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Marketing
How Changing Your Product's Name Instantly Makes It Way More Sexy
If you’re selling a commodity and that commodity is called the same thing at every business, give yours a better name.
Your French shampoo is lying to you.
TRESemmé Shampoo (ooh la la) is an elegant play-on-words. The closest French phrase is “très aimé,” which basically means “very loved” or “beloved.” Also cleverly hidden in “TRESemmé” is “tresser,” which means “braid.” And La Semme is a lovely tributary in Central France. But the actual origin of the name TRESemmé is a nod to its creator, renowned cosmologist Edna L. Emme.
Edna was from St Louis.
…and “Edna’s East-Missouri Hair Soap” wasn’t going to fly off the shelves. The exotic-sounding “TRESemmé,” however, became a hit.
Herbal Essences Shampoo, also made in Mid-America by Proctor and Gamble, has instructions in both English and French. Who, exactly, is that for? (Hint: Only 0.06% of the United States is made up of French-born citizens)
Pantene Revitalisant, fancy-French for “conditioner”, also made in Cincinnati.
Prego Italian Pasta Sauce, made by Campbell Soup, Camden, New Jersey.
Tostitos? They’ve never been south of Texas. Chinese Cashew Chicken…famously created in Springfield, Missouri.
General Tso’s? Nobody on the Asian continent has heard of the dish.
So, who is this for?
It’s for YOU. Y
ou want your pizza from a place called Luigi’s.
Your egg rolls taste better from a restaurant called “Hunan.” And I hear the babkas and blintzes are best over at Berenbaum’s Bakery.
Did TRESemmé lie to you by making you think it was from France?
Depends on what your definition of “lie” is. “TRESemmé – Made in France” would be a lie. TRESemmé, the Shampoo Used in Salons,” is a story. It’s a story YOU asked for, and a story YOU want to be true.
You want a shampoo used in a salon. Salons are much more upscale than barbershops. “Salon” is also a French word. As is “haute couture.” See where this is going?
Adding “TRESemmé” just makes it French-ier.
Now, don’t go changing the name of your business. That’s not smart. But what if you change the name of something your business does?
“Before the spring planting and after the fall harvest, men and women in Tuscany renewed their wedding rings by bringing them to a local goldsmith who would intricately polish and strengthen the rings. It’s a tradition called “Rinnovo”… Italian for “renew.” The short time the couple’s rings were being cleaned, was also a moment to reflect and renew their love for each other. Every wedding ring we sell at Rinollti Family Jewelers includes the twice-a-year exclusive Rinnovo Rejuvenation. Because we believe the only thing stronger than the strength of your wedding rings, is the strength of your love.”
Would you rather have The Tuscan Rinnovo Rejuvenation for your jewelry…? Or just drop off your rings for maintenance and cleaning every 6 months? There’s no such place as “Rinollti Family Jewelers,” and the Tuscan Rinnovo tradition didn’t exist until a paragraph ago. I just made it (somewhat) more interesting. Give me a couple days and I’ll really make it good.
If you’re selling a commodity and that commodity is called the same thing at every business, give yours a better name. I can get a “large coffee” anyplace. I can get a Grande only at Starbucks. For that matter, I can only get Starbucks at Starbucks.
Would you rather have an armchair? Or a Swedish Ekerö from Ikea?
In 1975, Chrysler told us their seats were made of Corinthian Leather. A type of leather that didn’t exist until ad firm Bozell and Jacobs invented it. “Corinthian” is slightly sexier than “interior made with leather and vinyl polymer blend.”
A customized name can make it more attractive and make it exclusive to your business. If they have “tune-ups,” you should have a Revitalizer. Nobody is going to inject hyaluronic acid into their faces… But if you call it “Juvéderm,” you’ve got a good shot. Juvéderm is a nice mash-up of “juvenile” and “skin,” with an accent over the “e” to make it French.
Giving something common an uncommon name gives it a fighting chance of being noticed and being remembered. Because if you’re not doing (at least) that…you’re not in the game.
Marketing
Why Jeff Bezos Feels You May Be Peeking Through The Wrong Peephole
Jeff Bezos says you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. So what won't change then?
Office chair prognosticators have been giddy…borderline orgasmic…imagining themselves standing on smoldering rubble, writing their own Anthony Burgess dystopia. As their film opens, words that look as if written on a digital clock flicker like a faulty fluorescent bulb.
BZZZT BZZZT
Metro City – Sector B – 17 August 2020
Our hero, once a Windsor-knotted businessman, now stands shirtless atop a heap of twisted rebar, car axels, and – for some reason – 1990s CRT monitors. “I told you EVERYTHING would change FOREVER!! You wouldn’t listen! You wouldn’t liiiiiistennnn! Damn you all to Hell!!” Suddenly, a 48-story robot walking through the harbor turns its head towards our hero and vaporizes him, leaving only a screaming skeleton made of ash. Amidst all the perverse “excitement” of proclaiming how “nothing will ever go back to how it was…” is a far more boring question: “What will remain the same?”(Spoiler: Most things)Corporate movie-villain-with-a-monocle Jeff Bezos says, “I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ That second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.” Consider the myriad of things that won’t change. And using the past as a prologue, you’ll find the “won’t change” list to be hefty. Roll your brain back 50 years to 1970. Things have certainly changed since then: advancements in science, medicine, technology, and society. But most things that haven’t changed:
- Kids go to school.
- Grownups go to work.
- We have lunch somewhere around the middle of the day.
- We fall in love and get married.
- We work to make money to give money to other people for things we want.
- Red means stop.
- Getting hit in the face with a pie is hilarious.
- U. S. Taxes are due April 15th (in non-pandemic years).
- Puppies are adorable.
- Organizational charts follow the same path.
- Car salesmen are…odd.
- Jim Henson is a national treasure.
Shall I go on? For every “change” you can name, I can find 17 “still the sames.” Let’s go back a mere 20 years, right before everybody’s favorite transitional epoch: September 11, 2001. Old-timers over 38 years old can tell you of a simpler time when walking on and off a plane was like getting on a city bus. And then…EVERYTHING CHANGED FOREVER. But…did it? Did it really? A little more cumbersome, sure. Somewhat more time consuming, yes. But most things are exactly the same. Your luggage vanishes on a conveyor belt, you sit next to an over-talkative stranger, your ears pop, the flight is EXACTLY the same amount of time, and a gin & tonic is bafflingly overpriced. Within a year or so after 9/11, people were flying more than ever. In planes. Not magic cars, as other business pundits predicted.
“The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.” – Prime Minister Winston Churchill
Please, please, please recognize I’m not ignoring the human toll and tragic loss of life affecting every continent. It’s profound in its magnitude and daunting to consider the mental and economic impact being felt by every human right now.
This is about the habits and motivations of the greater human condition at a macro-level. Dr. Abraham Maslow hasn’t failed us thus far, and his hierarchy of human needs isn’t likely to falter any time soon.
Look…according to 94.8% of the commercials on TV, “these are unprecedented times.” In some ways, that’s true. However, in most ways, we have plenty of precedents:
- World War II
- The Great Depression
- The dot-com bubble
- The Gutenberg Press
- Canned spray cheese
Events that altered the world. But the stuff that stayed the same is profound in its abundance. The other side of COVID-19 is a mystery, and I don’t have a crystal ball any more than you do. But like World War II and 9/11, we will likely look back on this episode and say “wow…that was intense,” and marvel (once again) at our astounding resilience. List what will be the same in 6 months…in 18 months…in 3 years…and plan for that.
“Because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.” -Jeff Bezos
Bzzzzt Bzzzzt
Metro City – Sector B – 05 May 2020.
::TRANSMISSION TERMINATED::
Advertising
This One Great Media Deception Is Spreading Your Jelly Too Thin On Your Marketing Toast
There are millions of eyeballs watching the Super Bowl. A mountain of earholes listening to NPR podcasts. So what now?
There are millions of eyeballs watching the Super Bowl. A mountain of earholes listening to NPR podcasts. An ocean of optic nerves pointed at the New York Times. Seven semi-trucks of auditory receptors hearing the local zany morning radio show.**So what?**Getting your ad in front of the most people is the top priority of businesses. But it should be the third thing on your list. Number one on your list should be how many times you can get into those eyeballs and earholes. If you have to choose between talking to 100 people once or 50 people four times, pick the latter. Every time. Advertising, at its most basic, is a memory game. You remember the things that are repeated often:
- Lyrics to a song
- Your PIN number
- The Lord’s Prayer
- Dance moves
In advertising, when it’s time for me to buy a refrigerator, what brand do I remember? Memory pathways are strengthened only by repetition and relevance. The exception to that rule are rare events so profound they only had to happen once:
- The Miracle on Ice
- September 11, 2001
- The first Black president
- Accidentally seeing your grandmother naked
Your business will never be as compelling as that list, so you need to focus your energy on frequency.
How much advertising can you buy so you can get to the SAME eyes and ears repetitively and relentlessly? Like any relationship, it will take several dates before someone falls in love with your business. If you “play the field” and date as many people as possible, you will never “make the sale.” So far, the order of things to consider are:
#1: Repetition. How many times can you get your message to the same customer?
#3: Audience size. How many potential customers can you reach? Between those two considerations comes a target segment. A segment is a collection of people with the traits that qualify them to be potential customers. This is NOT the same as (infernally useless) demographics. Stop asking about demographics and stop letting people tell you about demographics. The amount of usable advertising information you can get from demographics is borderline nonexistent. Think of a segment as like-minded customers. Homeowners are 100% likely to have plumbing. People with stomachs are 100% likely to get hungry during the day. Bras will most likely be purchased by women. “But 'people with stomachs' could be anybody!”
YES! YES! YES!
And it’s quite possible that your restaurant is perfectly suited for anybody with a stomach. It’s also possible that your restaurant is more suited for anybody with a stomach who is a “foodie.” Now you have information about who is… and who ISN’T your customer. Build your message accordingly. Segmentation is thorny and weird (can ya tell?) and I’ll dive deeper into that in a few weeks.
Let’s stick with this point:
Don’t worry about how many people you’re speaking to until you know how often you can speak to them. Your goal today is to kick up your repetition until some people can’t forget about you. We’ll get to the “other” people later. Let’s win the ones you can win.
Marketing
What's More Important, The Media Or The Message?
Newspaper, Radio, and TV have shoehorned digital advertising under their umbrellas promising to be a “one-stop-shop”...
Google says you should buy ads online. Outfront Media makes a compelling argument for outdoor advertising. Yellow Pages (yes, they’re still out there) has salespeople telling you you’re missing out on an untold number of calls. Newspaper, Radio, and TV have shoehorned digital advertising under their umbrellas promising to be a “one-stop-shop,” but even they can’t be Media Agnostic. To be Media Agnostic means that you’re not thinking about where to advertise until you have a solid handle on what you’re advertising. One of the core tenants we believe at our firm is:
The message makes the media work. The media doesn’t make the message work.
That’s a simple, but not easy, idea. It says there’s nothing particularly special about any advertising avenue. Radio people will tell you nobody watches TV, Billboard people say nobody listens to radio, your nephew says “everyone” is on TikTok, and Google says nothing matters until your customer is online.**It’s all a lie.**From matchbook covers to skywriting, it all works. Which is why you have to approach it all with Media Agnosticism. If somebody in your affinity group tells you they had success with direct mail, ask to see the piece. It matters. Let’s pretend you have $10,000 to give away …and I’m giving out free hotdogs at the local car dealership. I could run two commercials every hour for 7 straight days and I might get a respectable crowd. You, handing out free cash like you’re Don Fanucci, could block traffic with only 3 ads. Notice I didn’t say where those ads would run. I’m more interested in the message and the strategy. In the race between a free hotdog vs. free money, I’ll bet my money on the money. When Roy H. Williams wrote The Wizard of Ads® trilogy, it was quickly embraced by radio. The radio stations that implemented Roy’s ideas were rewarded handsomely. Wizard of Ads™ has purchased billions of dollars in airtime at radio stations around the globe. As such, people often believe we’re a “radio” advertising firm.
Radio is amazing. But we’re agnostic. We (literally) have success stories ranging from leaflets under windshield wipers, non-profit fundraising events, TV campaigns, and promotional items. Every media has a success story…because every media works. You have to figure out:
- What you’re trying to do
- When you expect results, and
- How you’re going to measure it.
If your answer is: “I want money now and I’ll measure it by how much money I have,” you’ll want to lean toward media that tend to be good at quick results. The various choices online, direct mail, and newspaper tend to be better at that. If you’re trying to build or enhance your brand over time, radio, OTT, TV, and billboards tend to be strong in that area. Please respect the phrase “tend to be.” Nothing is 100%. That’s why you have to be agnostic. A radio campaign for a plumber in Omaha, Nebraska is no indication that radio is right for a CPA in Lompoc, California.
Strategy first. Tactics last. Always media agnostic.
Advertising
The 9 Most Powerful Tips for Advertising Your Home Service Business
Bad ads waddle like a porcupine and make lots of little points. Good ads charge like a rhinoceros and make a single point powerfully.
Bad ads waddle like a porcupine and make lots of little points. Good ads charge like a rhinoceros and make a single point powerfully.
This is true regardless of your choice of media.
Ad budgets are like that, too.
When universities ask me to address their Advertising & Marketing majors just prior to graduation, I always warn those young “advertising experts” never to give advice to friends or family members who are involved in a local business. “This is because everything you have been taught assumes you will go to work in marketing for a Fortune 500 company, or for an advertising agency that places the media for large, national brands. You have not been taught how to grow a local business.” And then I ask their professors – in front of the students – whether they agree or disagree with what I just said. One hundred percent of the time, without exception, every professor has agreed with me. Most of the time, they start nodding their heads in affirmation when I say, “…everything you have been taught assumes you will go to work in marketing for a Fortune 500 company…”
The most dangerous of these Fortune 500 concepts is the idea of a “media mix.”
The widespread belief about the value of a “media mix” has caused small business owners to sprinkle their ad budgets across several different media because they are worried they are going to “miss” someone. After all, “Not everyone listens to the radio.” “Not everyone watches the news.” “Not everyone looks at billboards.” “Not everyone _blah, blah, blah.” Advertiser, you can’t afford to reach everyone. You’ve got to choose who to lose. Would you rather reach 100% of the people and convince them 10% of the way, or reach 10% of the people and convince them 100% of the way? Repetition is effective. Repetition is effective. Don’t be a porcupine. Be a rhino.
If you sell a product or a service that most people will need sooner-or-later and you suspect you’ve been sprinkling your ad budget, “a little bit here and a little bit there,”
try spending 70% of your ad budget on a single mass media and the remaining 30% online. The choice of mass media is up to you, but it’s hard to go wrong with local broadcast radio or television newscasts. People rarely record the TV news on their DVRs. They watch it live. The same is true of live sporting events. By the way, in case I forget to tell you this later, repetition is effective.
“Wait a minute,” you say, “you told me to be a rhino and not to sprinkle my budget,
but now you’re telling me that 30% of my budget should be spent online! What’s up?” Google is the new phone book, so you must have an online presence. Properly used, mass media will make you the provider that people think of immediately and feel the best about, but the first thing those people are going to do when they need what you sell is go online to look for your phone number, or your store hours, or your street address, or at your online reviews.
You’ve got to show up when your customer is looking for you.
Use geotargeting.
If time and energy are an underutilized resource, the placement of door hangers and lawn signs and the slipping of flyers under windshield wipers are old-school techniques that still pay big dividends. This is what I call, “shoe leather on the sidewalk.” The geotargeting of neighborhoods can also be done online, and geofencing will even allow you to target the people who enter and exit a specific building. Cool, huh?
Surprise is the foundation of delight.
In your ads,
- if you say what your customers expected you to say, they will be bored.
- if you make unsubstantiated claims, they will not believe you.
- if you speak to anything other than a felt need, they will ignore you.
- if you say something new, surprising and different, you will gain their attention.
- if you give them reasons to like and trust and believe you, they will.
If you win the heart, the mind will follow.
The intellectual mind will always create logic to justify what the emotional heart has already decided.
Repetition is effective, repetition is effective, repetition is effective.
Operations
Easily Navigate Growing Pains At $3-5M For Your HVAC Company
As an HVAC company grows, it often slams into a ceiling someplace between $3-5 million. Here are ways HVAC Companies get unstuck...
As an HVAC company grows, it often slams into a ceiling someplace between $3-5 million.
In this episode, we discuss the ways we’ve helped stuck companies break through that barrier. Even if you’re not in the HVAC industry, you’ll find valuable information that will help your small business stand out, be the one people like the most, and think of first.
Transcript Lightly Edited For Clarity
Johnny Molson: At Wizard of Ads we have many clients who are in the Home Services industry, specifically the Heating and Air industry. And we’ve noticed something pretty interesting that when these businesses get around the 3 to 5 million mark, they kind of hit a ceiling, they kind of plateau, and it’s hard to get over that hump. Now you may not be in the Heating and Air industry, but I think you’re going to find some useful stuff in here. Because what we’re going to talk about are the things that have to do with customer service and making sure that what you’re saying in your outward advertising matches what’s happening within your business: the experience that the customers are having.
With us today around the Roundtable, we have three other Wizard of Ads partners. We start in Halifax, Nova Scotia with Ryan Chute. He is a sales and process expert in Atlanta, Georgia. One of our newer partners, Kyle Caldwell, has a lot of experience in media buying and also in message creation. And in Toronto, Ontario is Gary Bernier, he’s handled a lot on the digital side. But the thing that all of us have in common at Wizard of Ads is we’re looking for “How do we get that connection between what the business is saying outwardly, and what the experience is inwardly that the customer is having”? So let’s start in Halifax, Nova Scotia with Ryan Chute talking about “Where do you start? You want to make this big move? Where does it really begin?”
Ryan Chute: You know, I often go in on the sales side of things and, and look at it, and these guys are selling what I like to call boxes. The salespeople are going up against price matches, unit for unit. There’s nothing else attached to the deal. And if anything, it’s going to be something marginal like a maintenance plan or a multi-year maintenance plan. When I start looking at it from the sales perspective, I’m looking at bundles. So I can insist that we really start focusing on bundles instead of boxes. And Costco is the absolute masters of these. You know, when Costco sells ketchup, they don’t put out a bottle of ketchup that you can buy down at the grocery store. They package it up with three packages of ketchup and put it on for a great price as a bundle. And that’s the only way you can buy it and that’s their differentiating value. It’s a value stack that’s inflicted on you, but is famously successful being the highest per dollar per square foot of any retailer in the marketplace today. So when you start looking at how we can leverage that, when we take it over to an HVAC company, the opportunity is extraordinary.
Johnny Molson: So challenge number one is “How are we different, fair?”
Ryan Chute: Yeah, definitely.
Gary Bernier: Absolutely, Johnny. And the focus today is that 3 to 5 million. Once you crack that three to five truck mark, that’s when things start to get more interesting, because now you’ve got a business a real business, and you’ve got a little bit of infrastructure there. Like Ryan’s talking about, you have people that their responsibility is to sell, and you’ve got people whose responsibility is answering the phone. As the owner, you don’t necessarily bump into everybody every day. And so there’s just different challenges that the business space is in its growth from that 3 to 5 million mark, and maybe what made them unique has gotten a little bit lost. It’s still probably there, and that’s why we do the uncovery, it’s a little bit lost when they get into that phase. Because they’re just scrambling to keep the business going. And that’s why they’re looking for leads all the time.
Kyle Caldwell: They have to be able to say what their clear vision is. What is the commander’s intent for my customers in the home every day? How does that translate from the people that answer the phones to the technician that shows up on your door? If you’re buried in every single kind of business issue, it’s very difficult to continuously be that shining light, that guide for your staff.
Johnny Molson: That’s kind of where a lot of businesses get stuck. I think all four of us have been in meetings where we say, “What makes you special? What do you stand for?” And the response we often get is, “Well, we do great quality work. And we have trained our people. And we wear booties when we go into the houses.” All these things that are base-level expectations. You know, I expect you to at least do that. I expect you to know what you’re doing, and I expect you not to trash my house. So where does this now-growing HVAC company start to look for the things that make them special?
Gary Bernier: I love when you look at a franchise like One Hour that says “On time or you don’t pay a dime.” It sounds like a simple thing. And you wouldn’t say that’s what makes them unique, but how many companies that you call for service on anything, whether it’s a fridge or whatever, show up when they say they’re going to show up? And that’s important to the customer. So a lot of times people think that uniqueness is in how they deliver the product, like how they actually put the air conditioner together and whatever else. And then the customer doesn’t care about that. What the customer wants is their life to be convenient. They want, if it’s HVAC, they want all the rooms to be the same level of cool. They want the same level of heat in all the rooms. That’s what the customer wants. They’re not into the fiddly little bits of how the stuff’s connected and whatever else. And I think the technician mindset gets lost on the perfect install versus what makes the customer happy.
Johnny Molson: And going back to what Kyle said, and you can address this a little bit, Kyle, if you want you. You said something important there on the intent or the spirit of the owner. Talk a little bit more about that and why that’s so important.
Kyle Caldwell: Well, Gary and I were in a discussion with a local business in his market. And you could tell that the woman we were talking to was right there and had a vision and was able to like elucidate several different things about her business that she wanted to see happen. She was able to look and say, “I want to be at this level of sales. And I want to transform my company in this way.” And I got to thinking how much she would benefit from a retreat. Go rent an Airbnb in the mountains, or in the cool part of your town, or whatever. Unplug your phone, start to write down these things that brought you to that $1 million place, that $2 million place, you know. Before you lose it to the insurance guy who’s calling you and the sales guy who wants you to look at the new gadget that he wants your trucks to carry, etc. Once a year, stop, take a breath and unplug and start writing down the spirit stuff.
The things that drive you to be in the business in the first place. I think maybe we could flesh that out some more in some blogs and things like that. But every one of these guys has a reason that they left the mothership company and started something. They have a reason. And so get back to that reason. And then that helps you at least have a place where you can start to project that into your technicians in the home, the CSRs, the service managers, the people who handle the billing. All of it, soup to nuts, begins with that kind of feng shui effort to write down the things that have brought you to where you are, why you’re doing this in the first place.
Gary Bernier: Yeah. That’s the seed that Ryan grabs hold of and loves to wrap the word culture around, right? It’s that Genesis moment that you’re talking about. How they see the world and how they wanted to serve customers and what they wanted to do for people. And so when Ryan starts talking about culture, it will show up whether you design it or not in around 3 to 5 million. And that’s another reason like Kyle says: “Get the hell out, figure it out, write it down.” Because I think Ryan will say that will put you in the driver’s seat for having the culture you want, not the one that just shows up.
Kyle Caldwell: It really matriculates right into the DNA of the business when it’s a stated goal that everyone in the business is enrolled in.
Johnny Molson: And this is a good place to transition. So now we’ve discovered the spirit or the intent of the owner, because now you are starting to get to something that is distinctive: how do you tell this company from that company? And so now you’ve started to tap into the stuff that makes your company distinctive. Ryan, what do we do with that? Now we’ve got this thing identified and pointed to it. What do we do with it?
Ryan Chute: Well, to me, there’s three kind of main areas where distinction shows up. The first area that is going to show up is the external message that you’re going to have to your customers. And that’s going to generate leads in one form or another. You can take kind of the transactional road of talking about price like everyone else, or you can talk about the things that you believe in and put it out there to demonstrate your integrity, your trust, your worth, your competence and value. The second place that is going to show up is in sales. So ultimately our service techs, they’re all selling stuff every single day. The comfort advisors and technical advisors. Even the customer service representatives who are answering the phone calls or selling something, be at the appointment that they need to book straight through to the new unit that they’re going to deliver, whether they sell a box or they sell a bundle.
Really what it boils down to from there is though do those two things match up, right? Does what we’re telling our customers actually match with what the experience is inside the company? And if it is a match, then you have consistency and that lends credibility and confidence for the consumer, which drives leads towards the online presence and everything else that comes from that. The third place that it’s going to show up in my world particularly is in recruitment. So when we believe something and we can speak to what we believe and stand for, and frankly what we stand against, then we can talk about things that matter to the person in job ads. The job ads are about the person doing the job, right? So when we match up the right people, what do we get? We get the right fit. And if we get a whole roster of rock stars, everyone’s winning, but it also attracts more rock stars, right? We want to be a part of a tribe that we feel really good about hanging our brand and attaching it to
Johnny Molson: Is it a top-down approach? Is it a horizontal approach? I guess by that I’m meaning where’s the chicken and where’s the egg? Does the culture determine the distinctiveness? Does the distinctiveness lead the culture? Clarify a little bit of that.
Kyle Caldwell: Yeah, I think it’s definitely top-down Johnny. I would say there’s no question that if the leadership does not have a well-stated vision for where they’re taking the company, then there’s no way it bubbles up from the ground floor up to the top suite, unless a miracle happens. And I bet you the best run and most distinctive companies have strong leadership. The ones I know that are successful in HVAC, the $70 million companies have leaders that are very, very good in that role and very good at projecting those core values down the funnel.
Ryan Chute: But it really does start at communication. And when we identify and lock in step number one, the leaders decide to make that conscious choice to change the narrative of their business, or at least clarify the narrative of their business to move it to the next level. It first happens externally. We understand what it is. We want to speak to the voice, to the mind and the hearts of the customer. And if we’re an authentically bringing that inside, we then bring that internal communication. And from there, it really becomes developing and clearing up your selling system through leadership. And when you have a clean slate of your selling system directed and driven and defended by leadership that’s what’s going to support your culture.
Johnny Molson: Yeah. And I think the reason for the question of, “Is it top-down or is it more linear?” is the situation where a leader is acting on his own values, but man, you’ve got a management staff barking in his ear. Saying “We’re getting killed on price. We’ve got to do this.” You start to internalize all of that, and you drift away from your values and your purpose. If you are in that situation and you have a management staff that’s just going numbers, numbers, numbers and you’re trying to instill values and values and values. Is that the wrong manager?
Ryan Chute: I don’t think it’s mutually exclusive. When you look at the selling system within a home service business, you have six constituent components. You have the communication, which is broken up into external communication and internal communication. External you’ll have offline and online, digital and mass media as an example. Then you have your internal, you’re defining what it is that you believe. Once you’ve done that we need to get some of those things cleaned up. Compensation and recruitment so that we are able to accommodate growth. But then we go into pricing and selection, and that has to be a unified front too. Pricing is a language, right? We talk about as Wizard of Ads the 12 languages and math being one of those languages. Well, pricing is one of those languages and it’s very psychological in the way that you can approach it.
Ryan Chute: But there’s no way to beat a P and L right? If your gross profit is 55 points and your fixed ops is 45 points. You’ve got a net income of 10 points, right? There’s no way to win that war, right? We’d have to adjust other things within the selling system, like getting your sales guys to close more on a per call basis, increased average sale, increased gross profits, those types of things. That being said, we drive down to pricing and selection. Now we have the language to the customer of accommodation, and that all has to match. If that doesn’t match, then leaders aren’t going to be able to do anything to improve the culture. They’re just going to be butting up against these roadblocks. Like our prices are too low, or we need higher prices, more selection, less selection.
Ryan Chute: We need to change our comp plan because no one’s willing to work for us at this price, or for a hundred percent commission or whatever the case might be. Ultimately, I think what this all boils down to is that culture is the strategy. Now we’ve often heard that culture eats strategy for lunch or breakfast.
Johnny Molson: All three meals, yeah.
Ryan Chute: But really what it comes down to is that culture has to be the strategy. And when we do that in the confines and context of a selling system, we have the ability to move the needle.
Johnny Molson: And this brings us full circle to the concept of Marketing with a capital M. Not just the ads that you put out in the words you say those kinds of things — vitally important — but just an understanding that marketing touches every department and really touches everything. So not only how we’re behaving out in the field, how we’re answering the phones, what we’re saying to the salespeople, how they behave, what’s on the website. All of these things have to be in what we refer to as channel alignment. Otherwise you’re really missing a big opportunity. And so it can’t just stay in the Monday morning meeting where we inspire everybody and say, “You know, we have these certain values…” It has to exist in every single corner and in the glove compartments of the trucks and in the minds of the techs. I mean, it really does have to be that that permeated in order for it to work.
Kyle Caldwell: And I think you have to have a plan for that, right? You go on your retreat, you kind of figure out what your goals are for that year. You have to then enroll the leadership in your business and then count on them to continuously reinforce and enroll the people that they manage. And there’s 14 different managers at a typical large 40 plus million dollar HVAC company has managers all over the place that are expressly there to lead and guide the pods of their team that are going to be so crucial. Without this alignment, it’s like an old wagon wheel with the spokes that are out of it. The wheel gets out of alignment before you know it and the whole thing comes apart because it’s not vibrating in the right way.
Johnny Molson: I live in a city where about four or five years ago we received a coveted Chick-fil-A and it was a big deal. I mean, the press was out there and it frustrated businesses who said they’re getting all this free marketing. And I said no, they’re not. They may be getting free advertising from their PR, but that is a well-oiled marketing machine from top down of how they behave. It’s not a mistake that when you say “Thank you,” they say, “It’s my pleasure to serve you.” That is a part of the DNA of how they live. And that is an expensive proposition, to do that kind of well-oiled truly capital-M Marketing that goes throughout the business. And that’s the kind of thing that we’re talking about. And when you get that right, when you tap into that, it becomes almost unstoppable. So Ryan, I’m a business owner and I say to you “But I want it now. I’m Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka. Give it to me now.” And what, what do you say to them? “I want to win today!”
Ryan Chute: Absolutely. And listen, every business owner wants to win today. They don’t want to wait to build the relationship, and they really want the relationship today, right? If we think about going out in our younger years on Saturday night to the bar and trolling around for things. Most of the time we’re not trolling around to find our future wife, right? We’re looking for that instant gratification. And those relationships aren’t traditionally forged in fire and going to be long-lasting relationships with meaningful results. Now they might bear fruit so to speak. But what I am saying is that’s not going to be a lifetime journey with a customer, right? And this is the difference in the two things. The difference in the two things is that we’re not going out looking for love in all the wrong places. We’re looking for connecting with customers and developing a relationship. And that probably means you’re not kissing on the first date.
I think that lends us to precisely what customers want. So if we’re looking for a quick down and dirty oversimplification of what it is that you need to do. 1, Vast selection. 2, The lowest price for the value. 3, Fast, personalized delivery. They’re going to be things that just don’t change over time. The customer is seeking first warmth, right? The belief that you’re not going to murder them in their sleep and take advantage of them or rob them of their home when you come in there. And then competence. If you tick those two boxes, you’re positioned to sell something — that’s not guaranteed — but that’s your minimum standard. So when we know the sequence of events, we can deliver delight. Now there is a secret sauce to delight, but first and foremost, we have to make sure that the customer feels that they’re getting the choice and the selection that they want, and that they don’t need to go shopping somewhere else, i.e. your competitors, to get the thing that solves their problem. The lowest price for value can be translated in a number of different ways from the cheapest box you sell straight through to the best solution you sell at a fair price. And then fast personalized delivery. My home my HVAC system is different than my next door neighbor’s HVAC system. I want it, within reason, to my needs so that I’m not making the wrong choice. And that’s the biggest fear of any relational customer. But we still have to do it fast, easy, safe, comfortable by demonstrating warmth and competence to build that trust before the sale is made.
Johnny Molson: So final question, who is this not right for? What businesses should not be doing what we are suggesting? Or who will this frustrate?
Ryan Chute: The first one is the business owner who wants to have a lifestyle business. They want to have a couple of trucks and a little bit overhead at most. They like keeping it simple and not really growing, but sustaining a good margin business. That’s just not for them because this will blow their socks off, right? The second person that it’s not going to be a good fit for is the person who really doesn’t have any aspirations for exponential growth. It’s easy to get a 10 to 15% gain on your growth every single year. Heck if you just raised your prices by 10% in conjunction, because it’s a basis of percentage you’re going to grow your business if you maintain. So exponential growth, that’s growth by multiples: two, four, six, 10 times, your business size. A thousand times, your business size. That’s what we do. And then those are the two big ones that would not be a good fit for this business. And then the third one is the inauthentic. The ones who just truly say one thing and then do another, who are out to gouge and take advantage of and everything else. They’re going to get caught, right? They’re going to get called out for being inconsistent with the message that they put out and what they deliver.
Gary Bernier: Yeah, Johnny, this is for the person that believes growth is great, but understands growth sucks because growth brings new problems. And what they want to do is solve those new problems every day. That’s the type of guys that want to go through that exponential growth that Ryan talks about. You have to understand that once again, what worked yesterday, doesn’t work today because it broke because of growth. And you’ve got to be ready to put a band-aid on it and then put in the permanent solution and move to the next link in the chain that broke and fix that one. The business owner that wants to go through that and wants to embrace that as part of their core DNA, that’s the type of guy that can work with us. And like Kyle said, it’s a choice and there’s nothing wrong with the other choices. But Ryan’s right, they won’t work for us. We’re going to blow you up and you’ve got to be ready to go along for the ride. It’s wild and it’s crazy. And it’s wonderful if you decide you like that. And if you don’t, it’s not the right vehicle to climb into.
Johnny Molson: So the key takeaway today is getting all these things in alignment. What you’re saying online matches what you’re saying on a billboard or matches what you’re saying on a TV ad or a YouTube ad. And that’s all in alignment with how your salespeople are behaving or how your service people are behaving. When you link all those two things together, everybody’s rowing in the same direction and it becomes really, really hard to stop. And that’s the exciting part. If you’d like to get in touch with any of us, here are our email addresses, or you can leave a comment in YouTube if you have any questions.
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Why Wizard of Ads®?
Are you ready to transform your business into a distinctive, emotionally resonant brand? Here's why hiring Ryan Chute and Wizard of Ads® Services is the game-changer your business needs:
Distinctiveness Beyond Difference: Your brand must be distinctive, not just different, to stand out. We specialize in creating emotional connections with your customers to make your brand unforgettable.
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Wizard of Ads® offers services that start with understanding your marketing challenges.
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Our strategy drives everything we do, dictating the creative direction and channels we use to elevate your brand. Leveraging our national buying power, we ensure you get the best media rates for maximum market leverage. Once your plan is in motion, we refine our strategy to align all channels—from customer service representatives to digital marketing, lead generation, and sales.
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Once we sign the agreement, we visit on-site to uncover your authentic story, strengths, and limitations. Our goal is to highlight what sets you 600 feet above the competition. We'll help you determine your budgets and plan your mass media strategy, negotiating the best rates on your behalf.
Meanwhile, our creative team crafts a durable, long-lasting campaign designed to move your brand beyond mere name recognition and into the realm of household names. With an approved plan, we dive into implementation, producing high-quality content and aligning your channels to ensure your media is delivered effectively. Watch your brand soar with our comprehensive, strategic approach.
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