Proven Lead Generation Strategies for Home Services Industry

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Ecoffee with experts. I’m your host, Matt Fraser. And on today’s show, we will discuss proven lead generation strategies for the Home Service Industry with Michael Venidis. Michael is the president of Digital Marketing for RYNO Strategic Solutions, a full-service Digital Marketing, Web Development, and SEO agency headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. With ten plus years of experience specializing in Local Lead Generation. He has helped heating, and air conditioning companies all over the US grow their businesses, utilizing several effective Digital Marketing tactics. He is also an avid volunteer in his community for nonprofit organizations such as, Companies with a Mission, Central Arizona Shelter Services, and St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, all helping vulnerable people in his community. Michael, it is an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for being here today.

Thank you so much. Now, what a great humble introduction, man. I’m super, super grateful to be here. Thank you so much.

Hey, it’s awesome to have you here. So, how did you get started in Digital Marketing?

Man, I could take up your whole episode with that answer. But fate had a plan for me. I got hurt bad back when I was 25 years old. But I was very fortunate, I had some friends there for me, and I landed in the industry. I joke, I laugh, and I didn’t choose Digital marketing, it chose me.

Okay, cool. Oh, that’s awesome. And in regards to the home services industry and getting involved, was that something the agency evolved into? Did they start offering General Marketing Services to small businesses and then evolve into focusing on Home Services, or did they jump in offering Home Services?

Ironically, it chose us. We didn’t choose it since the company owners in a previous opportunity had relationships with the Home Services Industry. So we naturally transitioned with them at the beginning of a business. Home Services is something that came along with them. And we’ve focused on being the most reputable company in that area.

So it just evolved as genuine business relationships. Because I’ve seen that happen before with other companies, where they get a client, and then they realize, number one, they’re good at that particular industry, and then latch on to it, and then what the heck we’re going to like start doing that more and more and more. So do you guys particularly do lead generation, or do you do the retainer model for home service businesses?

One thing that is super cool about RYNO Strategic Solutions is that we stay in our lane. We specialize in what we do and be extremely great. So we don’t have full-blown lead generation. We focus on new leads, meaning consumer growth rather than revenue growth. Everything’s done through lead generation conversion-based websites. So we try to avoid things like E-commerce, and we do this intentionally. Like to be good at something, I think it’s very important to specialize, focus, and hone in on that particular theme that you want to be great at to help accomplish your goals as an organization.

I agree that rather than trying to be all things to everyone, be one thing to one industry. There are multiple verticals inside the home services industry that you can serve us. But I agree with you. What do you think are some of the best lead generation strategies? Again, I don’t want you to divulge your secret sauce, but regarding generating leads for the home services industry, what has been the number one factor of success for you guys?

I still have a little old-school mentality because I still believe content is king. I think some elements will help. But without good content and quality pages on a website, I think it will be relatively difficult to succeed. And by all means, a rising tide raises all ships. So we are an open book.

Do you find coupons help, for instance, offering coupons on Google My Business pages or even on the website to people opting in to get a coupon for maybe a free furnace inspection?

Yeah. I think that supplemental advertising coupons are going to help you convert better. But the way I’ve always taught some of the students that come through here, RYNO isn’t just a Marketing agency, we try to treat our operation like a school. We’re constantly educating employees who come here to learn the art of SEO and PPC. But if I had to explain it very simply put to the less experienced consumer, I’ve always advertised this. It’s a three-step process. First, we have to rank to be found. We need to create that engagement by generating a click. There’s more than one option on the search results page. And then third is to convert, you have to generate an opportunity. And you think in our industry, many businesses forget, hey, like in the home services space, a conversion isn’t. this is not E-commerce, it’s not a sale. It’s an appointment, they’ll get to the house and convince them to make a transaction. So I look at it in that sense that coupons are crucial in that third step, that conversion can meet the intent of the phone, and we’re sending contact forms to reach out to our clients.

Okay, so what parameters do you use to identify a qualified marketing lead instead of a sales-qualified one?

Oh, gosh, it’s such a great question. It’s something that we’re super passionate about here. I always say that in business, it’s key to have a unique differentiator in addition to the basic mission, vision, and core values, and it’s the remoting piece that sets RYNO apart from many of our competitors in the space that we’re in. But to answer your direct question, I think your cost per lead is crucial. When dealing with a business owner, it’s important to understand money in versus money out. And let’s also be real, Digital Marketing can be complex. And I think it’s quite easy for less experienced clients who don’t understand it to be somewhat skeptical. So I think we are in an industry where we’re simplifying that reporting is key. And ultimately, what they want to understand is the money I’m spending. Is it justified? What am I getting back from that? So it isn’t easy because, as a Marketing agency, I can’t control what happens after the phone call after you generate leads. I don’t know their ability to book. So we must create a metric that allows us to be held accountable as an agency but is within our control. And I think that the cost per lead is that ultimate metric. But I think there are a lot of other crucial elements that you need to look at that supplement that, like what are you paying for click in certainly digital advertising and where you rank organically and things of that nature. So it would help if you didn’t mistake that answer for cost per lead being the only thing that matters, but I think it is extremely crucial.

So, to clarify for the audience and me, are you doing this in regards to generating leads? Is that something you’re selling to the end client, like the Ethernet company, as a lead, or are you taking their marketing budget and generating leads based on their spending?

We charge for a traditional SEO or PPC budget campaign where they would supply the dollars and think of it as a bank account. So we go in, lack of better terms, it’s like if I go into a casino and you hand me a budget. That’s my limitation, and that’s what I turn into a lead.

Okay, fantastic. So then you do that by driving traffic to their websites. What kind of control did you have regarding building landing pages and things like that? Do you use subdomains to do that in case they’re not using something like Unbounce? Or are there other ways to overcome that for other agencies looking to adopt that model? I’m just curious.

If you get a couple of different options here, we believe an SEO campaign must be successful by building the website. I often describe to my inexperienced clients that it’s like trying to go to the Super Bowl with someone else’s quarterback or car racing with someone else’s car, trying to be competitive. And when I think that it’s important that your SEO strategy is in line with the website it represents. We try to ensure we build all our sites in-house with specific strategies. But to be clear, talking landing pages, there were elements sometimes where you might run pay-per-click. And we do have generators that are designed more for PPC tactics versus SEO because they are different. So we have to determine if we build a landing page on a subdomain versus using existing pages on the website. So all of that needs to be evaluated and analyzed to determine how different country areas react differently to different pages in different situations.

Interesting. Yeah, because you have to consider where you’re targeting because even though the states are one big country, the mentality of people in maybe the northeastern United States might be different from Middle America and may react differently to a different ad. So it’s important to consider your targeting.

It’s so crucial. In the home services industry, we must remember that everything is location-based. So there’s a very big world for SEO, SEM, and PPC. But what we do is such a small increment of that. Everything we do is because our clients are location-based, and in our industry, they’re only licensed to go so far as to serve the consumers.

What’s the average surface area for them?

It varies because you’ve got a lot of coverage in different areas. Like some clients might be more rural, and others might be metro. So how far they’re willing to go, I think, varies based on things like county lines.

And population density. So I’m assuming it could be anywhere from a 15 to maybe even a 50-mile radius.

I would say it’s safe to assume 50 isn’t much farther.

Depending on the size of the company.

Yes, and the location. Sometimes when you’re in those rural areas, you’ve got to travel a little farther.

So, what is the most effective type of content for driving leads in the home services industry? You mentioned before content being king.

That’s a great question. When it comes to content in this particular industry, for the home services, for lack of better terms, we have to dumb it down. I can’t speak for you, Matt, but if you tell me to change a vehicle’s radiator, I get what a radiator is, but I can’t do it. And because it’s such a large investment, I’m spending anywhere from 20 to $100,000 on a vehicle. So it’s very important to me. I get nervous about who I can trust will go in there and ruin that investment if they don’t do things the right way. It’s very similar in home-services because this is your home, in most cases larger than a vehicle, so we want it done right. And we may not know somebody. So we invite someone to come into our house, we invite them to pick something potentially, and we don’t necessarily know what needs to be fixed or how to do it. So I say all this to you because I think it’s crucial to understand that most of you consumers are typing in very vague, general things in this particular industry. Like, say, repair, plumbing service, electrician, they’re not being very, very particular about what specific service they need. But what it all comes down to at the end of the day is keyword research. So you need to choose the service, evaluate the area, and research to supplement how much demand there is. A good example in this industry might be furnaces. It may be more common in certain parts of the nation, whereas in others, they are not because it’s such a big deal for HVAC.

Depending on where you live. I get local SEO, but how have you competed for your clients against HomeStars, Yelp, and Angie’s list or service experts and the other websites whose directory website seemed to have gotten the head start in the SERPs?

Well, if you can’t beat them, join them. In the world of SEO, I like to describe things as you have, what is called on-site SEO versus what is off-site SEO. On-Site SEO is when we’re talking about content within your website. We’re talking about how fast and secure the website is. Also, the technical elements that are important for search engines like Google to recommend you higher on the results page. But you have to consider off-site as well. Whenever you’re dealing with location-based business off-site, SEO is crucial. And the way that you do that is by paying attention to what’s called local directories. Several publishers are out on the web, and that would be something like Yelp, now called Google Business Profiles. It used to be Google My Business, aka Maps, Bing Maps, and Apple Maps, these are all considered directories and publishers. And this is the thing to your point when you’re searching for a location-based service. Those types of directories always appear at the top because Google knows that they are location-based tools that are helping us find a business within the service area. So it’s common sense, like, I’m going to give a boost to a directory like this. And when I say it, beat it, join it. Part of doing off-site SEO is ensuring you go into those profiles, manage them, and optimize a profile on Yelp or Google Maps the same way you’re optimizing a website. So now, there are differences between the two. So when I meet with my clients monthly and discuss performance results, we look at each of those different directories and make sure they are doing the things that would help them rank better within those directories, the same way we’re trying to get you to rank against them. So it’s important, like, are you generating reviews? Are you responding to those reviews? Are you doing any type of keyword targeting? Several tactics happen in the directories the same way they happen outside. Does that answer your question?

In your experience, have you found it beneficial for plumbers and HVAC companies to advertise on those directories? I know some of them can.

I will say 100%, and I think it depends on what you mean when you say advertise.

What I mean is paying for their sponsored listings, that’s what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about getting an organic listing on there. So I’m talking about paying them to come up above. For instance, if someone’s searching for Chicago Plumber on their site, like Yelp, you would come up as a sponsored listing.

And the answer is yes, 100%. And the only reason I say that is because typically, when you’re dealing with paid advertisement, you’ll get a lot of people who will tell you, Hey, I scroll right past it. The general user doesn’t want to be manipulated. If I know something is paid for, I feel like someone’s manipulating it to try and get my business. And I don’t think anybody wants to do that. But I think what we find that happens is a type of consumer, especially in the home services space, where you have to think about situational awareness. I can give you an example of today’s generation, and I call this my third arm. I use cell phone devices in our industry, especially for home services. When you think about situational awareness, I’ll give you an example. If I have a senior citizen in the home and infant, your index at 120, and my AC goes out, it becomes a serious emergency. So I’m not going to sit here on this laptop and take my time and do my research. I’m probably going to use this device to search whether an app or browser. But I’m in such a panic state going so fast that when you use an advertising tool, whether it’s Yelp or Google PPC, it tends to overlook the label that is an ad, especially when the message is compelling. I also think that a very important thing to understand is that in location-based businesses, proximity is important. So if I am located in Phoenix, and I’m also trying to get out 45 minutes away to a city like Mesa here, I service it. But if I want to grow there, SEO isn’t as beneficial to me because Google looks at me and says, Why would I suggest you over this guy who’s much, much closer to the general location? Well, PPC and digital advertising, even if it’s inside of Yelp, or another publisher, you can tactically pick where you show up for locations and pay to cut the line. It’s like a fast pass like PPC when I woke up the next day, now, I can manipulate that proximity algorithm a little bit and get eyes on me when I may not necessarily be the best option from a location standpoint to the consumer. Does that make sense?

So what you’re saying is if someone’s located in Phoenix, but they want to target Mesa, and they’re a plumber, but because they don’t have a location there, which we all know, Google for a local service area, they’re not going to rank you in someone else’s area. So one option besides opening up another office there or a location, which costs money, is to jump the queue, so to speak, and use paid ads to get yourself in front of that potential buyer?

I’m not telling you this particular trade PPC is crucial for the reasons we’re discussing now. More importantly, in the home services industry, you can only do so much in SEO. You can only control so much. Optimize your site, but it’s constantly used with less experienced people. It’s like planting a fruit tree to eat that fruit regularly. It was an orange tree. I leaned very heavily upon pay-per-click tactics to generate leads for my business. Think of it as me watering the tree. So I’m keeping the tree-the business alive as it grows by utilizing PPC to buy the time it needs for the SEO to start growing. And at the point at which your business has made a digital footprint large enough for SEO organically, meaning it starts to generate the fruit and they are sustainable, that’s when I can let off my foot on the PPC a little bit. I use pay-per-click until the SEO starts to do what it’s designed to do. And the time it takes for SEO to do what it’s designed to do varies. I will never give you a guaranteed time frame. Because if an SEO company has very little competition in a rural area with a small population, it’s probably easier to see that success compared to a major market like Phoenix, where HVAC or plumbing companies are on every corner. It’s going to take a lot more time. But for Pay Per Click, it’s crucial to understand because not only can you get as near a radius targeting or zip code to try and determine where you want to go. Tactics might be, what’s the average age of the unit? Or what’s the average age of the home? If you have a community built 10-20 years ago, depending on your opinion on what that lifespan is, you might target that area, knowing that changeouts and new systems are bound to become pretty popular because of the time they were built. So PPC can be very tactical because I could pause and resume a service campaign that’s emergency based. Because if you have an emergency, you will not wait that long. If I can’t get to you the same day, you will go to the next guy on the list. So maybe those PPC dollars are better off going towards a sales campaign where you have a new system. Sometimes it’s trying to replace a unit that’s not broken. I don’t want it to break during summer. I am being proactive. All this is, hey, I’m willing to wait two weeks for a company I feel good about to come out to my home when it’s a much, much larger purchase. Like a new air conditioner can easily run you eight grand. So hopefully, it makes sense.

It makes sense. So pausing there for a minute. Perry Marshall wrote the Ultimate Guide to Google Ads, and I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with it and our audience. At least it should be. He’s talked about the most important aspect of a PPC campaign that has nothing to do with PPC or Google ads. But it’s strategically important and developing your unique selling proposition. And I find many business owners don’t have one, the ones I’ve worked with. So it’s very rare to see even a local business with a unique selling proposition. And so I’m curious to know, when it comes to PPC, what kind of offers and ads are the best to differentiate Joe plumber from Sam plumber regarding leading to conversions and getting the results you’re getting?

Such a great question. I think it’s key to have a unique differentiator, as I described, is Ryan Trax in our reporting system. We try to decipher legitimately what a new customer is versus new revenue. Let’s try to scale your growth from a $1 perspective. I’m trying to scale your growth from an actual customer. When I get more new customers, the money comes naturally, which is how I hold myself to a higher standard than our competition. But to your question, I think coupons are crucial. And I think you must have a coupon that relates to about every area of the company. So what I mean by that is that if I said HVAC, you’re either repairing a unit, replacing a unit, doing seasonal maintenance, or people are doing a lot more indoor air quality these days. But to my point, if I’m going to run a PPC ad that is all about maintenance, they click this ad, and I send them to a page with nothing to do with maintenance. There is no value. You are going to lose. You get the click but no conversion version, it’s a waste of money. But where the coupon helps is the sense of urgency. So what I mean by that is you want your consumer to be entitled to, in today’s day and age. We have a device where we get what we want when we want it most of the time. And we’re like, hey, what’s in it for me? And so we must write a compelling offer that makes them feel like they’re getting a real deal and opportunity. So if you’re unaware of what your competition is doing, you’re losing out there. It will help if you stay competitive with your competition. And I would also say, put the time and value on it. Here’s a freebie for those who watched this podcast if I were to do a coupon that tells me a $50 Maintenance special versus a one that says $50 Maintenance special with a traditional value of $150. This one’s way better because I know how much money I’m saving and what a good deal. Or I might also say this expires by a certain date, whereas this one does not. And this is the difference when you’re building a website with a traditional design agency versus an actual Digital Marketing agency.

They are conversion-focused.

Yes. If I take these coupons design agency, they will make sure the coupon is beautiful, but a Marketing agency will look at it and say, you know what, I am going to put an expiration date on that auto rotates every week. So any time someone sees it, they have a sense that it will expire.

It will expire seven days from when I see it.

Marketing agency builds a website as an investment tool with the intent of your money coming back to you full circle and more. A design agency builds something that is visual and represents your brand well.

Do you provide call tracking? Because some of these things are calls. Do you provide your clients with the tools to do call tracking, or do you do it for them because that can be expensive in some ways?

It can be. We always recommend it. We supply our lines and do our tracking. Here at RYNO, we have a team that listens to all calls because we need that human intelligence to listen to a call and find out who is a first-time customer and who is a repeat. I will give you an example. Not to knock on artificial intelligence, but many do cool things where they auto-transcribe calls.

But you have this condition that says, hey, if the call is longer than or shorter than a minute, it is or is not an engaged lead. Because what we are trying to do is distinguish who is new and has never done business with us and persons who have. AI will not decipher that. I also think it is important to have a pulse on did it book or not. I can give you all the leads in the world. However, suppose your customer service representative or on-facing team doesn’t book and close those opportunities. In that case, you will still have a business owner thinking we are not doing our part because they don’t see the revenue or the appointment on the schedule. So to have a team listen to that and provide that type of feedback is very valuable because it helps business owners understand this is not a lead generation problem it is a booking problem which you may want to dive into some coaching. So it took us sideways there.

No. It was very helpful. Everyone knows, like when I was at the Dealership, and I knew my marketing was working, but the general manager told me that it wasn’t because they weren’t selling cars. So, you can generate many leads for a business and have the sales team drop the ball. It is so important to make that differentiation to track that what you are doing is effective in separating a market-qualified lead from a sales-qualified lead and knowing where the marketing process begins and ends and the sales process begins and ends. So that you know the entire funnel because the marketing and sales funnel are so aligned that you know who is responsible for what. I find that doing marketing for plumbers and things like that, they want all this business, yet they are so busy working in the business that they miss phone calls. And they wonder why it’s not working. Why don’t you pick up the phone? So how do you combat that problem?

By showing them. In my tracking reports, I track how many missed calls they have. I will show them firsthand. I have an obligated screen sharing when I do my reporting calls. It’s very simple, if I tell you it’s 120 or 10 degrees, it’s more of a coal factor. People are more uncomfortable with in-home services because I can’t shower. We have a problem. If I am sweating buckets, we have a problem. Your home is supposed to be the most comfortable place in your life. So when I am uncomfortable, their time is of the essence. And because we need to create that picture for business owners, I say you do that, and it is usually enough. In this industry, we have some options, it’s not uncommon for them to use answering services to retain the lead. But it doesn’t change the fact that if you don’t get back to them or get to them fast enough, you will lose it.

But it’s still better than missing the call by using an answering service?

Yes, I would say so.

But at least the customers are getting the prospect of the potential lead is getting a conversation with the call center that can pretend they are the secretary or the people answering the phone. And then get to that scheduler. Hopefully, if a company grows that fast they can put in all the segments of the company they need to function like a dispatcher. So going from a call center to a dispatcher would be the most logical thing, the dispatcher dispatching the calls or calling the person back.

It helps. I think the challenges are that you must find a good quality answering service that attempts to understand your brand, your model, and what you do. Because most of the time, they are reading from a script or someone who has a phone number routing and can be hit or miss depending on how well you bridge that gap. And I want to make it clear; your brand is everything. We can do Digital Marketing all day, but you wonder if I have salespeople going out selling. If your brand is on par, you don’t need people to go out and sell. So there is a reason I go out, and I buy this common watch. Like no one knocked on my door and sold it to me. It branded itself so well that I went in and chose to purchase it. It is the power of the brand, and when you create that type of brand, it will give you some equity in your Digital Marketing. So I want to make sure I touch base on that because it is crucial. And that is the thing when you hire an answering service that is not in-house; you are putting your brand on the line. So you have to look at it from a couple of perspectives because protecting the brand is as crucial as generating leads. So make sure you vet your answering agency is the message I am trying to deliver here. So ensure you get one trying to understand your brand and represent it the way you want it to be at odd hours because they usually field calls at 11 or midnight when we are not our most friendly selves.

You think that answering service would represent your brand because that’s what they are paid for. Some do a better job than others. Then there is also protecting your brand and your reputation with reviews online. So what do you think about tools for managing reviews? Do you have any favorites?

I do, I have a few and have no problem name-dropping. I am a big fan of Podium. There is no real partnership there, it is not like I am getting an incentive to advertise them. What I like about them is that Podium creates a system where they receive text messages instead of using automation or botting. I also like that it keeps the communication in-house, which helps protect the brand. I advocate for reviews, especially off-site SEO because it is a ranking factor. We talked about the directory earlier. Google Maps, it is not uncommon that I see it do 25 to 30 percent of the call volumes per month for the clients we represent in-home services. If you are neglecting Google maps, what I want you to walk away with from this podcast is to pursue it and actively engage with it because it’s 100 percent free, and it’s a game changer, organically off-site. Paying attention means you don’t have to manage a website to generate free leads from Google maps. But to get yourself to rank, you have to generate reviews. So for review variation tools, I am a fan of them as long as the reviews are real, organic, and, more importantly, you respond to the reviews with the thought of tactics.

I have a plumber friend whose physical location is his house. He doesn’t have the character to get a storefront and interior pictures. At the very least, he will get a virtual address and an office, but he is not interested in spending the Capital to have those things. I have another friend who is a home inspector, and he doesn’t have to have a physical building with a sign on it that costs five grand. Are they at a disadvantage with the Google My Business listing?

That’s a great question. Google does allow you to create service area listings. So you do not need a physical location. But I do believe, from what I have seen over ten years, that the physical locations respond better to the algorithm. And I have seen several things happen. First, you can create a physical location, so you send a postcard and prove you have access to the mail. Some people have no problem using their house and advertising that. It all depends; it’s a risk. It’s out there for the general public, and people can come to that location, and the risk factor is a possibility. In this industry, inspecting, plumbing, and stock counting may need to come into your shop more. We are coming to your approach. But if you ask me if having a physical location is worth it? 100 percent. I have clients who rent. They will rent a room in a building to have the mailing address to create a location. It depends on what the cost is. It all comes down to you looking at how much you will pay for rent.

Like they will pay for a virtual office, is what you are saying? An amount per month to have that location. I know of a place where you can rent a virtual office for meager rent, like $100 per month to have the address, but if you want a physical office, it can be anywhere from $300 per month upward, depending on what you want.

It can range dramatically, that is why it is important to evaluate the reporting. Google Maps give you free insight. You can go in and see how many calls you are generating from it per day, see the caller id and if you are running your business as a small mom and pop, keep track of that. This person makes an $8000 system sale, and you have their personal information on file, compare the numbers with Google maps and track it, that eight thousand dollars with maps which is completely free. Does that justify my time and effort in optimizing this map listing? And when you start to see how much comes through, it is very easy for you to see if it is worth renting out a space or not. There are many ways to win the game, but at the end of the day, you have to play well with Google. They are trying to keep a clean tool out there so that it doesn’t die. Like everyone uses google for a reason. It has established trust, and if we damage that, we lose the share and the impact that google has. So I would say be cautious when experimenting with these things because you need to play by the rules. The minute you lose their trust, it’s hard to come back from that.

One of the rule is you can’t use stock photos for your pictures. I have heard of people doing it but risk getting delisted. I don’t know if that is your experience or not regarding plumbing photos. Ideally, people should take pictures of their work and publish them, whether you are a home renovation company or whatever the case. One of the challenges is if you don’t have a physical location with a nice neon sign on the front of the cover-photo the building, how do you take a cover photo to prove you are a real company unless you rent an office and put a sign on your front door that you are a plumber?

It’s been done. I see people take pictures of their trucks and somehow get by. I see different things. Google seems to be a bit more lenient as of late. Recently we did a virtual video where we walked them into the office. They are not stern about seeing an address, sign, or door. Something you said, though, that I think is so important to call out is you want to be thinking about your competition and ensuring you are always paying attention to what they are doing when it comes to Digital Marketing. If you have any SEO experience and are listening to this podcast, you have heard of Bruce White. He is the Godfather of SEO. But his SEO siloing methods, I think, are very powerful on websites. So I bring him up because we get lost in Digital Marketing. After all, we think we have to do this entire checklist from A to Z, and all you need to do is what your competition is doing, plus a bit more. That is very important. The first thing I do with a client is evaluating the search page to see who I am competing with and what they are doing. And it helps me develop a plan on how I will pursue my competition. I often describe Digital Marketing as a chess game. So there are a million moves I could take. And I will change them every month based on what the guys I am competing with are doing. It’s not the same things in the same order. It varies schematically based on conditions and competition. So it’s always interesting to me because I may bring a client on and say, who do you think your top three competitors are? It varies on Google, who I would consider their top three.

Oh, have I ever experienced that? It’s amazing.

When you have digital real estate in the virtual world and are trying to build the largest billboard in Google, I have to look at those digital guys, not the real guys.

They give you people they think are their competition, then you look online and find out they are not your competition, these people are your competition. It’s very interesting.

I have a client from Phoenix, and I should rephrase. It is not my client but a company we had spoken to back and forth. They had zero Digital Marketing efforts and are still a top five organization size-wise in the city to put it in perspective, you can completely neglect digital and still be a winner. But digital, I can tell you, will be your next best friend outside of branding and word of mouth. You were going to say something before I interrupted you.

I can’t remember what it was. It’s okay. You had mentioned tracking the leads and things like that. For me, the number one way business owners can track is using CRM, but hardly anyone is using them.

So, if you ask me how I am tracking leads to my organization here at RYNO.

Or for your clients? You mentioned this plumber. I know you are using a platform to track if you are generating new business. So I am assuming you are doing that with CRM. So what about the plumber? Is he using your CRM, or do you recommend CRM to clients?

Oh yes. I can answer both of those things. For us in-house, we use SalesForce, which is why it has been so valuable. It is because if you can dream it, it can be done with the help of SalesForce. If you don’t have access to a high-level developer, my next suggestion would be HubSpot because I think it is much more user-friendly and out of the box with fewer customization requirements to use operationally. So when talking about a phone services client, the most commonly talked about field management software in the space is ServiceTitan. And they have some alternative options, Housecall Pro is one, and FieldEdge.

I have heard of FieldEdge. There is also GetJobber. They are a Canadian darling because they are another one of the billion-dollar evaluated companies worldwide.

Some of these guys have integration with Google, which makes it convenient. SuperClear is a field management software, and it is like an actual CRM. I still think you will go back to companies like SalesForce and HubSpot to do that unless you build something in-house.

Interesting. I would love to have you back on the show. We are coming to the top of the hour, and there are so many things we could talk about like, What is the difference between SalesForce and FIeld management software and the pros and cons of those two things. So I would love to have you back on. What is one takeaway you would like people to get from this episode?

Matt, it’s a loaded question. But I would tell you guys here at RYNO we exist to grow your business, period. It is our statement here. If I could recommend any piece of advice outside of the things, I’ve already mentioned. If you are neglecting Google Maps, you are missing out so big. It is 100% free and very easily done in-house. You don’t need a marketing agency to generate those free opportunities. Outside of that, I would say understand your reporting. that is crucial. In digital marketing, the quality you get is how much you want to hold them accountable. Ask questions, and understand what success is and what is not. Be aware of what your average tickets are as a company. Ask how much you are paying for these leads. Because if it costs a hundred dollars to generate a new customer, and I know the average ticket for the type of service they want will cost a thousand dollars sound like a win once you start to evaluate profit margins. Know your reporting and have a pulse, that’s my advice.

Michael, how can our listeners connect with you online?

Sure, and I love it because I love talking shop, and I love teaching, and I do a ton of webinars. The best way you can connect with me because my calendar is always very tight, is by email. I will evaluate those. My email is mvenidis@rynoss.com.

Are you on LinkedIn or anything like that?

I am. I am on LinkedIn M. Venidis.

M. Venidis. Search for you. Hey, it’s been a pleasure having you on the show. And I want to thank you again for taking the time out of your day to do so.

Matt Thank you so much, man, I am grateful.

Have a great day.