're out there. And anybody can become a roof or anybody can become a soft washer.

or anybody can become a long care expert. But when it comes down to the actual business nuts and bolts, oftentimes there's a big gap there. And so we have to bridge the gap. So where do you start when you are talking with, let's just say that coffee shop you mentioned and they become an advocate and they have a business owner that comes in and they go, oh, you need to talk to Ross.

They give you a call and go, teach me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. Where do you start with that? I wish. Oftentimes, I think digital marketing especially gets labeled as a black cat, snake oil industry. Because it used to be. It used to be and maybe still is in many regards, especially like with the advent of AI in the same way anybody can become a roof or anybody can become a digital marketer. And I think that's the very first thing is we have to, you know, on our end, we have to help you understand you being the home service business owner that there is a.

different pathway. And without spending a ton of money, you can find that pathway. And that pathway leads to predictability and profitability. Oftentimes, not oftentimes, every time, it starts with a four ingredient local growth formula. Visibility, competency, social proof, and referral. And if you're a home service business and have those four key ingredients, you're going to crush it. We just have to help you figure out what those mean for you. Here's something that I would say also, in air quotes online marketing. A lot of times you're hearing people talk about the digital side of things with let's build trust in content and let's teach and do,

you know, videos and blogs and articles and whatever the case is. And that might still, that might be wonderful for the local business. But I would venture to say that many of the companies you work for, like let's say a roofer or a plumber, they're not interested in reading 19 articles and watching 12 videos to make that decision. their hot water heater dispersed and they need help now.

So talk a little bit about the nowness that you have to be right there invisible for the people that are searching even on their phone. Yeah, I'm going to have to moniker the nowness because that's a great, a great term. We might call it urgency. Yeah, you can have it. Yeah, I mean, the crux of it is, is you've got to be highly visible, the most visible at the time somebody needs you to be visible the most. Yeah.

It's a big way of saying, hey, show up at the very top of Google searches for the searches that are being done by customers that actually need it, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that visibility comes in for that. You know, someone is Googling, you know, Best Plummer near me, that kind of a thing. And then that way that you want to then have your Google listing tightened up. You might want to have an ad. you might want to make sure that you've got then the social proof covered with reviews because of someone, even in a case of an emergency, you still aren't going to call, you know, Billy Bob's Plummer that looks like they have a website from Craigslist era. You know, you still want to have that competency aspect. And you also want to have that social proof where you're, you know, and we'll talk about this in a second because I know you focus on reviews. But I love how you talk about visibility.

then the social proof ties into that. So what specifically is the most important thing when you're working with the business? Is it getting some of those ads, Google ads? Is it sprucing up there, Google my business? Or is it working on reviews? Which do you start with first? I think it's the lowest hanging fruit first. And we like to go through things in order.

And oftentimes an order is dictated by your budget. Some of the most free and most impactful things you can do are optimize. your Google business listing and asking for reviews. Why not start there, right? Like that is the thing that you should be doing, whether or not you have $100,000 annual budget or a $1 annual budget. So that's always where we're starting

is both of those two spots. Yep. And then once you start getting a little bit of proof of concept or return on investment, then you can throw fuel on the fire, right? When you start seeing the formula working. Yeah. And I think that's the predictability and profitability aspect of what we do.

We want to make sure you have a really strong foundation first, which means, you know, 50 to 100, five-star reviews. And an office admin that can answer the phone when you inevitably pour gasoline on the fire in the form of paid ads. More than just you out in the field working on these jobs. I think those are the types of things we want to see before we actually start. Yeah, boring gasoline on the fire there. That's a really good point there because I've heard the saying before, build capacity in advance of demand.

And if you are a one-man show and you start throwing a bunch of ad spend and you get the phone ringing, that's wonderful. But then all of a sudden it just peters out because you can't get to people fast enough and then you provide bad customer service. So I think having a, that doesn't mean you ramp up to 12 employees. it just might mean you have a little bit of a something in place. So you start with the low-hanging fruit. Where do you feel like the social proof from reviews comes in?

And I love how you threw out that big number because I think that a lot of people go, hey, I got 50 reviews and my competitors have 20. Well, put the pedal to the metal and get 150, get 250. Get 250. You never stop. That's right. Yeah, you never stop. And I think that we've got some really cool benchmarks in place.

that have made sense for a lot of our clients. And that is, once you get to 100 reviews, Google really starts rewarding that and boosting you in the Google Mappack and then in other areas in your search listings. And then at about 500, you're really, it's tough for other people to overtake you and you are getting maximum impact from Google. At 1,000, you're basically untouchable.

It's going to take decades for people to topple you, your competitors to topple you. And so those are our benchmarks there. But let's get to 100 first and really start reaping some of those benefits. Does having 100 reviews also help, you mentioned in like the Google My Business, three pack, that kind of thing, but does it also help in Google ads? Like if you're buying actual ads, is there any better placement or anything if you then also, if Google also sees you have a whole lot of reviews? Yeah, absolutely. We like to say there's a symbiotic relationship between organic search and paid search. And so if you have a great Google business listing that is well populated, regularly posted on, and lots of four and five star reviews,

well, that's going to serve as one, a great ad extension on your Google ads, but two, it's going to drive your ad rank up and your overall ad cost down on a cost quickly basis. Yeah. That's, see, that's where I was driving and I assumed and thought that, but now you're quantifying it. and it's like you can't just do one thing well. It's got to be all of that. You know, you've got to, and I'm sure that you can give a masterclass on how to properly set up and optimize your Google my business listing because it's not just fill in the blank and, okay, I set it up. There might be some intricacies there that you want to make sure you have whatever the case done. But then you don't stop there.

When you buy your ads, you got to buy them the right way and definitely the business owner should not be the one doing it. You need help because I've seen courses where it's like, Boy, it's like a two-week course just to learn how to set up and do a proper Google ad. But if that is the ad, if that's only the thing you're doing and you didn't focus on the Google My Business listing, you might be losing out a little bit. Here it makes me think of something else. Where do you recommend your customers, your clients, point their Google ad when someone sees that ad, where do you have them point that click to? meaning is it the homepage of the website? Is it a specific landing page?

Yeah, we want to see the end user wants one thing. And they want to speak to somebody or know how much something costs. And if they can find out how much something costs without speaking to somebody, well, then they're going to go to that. But for us, like the end business owner, we want the opportunity to speak to them regardless of how much the thing does. And so the perfect apex of that is, sending to one of two places. One, a direct phone call from either the Google Map Pack or the Google ad.

Having that click to call is incredibly valuable. And we're measuring conversions as anything over 60 seconds there. So getting somebody to click to call is priority number one. Priority number two would be driving them to a landing page that makes it extremely easy for them to get a little bit of the taste of what it's like doing business with you, but also an easy pathway to go ahead and schedule a time with you. If we can do. those things in that order were winning. I couldn't agree more. And I think that the power of having

a really specific landing page is huge because if someone says, oh, I just want to click to go to my homepage of my website, you might be, you know, using like the plumber as the example, you might do commercial plumbing, residential plumbing, HVAC. And then if you send them to your homepage,

people see that they're in emergency with their hot water heater. And now all of a sudden it's like, I'm confused and boom, they bounce off. Whereas if they went to, a landing page and the ad specifically was hot water heater troubles, click here and they go to a landing page with the owner doing a quick video like, hey, don't worry, we've got you. Here's what we do. And the landing page has the click to call.

It has, you know, whatever else. But now you're speaking right to them and that gives the best chance possible to get that next action. That's exactly right. It's exactly right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's really, really good. I think that now we start getting into a question that I would have is like, oh, you need reviews and all of that.

Here is something that I have seen so many times. It's like, you know, people come into whatever, the shop and like, oh, hey, give us a review on Google. And they're like, yeah, we will. They walk out and then their life hits them in the face and it's like, yeah, I forgot. That's right. Or we'll send you an email and give us a review. Okay, we will, love you, bye. And they don't do it.

So how do you make sure that your clients are getting those reviews, you know, as much as possible? Yeah. This is where timing matters so much. It's no fault of the customer zone that you're out of sight, out of mind after that. I mean, that's just human nature. The best way that we know to get people to leave a review, we call it a review response rate, the number of reviews per review request, right? the best way we know to do that is to send a text message and an email right at the point of payment, right?

So right after they have settled up, they're getting something. Yeah. And I should say even before that, the tech or the representative or whoever's out on site for a home service business at the home, they should be actually doing a handshake and a request right then and there. Maybe it's QR code or something like that. But speed to request matters so much. And we see that for referrals too. So like at the time of our business is done, thank you very much, you know, going ahead and asking, hey, how did you like our service? Would you be willing to leave a review?

Also, do you mind if I go talk to your neighbors? Do you mind walking over with me? Those types of things are just, they skyrocket your review response rate and your referral response rate. And what I would even say is if you could rank, which is the number of the number of the rate? better. Buying Google ads or getting reviews or getting referrals. I'm sure that, you know, ask 10 people, you get 12 opinions. But what I would say is getting referrals, a number one, number two would be the reviews. So take that time. Don't, you know, make sure the messaging and the climate in your business when you have your weekly meetings with your staff,

stress the power of doing such a good job that you become referable. Not just, lambing a job together and go and give us a review because that review won't either be done or done the best way. But I agree with you. If the tech is right there and they've done a great job, they've cleaned up well, whatever the job is. And they shake hands and go, hey, thank you for your business. Oh, by the way, you know, kind of like do the Colombo clothes, as they say, you know, you're getting ready to leave. Oh, by the way, could you do us a quick favor? Oh, yeah, yeah. What do you need? Hey, we've got our iPad right here. If you can just, you know, give us a quick review on our service that helps us build our business. Oh, we'd love to. And then there it is. It's pulled

up, they type it right. You know, they have to log into their Google account and whatever. But the point is, I think earning the right to ask is just critical and key. I think so. Earning the right to ask is a really great way to put it. Because everything that you do along the way, every touch point you have, every interaction you have with the customer is leading up to that ask. You know, obviously the deliverable matters, and that's where that competency component comes into play. But what is actually part of your deliverable? Is it the finish? roof, is it the softwash driveway? Well, no, it's also the first, you know, contact you have over the phone. It's whether or not you send a reminder that you're coming out, whether you

introduce yourself, whether you're wearing a colored shirt, whether you're on time. It's all of those things leading up to that final handshake. And thanks for your business, leave us a review. It's the experience. It really is. And there's definitely nuances and tips and tricks. And I remember hearing in the industry that as soon as one of the industries out there started put the little booties on the little you know like the little hair net things on your on your feet that just just like so nice and easy to do but it showed respect for the home and it's like oh that kind of sets the stage and then they come in and then they're nice and they speak competently which is one of your pillars and and all of those things play into that but man if you do all of that and then forget you

know i'm late from my next job let me just pop on out of there and you forget to ask for that review, man, what a huge lost opportunity because then the chance that you're going to get them to respond to an email or the text, it does go down quite a bit. Significantly. Yeah. You drilled it. And I think a lot of this stuff is, I mean, it's just first principles and common sense, right? It's not rocket science, but it is the thing that we miss so often. Yeah. Yeah. It's the little things. And it's been said, how you do anything is how you do everything. So even if you think, I'm just not going to do this this time. But all of a sudden, Now, that's the thing that stands out. You know, you leave a little dirt in the work area or you got a little smudge on the carpet as you walked out. Boy, that's what they remember, not the timeliness and not the collar shirt. So it's all of that plays into it.

And then I would even say this too, once you, you know, kind of focusing then on the reviews and things, once you start getting those reviews. And let's say you hit that 100 mark, man, turn that into your marketing. Put that into your Google ads. Your Google My. Well, it's part of your Google My Business anyway. but put it on your landing page. You know, we have earned 112 five-star reviews in our area. You know, we're looking forward to earning yours as well.

And layering that social proof into your marketing then helps amplify it as well. Agreed. Totally agree. And I mean, yeah, that's the anthem that we're preaching every day. You can create a great business just by being good at what you do and treating your customers well. Yeah. Well, I tell you, Ross, this has been really, really exciting.

I love what you're doing. If someone is interested in reaching out and touching base with you and learning more, what's the best way they can do that? We would love to give you a free video assessment. We have a small team of nine, and I'd love to give you an assessment over a video. Just go over to our website at fencepost.c.o. And request a free assessment. We'll be glad to take a look under the hood and see what we've got there.

Excellent. Well, Ross, thank you so much for coming on. It was such a pleasure chatting with you today. you as well. Thanks for having me, Mike. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www. www.Influentialentrepreneursradio.com.