The Home Service Expert Podcast - Building A Compelling Brand To Attract Lifelong Customers

Episode Date: March 21, 2019

Tonya Eberhart is a speaker, book author, and founder of BrandFace, a firm that provides assistance to real estate professionals and owners in building their brands and landing more clients. She also established the Reboot Campus online training platform for media sales professionals. Michael Carr has been a top-selling real-estate auctioneer since 1991, with 24 years of experience and involvement in over 68,000 home sells. A former BrandFace client, he co-authored “BrandFace for Real Estate Professionals” with Tonya. In this episode, we talked about branding, speaking, digital marketing...

This is the Home Service Expert podcast with Tommy Mello. Let's talk about bringing in some more money for your home service business. Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week, Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields, like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership, to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now, your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Welcome back to the Home Service Expert. My name's Tommy Mello, and today I have

two special guests. I have Tanya Eberhardt and Michael Carr. We're going to talk about branding, marketing, speaking, training, coaching, and sales. Tanya Eberhard is a speaker, author of three books, and the founder of Brandface. She helps real estate professionals, business owners, and improvement professionals build their brand and land more clients. One of the books she wrote, Brandface for Entrepreneurs, is written in collaboration with Michael Carr, a top-selling real estate auctioneer. Michael Carr is a top real estate auctioneer. He started his journey as an auctioneer in 1991, and in 1994, he got licensed as a real estate agent

and made a shift towards selling homes. During his 24 years of experience, he's been involved in over 68,000 home sales across the country. Currently, he's the CEO of Michael Karn Associates. In 2007, Tanya co-founded Remerge Marketing Services Group to consult business owners and traditional media companies on integrated marketing practices. To help supplement this effort, Tanya authored an online training platform for media professionals called Reboot Campus, where over 750 media sales reps receive training and

certification for digital integration fundamentals. Now, Michael is a former senior vice president of brokerage for auction.com and personally conducted over 2000 auctions during his tenure there. And I got to say, I'm excited to get going today, guys. All right. So, Tanya, tell us a little bit about where you've been and where you're at today. Okay. Well, I grew up in a small town in North Georgia, and it was known for moonshine and car racing, NASCAR to be specific. And I love the small town, but right after high school, you know, I was ready for the big bad world. So I went to Tallahassee, Florida, to Florida State, joined their theater program. That didn't take too long for me to realize that just wasn't the world that I belonged in. And so I was selling vacuum cleaners door to door to pay my way through college.

And at the time, I was probably three years into selling vacuum cleaners and ran across the home of a radio station engineer. And he invited me to apply for a sales job at a radio station. Well, fast forward 18 years later, I spent all that time in radio and other forms of media, helping key clients put together integrative marketing campaigns across television, radio, print, direct mail, digital, you name it. And throughout all of that time, there was this strong thread of personal branding through everything that I did. And that was my passion. And so that really is how Brandface came to be today is through my early days in radio and realizing that all of the radio station advertisers that I was dealing with, the business owners who were super successful,

one thing that many of them had in common was that they were the face and the voice of their own business. And that's really where the passion for me came in because I was able to see that success early on and then help shape that success for others as I went through my years in media. And for home service, this is huge, I think, because a lot of times people don't think maybe some of the stuff that you've done in the past relates, but it's 100% home service niche based because when I look at Ken Goodrich with Gettle Air Conditioning, and I look at a lot of these guys, I look at them, they're in every commercial, they're in the radio, they're the voice. Even a lot of people might know the Shane Company. And I listened to Tom Shane and like

these big, huge companies. You're so right. It's the personality of when they grew up and what brought them to be. And it's the story behind it, right? It is so right. It's what we call the story behind the face. And it's so important. Our mantra is people don't buy from a logo. They buy from a person. And that is the whole meaning behind what Brandface stands for is the person behind the business. I love it. Now, Michael comes from a completely different background. So, Michael, tell us a little bit about your auctioneer days and going deep into the real estate brokerage. Yeah, same situation as Tonya, even though we're separated by a couple of states now.

I grew up in North Georgia, about 45 minutes north of the downtown Atlanta area and got started in the auction business. My dad was a car dealer and so I sold. I wanted to be around that atmosphere, but I didn't really want to be in the car business. And I love being an auctioneer. My mentor told me to get my real estate license. And that led to buying my own stuff, my own portfolio, building a rental portfolio over the years and rehabbing a lot of houses and spending time in that genre of business, even more so than like arm's length transaction brokerage stuff. And so I opened up my own firm in 2000. And then in 2006, I partnered with a company out of Irvine, California, and we took on the Bear Stearns portfolio, residential portfolio, when they went under and commenced to work in the next five or seven years just auctioning off properties constantly, like hundreds daily, in fact, in a live auction event arena.

And then meanwhile, we were building a platform to sell them online. And that gave me an opportunity to work with a lot of investors and work with a lot of investment property. And so we had a crew working on my own residential portfolio while I was traveling. It dawned on me I could sell it. So I started talking to the investors that I was selling houses to, and they started hiring me in Atlanta. Even though I was working all over the country, I worked for three that were working on major cities inside the United States. One of them was maybe seven, most of them around three or four

major markets, and Atlanta happened to be all of them and was on the radar for all of them. So my crews over here started rehabbing not only our own houses, but houses for those other investors that I was selling for. And over that tenure, we probably did well over 600 houses for those investors during that time period. And then I met Tanya and began to find out the real value in putting your face out there when you have a business that is personal, whether it be real estate or whether it be home improvement or plumbing or any of the trades that fall underneath those things. If people know your face and they know that the buck stops with you, it tends to exponentially grow your marketing dollars. Yeah, that's true. I love the concept of this because a lot of the companies, I don't know what the threshold is and maybe you guys have

some insight to this and I don't know exactly. You guys will just have to chime in and see who picks the questions. But from my perspective, I see a lot of fly-by-night or small companies, and they're not the same thing, but the large companies, and maybe it's 5 million plus, they start to develop a brand. And that brand awareness comes from typically radio, TV, and billboards. Whereas a lot of the stuff we do online is direct response, and there's really no brand behind it until we start these other media types. How do we start to develop a brand as well as give that face to it? I'll answer that one, Tommy. One of the things that people have a misconception about sometimes

is that a brand only belongs on certain types of marketing platforms. And digital marketing is so important these days because it is the bulk of how we communicate and interact, right? We still have billboards with self TV and radio. However, TV and radio audiences have diminished quite a bit over the years. And so there is the opportunity of starting to build that brand. And we start that, Tommy, by really three different things. You start it by defining that point of differentiation. What is it about you that stands out from everybody else in your industry? What's so different about you? And then we need to define that ideal customer. So if you know your ideal customer, you know how to build upon

that brand that's going to continue to attract that same type of customer. A lot of times people will say to me, well, I have a brand already. And I ask them, well, what does your brand stand for? And if they can't answer that question, then they really don't have a well-defined brand. But the other thing is they don't always realize that they need to have an ideal customer first. They need to have that ideal customer in mind because otherwise, how are you gonna know what to put in your marketing and in your brand messaging

and how to shape your brand image if you don't know who you're trying to attract? So I think starting with those things is really, really important to build a brand. I want to dive a little bit deeper into that because when I think about a customer, I think about very analytical things. I think about their income level. If it's an income household, is it a male or female? I go to all these things about an avatar. Obviously, they need to own a home with a garage for the garage or industry. How much more specific do we have to get with our audience or avatar?

Well, I think you need to look at several different things. So first of all, it needs to be somebody you can truly help. You've got to match up your own point of differentiation and characteristics and talents with the person that needs that help. You want to deal with somebody who appreciates you as well. Just because somebody lines up in a certain logical category in terms of income or gender or household value or whatever that is, doesn't mean they're your ideal customer.

You want somebody who's going to appreciate what you bring to the table, listen to what you have to say and recommend you to others. And then you want it to be somebody you enjoy working with. And finally, somebody that you can, that is profitable for you. Meaning not only are they going to be an ideal customer for you, but they're going to recommend you to other people as well. And it could be somebody who's at a higher price point, a higher ticket level, or somebody that just is in a certain big group of people

that there's enough business out there that you're never going to run out of business. However you define that profitable customer, but that's at H-E-A-P. The help, the enjoy working with them, the appreciate, and the profit. And that's how we determine an ideal customer. Perfect. Now, Michael, you come from the broker industry and agent industry. And my mom was an agent for 25 years. My sister was a loan officer. I think that the face is the brand of those type companies. And they are from day one. I mean, my mom used to knock on doors and she'd stop at every for sale by owner. And that's the way she started out. I mean, it was walking around the neighborhood, blood, sweat, and tears. And her model used to be everything I touched turns to sold or something like that. And it's kind of funny, but the question I have is you come from a quite different background than Tanya does. Tell me a little bit about what you've learned and how your careers are different or they were, and now they're kind of united in this brand game you guys have. Yeah.

Well, if I understood your question correctly, I think that one of the things that Tanya actually brought into my consciousness, and then now we really try to push it upon any of our clients, is just sort of piggybacks on what she was just talking about with your ideal customer. And people, some of our clients really struggle with this because they say, well, won't I do business with anybody? And the answer to that question is if their check will clear up, sure, why would you not? We definitely do not teach people to turn away business in any way, shape, or form. However, we do know that there are many parameters that have to do with a job, right? So you want to find those successful times where you've done whatever work that you've done parameters that have to do with a job, right? So you want to find those successful times where you've done whatever work that you've done for that client. And those are

the ones that you begin to build your ideal customer ideal from. And those are the people you advertise. So eventually over a course of amount of time, then sooner rather than later, that ends up being all of what your portfolio is because you have attracted that customer. You've looked for that customer based upon those parameters. So how is my life different now that I've done that? We really have focused in on a clientele that we try to get to. And we answer the phone every time it rings and we will work with anybody that has a real estate need. But what we look for are those people in certain economic indicators that we like to work with, the price range of the houses we like to work with,

all of the things that would identify with that person. We like to work in certain school districts. We like to work in neighborhoods where there might be sporadic listings of new construction because that's a big deal. So what the biggest change that I think that has happened with our company is when we begin to focus and attract those ideal customers that we really want to deal with. And then we deal with the customers we have now till eventually we have a lot less of the aggravating wounds, a lot more of the profitable. And a lot of that comes from identification and focus i think that you guys would agree that once you start to define that client it's a lot easier to find more like that and in the home service

industry i know anybody with a house you build fences anybody that has a house would be but if you think about the 80 20 rule your profits coming from the top 20 of your clientele and if you could attract more of those, you'd be better off. Is that somewhat the concept as well? Agree. Absolutely it is. Yes. Okay. So you guys have both overcome some obstacles. I mean, Michael, you were traveling here for a long time and Tanya, it sounds like you've just, you had to sell vacuums to get through college. And tell me a little bit about some of their biggest challenges in business and how you

overcame it. And I'll start with you, Tanya. Okay. Well, I think my challenge is not going to be unique. It really happened. The biggest one happened around the 2008-9 debacle, as we call it, when the bottom pretty much dropped out. And I was at the time working with media outlets. I had developed a company that we worked with traditional media to help them embrace and understand how to utilize digital media as an ally and how to make money off of traditional and digital media together. And so I had quite a few clients at the time, things were going well, and I lost almost 50% of them overnight. And then it was a crawl back to the top again, which we did in just another year and a half or so. We were back to where we were when we

lost all the business. But what happened is in doing so, we spread ourselves too thin. We started taking any kind of business just to get business through the door. And I think that's pretty common for a lot of people. But one day I woke up and realized, you know what? I could do business with anybody that walks through that door. And honestly, Tommy, that's a kiss of death. You can't put yourself in that position. So I had to back up for a minute and say, okay, where does my focus really need to be? And that's when I really dialed it into the thing that made me happiest, the thing I was best at, the thing that was a common thread throughout my entire professional existence was the personal branding. And so that's when I realized, okay,

I'm going to have to focus yet again. And I'm going to lose a large amount of the business I currently have on the books if I go this route. And so it was like jumping off a cliff, right? So at that time, I did it. I laid awake at night. I was sweating, wondering, oh my gosh, how am I going to make it? Am I going to focus this narrow? And I did. And I lost business right off the bat. About another 40% of that business went away. But within a year, I had quadrupled my revenue. And so that's the power of focus. I mean, it was a big challenge, but I knew I'd better practice what I had preached.

And I did. And that's why Brandface exists today. I love it. Did you ever hear that notion? And I've heard this from a lot of successful people as if you're, you're picking up more than 60 to 70% of every, if I'm getting over 60% of all my bids, then I should raise my prices. And I know it's not always about price, but typically when we think of a good client we want to work with, it's gotta be fun and enjoyable, but we've got

to enjoy ourselves, but we also want to make money. And you said the last thing in a little acronym was profit. So you don't want every client. So what would you suggest is if you're getting every single one, that means you work with people you probably won't like, you're probably not making as much money and you should raise your prices theoretically. Is that correct? We would definitely agree with that. Michael and I don't shy away from that at all. So yes, that is absolutely true because there is the law of supply and demand at stake there, right? And two, I mean, that's another reason that HEAP, H-E-A-P acronym came about for us is because it's not just about the profit, it's about the other three. And if you can get a nice balance of all four of those, then you will have a nice profitable client.

I love that. That's so true. And that exists in every home service business, whether it's air conditioning, plumbing, electrical, roofing. You can only do three things. You can be the fastest, the best quality, or you can be the best price. And you're never going to be all three. I always talk about that.

So Michael, what was one of the large obstacles that you were able to overcome? We did really good during the late unpleasantness, being an auctioneer, being trained to be an auctioneer. I was in a position and then there was a lot of manna from heaven that came down when the phone call came through. And then we saw the vision of what the future needed out of us. And we were able to capitalize on that. But the problem we had, which was opposite of what a lot of people had at the same time, the work that I was doing provided the ability for us to stay in business with our portfolio, where a lot of people were not able to. Because when the faucet got cut off, a lot of downstream water got cut off to people.

And that affected definitely tradesmen and people like that and home improvement. You know, when it goes all the way down to somebody who just solely specializes in building a deck or in doing plumbing or something like that, you know, that affected everybody. Well, if you had all of your business wrapped up in a new construction, which a lot of people did back then. When it came to a halt, it came to a screeching halt. And you had no way of actually being able to step out from that. Well, ours came years afterwards because we had the boon at the beginning. We did not have the boon at the end. So what happened was my firm ended up working a lot with corporate clients. I was exclusive at one time with a company that I partnered with out of Irvine. Then I ended up not being exclusive any longer, but we still had a

business model where we were working ourself out of a job. So along about 2013, 14, Tanya and I hook up about 13, end of the summer of 13, she starts an advertising campaign for me trying to reach. And I had to try to time the arm's length transactions. You know, the Thomas Mellows that want to buy a house now one on one. And I had to take a company that was selling thousands of houses and at a wholesale level and bring it down and find that medium where it matched. And so I went through about a year and a half, maybe two-year timeframe, where it was very touch and go for a long time to get those two to come together. One was depleting and one was gaining. But sometimes, as you well know, the gain isn't fast enough. And so we really had to be creative over the course of about two years from 2015 to 2017, before all of our brand face marketing took off and we began to build that more sustainable individual

rather than B2B business. And so I think that was our biggest one to overcome. And we did, we had a great team. We had to move around teams. I'd like to say this to people that would listen to this and say, how is this going to apply to me? I can tell you team members are very important. If you have workers, employees or team members that are not 100 percent on board with your direction, then you need to either always control your endings in a good way.

You need team members that believe in the same vision. So you are exponential in your ability to work. And once I began to put the right team members together like that, we saw our business take off. The marketing was there. The clients were plentiful. Now we need to put together a team where they can actually turn that profit. That came along, and we've just been growing ever since. Well, that's the number one question I get on the podcast of people that listen is,

how do I get the people to work for me? A lot of times people have this mentality. A lot of business owners, if I don't do it myself, it's not going to get done right. Well, I think you got to just accept the fact that you're not going to be the one driving every single listing in your case or sale. And you're not going to be the one out there showing every single home to a new purchase family. So that's so important. I think building a team and having them align with your vision and your mission is very, very important. So Tanya, you mentioned earlier, people don't do business with a logo. They do business with a person.

Tell us a little bit about the common misconceptions when it comes to working on your brand well we actually have five of them and we do a presentation called debunking the five biggest branding myths so i'm going to give you all five if that's okay sure okay so the first one is i'm already well branded and a lot of times i'll give you for instance somebody on the phone with me one day in the real estate world said hey Hey, I'm pretty well branded around here. Whenever I walk into the restaurant, everybody knows that's Sherry, the realtor. And I said to her, you know, Sherry, let me challenge your thought process with that. Let's say I walk into a restaurant and I see, oh, there's Sherry, the realtor, but two tables to the right is Dave, the realtor, and three tables to the left is Tommy, the realtor. Now, who do I choose, right?

It's not enough that people know you for your profession. They need to know what makes you different in your profession. And that's what real branding is all about. It's not enough to be known for your profession. So another one is a slogan or a tagline has to say it all. We believe very strongly in brand identifiers or taglines, if you will. And that is just the foundation or the basis for something that you build a personal brand around. It's that one thing that you stand for. The third one is your brand shouldn't turn people off.

Actually, it's perfectly okay if it does. Not in a super negative way, but your brand needs to draw in the kind of people you want to do business with every day. And as a natural, aside from that, it's going to, in a way, repel others because it's not going to be for everyone. You don't want to be one size fits all. The fourth one is when it comes to the brand identifier, that one thing that sets them apart. A lot of people will say to us, well, everybody can say that. Everybody can say they're the most responsive or they're all about the lifestyle or they do this or they do that. Well, and if everybody can say that, then it's not really different. And we always say, well, everybody can say it, but you need to go in and own it. If that's the position you want to own, you put your flag in the ground,

you build a brand around it, and you put a fortress around it. And then that way you will own it. Everybody can say it, but not everybody puts it out there. And then the fifth one is branding is not, you know, it shouldn't be personal. You need to keep it professional. And we say, well, that's not true because people want to know the story behind the face. It is about personal branding, bringing your own personal story into it. Because when people meet you at an event or you're out at a parade or some sort of function in your local community, you want people to connect with you on a personal basis. It's very, very rewarding when somebody walks up to you and says, hey, I saw you posted the photo of your daughter graduating the other day. Congratulations. Or I noticed you're a big downhill skier. Tell me a little bit about that. That's the

personal connection you're not going to get if you don't have that brand, the personal brand built into it. So I got the five down, but the first one for me is I work on this with a lot of people and I coach some different people and I know the process in which I do it, but a lot of people will say, well, I'm open 24 seven. So let's just talk about home service for a minute. I'm open 24 seven. I do drug tests to do background checks. I'm licensed, bonded, insured. I offer a price beat guarantee. I have W2 employees versus 1099. Pretty much every home service person listening goes down the same list.

We come in a wrap truck, we call ahead, we honor our work. Give me some fundamentals and it doesn't need to be home service, but do I go to a whiteboard or get a pen and a paper and just really break down the first one of really differentiate me? Do you have a little kind of exercise to start out with that? Yeah. A lot of times you want to match up two different things when it comes to

defining your brand. Number one is your ideal customer, what they're seeking. What are the main things they're seeking in somebody in your profession? And number two is what really does set you apart. Things not just about how you do business day to day, but your personality, your traits, things that are just unique about you. And if you can get those two things to blend, that is a personal brand that's really going to stand out. And I'll give you one really fantastic personal brand in the home improvement industry is actually here in my market of Central Ohio. You may know him. His name is Ron Greenbaum. He's known as the Basement Doctor.

And Ron started that brand about 30 years ago. And he's actually a co-author in our book series as well. But he has been the face of his company. And he has done that so well and put himself out there as the expert or authority in his field that TV stations call him whenever there's, you know, inclement weather coming our way, you know, that might impact how people's basements get flooded. They contact him for all sorts of things to do with a basement. And he has become that local celebrity. He's also the number one basement waterproofing company in Central Ohio. And so he has really owned that role. You've got to step into whatever that role is for you and own it. And there's so many different things to look at. But you really just, as you said,

you can go to a whiteboard and you can write down all the ways that you do business differently. And then figure out on the right-hand side of that board, write down all the things your ideal customer is really seeking. And then try to match up those things and come up with something that sets you apart. Yeah, that's so true. And I wanted to just add one thing that I think is important. It's a double-blind study that one of the companies we worked with had done. And everybody in the home service space seems to think that it's all about the price. And they really got that in their minds. And I can tell you that, well, first of all, give me your perception real quick why I find this.

Why do business owners focus so much on price? I don't care if you're an agent and you're giving away your commission. And I guess that's a good question for Michael. And Michael, also, do you buy only on price? Let's start there while I find this little thing that I think is important. Yeah, that's a two-part question. Definitely, I can tell you that I don't know for sure why people focus on price, but I definitely think that they need to focus more on the value of that price. Because I think that's the key to it. A super good businessman on the West Coast told me one time, you absolutely do not have to be the most expensive.

You can definitely be the second most expensive, but you have to be the best, period. And that's sort of the key to it right and we know that it is in running a business the minute you start chopping your prices that's your one step out the door because that's now this isn't this is there's a difference in running your business and building your business now when you're running your business and you got a crew of people that need to work you need to feed their family of course you take jobs sometimes on a cut to be sure we're continuing to work but when you're building a company you're not looking for those people you're the people in your ideal space that pay good money for

your service because they have value and they see that and that has a lot to do with what a pen for you and then as a business owner i can tell you the number one reason i hire anybody to do anything for me and it has very little to do with price it has a lot to do with how much aggravation is this going to be to me if i hire you you claim you know what you're doing and i don't have any other proof of that you don't have anybody else saying that you've done a good job with it I'm taking a very big risk if you're the lowest guy on the totem pole I'm taking a greater risk because the odds are and you know this from being in that space that home improvement space how much money is wasted for the wrong job laid down like everybody

claims they can lay time can they lay time that the question. And you get somebody who swears they can, and when they can't, you've got to mess on them. So let's go through this. You want to definitely have the job you're doing, especially in the home service niche, on time, on budget, and you want it done right. And this facts here, this double-blind study, I'm going to go through nine things real quick that they found. Number one was reliability of the components. Number two was the labor was warrantied as well

as the product. Number three, level of attention to detail, including cleanup and removal, was there. The company stuck to the agreed installation schedule. Number five was the aesthetics or curb appeal. Number six was easy to clean and maintain number seven was quiet number eight was lengths of warranty number nine was uh security features and the last one was price they weren't super far off from each other but what i believe is it's all about the presentation and giving options and building rapport so i teach rapport educate follow-up and build a lot of rapport, educate the heck out of the customer if they'll allow you to and make sure you're following up

because most people in the home service niche leave off number three, they never follow up. But, you know, as far as price for you, Tanya, what are your suggestions? Well, the first thing I'd like to say is, and one of the best marketing books ever written, the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Jack Reese and Al Trout talk about the fact that price is almost always on the list of reasons somebody chooses to do or not do business with a customer or with a business. But it is almost never the number one reason they choose to do business with somebody. And so when we look at it and we work with our clients, I can tell you that in many years, I have never worked with a client who made price the first

consideration because I won't let them. I won't let them. Because that's not why people are hiring them. And if they ever expect to have a really great reputation and be known for anything other than price, they're going to have to put it out there and tell people why they should be considered for things other than price. Because people only know what you tell them. They only know what your brand messaging and your brand imagery will say to them. And you've got to construct that in a way that does you justice. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that. And we've got the best economy I've seen in a long, long time.

And it's just, price is just not that important. I never go for the cheapest. I mean, if he does the best explanation or the gal out there does the best explanation, but we went to dinner the other day in Naples. I'm based out of Phoenix, but it was three of us. It was a $600 dinner. I didn't go for the cheapest dinner we could find. We went to a really, really nice four-course meal,

had a huge experience. It was on the ocean. And do you always buy the cheapest pair of shoes from Walmart or do you go to Foot Locker or a nicer place? I mean, it's really about what you're getting. And if you can differentiate yourself, I think that's half the battle. So how important is it for a small business to have a powerful brand? And give us an example where the brand was part of the business's success.

Hey, Michael, I'm going to refer to you and talk about your brand identifier and what it has done for you. I think that you probably have one of the best stories. Well, our company tagline is anything real estate. And we came up with that because we were in the space of home improvement, as well as flips, as well as auctioning properties, as well as a residential brokerage. At the time that Tanya and I hooked up, that was the weakest part of my three-legged stool there was the actual arm's length brokerage. And we talked about it earlier in the conversation about how we were trying to get that ramped up as quickly as possible as the other was deteriorating. And you find that Tanya didn't like it at first she's like anything real estate is way too broad we've got to focus on this i said well hold on a minute just take a look at what we offer

and the tentacles that we have to be able to offer help to any real estate space commercial multifamily or single family residences and so so she's okay i like it that makes sense let's get that message out to the rest of the people and And where we noticed that we had begun to make the turn was when people would come into my office or call our agents on the phone or our salespeople in the home improvement situation. And they would say, well, we noticed you are anything real estate. We just felt like we needed to call y'all as part of us getting a bid or flat out just doing business. And I had a guy come up from Tampa, Florida one time, wanted to do some business in a small town that I live in. And he said he literally pulled in because he was going to hit town and just drive around until he saw real estate offices. He said, when I saw anything real estate, I knew it was in the right spot. We sold him a

$600,000 piece of property. So I definitely think the brand, the brand identifier and what it says that you can do for your customers. And then as you do that for a long time and you begin to get reviews from those same like and type customers, it just is that much more of an attraction and a soldier that's out there working for you while you're selling somewhere else. Got it. So what are some of the things, the practices that entrepreneurs need to avoid when it comes to personal branding? I can think of a couple. Tell me if I'm wrong, but maybe not posting anything about religion or politics or doing shots at a bar on their personal or business Facebook page. At the risk of being too religious and amen would be

inappropriate. Absolutely. That is true. Yes. Don't do that. That's even in our, in our books, Tommy. It's like, don't curse on social media. Don't tell things that are too personal and don't post about religion or politics. You can do those things, but understand there are consequences to those things and you will be held to those consequences. So in terms of just the personal branding altogether, though, don't be afraid to focus. The fear of focus is the number one fear in business. People, all of a sudden, when you say, okay, this is my ideal customer, they start sweating, thinking they'll never again be able to do business with anybody but that particular individual.

And they're about to change everything. Well, the good news is they're about to change a lot of things in a positive direction. But just because you say, okay, I'm going to do business only with people who are like a home improvement company is only going to do business with people in homes from a value of $500,000 to $1 million. It doesn't mean that they never again do business with somebody who lives in a $250,000 house. What that does mean is they don't waste their time, money, or marketing efforts marketing to the $250,000 homes. They put that time, money, and marketing effort

where it belongs with that ideal customer. And so I think once you explain it to them that way, that makes a whole lot more sense. And I think that's the biggest mistake that they can make is not really focusing in on what they need to do. Okay, there's a lot going on here as far as, I think branding is just, it's missing in a lot of businesses. And I think the best brand as I think of, as I think of Walmart and I'm like,

I know that's the cheapest and I know that's as they own that market, the cheapest and you got target. And then you've got, you've got all these choices. What is the best example you guys use for brands and just kind of explaining it in layman's terms? Well, up until last year, Papa John's and you always saw John like 30 years, 30 plus years.

You've always seen John on the commercials and he always says the same thing. Better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John and Domino's and everybody else has changed their messaging and changed their messaging, changed their messaging. Now they're fixing potholes, sell pizza. He has stuck to the same message over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And it's a perfect example, although not so perfect as of last year. But prior to that, he had that. You just knew when you saw him on the TV,

he was selling a pizza. You knew who he was and you knew what he was doing. And that was an example of a brand and why it's so important. You know, in the home improvement space, it is very big. Like, you know, it seems to me like in the cities that I travel in, if you got your picture on the side of your truck, even though you're not the one that's swinging a hammer or turning a wrench or even delivering the material, you're still there at that workspace saying that at the end of the day, my name is on this. You've got a problem. You call me directly. I can't work at every place and every house, but I can be available for every one of them. If you've got a problem with one of my people, you call me. Buck stops with me. I'm always available. And when you do that, when you give that personal recognition that people start in their minds identifying home

improvement with Thomas Mello, then now your personal brand is beginning to sell for you, whether you open your mouth or not. I've got a couple to add to that as well, Tommy. I mean, think about Charles Schwab. And Charles isn't involved in day-to-day business, right? But his name is the foundation of the business. Everything he built, the culture that he built, and the things he stands for are, rest on his shoulders. And that is the name of his company. And then you've got people who are no longer with us, like Dale Carnegie. There are still Dale Carnegie speakers and trainers all over the world. And then you've got Angie's List. Think about that. Angie is the face of the company. And Ron Truszynski, who's the face of the original mattress factory throughout several states throughout the country. So the list just goes

on and on. There are lots and lots of them. Yeah. I'm thinking about a lot of them that I think of, like even Geico, even though it's not Warren Buffett behind it, it's still 15 minutes could save you 15% on your home insurance. What advice do you give a busy home service entrepreneur interested to start working on their brand today? I mean, what are the low-hanging fruit where they could start right away? Okay. So I would say really digital marketing is the wave of the future for sure. So make sure, first of all, that you really have a plan of focus with that. But you start with, there's like three categories of things that we tackle when we look at somebody's personal brand.

It's define, develop, and display. They need to define, number one, their point of differentiation and their ideal customer. That sets the tone. And they need to develop a personal brand wrapped around that. So everything about how their brand looks from their photos to their brand messaging to any imagery, their logo has to really support that point of differentiation and attract that ideal customer. And then finally, when you develop that brand and what it looks like, sounds like, feels like, then you display that brand on all your everyday marketing platforms. And that's where you start, your everyday

marketing platform. So things like your website, all of your social media channels, your collateral materials like your business cards, thank you cards, things you use every day, all of those everyday marketing platforms need to be customized with your new brand. So anywhere somebody runs across you and your brand, they see consistency, they see the same thing. Then beyond that, if they're just getting started out and they don't have a lot of money to spend on advertising, I would say depending on where their ideal customer is, Facebook is a really good one. And Facebook groups are a free and easy way to start. And you kind of start a Facebook group based on a common concern of your customers. So if you start

that group and really address and get the dialogue going in that, you can have a lot of success just starting with that kind of an approach. But the list could go on and on, Tommy, but I'd say that's where you start. Got it. And how do you align branding with your hiring? Because I know that I want to protect my brand, first of all. What are some of the things that you do in the hiring process to make sure you're protecting your brand and you're living the brand and you're making sure that the people underneath you are living the brand? Well, trial and error is the first answer to that. You know, I had a CEO of Gorilla.com. I asked him one time.

He actually was not any longer the CEO at the time. I asked him one time, he actually was not any longer the CEO at the time that I asked him this, but I asked him, I said, hey, what's the, you know, if you were going to give a CEO the best advice you could give, what would it be? And he said, if they don't fit the team, get rid of them as quick as possible. And he didn't mean it mean. He just pat him on the back, so you're not a fit,

you got to go. So I think that in the hiring process, the first thing that you're looking for is people that will give you a buy-in. You're looking for people that will give, even inside your interview, discretionary effort towards your goal. And that could be subtle. It's hard to know somebody when they're putting on their best airs and they're in front of you. So you may not find this out to be exactly, you may not see all the scars, if you will, until you spend some time with somebody.

So everybody that I hire is always hired on an intermediary period and you're on probation effectively. Like for any reason I could say, this didn't work out, I appreciate you. You got to go on down the road. And then from there, what you're looking for, and this is after you've done your background, you want to know their social media matches, yours. You don't want to hire somebody you've got to teach not to curse on social media. You won't already see that they sort of have those skills already.

And then you can haunt some if you have to. But the biggest thing is you don't want to try to teach the unteachable. And so when you're interviewing people to do a job and you're wanting to look for those tidbits of information that show that they're going to have the company, the company's best interest at their core. Now, one of the ways that I did that was when I shifted my company, the real estate company is called Michael Carr and Associates, and we are anything real estate. What I did was I started when I hired people to bring them in, even in a probationary period, as I taught them the concept that Michael Carr is one person and Michael Carr and his decisions or any other team member or coworker. They better not allow that argument to infiltrate Michael Carr and associates to be. So when they come into that association, that association becomes their umbrella that they

have to take care of at all costs. And it's a fireable offense if they don't put that company first and foremost. So I find me, when it comes to managing people, it's easier if I differentiate the entity of the company and me, even though I am that company, I was that company for 15, 16 years before I could afford to hire anybody to come in and work with me. So even though I'm emotionally invested in it, the best way I find for them to be emotionally invested

is to explain to them the difference. When Michael dies, Michael Carr and Associates, if it has been set up correctly, will continue in longevity for years to come. Yeah, that's important. You might be mad at me, the person. You might not like what I said at a meeting. You might be annoyed that I made you work an extra shift, but that better not reflect on the brand, which is great advice. What advice do you give? And either of you could take this one. A lot of us don't have a huge marketing budget to build a brand. And I'm a big fan of direct response. Obviously, to build a brand sometimes costs money. There's a way to build it organically, but it's not going to be near as fast. So I am on a budget and I want to start thinking about direct response in combination with a brand.

What's the best way to do that? And before you answer that, I just want to tell you that the number one thing I think you need to do as a home service owner is wrap your trucks and get it wrapped nicely. Don't make it confusing, make it stand out, but don't make it confusing to people and have a very easy, recognizable message on there and an easy way to brand. I must pull nine out of 10 trucks. I see has something on there with like, it'll say like door 86,

22, and then I have a website and you're like, you have no idea what they do. Why would anybody look it up? It just doesn't make sense to me. So tell me a little bit about basically brand on a budget. Okay. I'll start with this, Michael. And then you can add to it. If you think of additional things, one of the things I'd like to reiterate is Facebook is an opportunity to build a group of like-minded people, people that have a common concern. That's one way to start. We're really, really big on video content. And the video content, in that video content, that gives you the ability to go beyond what you were ever able to go beyond with traditional

media. So if we think years ago, and most of the owners and business owners out there will remember this, television, newspaper, radio, billboards, that was it, right? And so we only had a finite amount of time or space to get across our own personalities and what set us apart and what made us different. In today's world, that is entirely different. At the touch of a button on your phone, I can watch a one and a half minute video showcasing your personality, the reason that you're in business today and what your values are and why I should choose you. And so a lot of the time, we recommend highly video content for our people and really getting not only their personality out there, but their core beliefs in business and sharing stories of their own customers, of their own successes and

their own customer reviews, things like that. The other thing would be to build your email list. Email is not dead and it will not be dead anytime soon. You need to really build that, whether that is doing some type of signature piece of content, something, whether it's an ebook that you write or a little video short series that you do, teaching somebody something, building that email database, getting that email address from them, and staying in touch with them one-to-one. Those are very inexpensive ways to market yourself. So YouTube and build that email list. So I want to add something because the other day I'm working on a lot of SMS, which is text messaging. And there's certain laws around who you can text. There's FCC and

all kinds of different compliances. And I'm going big with this. I'm doing a lot of stuff. It actually saved us $100,000 last month. We recouped by the follow-up sequences and actually getting customers we may have not had through a text messaging trip campaign. And I just wanted to dig in a little deeper before we go to the next level with it. And my call center manager said, I did all kinds of homework, Tommy. This company's all over YouTube and they specialize in it. She goes, I don't know how, but I was able to get ahold of them on the first ring. And I'm like, okay, well they advertise free to make money. Of course they answer their phone,

but moral of the story is they focused on one niche. They excel at it and they found their niche. And then they did probably 10 FAQs. They found the 10 top questions that people search. They made sure those keywords match the title. So they go to Google Analytics. So this is what I'd recommend to the home service niches. For example, garage door repair in the city name is the number one most expensive keyword

in the garage door niche. So what I'd recommend is garage door repair. And then what are the common mistakes that people might search for? Programming my home link. Another one is safety eyes misaligned or garage door won't shut. Figure out what the most common ones are. Title that to your YouTube video and have a short, concise, good video and send it out to people so it starts getting some views too. So

great advice. And that's free advice because, well, videos don't cost much. You could do it from your cell phone. So tell us a little bit. This is probably one of the last questions because I want you guys to have some time to talk about what you're working on and some of the free training courses. But tell me, radio, print, we've got TV, and then we've got billboards. And I guess that's considered print. Tell me a little bit about digital. And if you were in the home service space right now, where would you put the majority of your budget? How would you split it up? And there's a lot to think about when you're creating a marketing budget budget so what's some of the things that goes through your mind when you're doing that well I think it really depends on where your customer is Tommy you got to kind of start there first so for instance in some markets and a lot of

markets people don't read the daily newspaper as much as they used to anymore that's a given right but in? But in some markets, in some areas, and with some target demographics, they read that newspaper every day. So if your client is there, you want to be there. So you've got to kind of, I look at it this way. I would go to that whiteboard. I would write down the top five places

that my ideal customer is spending their time. Are they spending it on Facebook? Are they on Instagram? Do they read the daily or the weekly newspaper? Do they watch this certain channel like Lifetime or something on a cable network? Where are they spending their time? Are they somebody who doesn't even subscribe to cable anymore? Maybe they're a Netflix or a Hulu watcher or something. So look at where your ideal customer is first. And then I look at it this way.

I'm not so sure that it makes sense to look at it and say, okay, well, I feel like 50% of your money should be spent on radio. 40% should be spent on Google AdWords, that kind of thing. It just really depends on where your client is. But I look at it this way when it comes to traditional marketing. As I mentioned earlier, the audiences for traditional media such as radio, television, and newspaper have diminished over the years and continue to do so. But that does not mean that those channels are not still valid today and can still produce a great return on investment. It's all relative. If they are less of an audience, they should cost you less these days.

So you really kind of got to look at those things and weigh those things out. But digital is the wave of the future. I still am a big radio believer and I believe that each platform has its own importance level. If you're planning to be somebody who does business in a big, wider area, I still love radio for that. There's very few ways you can really get across your personality

other than doing things like a YouTube or video marketing campaigns. So I love that. So I don't know if I've answered the question for you. It really is more case by case, I think, but I'll let Michael tell you his own personal experience. I agree, obviously, with every bit of that. And I also know that most of the time, your grassroots level marketing is where it hits people. When I was offsetting my career in construction, trying to get my auctioneer career going, and I was in construction, I built fences. And I never got, I had plenty of work. It sort of went back to what you were saying through seven, 60% you need to go up on your pricing. We found that that'd be the case, but the advertising that worked the best was that grassroots door hanger type of, you know, putting up with your neighbor's

fence, right? So one of the things that I'm big upon with the agents and how that applies to real estate is we like to advertise to success. So the minute that we have a listing in a neighborhood, we canvass that neighborhood and we canvass that neighborhood in a continual basis and a follow-up, you know, pretty much indefinitely. Because number one, we've got an example where we've always been successful. We've got a client that we're already going to do everything in our power to make happy. So they tell everybody else how happy they are with us. And so you've got real life neighbors here. They're working and seeing your truck,

your neighbor's house. They're going to ask you a natural. You've got that natural keeping up with the Joneses thought, you know, I never thought about putting up a fence until Smith put up a fence. Now I might want a fence and it starts that dialogue. And then if they've got a neighbor they can call, that was a whole premise of Angie's List anyway, that really was a failed business model, but still was a great idea of getting things out there.

So I'm like, Tony, I really like anything that's digital, YouTube free, build your channel, you know, just have your channel, just have you making some videos of something you just fixed. Maybe it's where you thought that you were called out to do a big job and found out it was a 50 minute job and you saved this person thousands of dollars. Maybe they will say that for you on a video. I think all of that is very important. And then for your marketing budget, I like a little bit of a blanket in the area that you're working with. So some kind of radio that just says who you are. So they might pick it. It might be an AM station that just picks up the local high school football games or

basketball games. That's fine. Those low entry level costs to get into those kind of things where they'll run a commercial saying your name, your company, your brand. And then from there, build upon the successes a dollar at a time. I'd like to close it out with this is one of the signature things that we say to our clients. It's really not about which platforms you choose. It's how you use them. Yeah. And I want to add just one more spot to that because obviously we could go on forever and we love to talk about this stuff. But consistency is a very big thing. If you market emotionally, you are not marketing correctly. You have to market and you have to look and you have to read the numbers and you have to see your open rates and you have to pay attention to that.

But follow up is not just follow up with your existing clients. Follow up is follow up with your potential future clients. They don't need you today, but they're going to need you sometime. And so it's your job to stay in touch with them on a consistent basis, even when it's sort of silent on the other end. And I think that that's big. And I'd like to say something about that too, Tom. You had talked about earlier when you read the 10 things that people, you know, take into consideration when they're hiring home improvement people. One of the coolest things I've ever been involved with was, and I wasn't involved with, actually, it was a buddy of mine was putting in a pool.

And so he interviewed several people to do the pool. He found a guy he thought could do the right job, right? And it's, you know's the same old story. It could be anything in home improvement, and it would follow the same line. But what we liked about the way he did it, he brought it to my attention, and I fell in love with the idea, was the guy had a platform. And I think it was like a Google Drive or something totally free, right? If he had five jobs working, if he had 10 jobs working, everybody saw the schedule.

So like on Tuesday, he'll say, I'm pulling the foundations for the mocks. On Wednesday, I'm doing the finishing concrete work on the smiths. On Thursday, we're digging and breaking ground on the Jones. And everybody sort of saw it. And then if there was a hiccup on the mock side of the thing, he just moved everything and said, weather would not cooperate. We were not able to pour for the pool for the moths. And then he'll move everything down.

And so everybody that was active in a job, they saw exactly what the contractor was doing. And I thought it was genius because number one, it showed him busy. And number two, it showed a lot of happy clients. And number three, it kept everybody informed in a way that didn't cost him a lot of back and forth. I like that. I think one of the things you got to take from that is using CRM.

So I'm a big advocate of technology these days. I believe the people, the technology, those are the two. And the systems are what take the business to the next level. So looking back at all this, some of the things I took away is that I've made mistakes in the past is make sure all your marketing pieces are telling the same story. One day I had a guy walk in my business and said, why do every one of your employees have different colored shirts? Some of them have t-shirts, some of them have colored shirts, some of them are tucked, some of them aren't. Well, now we have black collared shirts. Make sure everything's matching across all channels. There's a book called Traction that says there's a lot of media types that'll work, but pick one.

You know, don't do 18 radio stations and do it for two weeks each. Do one radio station and own it for a long enough time to let it work to own that demographic and make sure that that demographic matches your perfect customer, which we talked about earlier. So you guys had a ton of knowledge on this and I know you guys got some stuff for the audience to get some free training. So Tanya, do you want to tell us where they would go to find more of both of you and where they could sign up to get some free training? Absolutely. So we just released our updated version of Brand Face for Entrepreneurs on Amazon about

a month ago and grateful that it became a number one bestseller. And so as a result of that, we decided, hey, you know what? We're going to give back a little bit. We're going to give some training out to some folks. So we set up a landing page at brandbuildertraining.com, brandbuildertraining.com, where you can just sign up to receive free training videos and kind of just, they're about the foundational part of building your brand. Got it. And then if they want to get ahold of you or Michael, what's the best way to reach out to you guys and get more information?

The best way to reach us is team at brandfacestar.com. That should reach us both. Team, T-E-A-M at brandfacestar, S-T-A-R dot com. two more things at the end. So if you guys have any books that really changed your life, that are game changers for the audience out here, is there any books that you'd like to let us know about that? Maybe we didn't look at that. We don't know about yet. I'll go ahead and go first, Michael, but Thanks for entrepreneurs. I have to say, and I still, this is one that probably most people out there have heard of. And it's one of the most transforming books of my life. I have two that have been very, other than the Bible, two have been very transforming. And one is going to be Tony

Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within. That was transforming for me. It basically told me that don't look back. Today is the first day of the rest of your life and how you treat yourself and every word that you say and every thought you have dictates your future. And then the other one is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And basically he is the grandfather of law of attraction.

And so that goes without saying. So those two were really transformative in my life. Very good. Michael, do you have any? Yeah, I would go with the same ones. I really would. I know that just sounds like a parody, but it is so true. And we read these books before we ever even knew each other. And they were both that transforming to me. I think and grow rich is incredible, not just for a getting rich style. It's good for anything. If you want to attract the positive things in your life, including more business, you want to read that book and how important that is to it. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing are very important because it sort of gives you an idea. They don't change. They haven't changed

in all of these years. And then from there, you know, I'm an encouraging guy. Like I like anything that puts us in a position where we can deal with the human and the public better and in a way that they want to be understood. And so I'm a big Chris Voss fan, V-O-S-S. He wrote the book, Never Split the Difference. He's got some killer insight and information on how to negotiate with people on a basal level, which should help sales when you're standing in front of somebody.

And effectively, he follows that thought process that Stephen Covey said, seek first to understand, then to be understood. And he sort of takes that to a different level, I think. So that's another thing. Well, if you guys like Napoleon Hill, you should read Three Feet from Gold. And it's a great book. Yes, it's fantastic. Yeah, it all deals with Napoleon Hill's previous life. Well, obviously the things he went through, but I love the concept of Three Feet from Gold

because the whole thing is they're in a mine and the guy gives up looking for gold and another guy buys up looking for gold and another guy buys it and he was three feet. He gave up too early and it's a good concept. So one of the things we like to do is leave you with one final message to the listeners is maybe we didn't talk about something enough or you just want to leave them with one final thought. Each of you could go ahead and do this.

Okay. Leave them with one final thought. Each of you could go ahead and do this. Okay, my final thought would be, people contact us all the time and we talk about helping business owners become local celebrities and stars. And sometimes people will say to us, okay, I want you to make me a star. And we say to them, we don't make stars, we unveil them. That's because inside every one of you, there is

a star and you've got to dig in there and find out what it is that separates you from the pack and makes you different from everybody else and build a story around it. Because there is no doubt that everybody is special in their own right. And you've got to really believe that to your core and you've got to breathe your brand. And so that would be my parting thought. Beautiful. Michael? Well, mine is the one that I use

on all of our webinars and workshops. And it's something that I've lived by and continue to live by. Prosperity favors the bold, so be bold. I like it. That's sure and sweet. Well, listen, I appreciate you both coming on. I learned a lot.

And there's so much to be said about our brand because when you sell your company, a big piece that they look at is the brand. And I don't think the people, the listeners might understand this, but 95% of people are subconscious. Our brains work subconsciously. So when you create a brand, it creates brand awareness. When people search on

Google and they recognize your brand, they're more likely to click on you. So brand has so much to do with the success of a company and you guys are experts at it. We really appreciate the opportunity to get you on the podcast. Thank you for having us, Tommy. We appreciate it. We're honored to be on. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right, guys. Well, I appreciate you. You guys have a great day. Hey, guys, I really appreciate you tuning into the podcast. I want to let you know that my book is available right now on Amazon. It's called The Home Service Millionaire. That's homeservicemillionaire.com.

Just go to the website. It'll show you exactly where and how to buy the book. I poured two years of knowledge into this book and I had 12 contributors. Everybody from the COO at Home Advisor to the CEO of Alpac and of course, Ara, the CEO of Service Titan. It tells you how to have the right mindset and become a millionaire and think like a millionaire. It goes into exactly how to turn on lead generation. Have those phones ringing off the hook for the customers that you want to be calling where you can make money and get great reviews. It also goes into simple things like how to attract A players. Listen, if you want a great apple pie, you need to buy good apples. And you need to know where to buy those apples.

And it also talks about simple things like knowing how to keep the score. You should have your financial check every week. You should know exactly what's coming in and out of your account. You should know when to cut advertising that's not working. And more than anything, you should know how to cut employees that aren't making it for you. Listen, you might have a big heart, but this book is going to show you how to make decisions built on numbers. I hope you pick up the book and I really appreciate everything. I hope you're having a great day. Tune in next week. Thank you.