Ep 288 - We're Not a Marketing Company! But We Know the Secrets

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to yet another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets. I'm Clay Neumeier, with me, as always, my esteemed co-host, joseph Lucchani, and we are the Electricpreneurs Just a couple of master electricians with business addictions, here and ready to serve, serve, who Serve you. If you're an Electricpreneur in our audience, if you're looking to grow your business, master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service, then welcome home, welcome to our freemium daily coach. Call the admission cost for you, just sit back in the hot seat right, take everything we give. Just promise to take action, and today is absolutely no actionable exception. That was a mouthful Joe. I was worried about tripping up on that one. Brother. How are you doing today, man?

You pulled it off man, I got a minute. It came out really good. Today is one of those days where I always try to focus on the silver linings of life. I think that's something that everyone can improve on. It's one thing to say is everything perfect? Maybe not, but are you doing the best you can every day with the things you do have? And then I can say I am, and if I'm doing everything I can to win.

Present, not perfect, brother, I'm feeling it.

It's Wednesday same thing, but we are actually live today. This is my favorite day of the week now because, since we've been running some replays to really focus on getting everything onto this app and connected to our website, which is going fantastic, Having a great time doing that with you, we had to make this little sacrifice, but so happy to report that so many people are still listening, still getting that value. We had over a thousand downloads last week. So you guys, keep it up, Keep taking this stuff, Keep helping yourselves with this great content. And today we're going to jump right into some marketing stuff, which Wednesday, someone just commented. Wednesday. I see that man. Thank you very much.

If you're not live with us in the Facebook Electric Paneer Group, you could be engaging with us live too, asking questions, sharing wins and challenges. Be happy to talk through it with you. Joe, the title of this episode we're not a marketing company, but we know the secrets. There's good reason for this. Right now, more than ever before, people have asked us well, are you guys actually a marketing company? I think it's important to just kind of wash this one out and make sure we're all on the same page with how we feel about marketing what it really is, what those secrets are to us, how we feel you should feel about marketing, what you should know and take away from this and take action on so that you can always be kind of bearing the fruit of these consistent efforts. Is that sound fair?

It does, and it actually reminds me of a very funny parallel that I used to run into, where in my former business people would call thinking that we are a utility company. Why? Because we provided a turnkey utility coordination service and it was listed on our website. So people would call and be like hey, are you Central Hudson? Hey, are you Orange and Rockland? Like you do those work, like you can get me attached to their department. It's like completely different organization. So I just think it's funny how you experienced it then and now we're coming back into it Now like hey, you can help me with my Google LSA, right?

Well, you know what. It's a fair request because right now, leads are the hot topic. They are Right. It's been a tough earlier for a lot of you, a lot of folks having troubles getting their calendars full, and so we can appreciate that. So that's another reason why this episode is going to help kind of wade through that and really make sure that you can make the most of this. But also, today we're sending out our updated service leads now action checklist as a value piece for the week, and that will absolutely set you guys on another trajectory. So if you're looking for more leads, you're going to want to check out this update.

We've given this in pieces out before, but never this complete with so many links. There's absolutely no excuses anymore. Joe, I'm ready. I'm ready to make this happen Super pumped. So let's start here. Let's back up and just go. I got this question yesterday on a call and I really appreciated. Well, clay, what is marketing to you then? Like, if you guys only kind of know the secrets, you only help in certain ways what is marketing then? What would we take from your program? What would we get from you guys? And to me, I have a very specific definition of marketing. Lay it on us. I think it's really going to help. Marketing is doing the things to get noticed and we can be very specific with that too, but generally, all businesses should recognize that there's actions to take to get noticed Brings up the first question. It's a fair question for any of you viewers, listeners, to reflect on. What are you doing, what actions are you taking to get noticed every day?

That's pretty hard to think about, because if you go through and you say on a daily, that really puts people on the spot, because a lot of times, when it comes to getting leads, it's like well, when we sat down on Monday, we did a projection and we realized that we didn't have leads. Okay, what did you do about it? Well, we had a meeting event about it with the rest of our staff about how we don't have leads. Okay, but what did you do about it? Well, then we ran up the flagpole and told our techs that we need to get more leads. And then what Did it solve the problem?

No, everyone's just really scrambling to get leads now, but at least we know, we're aware of the problem. It's like it doesn't solve it. It's more important to have a game plan, which is why I love teaching this stuff, because when you can follow the bouncing ball, at the very least you can say did I do the thing or did I not? It's a consistent activity that yields the highest result, and that's why we've decided to invest ourselves in teaching them.

Totally. Really, when we boil this down, there's only a few ways that you can build that awareness up, that you can take actions to get noticed. It's kind of like our law of open cycles Like you're going to do it yourself, others are going to do it for you and even as an extension of that, you're going to pay reps or agencies to really go out and do it for you, but they're going to make a profit off of you.

And so what we?

tend to see in times like these is well, my schedule is empty, no one's calling, leads are shorting, if you will. It's not happening. So I'm going to start calling marketing agencies and trying to get placed on a program where they will get me leads. Now, that can be so expensive, joe, and I'm going to go out and venture and say something here that you know what Maybe I get in trouble for, maybe maybe someone takes offense to this. But I think marketers will agree with this statement. They don't want to be in that situation either. Marketing companies, agencies, would much rather work with the cool and collected, actual marketing strategy to get long-term leads into your business, into your awareness, into that sphere of influence, if you will. Does that make sense? Yeah?

The thought I was going with was it's got to be part of your culture. That's why, in our process, every single position, whether you're an installer, whether you're a service tech, whether you're sales, whether you're CSR, we have positioning processes to help them generate leads and run them with the flagpole to generate opportunity. When it becomes part of your company culture of, well, what next are we doing, Then you have all the people under your uniform with eyes on the target, compared to all the people in uniforms with hands out going well, when's the next call? It's like well, what did you do to get a call? I came to you. That's what I did.

So exactly so, this can be a shared responsibility on our team, and we're going to get hyper specific with this. We're going to get right into this a bit. There are certain strategies, though, that I say every company should have working for them. Every electricpreneur should have a couple of things working for you, and it may at first take your individual efforts to do these things, but it will save you a lot of money and it will be hyper effective if you do it well.

Would you like to hear the things, joe, I mean I'm all down. I love listening to your brain. Sometimes, man Actually most times, most times I love listening to your brain.

All right, fair enough. Google is obvious, right? And is it so many times? Young electric entrepreneurs are new in business or even just kind of tired electric entrepreneurs will drop this ball and they will not maximize this channel. That's a way to see it. Google's a channel. That's one place where a lot of people go to maybe see you, but there's a lineup of people. So the way that Google works is more by the patterns of the search party, right? What I mean by that is, if a homeowner is looking for an electrician, google looks at their area and it looks at their search and it shows them a list of electricians. So what can you do to be at the top of that list?

We've covered this in a variety of episodes, but just in short, let's review the list. You can make sure your business address is up to date. You can make sure your whole Google business profile is updated. You can make sure that you're asking for reviews every time, getting good, accurate reviews and replying to those reviews, even with strategic keywords to the job that you just did, so that other people searching for that will see it and link your success in doing it To you as a company. Does that make sense? So far that it does. You can add photos and photos with strategic placement with the data that's behind them. Tells Google that you do work consistently in the area that that photo came from, so people searching from that area then have a higher chance of finding you. That's just how Google's brain works. So shouldn't we all be on Google, being that it's free other than the odd annoying call? They're gonna shoot our way to try to sell us ads.

I would agree. I mean when in doubt, I think there's a question. If it's free, it's for me, and I'll take two.

Interesting. Okay, the other thing we can do with Google is get verified. You can get verified by providing additional documentation and even Google guaranteed where that will help Searchers find you sooner higher on the list and even allow you to later join what's called local service ads for a certain amount of money. But it's what we find most of the success with in paid advertising from our clients and beyond. Usually there's a fairly optimized LSA account and, don't worry, this is something you can manage yourself. Do not need to pay someone to do it for you if you want to. This is back to the old equation of time verse money. I get it, but if you're early in this, you don't have leads. You're worried about losing people. I mean, these are things you could be doing, couldn't you?

I mean at the other day, we're not teaching anything. That's so high brain that you require an engineering degree or programming degree in order to do these are just. I have consistent steps that if you follow this bouncing ball, you will not only have more leads, but you'll have better qualified leads that already recognize you before you get to the door. That's a win for a very low amount of effort.

Totally, and if we look around at the marketing companies, quite often you won't find someone next in just electricians. You'll find someone next in home services and Google listings, getting your Google optimized, doing Google ads. People tend to niche, when it comes to marketing companies, into the specific technology software channels, because that's the depth that they're looking for to create great results. But the missing components still is they're not electricians and they're not working with electricians all the time. So it does have us kind of at odds and so again, I could see why people hope even that we are a marketing company. But we are actually a sales and service organization that help you not necessarily get the most leads, we help you make the most of every lead.

Agreed, that said, if people came to us and said we'd love to learn how to make the most of every leads, but we don't have any, well, enter us again. This is where we help so that Google these organics. That's a huge piece. A second piece that's going to be massive for you in your business is Facebook. If you haven't seen our Facebook cheat sheet, you're missing out. But guess what? It's linked to the value piece, the service leads. Now value piece the no excuses action checklist to put clients on your calendar day value piece also has this Facebook cheat sheet link to it, and that's important. Can we talk about what this organic channel does for us, joe?

Yeah. So the benefit of going organic is not only do you have an additional amount of control over the situation, but when you follow the proper cadences, you're allowing your customer to start to get to know you as a business, but, more importantly, they get to know you as a person, and people will always choose the person they know over the faceless corporation that they don't. And if you're projecting that I'm a good person, I've got values, I want to serve, I enjoy what I do, we are competent, we are enjoying this, people will naturally gravitate towards you. Additionally, what we're doing is are speaking to the problem before problem even comes up. I'd rather be in the customer's mind.

As you know what let's call service electrical, eventually, when we need something. To be honest, I actually have this exact situation happening. My own personal life We've been driving past. Whenever we drive our girls to school, we see a company and they have the most beautiful wrapped events and they have a brand that stands out and really speaks to us and we have our mindset. You know, next time we have an issue, we're going to call them. That is next level marketing, because I've already volunteered to work with someone before ever having to talk to them, or ever having to actually have a problem that needs solving.

So trust is built just based on exposure and professionalism already, exactly, and that's what Facebook does for you. Now I've got this kind of good friend of mine, silent background partner, who is a really great certified accountant, and she once said to me well, facebook's for like kitten memes and baby photos Uh-huh, I get it. I get it that there is a lot of that there, but it's also the place where most homeowners have an account based on their four billion users that use it, and most of them actually use it for the groups that they're in and have stitching, bitch and questions and the things that they need that you could help with. I got a geography question for you, joe. How many lanes, by your memory, would be on a highway going to JFK, new York?

Okay, so it depends on where you're at in the process, but you would go anywhere between four to six.

Okay, in some areas outside of, like Toronto and Canada, we're talking like eight lanes of traffic. It's crazy, facebook's like that but think 20 lanes, think 30 lanes, 40 lanes, and there's no bridge that slows it down, it's just constant traffic and everyone seems to be on that highway. So now think about your physically driving, like Joe said, and you're seeing the signs on the highway. It's just a little nudge, it's just like a hey, we're here, hey, we're here. Little awareness bits and with a good cadence online. Even that little awareness starts to build trust and you have an opportunity to build that trust, albeit invisible. You can't see it today, so that's why no one does it today, but it's building every time you post and if you're following our Facebook cheat sheet, again, it's helping you post the right things that create hands up and create sales for your business.

So, between Google and Facebook alone, ignoring Bing and other search engines, ignoring other ways like citations, where you can just sign up for the lead aggregator sites and just be present, you don't have to buy. Just accept that they're going to phone you and try to sell you some shit once in a while, but you don't have to buy. It all improves your awareness. It all improves your visibility, and so it all improves your marketing. Those are all actions to get noticed Full circle. Does that make sense, joe?

It really does. And you know, obviously I know that you were definitely more of a specialist when it comes to marketing than I do, but every time we have these conversations, you find there's more depth, more depth, more depthness, and it's amazing, because I really do. I think it's great because, as we're going through this, a lot of subtleties are brought up, like before this, I'm sure there was someone who was listening and saying, well, I just got to put all my money into Google. It's like well, do you? And if you do, do you know how to do it? So I think this has been incredibly impactful.

All right, Well, we're not even done yet. We're pushing the time here, but, like I want to dive even deeper for another three minutes, is that? Okay? I'm fine, sounds good with it. We've talked a bit about this before, but now it really gains some context here. To make the most of our marketing opportunities, we should also be problem aware. If our marketing is problem aware, then we can engage in the conversations in our future clients minds based on the problem that they're experiencing. If that was Chinese, let me simplify a little bit. If you speak to the problem you want to solve, then the sale is yours to mess up. If you speak to the problem and you have a solution, then the sale is yours to mess up. Yet we just struggle to do this.

Please jump in, brother I wanted to jump in on this because I really feel like it sounds simple, but it's even simpler when you really think about it.

Imagine you had a customer somewhere in your county who notices that their kitchen countertop isn't working. Their first intention is to recognize that there's a problem and then want to go make a call. But if previously they saw on your Facebook or on their ad that you solved that specific concern, you're now almost inceptioning into their mind that you're the right person to go for this. Hey, I saw that Joe just did this same call yesterday. He clearly knows what he's talking about. Let's call him. So the benefit is that when you recognize which jobs are the most profitable, which jobs are the most fun, which jobs are the most consistent, which ones generate the most long-term relationships, you could rally everything behind solving a specific amount of problems that you genuinely enjoy or invested in doing. And the more you do that people with those problems start putting their hands up when they normally wouldn't, because now you're seen as an authority rather than just another generalist 100%.

Man Couldn't agree more. I'm going to say this transparently again. We've been coached by a literal coaching company that helps marketers market Right. I'm keeping identities clean here, I'm not throwing sand at anyone, but I'm telling you, even the marketing companies you hire don't follow their own principles a lot of times, because they're so focused on the channel and the path of least resistance to make a buck that they themselves don't put out content. That is problem aware with the solution and benefit attached, engaging in a way that actually serves them. And so how could they do it for you and that's one of my other favorite things about utilizing Facebook is we practice that messaging every day. If we wanted to put an ad out today to generate more traffic, we absolutely know what our top 10 traffic and engaging ads would be, because we already have the proof from our free posting on social media Incorrect, incredibly powerful. Let's go even deeper Now. I'm pushing it. I'm pushing it, but we're just like we're on this track. I really want something to click for someone today that just changes a life.

Is that fair Floors are yours? I mean, if we're changing lives, that's all I'm here for.

Let's say let's just say the GFCI call that you mentioned happened in XYZ neighborhood. Okay With you. Beyond the GFCI, following the six options secrets, episode 87, how the Y tells us what to offer, you learned more about this home and you actually found that it's a federal panel built in. Give me a year.

Usually panels in the federal were between 70s and 80s before they really got outsourced. Perfect, out-phased out.

And so you recognize that, hey, this is an urban development area where a pool of homes were built by the same contractor between the 70s and 80s, and I just helped someone and proved that this circuit actually would not trip because of this federal breaker.

I see where you're going with this.

Yet I have no leads and here we sit thinking about hiring a marketing agency or someone. Please help us find someone that we could help. Okay, let's think about this for one second. Would it serve us to even go door to door or send out EDDM every door direct mailers to that neighborhood, just letting them know about the Johnsons that you served and how their home and family are safer now because of the removal of that federal panel that is likely still in 80% of the homes in that neighborhood?

So I can say with firsthand experience that this 1000% works. We were doing a development in a place called Southfields where what ended up happening was we were called for a flickering kitchen light and when we got to this kitchen flickering light, we recognized it was an old, original GE panel that had been completely twinned out to smithereens. It was an undersized system, but it was what it was Turns out due to the age of the system and how it was installed. We found out that there was a breaker that was not turning off and had weak connections due to the age. It was causing the kitchen and the living room to flicker as a result. We were able to offer a full system renovation and a permanent life long guarantee.

But we started realizing that the same development was built by the same builder at the same time, but we recognized it by going to another call for the same issue and we went to the panel and we were like, oh wait, this is actually a consistent issue. So then we started sending out mailers of we know why your kitchen and living room lights flicker and we know how to fix it. Interested in learning more? Call here.

We knew, everyone knew about it.

And then almost every person who called bought a panel.

And spoke to the symptom and the language and the way that they were experiencing it. It's absolute mastery, well done. I love that example and if you're listening to this and thinking through the recent installations, repairs, demand, calls, you've had diagnostics, you've run troubleshooting problems and how you might be able to market to those people and really consider this and consider that that's just one thing on this list of this updated service leads now with links to our specialist checklist or Facebook cheat sheet podcasts reinforcing these thoughts, just like this one. That's just one thing on a list of about 50 things that you could be doing today to get those kinds of clients, people that know, like and trust you, on the calendar this week, tomorrow, maybe even today still, depending what time zone you're in and that important.

I feel like you just put a thousand dollars on someone's plate and like here you go, free money, take it and go and.

Then isn't it, wouldn't it be important Consistently exercise these things and recognize that where there's still fruit on the tree, why go plant another tree? It's okay to do both, but don't leave the fruit on this tree just to go get a new one. Mm-hmm, that doesn't make any sense to me, joe, and it's happening every day. Gosh, guys, we took this the extra mile, joe, is there anything else you would add to these sentiments before we jump into some action items today?

man, I think I want to jump on the action items because we honestly, we could dive into doing the entire guide and covering every aspect and every class we've taught on this. I don't think it would do it justice, so instead I'd be down to just jump right into it and say these are the things I know that can give people the results today.

All right, perfect. Well, I've seen a number of comments in the chat, so the basic, the basic action today, is simply to put your hand up, and I'm gonna make this easier than ever. You throw a one in the chat right now. We're gonna make sure that you guys get hooked up with this. Updated service leads now and that's gonna help you, with these action items and everything that's linked to it, to cause some real results and to have Longstanding, sustainable success in this, where you're not rushing to hire a marketing agency Hoping that they can fix the problem today for a big pile of cash that you don't agree with. Moreover, you're hiring them from a place of education and know how and a long-term strategy, that the cost is already computed in the price and it's not a reactionary, it's a proactive thing. Does that make sense? It really does.

I've got the all-star action top of mine. Hate it, brother. Okay, the biggest problem when we give away massive value pieces is that some people see the piece as the solution, not the action on the piece. So it's not enough for you. I mean, granted, bear minimum action, throw a hand up, we'll give it to you, it'll be in your hands. The problem is is that are you going to do anything with it, not just read it? Are you going to take the actions? Because that's the difference between someone who's basic and someone who's an all-star. If you're willing to not only look at it and say how can I adopt these Consistently into my daily routine, so much so that I'll even block off time my calendar for marketing efforts, that is an all-star and that's the kind of person that's going to be able to look at this and be like what were we doing prior to this guide?

100%. That's massive, joe. And if you're asking yourself what too good to be true, right, they wouldn't give this all the way. Why? Why do you guys give so much away? I'm going to be honest with you. We want to help you solve the next problem, not this one Mm-hmm. This is like step one. We just have to create a consistent rhythm, right, get a rhythm like Johnny, johnny cash set Mm-hmm. This is just the first problem, so why don't we solve that one together and move on to number two?

And, by the way, if you disagree in any way, if you took this value piece, took real efforts on it, sent the screenshots, proved you did the things and it did not work, I will personally give you a free coaching call and make it work, because this stuff works. There is absolutely no question. This is no silver bullet, no hocus pocus, just focus, baby. And this has been maybe the most powerful marketing episode We've done. I mean, it's just filled with raw value, joe, but we got a piece out of here. We got to cut this off.

Are you ready to sign off that? I am good sir. Thank you guys for joining us. Live in the electricpreneur group If you want to learn more about us or our mission. Go to service loop electrical calm. You don't have to be a Facebook Indian to get this value, so find us there, send us a message. We'd love to help you anyway we can, otherwise I'm clay. This is Joe and thank you guys for joining on another episode to help you Master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Maybe blessed. Can't wait to see you soon you.