How Roe Painting Turned Content Into Qualified Website Leads [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 105]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:17:16

Speaker 2

sometimes you got to take your boss by the ear and really force his hand and say, you need to look at this, because it's not that we don't want change. Ultimately, the whole team wanted the end result. We just didn't quite know how to get there. And it wasn't that I was turned off, dissuaded, pushed away from from endless customers or anything.

 

00:00:17:16 - 00:00:30:01

Speaker 2

I just had a lot on my plate. But it was the most important thing I needed to look at at the time. I just didn't know it at the time. So if you're in that position, have heart and have faith and make someone read the book and get in front of this.

 

00:00:39:01 - 00:00:53:00

Speaker 1

Welcome back to Endless Customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. And today we have a really exciting show. And to kick things off, I'm going to introduce you to Janet Mendez la Touche. Janet, welcome back to the show. She's a website strategist here at impact.

 

00:00:53:02 - 00:00:54:11

Speaker 1

How's it going Janet?

 

00:00:54:13 - 00:00:59:14

Speaker 3

Go well go to super happy to be back. And with some of my most favorite, favorite people.

 

00:00:59:16 - 00:01:00:04

Speaker 2

Yes.

 

00:01:00:08 - 00:01:04:06

Speaker 1

Who do you bring along for the show today? Who are we talking with? I'm excited to get into this.

 

00:01:04:08 - 00:01:30:03

Speaker 3

I have the amazing road paint.com and I have their team. So we have the CEO, Andy. Just an amazing CEO. Honestly, I'm just been great to get to know him, especially on that. I remember meeting you and at Impact Live and it was just such a great conversation and the beginning of our journey together. And then we have Ashley, the marketing and content manager, who really saved the day.

 

00:01:30:03 - 00:01:32:07

Speaker 3

And we'll get into that story a little bit later.

 

00:01:32:13 - 00:01:34:22

Speaker 1

Excellent. Well, Andy, welcome to the show.

 

00:01:34:22 - 00:01:37:17

Speaker 2

Thank you. Good to be here, Alex. Janet, good to see you again.

 

00:01:37:19 - 00:01:38:05

Speaker 3

You too.

 

00:01:38:09 - 00:01:40:22

Speaker 1

And Ashley, welcome to the show as well.

 

00:01:41:00 - 00:01:42:20

Speaker 3

Thank you. I'm excited.

 

00:01:42:22 - 00:01:56:05

Speaker 1

We're we're really excited. We got a lot to get into and we got to roll up our sleeves. We have so much to talk about, so much ground to cover. You guys have been crushing it with endless customers. Jen, it's been let me in on a little bit of behind the curtain of what you've been doing and just all the amazing things that are going on.

 

00:01:56:07 - 00:02:12:03

Speaker 1

But before we start with all that cool stuff, can you set the stage for us either Ashley or Andy, whoever wants to take this one. Tell us a little bit about road painting and what what you guys do, how the company started. Just give us a little background on what ROH is all about.

 

00:02:12:05 - 00:02:33:21

Speaker 2

I'll go ahead and take that one. I started road painting, 25 years ago, on the north shore of Kauai, if you can believe that. I'm a native Idaho and born and raised here, but, started my business there, brought it back to Idaho, and, we now work in two states, southern Idaho, northern Nevada. But we also work in about a seven state radius we call the Intermountain West for different products that we provide.

 

00:02:33:23 - 00:03:03:06

Speaker 2

We're kind of a unique painting company in our industry because we're so diverse. We do commercial and residential as well as an industrial division in a country coatings division. So all those divisions require different technicians, have different systems and processes. So for 25 years we've been just kind of building this thing up. This started as me, as the one painter in the company and has blossomed into, beautiful business that we have here today that has its business challenges and it's trying times.

 

00:03:03:08 - 00:03:06:04

Speaker 2

But also that I'm, I'm very, very proud of.

 

00:03:06:06 - 00:03:27:06

Speaker 1

Thanks for sharing. And what business doesn't there's always peaks and valleys as we navigate through the economy and move into the future as we scale. So we're definitely gonna get into some of those peaks and valleys. But how did your endless customer journey start? Or where did you start to at least uncover the principles that day of endless customers and really get involved with impact in coaching and training?

 

00:03:27:06 - 00:03:30:12

Speaker 1

Like, how did that story start for you, Andy.

 

00:03:30:14 - 00:03:46:13

Speaker 2

It's a great question. You know, marketing has always been close to my heart. I was always very proud. You know, I was a little kid. I you know, I can always remember my older brother, seeing him one day and he had a t shirt with his name on it. He also owns a painting company. And I remember being like, wow, look at that.

 

00:03:46:13 - 00:04:05:10

Speaker 2

He's got a t shirt with his name on it. And I was so proud of that. And so it's always been fun, you know, of course, the early stages of business designing your logo and, you know, putting your brand on your, on your truck. Is it really exciting time? And then things grow. You know, I grew through the time periods of building websites that cost $500, and somebody did him for you.

 

00:04:05:10 - 00:04:23:07

Speaker 2

And, you know, it's just such an evolving process. But I always loved it, enjoyed it. And as the company grew, you know, I wear a lot of different hats. But when we reached the point where, I was no longer probably the best fit to run the market, it just it had grown too big. I didn't want to fully let it go.

 

00:04:23:07 - 00:04:40:11

Speaker 2

And so at that point, I want to say this is maybe around, 20, 20 that, maybe 2021 where we decided to to have an out outside marketing firm and we worked with that firm that was specific to our industry trade for about two years, learned a lot of good things. Great people on that team really appreciated them.

 

00:04:40:13 - 00:04:56:08

Speaker 2

And we reached a point where we just didn't quite feel like it was the right fit, and we were making a change to a company that had built probably our most marquee website. Well, definitely our most marquee website in 2019. He had a great eye for design, and we decided to move all of our marketing to them.

 

00:04:56:08 - 00:05:12:23

Speaker 2

It was discussed costlier, but we felt like it was going to be a better fit for us. And, one of the last things we got from the smaller firm was, the book they ask, you answer. And so it was kind of the last. Yeah. You might read this. Yeah. Still friends with that individual that runs that company to this day.

 

00:05:13:01 - 00:05:29:01

Speaker 2

Okay. So we started with the new company and things, to kind of a winding road, again, nothing but respect for that company, but it just wasn't the right fit. And during that time period, one member of our team, Suzanne, would, she read, asked you answer. And she was like, I think you guys need to read this.

 

00:05:29:01 - 00:05:49:22

Speaker 2

And so, Jed, our VP of sales, read it. And then he came to me and he was like, you need to read this, you know? And so I kind of hemmed and hawed as like, yeah, I'll get it in the queue. And he's like, no, you need to read this now. You know, Jed always has run our sales and I've run our marketing and know, I think one of the frustrations for us as a company was they weren't truly combined and aligned.

 

00:05:50:00 - 00:06:07:09

Speaker 2

And when I read the concepts in this, first of all, hearing Marcus story of, you know, the Great Recession, the financial struggles he went through, I lived that I can remember sitting on the hearth of my home with my head in my hands and just asking myself, what am I going to do? What am I going to do?

 

00:06:07:09 - 00:06:22:21

Speaker 2

It's like a faucet was turned off to our business, and so hearing someone else that had gone through that and had found a way through it gave me hope. And so I think we were intrigued. I read it, it was good, but I read a lot of marketing books, and so I don't think we acted immediately on it.

 

00:06:22:23 - 00:06:39:08

Speaker 2

But during the same time period, you know, things were changing our business, our lead count was dropping. We were seeing, you know, contracts get pushed out. People were getting a little bit more nervous about the economy. And so ultimately, we reached a point where we kind of had to have come to Jesus conversation about what we need to do.

 

00:06:39:08 - 00:06:56:01

Speaker 2

Jed was very forceful. We need a content managers. This has to happen. And I that's when I said, okay, I think you're right. We need a content manager. That was the first step. The second step was Jed got on the phone, with team member from impact talked to him, and then he came back to me and said, I think you need to take a closer look at this.

 

00:06:56:01 - 00:07:14:07

Speaker 2

So we did. We had a call, and I think after we had that call with impact, we felt like this is something that needs to happen. We need we need the effort of a professional that can help guide us on this journey. I was really drawn to who impact was culturally. You know, you sell what you sell.

 

00:07:14:07 - 00:07:29:09

Speaker 2

But I never wanted to try to convince someone to spend money with us. I wanted people who are truly our customers to find us that found value in what we offered. You know, it's all about value. You don't. You don't have to be the most expensive, the least expensive. You have to have the right value and match up with your customer.

 

00:07:29:09 - 00:07:41:08

Speaker 2

So solving that riddle that we've been working on for over 20 years was very attractive to me and the people that I met it impact, and followed through on how I felt during that first consultation.

 

00:07:41:10 - 00:08:10:20

Speaker 3

Yeah, well, I just want to say shout out to Jed because he was one of the biggest advocates of, you know, they ask you answering endless customers. And he was pushing for it so hard. Him and Suzanne. And they're not on the call, but such an amazing team that you guys have that really like it's it's something that we don't often see, where everyone is aligned on that singular goal and, and making sure that we are going to combine marketing, we are going to combine sales and really go after this thing.

 

00:08:10:20 - 00:08:17:11

Speaker 3

So I always appreciate the advocates and I even more appreciate the oneness that you guys really had during that process.

 

00:08:17:13 - 00:08:20:08

Speaker 2

Yeah. If I were to talk directly to the advocates out there,

 

00:08:20:08 - 00:08:38:00

Speaker 2

sometimes you got to take your boss by the ear and really force his hand and say, you need to look at this, because it's not that we don't want change. Ultimately, the whole team wanted the end result. We just didn't quite know how to get there. And it wasn't that I was turned off, dissuaded, pushed away from from endless customers or anything.

 

00:08:38:00 - 00:08:50:09

Speaker 2

I just had a lot on my plate. But it was the most important thing I needed to look at at the time. I just didn't know it at the time. So if you're in that position, have heart and have faith and make someone read the book and get in front of this.

 

00:08:50:19 - 00:09:13:23

Speaker 1

That's a really good point. No, that's a really great point. You make any and I love that because we talk about buying a lot here at impact. When we're talking to prospects and when we're just educating people on the endless customer system, we talk about how you need buy in from the top down. But there's a lot of times where people will read the book or will start to really, get buy in with what, what we're putting out there and like, want to bring it into their organization and it's hard to bring it up.

 

00:09:14:01 - 00:09:27:11

Speaker 1

Yeah. To leadership sometimes. And I think you're right. I love what you said. And for everyone out there listening and watching, you got to grab your CEO by the ears and say, hey, you need to read this book. Hey, you need to check this out. Hey, this is really important because your job is a is a tough one as a CEO.

 

00:09:27:11 - 00:09:49:18

Speaker 1

And to be in business 25 years is a long time. That's an incredible thing that not a lot of business owners can say. So and to start in 2000 and navigate through all the technology changes, the crash of oh eight, all the things that you've been through and you're still here. I mean, that speaks volumes about how how busy you are, but also how important it is to really align and use the system to your advantage.

 

00:09:49:18 - 00:10:15:07

Speaker 1

So bravo there. Really? Bravo there. You mentioned something too, about content manager, so I want to go back to that if we can, and talk about how when you knew you needed a content manager, you and Judd had this conversation. We need this content manager. What happened next? What was the hiring process like? How did you get after that and start to find somebody that could fit this role and take it, take on all this content and producing all this stuff that had to go out on a weekly basis?

 

00:10:15:09 - 00:10:36:15

Speaker 2

Well, the, you know, the first step that came up for us was actually probably not in the same order. Maybe not, I'm not sure. But we had our videographer first. We had already started down the path of having, someone to do video part time. That individual didn't work out. And we had, very talented individual in our team, named Adam, who was painting at the time.

 

00:10:36:15 - 00:10:53:08

Speaker 2

And when his his number was called, he he got the opportunity, he jumped right in. So we were we were starting to create video content. We we knew that we needed to do that. We needed to be on the channels, put together videos on what we wanted to do. The marketing, the content manager was step two.

 

00:10:53:08 - 00:11:11:06

Speaker 2

So obviously we went through the interview process, hired what we thought would be the best fit. But I'll probably sidetrack here a little bit because it wasn't quite working, but we didn't quite know that it wasn't working because we hadn't been down this path before. Well, our coaches said, you got to come to impact life. You got to come to the event, you got to come see us.

 

00:11:11:06 - 00:11:30:00

Speaker 2

It's, you know it. It's going to get you. You know, all these great things. You're you're going to be in person with Marcus. You're going to see the team. Well, I do believe in training, ongoing education. We're part of trade association. So we go to conferences. And so, I told the team, okay, it's super convenient for us to get from Boise, Idaho to Hartford, Connecticut.

 

00:11:30:02 - 00:11:45:09

Speaker 2

Not quite, but, it was about as far away as you could possibly get. And the timing of it was around two other conferences we had, and I was like, oh man. But I knew we needed to do it. So Jed, Suzanne and I booked our tickets. We made it happen, and we came back east and went to the conference.

 

00:11:45:15 - 00:12:00:22

Speaker 2

I didn't know what I needed to learn there, but I knew there was something that I was going to take away. That one thing, and I actually got two things. But the first thing that I got that was really, really important was I realized who we had was not working. It wasn't going to happen. They weren't the right person.

 

00:12:01:00 - 00:12:17:18

Speaker 2

And so when we left, I said, we have to find the right person, not only in talent and skill. But, you know, get it, want it, competency and capacity to do it. And so when, when we came home from that trip, we, we made the decision, to let the first individual go. We started our hunt back up.

 

00:12:17:20 - 00:12:40:06

Speaker 2

And obviously, that's the best thing that ever happened to us because we got the best content manager in the world. And I will gush over her all day long, because this is one of the one of the most talented people that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. You talk about somebody that shows up, with a great attitude, with a willing spirit, with good background knowledge, and just took to the coaching right away and joined the team cultural alignment.

 

00:12:40:11 - 00:12:56:07

Speaker 2

And from there, our journey just changed. It was it was like we were kind of just running on, flat. And then all of a sudden it was smooth and we were cranking and the difference was just night and day. So having kind of the very talented actually joined our team changed things significantly.

 

00:12:56:09 - 00:12:56:16

Speaker 1

Ashley.

 

00:12:56:16 - 00:13:17:11

Speaker 3

And now Ashley is amazing. And that's why I call her the saving Grace, because, what we didn't mention is that this happened just as Andy, we had signed like, an agreement to move forward with building a whole new website, remember? So we had talked about this is like an impact live where we're like, yeah, we're going to build a new website with the content manager.

 

00:13:17:11 - 00:13:39:15

Speaker 3

I think that's when we realized, oh, it's good to kind of begin this project. So we had this really like dilemma. We're like, okay, we're starting this new project. Who the heck is going to write the content? Right? So we had to shift things a bit. But when Ashley came on board, it was like everybody could breathe again and we can get the content right on the site.

 

00:13:39:17 - 00:13:57:23

Speaker 3

And when I tell you she just like, ran with what I gave her. Even getting past my training and coming to me with things and that that I think was just like Star-Studded Content Manager, the best I could ask for. And sorry, Ashley, we're just gushing about that. Yeah.

 

00:13:58:01 - 00:14:12:09

Speaker 2

And actually, you did a really good point there because actually, that was the second thing that I took away from that event. So maybe gave it to you out of order there. But at on one of the breaks it endless customers. I came back to the table and Jed was just looking at me and I was like, what?

 

00:14:12:14 - 00:14:27:22

Speaker 2

What's that look? And he goes, well, you're not going to like it. And I was like, lay it on me. He said, we don't have to do it today, but I think we're going to need to rebuild the website to give you guys a little bit of history. We had rebuilt our website in 2019, and that website did a lot for us.

 

00:14:28:00 - 00:14:50:21

Speaker 2

We went through some some amazing times of that brought a lot of legitimacy, really took us from kind of the mom and pop look into more professional look. It was beautiful. We redid the website with that same company. That was the second marketing company that we worked with, and they do great work. You know, Dustin, nothing negative to say about them, but they half way through the rebuild of the website we found in the customers.

 

00:14:50:21 - 00:15:08:04

Speaker 2

And so we were trying to work with them to now bring some of the customers elements in, and it just wasn't working. So then we ended up rebuilding again. So halfway through the first rebuild, we rebuilt again. We finally complete that. So now Jed's telling me we need to rebuild the website for the third time in 12 months.

 

00:15:08:06 - 00:15:31:20

Speaker 2

And I'm sitting there looking at him. You know, going, you. What do you mean? We need to rebuild it. But, you know, fortunately, Janet was sitting at our table there. She explained, you don't have to do this right now. I never felt any pressure from, you know, the impact team to spend money that we didn't have. But as she explained, the platform, the elements that we were discussing during impact live, the things that we could build into it and it yes, the ability to self control our website and build these things.

 

00:15:31:22 - 00:15:48:03

Speaker 2

And that also led to who's going to do it. And Suzanne and Jed now look at each other all wearing all of these, how it's going. Who's going to take this on in 2019, when we rebuilt the last website, I locked myself in my home office for a month and wrote every piece of content, and I was very proud of that.

 

00:15:48:05 - 00:16:07:13

Speaker 2

But all of that content had been changed and shifted by SEO companies. That advantage our site. And some of it was so unbelievably embarrassing that some of the pages I didn't even want people to see, they had become written for robots. They had become they had lost their heart. They had lost their connection. You know, when I wrote them, I was the heart and soul of the company.

 

00:16:07:15 - 00:16:29:20

Speaker 2

And you don't find the heart and soul of your company overnight. You don't ask for that unless you meet Ashley. When you meet Ashley, someone who has the ability to come in, you know, combine their skills and talents with the coaching from impact, she truly was able to reach that heart and soul of the company. So so the the word pictures she was creating with her blogs, with her content, with a website.

 

00:16:29:20 - 00:16:45:13

Speaker 2

I remember, you know, I was reviewing everything of her predecessor, and every time I was like, I, I don't even know how to edit this, I don't know where to begin. And once I started seeing what Ashley was writing, I was like, this is amazing. I know Judd continue to work with her and still does, and some of the technical stuff.

 

00:16:45:14 - 00:16:54:02

Speaker 2

So some of our SMEs. But for the first time, somebody could take this task on it. It didn't have to be me and it was so incredibly liberating.

 

00:16:54:04 - 00:17:13:02

Speaker 1

Wow. That's incredible. What a great story. And I actually it's uncanny because I remember meeting you at Impact Live in Hartford as well. And these takeaways sound like you got a rockstar content manager out of it, which Ashley, I'm coming to you next for some questions. Yeah. So get ready. But Andy, you also realized you had to redo your website.

 

00:17:13:02 - 00:17:29:14

Speaker 1

And I just think it's really cool. And I have to I have to shamelessly plug quickly here the fact that Impact Live is coming back to Hartford this August 18th through the 20th. So make sure to get your tickets go to Impact plus.com. Because you can meet some really amazing people like Andy. So yeah. So Ashley, now it's now it's up to you.

 

00:17:29:14 - 00:17:50:14

Speaker 1

I really want to hear your take. Right. So we heard we heard the CEO's perspective. What was it like for you coming into this, this role, replacing the old content manager and taking on marketing and content and just really like, what was that like for you as you started to implement endless customers and start redoing all this web content and all this blog stuff and everything, what was that journey like?

 

00:17:50:16 - 00:18:11:21

Speaker 3

Yeah, absolutely. So, I kind of have a unique background. I'm coming from the other side of this where, you know, Andy and the team, had used agencies and freelancers and people who were in-house in the office working, you know, one on one with the team. I've been a freelancer for over four years at this point.

 

00:18:11:21 - 00:18:34:23

Speaker 3

And, I was starting to get really frustrated with that process. And don't get me wrong, I loved freelancing. It was a great fit for me. It was a great opportunity to learn and to connect with some really great clients, to learn a lot of random subjects and get really smart about some random things. Like sales tax and saunas and, you know.

 

00:18:35:01 - 00:18:36:19

Speaker 1

Oh, you've been really all over the board.

 

00:18:36:23 - 00:19:04:15

Speaker 3

Yeah. Accounting. But, you know, don't ask me for accounting advice. But, but it was a really great experience, but, leading up to, you know, meeting rope and everybody at rope, dot com, I, I was getting so frustrated because I would create all of this content. Right. And I just felt like this little robot that was producing this content, emailing it off.

 

00:19:04:15 - 00:19:22:16

Speaker 3

And I never got to see what happen. Like that. Was it. Yeah. Yeah. I had I had no say. And you know, is this really going to add value to your company? Is anybody going to read this or are there optimizations that need to be made? There was it was out of my hands.

 

00:19:22:16 - 00:19:27:11

Speaker 1

Yeah. It sounds like you weren't getting any data or like feedback either on the effectiveness of these articles or.

 

00:19:27:13 - 00:19:28:01

Speaker 3

No.

 

00:19:28:06 - 00:19:28:21

Speaker 1

Yeah.

 

00:19:28:23 - 00:19:54:11

Speaker 3

No, not at all. And so, you know, I realized that, you know, using freelancers and different things can be a really great tool for companies. But the transformative nature of what I did before, what I do now is I 180 degree turn. It's just it's so much more different and it's so much more rewarding for me to, you know, be able to take that content from beginning to end and implement all of those things.

 

00:19:54:11 - 00:20:16:12

Speaker 3

And so, when I interviewed with ROH, I was, you know, kind of nervous and excited and everything and was, really grateful to get this opportunity. They all seemed like great people. Did I know anything about painting and concrete coatings? But, you know, as I said, I've written about a lot of random stuff. I was like, I will add this to the list.

 

00:20:16:13 - 00:20:39:10

Speaker 3

And it's been so fun. You know, our subject matter experts and everything that I've learned has been really fun along the way. But what was so exciting for me, you know, out the gate, I did a lot of my initial onboarding and training with different videos from impact from previous impact lives. Reading, they ask you answer and what you know now and less customers.

 

00:20:39:12 - 00:21:01:17

Speaker 3

And the whole time I'm just nodding my head and I'm going, yes, yes, this is exactly what I wanted content to be from the very beginning. I wanted it to be helpful. I wanted it to be empathetic. I wanted it to be educational. I wanted it to have value. And knowing that I don't have to convince, you know, I don't have to convince the road team that that's what our content needs to do.

 

00:21:01:17 - 00:21:26:09

Speaker 3

They already know it. And so it was really validating that I wasn't taking crazy pills. This is what good content is. And so. So. Yeah. So we, you know, we still are very mid project on all of this. There's constant growth and constant change. But from writing new articles to going back and optimizing all the articles, you know, we have a clear path forward.

 

00:21:26:11 - 00:21:46:04

Speaker 3

And, you know, we continue to rely on endless customers and the strategies that we've learned there, but it makes it so much easier. We're not starting from square one on each new article. We all are connected on the vision and where it needs to go. And I think that's what's really exciting about it, you know, reinvigorated my love and what I do.

 

00:21:46:06 - 00:21:53:09

Speaker 3

And to have such an excited, you know, supportive team is just, you know, the cherry on top. It's a great place to be.

 

00:21:53:11 - 00:22:09:03

Speaker 1

That's amazing. I love hearing that. And honestly, when I read the comments of the first time, I was doing the same thing, the head and I was like, yes, flip the page. Yes. If I ever do this, everything just hooked up and it's it's really cool to hear that you had the similar experience. So can you tell us a little bit about what were some of the early wins?

 

00:22:09:03 - 00:22:23:23

Speaker 1

So like you taking on this new role you're implementing in customers? That they ask, you answer what was it? Well, can you tell us some wins? Or like when was the traction starting to happen that you were like, oh, this is working. Oh, this is cool to see some of these results. Can you share some of that with yeah.

 

00:22:24:01 - 00:22:49:02

Speaker 3

Yeah. So as Andy had mentioned, over the, you know, 6 to 12 months previous to me, there had been a lot of different hands in the content production. And so our data kind of reflected that, like there'd be just kind of peaks and valleys and plateaus and, no measurable progress. So, it was really interesting to see, you know, being and this is new to me, right?

 

00:22:49:02 - 00:23:10:20

Speaker 3

You know, I didn't have access to, you know, Google Analytics and a CRM like HubSpot and all these things. But to see, you know, instantly, you know, as we're building up to producing at least three articles a week to just watch the numbers, you know, a nice steady climb, you know, we didn't need, you know, huge viral moments or anything like that where we just needed it to go through the roof.

 

00:23:10:22 - 00:23:17:07

Speaker 3

But this sustainable growth that we're able to be like, oh, yeah, this is working. We gotta stick with this.

 

00:23:17:09 - 00:23:35:06

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's amazing. That and that's that's where it's at. It's you're playing a longer game here. It's like really putting all of the puzzle pieces together so that when it, when it comes together, you're having all these leads coming in that are educated, that trust you, that don't feel like they've been pitched or have all these weird viral things to try to trick them into buying something.

 

00:23:35:06 - 00:23:51:03

Speaker 1

You're talking to someone. It's it's genuine and it really has a lasting effect. And I think this is a perfect segue. Andy, I want to go ask you this question. So we have a note here saying that there was a point where you were doing marketing and you had an external team. And obviously we've just heard the story about how you brought it inside your organization.

 

00:23:51:03 - 00:24:09:05

Speaker 1

You hired Ashley, who was kicking butt with all this content. When did you start to realize that you were changing from being just a paint company to more of a media company and taking on all this in-house and like, really owning the fact that you're a media company. When did that shift happen for you?

 

00:24:09:07 - 00:24:17:08

Speaker 2

Well, it was probably an easy shift for me because I think I always, was meant to be a media company who had a painting problem.

 

00:24:17:10 - 00:24:19:07

Speaker 1

Nice. Oh, I love that.

 

00:24:19:09 - 00:24:38:09

Speaker 2

I loved the thought of being able, you know, I joked earlier about my desk profile and how important esthetics are. I like things to be pretty and running a business and when your business is paint, you should be making things pretty. Of course, some of our coatings are more for protection, but you always want to put out there, you know, the great work that you did and and that type of thing.

 

00:24:38:14 - 00:24:59:06

Speaker 2

I think the the videography was such a fun thing. You would see some of these companies and some of the things that they were doing, and I would have these ideas, you know, for us, kind of the big, the big marketing push for us and the big spend was I remember, you know, my first radio ads. And I remember spending making that commitment of $500 for the month for these radio ads.

 

00:24:59:06 - 00:25:15:14

Speaker 2

And it was such a big move, you know, but, you know, obviously that was kind of the beginning of it, what you could do with video, how you could educate your clients. So one of the challenges we always had is how do we explain the how why we're different. You know, we aren't the cheapest company. So there's reasons we're not the cheapest company.

 

00:25:15:16 - 00:25:34:22

Speaker 2

How do I explain that? They mean that if I stand in front of the customer and I talk to them directly and I can explain it, of course, but that's not scalable. You know, I can't stand in front of as we grew and I, I, you know, worked my way out of the sales department, I, I was there to explain to the company why we were different or why we were worth working with.

 

00:25:34:22 - 00:25:52:05

Speaker 2

But picture tells a thousand words, you know, what does video do? What is a blogger to do when you're trying to educate someone? So I think the concept was easy for me to embrace the budget. Not so much. Right. You know, you're spending money and you're going, okay, now we now we're gonna have video inside. Now we're going to need new equipment.

 

00:25:52:05 - 00:26:11:18

Speaker 2

Okay? Now we're going to need a booth to record these things. Now we're going to need, you know, as an owner, of course, you're always looking at, you know, what is this cost? But sometimes you have to shift your mind and say, what value is this going to bring? And again, it is that investment. So embracing being a media company I think it's fun no matter what it is that you do have fun with it.

 

00:26:11:18 - 00:26:32:01

Speaker 2

I think we've all, you know, followed things on social media is where some dry, bland organization has some snarky remark on social media, and we all chuckle at it because we're caught off guard by it. Marketing is fun. I can remember, you know, marketing tunes and commercials from when I was a kid. I loved that because it worked, you know?

 

00:26:32:03 - 00:26:56:16

Speaker 2

Yeah. The other day my wife said something and I started singing this song about Crispy Critters or something. This cereal that lasted like two years when I was a kid. But that song stayed in my brain. And when we made our first radio ads, you know, we had a jingle beater up and we beat people locally and they say, oh, roll paint.com, don't use industry paint, rope a.com.

 

00:26:56:19 - 00:27:19:04

Speaker 2

I hate that song. You get stuck in my head and I'm thinking to myself, that's the point. And so have fun with it. You know, let your personality shine. Because I think that's part of attracting your customers. You're also attracting customers that share cultural values with you. You know, share your love for Boise State football that we're affiliated with here locally, you know, and I think I think when you get to do that, you get you get the fun part of the business.

 

00:27:19:04 - 00:27:35:03

Speaker 2

So a lot of parts of business, many parts of them could be not so much fun. Have fun running a media company. Have fun with it. You know, I've been able to to create commercials with the team here about my dad painting on the side as a Boise firefighter back in the day that have been really fun.

 

00:27:35:03 - 00:27:53:19

Speaker 2

I've been able to have my son and my wife in some of the commercials that we've created, but I think becoming a media company, that's just it, the age that we live in. If you're stuck with the mindset of I can't afford a videographer or I can't afford, content creator, you're you're not evolving, you're going to be left behind.

 

00:27:53:19 - 00:28:13:09

Speaker 2

And we saw we saw that happen very starkly with the website. When Google and I changed something a little over a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, and overnight, what we had been doing wasn't working. And overnight we were slapped in the face with, how are you going to get leads now? So, I think it's a great journey to be involved with the media.

 

00:28:13:09 - 00:28:14:09

Speaker 2

Enjoy it.

 

00:28:14:11 - 00:28:31:01

Speaker 1

Yeah, absolutely. Very well said. And I like that you personalize it. There's a lot of there's a lot of things that people relate to, especially when you're you're talking about local businesses that you can you can add into the mix so that you have some common ground to meet people where they are to start to build trust, to start to have some commonality.

 

00:28:31:01 - 00:28:50:10

Speaker 1

And I think that was a really clever, clever play. And you're right too, with Google and the shifts with AI, a lot has changed. And I'm curious, what have you done to keep up with those changes I have here that you have a lot of strong lead gen results, and I want to talk about those and what's driving those and how you've navigated this shift, similar to in oh eight when the economy shifted.

 

00:28:50:10 - 00:29:00:16

Speaker 1

And now we have this whole AI engine that's shifting how we search and how we find things and how we get found online. What did you do to keep the leads coming in and keep generating those leads?

 

00:29:00:18 - 00:29:02:17

Speaker 2

Yeah, I hired Ashley.

 

00:29:02:19 - 00:29:08:05

Speaker 1

I love it. All right. So Ashley, let's kick it over to you. What did you do to keep these leads? Oh, yeah.

 

00:29:08:07 - 00:29:36:00

Speaker 3

Yeah. No, it's it's definitely an interesting time, to be doing, you know, SEO and watching. I kind of, you know, make different types of impact, which is funny on the production side and on the search side and different things like that. But, you know, like we've talked about just the way we're improving our website and the way we're improving the customer experience, it's it's changing the way people experience a website, right?

 

00:29:36:00 - 00:29:58:08

Speaker 3

Even if they're finding us on AI overviews or ChatGPT or wherever it may be. We're making sure that, you know, once they're on the website, it's an interactive process with, you know, our learning center using video. On, you know, nearly every major service page. There's some form of video on there that makes it more engaging to be there, gives out more information.

 

00:29:58:08 - 00:30:14:20

Speaker 3

It's more helpful. Clearing up those CTAs, making it a more natural part of, you know, the customer journey and things like that. All these, you know, tiny, seemingly innocent changes add up to a website that's just going to perform overall and a lot, a lot better.

 

00:30:14:20 - 00:30:27:08

Speaker 3

So in March, if you've listened to Marcus at all, you know that he talks a lot about these like self-selection tools and these, like, interactive, moments for you to create on your website and being a service.

 

00:30:27:08 - 00:30:52:15

Speaker 1

Based business. You know, it can look a little bit different because it's not like they're customizing a product. It's how can we give them a customizable experience with a service. Right. But it's digital. And so the first place we've started with that is some pricing tools. And again, we're looking at, services that are really unique. You know, no concrete floor coding project is going to be the same because you're going to have different conditions on the concrete.

 

00:30:52:15 - 00:31:16:10

Speaker 1

You're going to have different coding types, different additives. You same with painting. You know, you've got different surface types, and different paint types and all these different things go into it. So we've tried to be just really thoughtful on, on the type of tools that we're creating. So our first one that we've created is a concrete coatings pricing calculator, which is a fun little way to just kind of click through.

 

00:31:16:10 - 00:31:36:06

Speaker 1

And, you know, how many square feet is your space? What, you know, flooring type, or are you interested in what do you want it to look like? What do you want it to do? And, you know, we're slowly seeing that turn up more qualified leads, for our sales team to take and run with it. Right. These people have interacted with the tool.

 

00:31:36:06 - 00:31:51:16

Speaker 1

They've got a ballpark price already. And so when they talk to a salesman or a salesman comes for an estimate, there's no surprise there. They're like, oh yeah, well that lands, you know, within the realm of reason with that pricing tool that I did. So that makes sense.

 

00:31:51:18 - 00:31:52:09

Speaker 2

I love that.

 

00:31:52:09 - 00:31:52:15

Speaker 1

You know.

 

00:31:52:20 - 00:32:07:08

Speaker 2

I have to interject here because I think you're right. You made a good point that a lot of people don't think they can, especially in the service industries. Put a pricing calculator because there's a range and there's a ballpark. No way to just clearly define it. There's all these factors that contribute to it. But you can still give people a ballpark.

 

00:32:07:08 - 00:32:17:13

Speaker 2

You can still give them an interactive way to like, at least give them a sense of what's up. So that they can have a more meaningful conversation when a salesperson does reach out to them. So that's really cool. Yeah.

 

00:32:17:15 - 00:32:33:22

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I'll go ahead. Janet, I was just going to add, I think part of it is we all know that when you're looking for that product, when you're looking to buy for that service, like you're going to look for the price. And so many times we hesitate to do that because oh, well know it's going to be too big of a range.

 

00:32:33:22 - 00:32:53:23

Speaker 1

It's going to be too small range. It's not the exact number. I'm like, you can educate this person or this user around that entire experience and still get them closer and probably edge out your competitors because you're actually doing this. And so now you get more qualified leads, people who actually want to work with you and are actually qualified to work with you because they do know the price.

 

00:32:54:05 - 00:33:12:15

Speaker 1

You're more educated. Good. There's so many benefits to this being that I think sometimes we have. So we hold on to that hesitation way, way too much. Just we educate them because they're the only ones in the dark about like all this is that's happening on on pricing and they're looking for it. So let's let's give it to them.

 

00:33:12:16 - 00:33:29:23

Speaker 2

Let's give it to them I love it. You just said that because it's funny. The psychology behind it. We've talked about this Janet where like, well, people won't put these calculators on their sites because of fear. They're worried that they might misquote or it might not be exactly the way it's supposed to be. But when you don't give people this information, they they don't want to work with you.

 

00:33:29:23 - 00:33:36:23

Speaker 2

They want to find out. They go elsewhere. So your fear is actually driving these people away instead of pulling them in. So you have to almost get it.

 

00:33:37:00 - 00:33:53:19

Speaker 1

You know what they're and they're probably going to do now. They're going to go ask ChatGPT. Yep. They're going to go find, I don't know, maybe the last customer you had on Reddit. And it's like these numbers are probably totally wild and or false. Be the first one to beat them to it. Yeah. That's it.

 

00:33:53:21 - 00:33:54:07

Speaker 3

Preach.

 

00:33:54:07 - 00:33:57:05

Speaker 1

Absolutely. Yes.

 

00:33:57:07 - 00:34:06:18

Speaker 2

So, so actually so you got the pricing tool up it and it sounds like was really meaningful. I also have on here that you had service area pages. Can we talk a little bit about what those are and how those are. Yeah.

 

00:34:06:20 - 00:34:35:00

Speaker 1

Yeah absolutely. So I think Andy mentioned before, we kind of serve the southern region of Idaho in the northern region of Nevada. And where we cross so many different service types with residential, commercial and industrial. And then we've also got a lot of different demographics going on where we've got pockets of larger cities and a whole lot of rural, customers out there who still need quality service.

 

00:34:35:02 - 00:34:59:10

Speaker 1

And so these service pages have for a long time stood at the top of, our highest performing pages. So it's really important to us that those pages are doing what they should. They're presenting the information that they need. They're converting people in the right way. And if they're not, we're making adjustments and we're experimenting and we're figuring out what's missing and what's going to get them the answers.

 

00:34:59:10 - 00:35:17:20

Speaker 1

They're looking for, because those are the ones that are showing up. So, yeah, we just continue to we're adding new ones. You know, because like I said, they're not big super big cities, but there's still areas that we can get to, you know, pretty easily. And so it's important to us that they know that we're there to support them.

 

00:35:17:20 - 00:35:42:02

Speaker 1

And, and our crews are ready to help. So the service area pages are a big part. You know, they're as important, as our home page in a lot of ways, because it is the home page for people and in certain locations. So yeah, those are kind of a fun. Yeah. Those are kind of a fun, I think, thing to experiment with and watch and, and see how those continue to shape how we get new leads.

 

00:35:42:04 - 00:36:00:05

Speaker 1

And actually, I'll add that you did a really great job because we it's not that we didn't have service area pages on the last time, but they were very cookie cutter. And you see this a lot. When when you're working with some agency that might not, you know, know your content to do well, but it was kind of like a find and replace.

 

00:36:00:05 - 00:36:19:22

Speaker 1

Right? So you have your content, you have your page there. And we're just kind of finding and replacing the city. And what we were starting to see is like that's showing up as duplicate content. So we have to be very strategic in the way that we do these service area. Pages. So if you're trying to do a service area page, for example, it's like you've got to make it very specific to that location.

 

00:36:19:22 - 00:36:39:17

Speaker 1

So what we had actually do was research what's going on in that location. Like what are the pain points that they're suffering from. Are there certain, you know, there's the wall paint, just chip ever so much in this area because it's more humid or something like that. We're dry ice area. Like we get really specific about what's going on in the pain points that users are experiencing.

 

00:36:39:17 - 00:37:01:03

Speaker 1

So they can relate. And then like just mentioned landscapes mentioned, certain like points in cities and places and landmarks that are specific to that city. So that Google doesn't think that this is just another templated page that you're just trying to get SEO for. You're really trying to reach a specific audience. And I think actually did a really great job on that.

 

00:37:01:05 - 00:37:20:13

Speaker 1

Thank you. I kind of felt like when I was writing those that I was writing like mini travel blogs about, like what you're going to do in Twin Falls. What are you going to do in Boise? What are you going to do in Elko? I'm like, cool. Now, I know that, you know, out in, Fallon, Nevada is the Top Gun.

 

00:37:20:15 - 00:37:38:01

Speaker 1

Cool. And so I was like, well, I didn't know that. So like, I'm like, all right, I'm officially, you know, travel ready for anywhere in southern Idaho, northern Nevada. Even though I've lived in eastern and western Idaho, the majority of my life. So those those pages are fun to put together. And I really like how they turned out.

 

00:37:38:01 - 00:38:01:14

Speaker 2

you're redoing your website. You're doing all the things. You're redoing your website, implementing endless customers. You're becoming this media company, right? Andy? How did this affect the team structure internally? How did it affect like the company at Ro paint, as you started to scale and implement this more and more. So what did it look like on the inside from team members and the sales and the marketing team, and how everybody was working together?

 

00:38:01:16 - 00:38:19:15

Speaker 3

Well, admittedly, for a while, I think that marketing worked in a silo because we were still trying to figure out what we need to do, the changes that we need to make. Obviously, when Ashley came on board, it felt like we were behind. You know, we started early in this customer's journey. And we were we were trying to move it along as fast as we could.

 

00:38:19:15 - 00:38:37:09

Speaker 3

But she she inherited a lot to catch up on. And she did that and she went to work on it. And so as the content became more available, there was a moment where it was like, oh, hey, the sales team doesn't know we had this content because the sales team also, as I mentioned, was going through some turnover during that time.

 

00:38:37:09 - 00:38:57:17

Speaker 3

So we have a lot of fresh faces, but they embraced it really well. I would say that we are not an expert level. That is probably the area in our journey where we're now trying to get the assignment, selling, and get the sales team to understand what is what they have available to them. So, you know, we played with some different ideas of how to do that.

 

00:38:57:18 - 00:39:18:00

Speaker 3

And ultimately where we're at right now is there's an email that comes out every week from Ashley and actually joins our sales team meeting. And she explains to the guys now, everybody's everybody's picking that up in different pieces and at a different pace. Right now, we're working on trying to move that faster. We're a seasonal company in a lot of ways because, the spring, summer and fall is when we do most of our business.

 

00:39:18:00 - 00:39:37:20

Speaker 3

So some projects, sometimes we can't get as much time on them as, as we would like to until maybe the winter season, when it's a little bit quieter. And, we can take some more of this on. But I think one of the big things that I've seen change is, our VP of sales, Jed. Jed Masters, I don't think wanted to ever have to touch marketing.

 

00:39:37:22 - 00:39:55:03

Speaker 3

Great at what he does in sales, but always felt like that was a different division. And it was and now is it's integrated and it's become one I think one of the biggest shifts that needed to happen is we, as a management team, you know, some of us, our, my GM, Mike and myself have been able to jump in with Jed and help.

 

00:39:55:07 - 00:40:26:14

Speaker 3

Where does the sales team need help? Where do you need help? Jed? Because he still sells, himself, and likes to lead the sales team. He kicks everybody's, but, like, good leaders too, right? But he also has all of these extra assignments on him that he's helping guide the journey. And that's been huge. So seeing how Jed is really stepped up and taken on marketing and sales together influence that knowing what he wants to be able to be able to deliver to his sales team, in opportunities, knowing what he wants from his sales team and taking advantage of what we built.

 

00:40:26:15 - 00:40:43:14

Speaker 3

Jed is really showed a lot of vision, through this, in it for, for a division and a part of the company. I don't know that he ever thought he would be or wanted to be working. He's really embraced it, at a great cost to him and his time and his energy. Jed's a hard worker, but he's worked especially hard on this.

 

00:40:43:16 - 00:41:05:02

Speaker 3

He again, he was the guy that pinned me down and said, you got to look at this. You got to take this call. And he's done the work to to make it happen. And so I think from the team dynamic, I'm proud of the entire team. I'm proud of the marketing team, obviously, but I'm very proud, of our VP of sales, Jed Masters, of being able to, shift, you know, like I said, for many years, the amount of leads coming in was not our problem.

 

00:41:05:04 - 00:41:19:22

Speaker 3

And when it became a big problem, that can be really debilitating. That could be we could we all have different responses to that. But, again, to his credit, Jed is really stepped into his role here. And I'm really proud of of what he's been able to accomplish and influence.

 

00:41:20:00 - 00:41:35:20

Speaker 2

That's amazing to hear, really amazing to hear. And can we segue into this? I think this is a perfect transition point to talk about. What kind of results are you seeing now that you've made all these changes? Judd has really shifted. The team has really shifted as you brought Ashley on. You have a videographer, you have all these these components in place.

 

00:41:35:22 - 00:41:42:01

Speaker 2

What results are you seeing and how has it shifted? Row pain as you move into the future?

 

00:41:42:03 - 00:41:55:06

Speaker 3

Well, maybe Ashley can comment as to some of the, you know, the numbers part of it, but from from the owner. See, what I can tell you is, is where I get a surprise. Janet. Janet, you don't even know what's coming your way. Oh, boy.

 

00:41:55:08 - 00:41:55:20

Speaker 2

Here we go.

 

00:41:55:21 - 00:42:13:21

Speaker 3

You know, I, I will tell you this. As someone who has held on to marketing and had such a care for who we are, what we are, what we look like for so long, it and then going through a time period where I went from being so proud of our website to almost ashamed of parts of our website.

 

00:42:13:21 - 00:42:34:04

Speaker 3

Like what? Who wrote this? When did this get written? Who put this picture here? Where did this come from? There was so many different hands in the pot for so long. Is pretty frustrating. And the pride that I have in our company and our brand in our name, is huge. And so when you see that you're frustrated, you don't know how to fix it, or you're trying to fix it.

 

00:42:34:05 - 00:42:53:01

Speaker 3

It's just taking time. I am so incredibly proud of our website now, incredibly proud of it. And I will say it may not be the flashiest website we've ever had. And that's okay. It doesn't need to be. It is the most functional. It's professional. It answers people's questions. I'm incredibly proud of that website. And I didn't touch it.

 

00:42:53:02 - 00:43:11:05

Speaker 3

I didn't touch it. This was Janet working with Ashley. And, you know, Adam coming in with the video and the pictures. This was a team effort. But, you know, Janet, you never pushed the new website on me, but I knew in my gut we had to do it. And it was a if I'm just going to be blunt and, and a little bit vulnerable.

 

00:43:11:05 - 00:43:25:23

Speaker 3

It was a tough financial time for us to make the commitment that we did to building the website. But I felt like we didn't have a choice. We needed to change. I mean, what do you have? It's not your website to educate your customers, to speak to your customers. That's that's ultimately it. You can have some flashy social media pages.

 

00:43:25:23 - 00:43:50:02

Speaker 3

That's great. But ultimately your website better tell customers who you are, what you're about, and that's your opportunity for them to get to know you and what you could do for them. And I'm incredibly proud of what we have now. Sometimes I feel like we've always been a pack leader in our industry, definitely in our market, and sometimes I felt like I could see that gap closing a little bit as other companies figured out what SEO was, or rebuilt their websites or did some of the work.

 

00:43:50:04 - 00:44:09:22

Speaker 3

But now I'm very confident that we lead the pack and there's not a close second. That may sound arrogant. I don't mean for it to sound arrogant, it's just confident in what Janet Ashley had built. When it comes to the depth of the content that's on there, I feel like we're grown up now. Before we had a website that made us look grown up, now we actually are grown up.

 

00:44:10:00 - 00:44:14:14

Speaker 1

Oh, you're happy to hear it. We are no baby to on the podcast.

 

00:44:14:16 - 00:44:34:06

Speaker 3

You did a great job. I said this yesterday in our coaching call and there was a long pause and, you know, both Allie and Mandy said, have you told Janet this? They said, no, I like to keep Janet hungry. I don't want her to get to know that. No, we're incredibly grateful for the work that's gone into the website and the coaching.

 

00:44:34:08 - 00:44:51:06

Speaker 3

So as far as the results that it's out, I know in the sales meetings I hear a different thing. Even though I don't feel like we fully adopted assignment selling, I hear the sales guys making comments. You know, I went to a customer's house and it was half sold for me. I hear sales guys talking about a speaking with the customer before they saw the video.

 

00:44:51:06 - 00:45:07:10

Speaker 3

They didn't know that we did fill in the blank. And so, we're starting to see the effects of that. But I feel like we're just at the infancy of what the effects are going to be. And as our beacon gets louder and our SEO rebuilds to where it once was, I think it's it's going to be, you know, that momentum, you know, you push that rock up the hill.

 

00:45:07:10 - 00:45:23:20

Speaker 3

It's so hard. But on the other side you just can't keep up with it. So for me, I see that's what I've seen. As far as the changes, actually, you could probably speak to more measurable changes as far as, you know, KPIs that we look at when we're looking at the numbers. And now she's kind enough to send me, the SEO report every week.

 

00:45:23:20 - 00:45:36:13

Speaker 3

And so I get this short little video and I get to see some of these numbers, you know, she knows I'm a demo painter, so she gives me these nice little graphs where I can follow the squiggly line and see where we were a year ago and where we are today.

 

00:45:36:13 - 00:45:55:00

Speaker 1

No, the. And the good news is the squiggly line going up. So that's what we all want to see, right? And like I mentioned before, you know, it's it's not, you know, it's not like we flipped a switch and that everything is sunshines and daisies. There's a lot of work. There's been a lot of work already.

 

00:45:55:02 - 00:46:15:02

Speaker 1

You know, I started with this company in December, and we've just been kind of laying that groundwork and laying that groundwork. And every few months it feels like we enter a new phase. Right. And so we started getting the content consistent, cleaning up the blogs, building the learning center, changing, you know, those major pages on the website.

 

00:46:15:04 - 00:46:37:03

Speaker 1

And then, you know, so we're seeing the traffic go up, we're seeing the service pages perform better, we're seeing more form fills. We're seeing all these things just kind of slowly in a very sustainable way. Add more growth. And when I say sustainable, I mean, we're able to as we see those leads come in, we're like, okay, well, what's next for that lead?

 

00:46:37:05 - 00:46:55:21

Speaker 1

What do we do? You know, okay, we build that workflow. We, need to change our follow up process. We need to help the salesperson with this part of their process. Right. And so it's been very manageable in the way that we just kind of take a bite out of the process as we continue to move forward.

 

00:46:55:23 - 00:47:16:19

Speaker 1

And I think one of the most rewarding things out of it is, you know, getting calls from the sales team and know them saying, you know, hey, I talked to this person and, you know, they already saw our website and they're ready to go. And, you know, everything looks great. And to hear that it's slowly trickle down to the customer experience.

 

00:47:16:19 - 00:47:39:11

Speaker 1

And we're actually hearing that feedback is just golden. And so it's just a matter of being patient and being consistent and not expecting miracles to happen overnight. You know, sometimes we get a sprinkle of a miracle here or there. But for the most part, it's it's a waiting game and it's the consistency game. And we're continually seeing gains from that.

 

00:47:39:13 - 00:47:51:00

Speaker 1

And so it's, it's fun to see, but, you know, there's no time to slow down. It's all about, you know, evolving and and continuing to improve the process and the experience for our customers.

 

00:47:51:02 - 00:48:10:07

Speaker 2

Yeah. It's incredible to hear too, that the content is directly contributing to great sales conversations and that your sales team is having more meaningful conversations with people because they're already qualified. They've already been assignment's old. They're already doing all the things that, that you've teed them up for. So that's just wonderful to hear. Very, very cool.

 

00:48:10:07 - 00:48:24:12

Speaker 2

Janet, one last question that I want to ask you before we wrap up here. Is there anything about the road paint story that we missed or anything that you really want to highlight? I know you worked very closely with them through this website redesign and through their journey.

 

00:48:24:14 - 00:48:31:09

Speaker 2

What what what haven't we talked about it? What's something cool that you can share with us that maybe the viewers and listeners are curious about?

 

00:48:31:11 - 00:48:51:03

Speaker 1

Yeah. So, Mandy had to give me a great, a great stat, and I'll get to that in just a second. But one thing I appreciate appreciate about you guys not only just your your work ethic. You've been unified in this entire journey. But you're you're working on the website, but you're also expanding outside of the website, right?

 

00:48:51:03 - 00:49:15:15

Speaker 1

It's like you have this really great foundation now. And I love, love, love seeing that you're building out this new YouTube channel and Mandy has your coach has been letting me know that you're now like, doubling in subscribers. And I think that's really important because it's like the website, it's going to be our foundation. And in this world of AI, as we're kind of like moving slightly away from that organic traffic, right?

 

00:49:15:17 - 00:49:36:11

Speaker 1

That people are kind of bringing in and ChatGPT is, is still maybe, but you guys are getting outside of that. You have the YouTube channel, you're growing those subscribers. And so I think that awareness, even outside of that, you've built a great foundation and you continue to move outside. So I was really proud when I heard those numbers about the YouTube channel as well.

 

00:49:36:13 - 00:49:51:00

Speaker 1

And I think that's really important. You guys are just going to continue to grow because you're going after that goal with such fierce fierceness and being unified in that same goal. So I love it, and I love working with you guys right back. I just.

 

00:49:51:02 - 00:49:52:14

Speaker 3

You know.

 

00:49:52:16 - 00:50:14:17

Speaker 2

All right. Well now it's my favorite part of the show. This is the one thing. And I love this part of the show because I really think this is the the time to reflect about this awesome conversation we've had and your amazing journey. What's something. And Ashley, I'm gonna start with you and then we'll go to Andy. What's what's one thing you want people to take away from this conversation, especially as the marketing and content manager for everyone out there, that is a maybe a content manager themselves.

 

00:50:14:17 - 00:50:18:00

Speaker 2

What would you say to them?

 

00:50:18:02 - 00:50:19:18

Speaker 1

I have two things. Is that okay?

 

00:50:19:19 - 00:50:21:12

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

 

00:50:21:17 - 00:50:53:10

Speaker 1

Okay. And I kind of already touched on this already is to just be patient and be consistent. When you start seeing those results, you know, don't back down, keep experimenting and keep being consistent. And like that said, it's, you know, I've heard the phrase it's search everywhere optimization. Now, you know, you're having to add sprinkle in all those other resources, but get your foundation built and be patient and then add on that and then my second thing is if you're frustrated with your freelancer, your freelancer might be just as frustrated with you.

 

00:50:53:12 - 00:51:05:06

Speaker 1

And it's time to bring it's time to bring somebody in, whether it's your freelancer or somebody else. Take it from a freelancer. There's a lot of benefits to having somebody in-house for everybody involved.

 

00:51:05:08 - 00:51:17:15

Speaker 2

Great insights. I totally agree with you. I. All right, Andy, now how about you? For all the business leaders and CEOs out there, what would you say to them is is something that they really should be thinking about. As we as we wrap up our conversation here?

 

00:51:17:15 - 00:51:40:12

Speaker 3

Well, I hope if, you're listening to this, you know who Ron Swanson is. And in the immortal words of Ron Swanson, never have asked two things. Whole ask one thing. Yes. And what I mean by that is go all in. I'll tell you right now, it was not, it was not financially comfortable to shift like we shifted to spend.

 

00:51:40:12 - 00:52:00:18

Speaker 3

Like we spend. I think no matter who you are, if you're in business, when things get tight, marketing can become one of the first things that you. It's. It's so easy to do. And I've always felt like that was the wrong move, but it's so hard to stay the course and it could come a great financial costs to your business.

 

00:52:00:18 - 00:52:23:12

Speaker 3

It can come at great financial costs to yourself personally, and it can come at great emotional costs. But you're never, you know, do or do not. There is no try. And so I think, you know, when you look at something like this, if you align with the values, if you align with the message, the impact and in this customers bring brings here, go for it.

 

00:52:23:12 - 00:52:37:19

Speaker 3

And that's the thing in business you got to go for it. You're going to you're going to fail. Sometimes every move you make isn't going to be the right move. And I can tell you that there's marketing dollars over the last 25 years. I wish I could get back there. I look at and I think, man, what was I thinking spinning here?

 

00:52:37:19 - 00:53:00:00

Speaker 3

Spinning there? You know, you're trying to get it right. It's it's such a spaghetti at the wall, you know, process. But when you find the right thing, go for it. And I can tell you from the owners, see, if you are a sincere individual that has a good product for the marketplace and you just need to find the right customers, it's okay.

 

00:53:00:05 - 00:53:16:10

Speaker 3

Do it. Go for it. Work with impact. Work with the coaches. Do it the right way. Make sure you have a content manager. Make sure you had a camera person. Make sure you have the equipment. If you can't do it perfectly, that's okay. Do it the best that you can that your budget allows, but don't tabulated. If you dabble in it, it won't work.

 

00:53:16:10 - 00:53:19:07

Speaker 3

But if you go all in, it's going to be worth it.

 

00:53:19:09 - 00:53:36:09

Speaker 2

Excellent advice and speaking from experience too. I love that great wisdom. Thank you. Thank you and I really appreciate it. Thank you both for being on the show and taking the time to share your story today. We're going to have to have you back on. I want to hear how the journey continues as we move through the rest of 25 and into 26.

 

00:53:36:11 - 00:54:00:07

Speaker 3

Absolutely. We'd love to join you again. Thank you to the whole Impact team, Alex. We've enjoyed getting to know you. Janet. Like I said, you know your work and your influence on our team has been so powerful. Mandy and Ali have just been incredible coaches to work with through this journey. And, you know, I didn't mention, but Will Smith has been such a big, help to Jed as we've tried to figure out the HubSpot integrations and how to how to manage through that.

 

00:54:00:07 - 00:54:08:07

Speaker 3

So so to all of the the team at impact and Marcus, you as well, thank you for your vision. What you guys have put together because it's made a difference for us.

 

00:54:08:16 - 00:54:14:14

Speaker 2

Thank you. We really appreciate that. And Ashley, thank you for sharing all your insights as well. It's great to meet you and have you on the show.

 

00:54:14:16 - 00:54:20:06

Speaker 1

Yeah. Thank you so much. We're excited to see where the rest of the year takes us. So we'll report back.

 

00:54:20:11 - 00:54:28:17

Speaker 2

We are too. We definitely are to. And Janet, thanks for always being on the show and bringing your energy. You're just awesome. We love having you on the show.

 

00:54:28:19 - 00:54:29:21

Speaker 1

Always a pleasure to be here.

 

00:54:30:00 - 00:54:46:13

Speaker 2

Awesome. Well that's our episode everybody. Thank you for watching and listening. And also don't forget to check out Impact Live if you haven't, because none of this would have happened without Andy going to impact live, which I think is really, something important to take away. So thanks for tuning in. Thanks for watching and we will catch you on the next episode.