Full transcript10 chapters · 11,377 words
00:00Hand-lettering signs at 15 and 40 years of trucks
Dan Antonelli: I’ve helped more than 3,000 contractors rebrand their business. The most common mistakes I see are easy to avoid, and fixing them can instantly increase the pricing power and the close rate, booking rates, and everything about their marketing spend.
Narrator: Welcome to Profit and Grit with Tyler, where blue collar owners and insiders spill the real story behind their hustle, building businesses that thrive through sweat and smarts. We’ll dig into their journeys from scaling chaos to growing the bottom line with lessons and grit that pay off big.
Narrator: Here’s your host, the Blue Collar CFO, Tyler Martin.
Tyler Martin: Today’s guest is Dan Antonelli, president of Kick Charge Creative. Dan has spent more than 30 years shaping the look and feel of over 3,000 home service brands. He started out as a sign painter and grew his one-person shop into the nation’s leading branding agency for contractors.
Tyler Martin: Today we’re digging into what makes a home service brand unforgettable, why most companies get it wrong, and how the right branding can fuel growth, culture, and reputation. Whether you’re running an HVAC shop, a plumbing, electrical, or roofing company, Dan’s insights will give you practical tools to stand out and grow profitably.
Tyler Martin: Let’s talk with Dan now. Hey Dan, welcome to the Profit and Grace Show. How are you doing today? I’m awesome, Tyler. How are you? I’m awesome too. I’m really excited. You’re like an icon in home services as far as I’m concerned. So I’m really excited to have you here.
Dan Antonelli: Appreciate that.
Tyler Martin: So, with that, if I can’t believe someone wouldn’t, but if they don’t know who you are, what do you do? Tell us a little bit about yourself and uh let’s go from there.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, absolutely. Uh my name is Dan Antonelli. I run Kick Charge Creative. We are a full service uh marketing agency here in New Jersey. We have about 60 employees at this point. This is actually our 30th year in business, which kind of blows my mind a little bit that we’re 30 years into this.
Dan Antonelli: It’s really exciting. I still am super excited about what we’re doing. I started lettering hand-painted signs and trucks when I was 15 years old. So I’m I’m going on almost 40 years of seeing my work out in the open on vehicles and things like that.
Dan Antonelli: And and uh it still, you know, really still kind of blows my mind that 40 years later, like that still energizes me and motivates me and gets me excited. So I’m super blessed to be working in the trades. The trades has done so much to me, to my team, to my family.
Dan Antonelli: So I can’t even express how grateful I am that I get to do what I get to do. And I also always like to say that I’m I’m also grateful just to be here today. Um, having gone through some health issues about four years ago with my heart.
Dan Antonelli: I shouldn’t be here today, but here I am. And uh I really look at every day as a blessing. So again, Tyler, I’m grateful to be here today to get to talk about this stuff and to still be here preaching about brands and things that I’m passionate about.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. And thank you, by the way, for what you add to the community. I mean, you’ve taken, I believe your company has taken the whole industry to another level, just in terms of taking branding seriously, taking your image seriously. And, you know, I even today when I drive around and I do this because of you, I’m looking at home service vehicles.
Tyler Martin: And honestly, nine out of 10 are horrible. Like, yeah, and and I know you’re so much more than just vehicles, but just using that as an example, there’s still so many that can be impacted and have a stronger brand.
Dan Antonelli: Oh, 100%. Yeah. And it’s sad. I mean, honestly, that that makes me sad as you go because you look at these examples when you’re driving and I’m doing it for 40 years. So, so yeah, but you’re you’re sad because that business either doesn’t know that what they have actually is hurting them, right?
Dan Antonelli: So you have that aspect of it. And then I’m I’m also sad on the other side of it that somebody sold them that as something that’s was supposedly going to help their business. So, you know, I spent so many years writing for different sign magazines and being on stages talking to other designers because I I felt it was so important.
Dan Antonelli: Like I look at our responsibility as being sacred, like you’re trusting me with your livelihood. So I had better know what I’m doing, right? So so it makes me sad sometimes to see the work that’s being put out that is not going to move the needle and that the ROI is severely marginalized because whoever sold it to you doesn’t really understand branding and how to actually design an effective truck wrap.
Dan Antonelli: So yeah, no, I I feel like we’ve raised, we’ve brought up legions of brand snobs, I call them to a certain extent, because every client who comes through us at the end of it, they’re so educated on what to do and what not to do.
Dan Antonelli: And then those are the ones out there on the streets sending me texts and saying, look at this truck.
05:01Why “it’s just a logo” misses culture and recruiting
Dan Antonelli: That’s like I think it’s kind of funny that there’s so many more people that are so much more sensitive to it now than than ever before.
Tyler Martin: So it is interesting. So I can say this from a first-person view. I have a client that recently went through your pro through your company for branding, and it is amazing, like when you get to sit through that process and kudos to your team, by the way, because it’s just so eye-opening.
Tyler Martin: Like it’s it’s so much more like I think I hear people say, Oh, it’s a logo, you’re gonna pay that much for a logo, you’re gonna pay that much, whatever. But it’s so much more than that. Like when you immerse yourself in that and you get in those conversations, my client was really awesome.
Tyler Martin: They wanted me to be part of that. So I got a front row seat, and it’s just it’s so much bigger. And when you walk away and then you combine it, I read your book, you combine it with that, it just makes you think about things way differently than probably, you know, than I thought even before.
Tyler Martin: And I thought I had a little bit of a feel for branding, but and I still probably have a little bit by standards, but at least I’m a lot more aware in terms of the impact and how much deeper it is. I mean in culture, I’m preaching to the choir, but it just has such a deep impact.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And I think that I think you’re spot on with that assessment because some people will be like, oh my God, it’s that much for just a logo. And as soon as you put that word just in front of that word, then you know you’re signaling that you don’t truly understand.
Dan Antonelli: And and to the defense of many people that have not gone through that experience, that do not know what it’s like on the other side of having an amazing brand, I can almost understand it. Like, you don’t know what you don’t know. But when you go through it and you get to the other side and you see the impact on culture, you see the impact on recruitment, you see the impact on all the KPIs that truly matter to you, then you’re like, oh my God, like this is the best investment I ever made, best single investment I will ever make in marketing my company.
Dan Antonelli: Um, but it it sometimes, unless you know what that you know end game is going to do for you, you don’t understand it. And so it’s easy to just sort of look at a number and just wrap your head around and say, Oh my God, that’s so much money for just a logo, but not understanding what this is truly going to do for your business.
Dan Antonelli: I think the other thing, too, Tyler, is when you think about when you think about mindset change that happens after a rebrand as well. And I think that that’s the part too that people really underestimate. They go through this process initially, maybe just wanting to solve some brand problems, and then they get all this stuff done, and then they see what it’s done to their own mindset and they’re re-engaged in the business, they’re re-energized in the business, they’re proud to wear the uniform and the team’s proud to wear the uniform.
Dan Antonelli: And the team themselves also recognize the fact that you are now taking steps to make a better life for them and a better future for them. Uh, so there’s so many benefits that go beyond just the cool truck that gets done. But again, a lot of people don’t really understand that.
Dan Antonelli: But that’s part of why I wanted to write the book because I wanted people to understand, you know, the psychology behind what we do and its effect across all these channels, not just the marketing channels, but the internal channels.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. So I’m the master of deviating. And uh, so I’m gonna I’m gonna pull back here a little bit. I wanted to hear your journey first, and so apologize, but I get excited about talking about this.
08:12Sign shop apprenticeship, Scranton, and the basement start
Tyler Martin: Uh I want to start with when you so 15, you’re your sign painter. Take me through like that early stage as you reflect on that. How did that mold your journey of where you’re at today?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, and so and initially I actually started out as a pinstriper. So I would pinstripe cars, motorcycles, things like that. And you would find in doing pinstriping, people would want you to do lettering. So then you figured out how to learn to do lettering.
Dan Antonelli: Like I would come home from a high school and I would hand letter alphabets. You know, my friends, hey, we’re gonna go have a party. Yeah, I gotta go home and letter some alphabets. Like I wasn’t the cool kid, let’s put it that way.
Dan Antonelli: So you started doing lettering, and then people would want, hey, I got a business. Can you do my truck? Can you do a sign for the front of my storefront? And so I started doing a lot of those things. And I wonder being blessed to get a job at a sign shop in Staten Island, New York, where I grew up.
Dan Antonelli: You may hear a little bit of my accent, although I’m in New Jersey now. I still have a little bit of New York left in me. And I worked under an amazing sign painter, and he was just insanely talented when it came to layout and composition.
Dan Antonelli: So the fundamentals of what he taught me is really evident in the work that goes out of Kick Charts today. So a lot of the lessons about layout, about legibility, about how the brand name comes forward on a truck, how to maximize the canvas.
Dan Antonelli: You know, I still have pictures of some of the work that him and I did together. And I could look at that work, and honestly, I could put that work out on the street today, and it would function perfectly. Wow. So the lessons about legibility, impact, making sure that it was easy to discern what the company did, like all those lessons and fundamentals he taught me.
Dan Antonelli: And I was just, again, super blessed to go through that experience. And, you know, so I’m 17, 18 at this point. My parents like, hey, you should really think about going to college. And so I don’t say begrudgingly, I went to college. I would say I was excited to go to college, probably more so because I wanted to get out of the house than I was excited about learning something.
Dan Antonelli: But I did study advertising, I did study communications. And so that experience, I got immersed a lot in the advertising world at the college that I went to, at the University of Scranton. And um, I learned a lot about more the psychology behind advertising.
Dan Antonelli: So, in the end, it wasn’t a design school, it wasn’t an art school, but I learned more about the strategy behind advertising. And I think that that experience and what I learned there was really crucial in my journey. And I actually worked while I was at the university in their publications office under an art director who then also taught me layout and design.
Dan Antonelli: So I really got the best of both worlds. Um, you know, I was supposed to do an internship. We were supposed to be 60 or 70 hours for the whole semester, and I would not leave. I was just there every single day, no matter what.
Dan Antonelli: Like, teach me. I don’t care. I’m I know I’m supposed to be doing something else or in class or I did my hours already, and they couldn’t get rid of me. And it was great. They taught me so much. So I got sort of my design school from them.
Dan Antonelli: I got the education about advertising from the university, and then I graduated and I worked at a health insurance company doing graphic design in New York City. So while I was there, I started the business on the side, like many entrepreneurs. And uh, you know, I was working my ass off.
Dan Antonelli: I mean, I was doing 60, 70, 80, 90 hour weeks for probably about a year until you know, my wife felt confident that I had enough business to sort of quit my day job. Yeah, I haven’t looked back since. So it’s you know, that was 30, 30 years ago, and um I started in my basement, you know.
Dan Antonelli: So my twins were just born in the year 2000, so I got to see them kind of grow up. I stayed, I stayed as a one or two-person operator for for the first five or six years that they were they were born, which is great.
Dan Antonelli: And then I started actually having employees come to my house and work in my basement, and then I finally got an office. I’m like, I can’t do this anymore. And we shared an office with another company, and then we outgrew them and took over the whole office, and then we built our current space in 2017.
Dan Antonelli: So we have about 50, 300 square feet here, and we have about 30 employees.
12:16Going from a $25 logo to premium branding pricing
Tyler Martin: Hey, Dan, so just a business question. It would have been very easy for you to go down the path of being just like, I don’t want to say low end, but just middle of the road price type of agency, and that’s what you do.
Tyler Martin: Where did you decide? Because this is what I see in trade services a lot is we underprice or we go down the path of we’re competing with Joe down the street. And you, it feels like you made a conscious choice that I’m gonna be high-end and I’m gonna deliver high value.
Tyler Martin: When did that happen, or how did that happen? And what was your decision making on that?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, I mean, I feel like it was gradual and it was kind of interesting because when I teach other sign companies about rap design, I always put up the first logo that I ever sold. Like I have it, as a matter of fact, the guy just retired after 30 something years, and it was this the logo we did for an automotive shop, and I sold it for$25.
Narrator: Wow.
Dan Antonelli: And I remember saying, I say to the people in the class, like, listen, first of all, we all start somewhere. So I don’t expect you people to be able to be selling branding at this price point that we sell on, but we all do start somewhere, and then like you said, you start making a decision that first of all it would be better for me to do, you know, one logo for a thousand than two for 500, right?
Dan Antonelli: Right. So just the economies if you start realizing that. But I think when I really started seeing the impact and seeing the value of what we were actually doing, and we just started raising the prices, but not only just raising the prices, we started delivering more value with what we were doing.
Dan Antonelli: So the hours that we were budgeting for each project with every price increase that we’ve had have reflected that. So I think at the price point we’re at now, I think we have almost 60 or 70 man hours devoted to the development of every single brand.
Dan Antonelli: But I think, you know, to your point, like the impact and the value, I think is how we started really realizing and recognizing that we were changing the lives of these companies. We were changing the marketing and the ad spend that they needed to spend with by having better brands.
Dan Antonelli: Like we were doing all these amazing things. We’re like, why are we we’re charging so little for this? And the return that they’re getting is is insane. So we, you know, just trying to be fair to us as far as what our value is, you know.
Dan Antonelli: So that was kind of a journey, you know. And it’s funny too, because even over the years, I could look back to, you know, 10 years ago when when maybe we were charging 5,000 for a logo at that point, and thinking, man, no one’s gonna pay 6,000 and no one’s gonna pay in every single price point where I thought we had reached sort of the the cap of where the market would bear, like we’ve we’ve always just gone gone through that.
Dan Antonelli: And and we don’t want to really obviously be the the lowest cost provider at this this service, but uh, you know, I look at the illustration work even that we do now and and from sketch to to completed piece of art, I mean that might be a 30 or 40 hour endeavor just just on the the art itself, right?
Dan Antonelli: So forget about everything else that goes in before that. Um, and the guys that we have on our team, I mean, these are guys that I have like handpicked over over 20 years and and sought the best of the best in the world uh to do because they’re very rare.
Dan Antonelli: Like these guys that understand brand, understand lettering, understand how it has to function on a truck, you know, they’re like one in a hundred. Like when you when you look for a a designer and someone that’s that says that they can do branding, there’s literally a lot of graphic designers that think that they can do branding, most can’t, right?
Dan Antonelli: Uh very good at executing an existing brand onto other marketing platforms, but ideating on something new, typically not, right? So so you you know, to your point, part of the problems I think contractors have when they say, How do I how do I raise my prices?
Dan Antonelli: Is the fact that they don’t look like they deserve to be paid what they’re asking, right? So that’s a big thing we see when people who come to us is they perform a great service, just don’t look like they do.
Tyler Martin: And they might not feel like it because they don’t look like it.
Dan Antonelli: Right.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, right, yeah, yeah.
Dan Antonelli: They don’t have the confidence that a great brand will bring them as well.
Tyler Martin: And just I want to echo something you said because I I’ve got a firsthand experience now, having worked with you guys. You know, I will admit when I we first were signing up with you, I was like a little bit worried. I’m like, there was a part of me, and I’m just being honest, like, man, are we really gonna invest this much?
Tyler Martin: You know, here’s my bean counter brain working are we really gonna invest this much for some logos and designs? Like, am I missing something here? And then when I had the experience, like these are full-on concepts. I can’t remember if it was four or three.
Tyler Martin: I think it was four. I think it was a bonus one. I think it was supposed to be three, and we got a bonus one. And these are full-on concepts. And the interesting thing is so I’ve done like 99 designs, I’ve done all these different places.
Tyler Martin: You know, when you, you know, I’ve hired people individually. When you get them, you don’t get full-on concepts that are generally really good. Like almost each concept could stand on its own, like in terms of, or they could. I mean, they could be an idea, you may not like it, but it it in it because of the aesthetics or whatever, but it fits to its own, like it’s that high of quality.
Tyler Martin: So right away, as soon as I experience it, I’m like, oh man, this is on a whole nother level. And then even now, as we’re going through the shirts and we’re making our final decisions, I mean, the shirts are like, I was joking with the owner.
Tyler Martin: I was like, dude, how many of these shirts are you sending me? He hasn’t answered yet. But but yeah, so so I do I will say going through it brought a whole nother level of awareness and saying, man, I can see value, there’s a lot of value here outside of just even the end product, just the process.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, thank you.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, one last thing uh before I jump over to the next thing I want to talk about. Is there something for contracts contractors that you could share? You’ve gone to your own admission, working from home, your home, building your business from home, having a small staff today.
Tyler Martin: You have 60 people, you’re a full full service agency. What’s the lesson there of going from, and I’m just kind of making up these numbers, but going from like a million-dollar shop to a$10 million shop, is there something you could share with us that could have been of that you’ve experienced in that scaling that you could share with contractors in general that they should be aware of?
18:09Nothing you do today is good enough for tomorrow
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, I mean, one one notion I think that has has really shaped me, and especially going back to when I was first working in the sign shop, is there was a magazine called Sinecraft magazine. And that was the only source of information for the sign business.
Dan Antonelli: And it was devoted to mainly people that were hand letters that did a lot of work would paint. And if you were able to get your work in this magazine, you had made it to a certain extent. Like that was the benchmark, that was the gold standard of recognition.
Dan Antonelli: And and when I worked for this gentleman, his name is Bert Arthur, he would say everything that we do should be of the level that it could be in that magazine. And so I always took with that mindset that always making sure that every single thing that we did was not good enough.
Dan Antonelli: Like good enough means it’s shit. Like that means it’s crap, right? And always making sure that everything we did was at a very, very high level. And I think that that mindset has really changed. So I used to think that there would be a point in time where you would get to this top and you’d be like, man, I made it.
Dan Antonelli: Like I’m there, like it’s awesome, like I’m at the top, I’m the best we’ll ever be. And then I really realized at a certain point that once you think you’ve made it to the top, then there’s nowhere to go but down. And so accepting the fact that there is no pinnacle that every day you should be growing, every day you should be doing better.
Dan Antonelli: And and anything you’re doing today should not be considered to be good enough for tomorrow. So always be innovative. Um, and just maintain that standard, you know, set the standard with your team as far as what the expectations are for you to represent the brand and make sure that they’re living up to those expectations.
Dan Antonelli: And if they don’t, they’re not the right fit for you and they’re not going to take you on the journey to where you want to go.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. I heard something I’d be curious if you think if you agree with this about your own business. I’ve heard like when you’re, you know, a million-dollar shop, you’re kind of just doing everything yourself.
20:00Handing day-to-day to his COO after heart surgery
Tyler Martin: And then as you get to maybe I’m jumping all the way to 10 million, you’ve now set up processes systems, you’ve got things refined. And then once you get after that, you’re kind of thinking more legacy. You’re kind of thinking like, what’s what’s this all about for the future?
Tyler Martin: Do you kind of agree with that in terms of how you view your own business?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, 100%. And I, you know, listen, I am not a process guy. I am blessed to have many people here that are very process driven. Um, and you know, we’re we’re north of 10 million now. And I can tell you for sure that if we didn’t have people here that were process driven, there was no way that we could have been successful at what we are.
Dan Antonelli: So I have an amazing right hand. Her name is Terry Brakes, and she runs the agency. She’s our COO and CXO. And so having her run all day to day and all those things, which I hate, like I hate dealing with all those things.
Dan Antonelli: Like I’m very much visionary in the sense of I have ideas and then I just let them know what those ideas are, and then they execute the ideas. I try to remove myself from telling them how to execute those ideas. Um, sometimes I get in the weeds too much, and I think that that’s just the instinct and natural inclination for most entrepreneurs, but learning to really trust the team, trust the process.
Dan Antonelli: I will say this, too, like even just the experience I went through after I had my heart surgery where I could not work and I absolutely had to rely on them to execute, they all rose to the occasion. And you could see that they thrived under that.
Dan Antonelli: And so that experience was super helpful for me to step back. And to your point early, when you said about thinking about legacy, you know, I go to these trade shows, like I was just at Tommy Mello’s Home Service Freedom event last week, and there had to be over a hundred kick charge clients there, and you talk to them and you you hear from them the gratitude that they have for what you’ve done for them and the impact you’ve had on their life.
Dan Antonelli: So continuing to build those legacies is a really big part of what I’m trying to do. You know, we want to figure out how we can scale so we can impact even more people’s lives, right? So that’s kind of the motivating factor for for me right now is I want I want to have deeper impact.
Dan Antonelli: I want to affect more people’s lives. And I’ve grown a team that can help us to scale and impact even more people’s lives. So absolutely I think that that is accurate when you start getting past that, where you’re no longer really in day-to-day, but it’s more about, hey, what are we, what are we really building here and how can I help guide us in that journey?
Tyler Martin: Right. You mentioned visionary. Do you guys follow like the EOS methodology? Because a lot of times they’ll use the visionary term and then there’s the implementer, which sounds like your COO. Is that do you guys follow that?
Dan Antonelli: No, we don’t follow it hardcore. We went through some EOS practices, I would say probably about six years ago or five years ago, which helped us define a little bit more of what our objectives were. The one thing I will say, and it’s not necessarily a knock on EOS, I just I just think for a creative shop, I think it’s a little bit harder to sort of fit into that specific operating system.
Dan Antonelli: We I think when we think about the people right peep, right seats, right people, or it’s right people, right seats, I think, whichever it is.
Tyler Martin: I mean, depending on how you’re looking at your thing, right?
Dan Antonelli: One thing that I think we’ve done a great job of is we’ve encouraged people, regardless of what seat they are in, uh, to be able to think about things that maybe aren’t specifically defined in their role. And so I always like the notion that everyone on the team can contribute, even if it’s not exactly in their predetermined job title.
Dan Antonelli: And I think that that’s been useful too, because we’ve seen amazing things come from people that you would say, well, that’s not really what they’re supposed to be doing, but they’re thinking so differently about this that they add so much value to it.
Dan Antonelli: So yeah, so I think we’ve taken some of the really amazing parts of it, US, and then blended it into some other things that I think have worked really well for us too. But yeah.
Tyler Martin: Very cool. So I want to kind of pull back a little bit and just talk about the bigger picture of branding. I’ve read that sometimes you feel oftentimes branding sucks. So I want to just dig into that a little bit.
24:03What sucky branding looks like and the Tommy Mello rebrand
Tyler Martin: What makes like what is sucky branding in your mind?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, so there’s a lot of sucky branding out there for sure. I I think as you look at brands for most companies, I would say the biggest thing you you recognize is that when they start the business, they’re bootstrapping as much as they possibly can.
Dan Antonelli: So to say they they have the budget to invest on a real brand and invest with a real branding agency, a lot of them really won’t have that. So they bootstrap it, which is fine, and that’s totally understandable. But the problem is, is then three years later, four years later, five years later, they they’ve got this this brand that was never professionally executed, and it no longer represents who they are today and what they’ve evolved into.
Dan Antonelli: So I always ask owners, and we and we have actually a page on our website if people actually want to take this test. It’s a self-test. It’s called uh the URL is sparktest.kickcharge.com. So it’s sparktest.kickcharge.com. And you can literally take this test and and grade your own brand on the 10 criteria that we use to judge branding.
Dan Antonelli: But the short answer I would say is if you look at your brand today and you can legitimately say that it represents what you’ve evolved into, then keep it. But if it does, if it no longer really represents who you are, the level of service you provide, and it that’s when you start thinking it’s time to maybe make make a change, you know.
Dan Antonelli: And when you think about what branding is truly trying to do in terms of perception. So everything that we try to do with building an amazing brand is control what Mrs. Jones thinks before you get to have the experience of you working in her home.
Dan Antonelli: So before you get to ring the doorbell, what does she think she’s going to get from your company? And the effect of that is is so profound when you look at the effect of your booking rate, your close rate, your average tickets, all those things.
Dan Antonelli: So look at your brand today and be honest with yourself and say, Oh my God, does this look like a premium home service company? Or does it look like a guy that just started, you know, a couple of months ago and was food strapping and did the best he can?
Dan Antonelli: And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just where do you want to go? So, so even looking at somebody like Tommy Mello, who we rebranded when Tommy Mellow was 30 million in revenue. So, what what person at 30 million in revenue is saying, Oh my god, my my brand sucks.
Dan Antonelli: It’s not working. Um, it’s hard to it’s hard to say that it’s not working at 30 million in revenue, but he knew where he wanted to go, and he knew that the brand no longer represented the level of service that they were providing.
Dan Antonelli: They were a premium home service company doing garage door service, and and certainly it did not look like a premium home service company. So, you know, we fixed the branding, and I think it’s four years later or five years later, is that 300 million in revenue?
Dan Antonelli: So he he 10x the business. And, you know, a lot of the psychology behind what we did to address his weak branding is the same psychology means for everybody, you know, for colors to composition to layout, like all those things were affected. So I just say, you know, look at what you have today and ask yourself that that hard question.
Dan Antonelli: Does it does it look like you know what we’ve evolved into and what we actually provide? And and in a lot of instances, it really doesn’t.
Tyler Martin: So what do you think when we are talking like that one to two million dollar shop? They started out originally, just you know, no money in their branding, and now they’re getting to a certain level. What should they be thinking about? When should that investment and the rebranding happen?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah. Well, it’s kind of a funny thing to say, but you know, we we like to say that the the best time to invest in branding was yesterday. The second best time to invest in branding is today, right? Because everything gets compounded later on.
Dan Antonelli: So the longer you wait, now you’ve got to redo more trucks. Now it’s costing you more in average tickets and booking rates and close rates. Like so, so all those metrics are affected by having a core brand. So people get hung up on the notion of, you know, why would I invest in it, but not understanding that, well, what if you could increase your booking rate by 10% by having a better brand?
Dan Antonelli: Would you do that? Do you know what that would equate to from a revenue perspective on year one, if your booking rate went up 10%? What about if your close rate went up 5%? What would that actually mean for you? What if you could raise your average tickets by 25%?
Dan Antonelli: So those are the things that people don’t necessarily correlate with getting that new brand, but those are the specific metrics that we can measure and we actually see on a daily basis.
28:23Why initial and last-name company names cost you
Dan Antonelli: So at that level, I think you know, the things, and again, too, the things that you see being done wrong when they first started the business is probably no one advised them on how to name their company. That is probably the number one challenge that home service businesses have is they don’t have a great name.
Dan Antonelli: So naming is a huge piece. It’s actually the biggest chapter in the book because it’s the most important. You get the name wrong on day one, you will spend a lifetime trying to fix it and to overspend overcoming that deficiency. So you make the next question you should ask me is well, what makes a bad name?
Dan Antonelli: So I’m gonna answer that. Stand, what makes a bad name? Yeah, initial-based names are the worst possible things you could ever name your company. So you you want to be JT Heating and Air, huge mistake.
Tyler Martin: Okay.
Dan Antonelli: You want to be a last name brand, you want to be Martin Heater Heating and Air, another mistake, right? So last name brands, initial-based brands, the absolute worst things you could name your company because there isn’t a promise that is associated with a last name brand or an initial-based brand.
Dan Antonelli: And worse than not having a promise is the fact that I can’t make it live in someone’s mind without a significant amount of money and ads spent to do it, right? So people are saying, Oh my god, there’s huge companies with last name brands and they’re so successful.
Dan Antonelli: I’m like, Yeah, but they’ve had to spend a lot of money to make that happen. All we’re trying to do is is what’s the quickest way to live in someone’s mind rent-free? And a name will be a big part of it, the visuals would be another huge part of it, you know.
Dan Antonelli: So always thinking about what we can do to make the brand sticky is a thing to consider. So again, when you’re at that one million, two million, it’s looking at crow, again, you have to you got that fork in the row where you say, Is this going to take Me to where I want to go, or do I have to have a little bit of short-term pain in renaming to put me on the right trajectory?
Dan Antonelli: And I’ll get there twice as fast, but initially it’s going to be a little bit of an obstacle. Like we renamed last year, or this year we’re on pace to probably rename about a hundred home service companies. We do it all the time.
Dan Antonelli: There’s a lot that goes into it, which people don’t understand. Even when they name their own business, a lot of people do it wrong and don’t understand even trademark issues and things that can arise by doing it. But I will say that you know the people who go through it, especially if they’ve had a weak name or a last name-based brand, and then they go with something different, they’re like, Oh my god, what a huge difference it it makes.
Dan Antonelli: People can remember my name. These are the same people who go to Mrs. Jones when the job is done, and she’s like, Who do I make the checkout to?
Tyler Martin: You know, like really just worked with you and they don’t even know.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Tyler Martin: So yeah. When you say a hundred, what percentage of companies that come to you do you think typically you end up changing their name?
Dan Antonelli: Um, I would say a third to 25%. Wow. Wow. It’s a lot. Yeah. But it it also is something not to be entered into lightly, you know. So it’s not like every single person walks through the door and that’s the first thing we tell them they have to do.
Dan Antonelli: There’s there’s a number of criteria that we look at. We look at years in business, we look at current brand equity. Uh, we look at, you know, again, challenges with the existing name. Is it hard to spell? Is it location based? You know, things like that where you know that there’s challenges.
Dan Antonelli: But if I’ve got a 30-year company with a really awful name and they’re they’re north of 5 million in revenue, it’s it’s not an automatic where I’m like, this is a good idea. You know, so you’ve got to have some judgment to think about whether or not it makes sense at that point in time.
Dan Antonelli: That’s right, it’s it’s best to address it as early as you possibly can. You know, typically you’re under a million, under two million in revenue, it’s it’s really a no-brainer, it’s really pretty easy. Uh, but when you start getting north of those numbers and and you’ve been around a while, and then you’ve also been well branded, meaning like the truck is legible, I can read it, and those types of things, but sometimes you see those companies have been around for 30 years and they’re still virtually invisible in their own community.
Dan Antonelli: So longevity doesn’t always indicate something that has a ton of brand equity, but it is a benchmark to think about when you when you evaluate it for sure.
Tyler Martin: That brand equity, is that something that you just determine based on your own experience, or is there some way to measure that? Or how do you how do you know when you say you have a lot of brand equity?
Dan Antonelli: So it’s definitely based on on experience, but I think again, you judge the current brand, you judge what the name is, you look at the ad spend, the ad spend actually, you know, as a numbers guy, you know, you you probably see a lot of indicators that might say there’s something actually not working very well here.
Dan Antonelli: So if our cost per acquisition is super high, well, why is our cost per acquisition super high? It may not be just that the market is competitive, it may be that no one knows we exist. And if no one knows we exist, we’re going to spend an awful lot of money getting them to know we exist.
Dan Antonelli: Um, so we encourage even just things like, and this is slightly off topic, but just like, what are you actually doing as a company to be visible in your own community? What are you doing? The legwork, you go into community events, or you go into parades, and you’re sponsoring little leagues, like those are all the little things that PE is ignoring.
33:08Stay Cooler with Bueller and the head that was too big
Dan Antonelli: They’re like, PE, let me just bang money into LSA and Google’s fan. But what are you doing as a family-owned business that is is very distinctive and unique, right? So making sure that that name is visible in the community. Um, so you do judge those things.
Dan Antonelli: I think in general, Tyler, I will say that most people overestimate their own brand equity. They think that they’re more visible in their community. And the reality is, is they’re they most are not as visible as they really are.
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Do you have an example that comes to mind, at least, where you’ve done a name change and it’s had a huge impact? Well, it’s the branding too, but it’s had a huge impact. Does anybody come to mind? I know you have a million testimonials.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, there’s one, and it’s a really unique example of using a last name brand in favor of a non-last name-based brand. And the the brand, the company is called Bueller Eating and Air. Oh, I love that. And they’re in they’re in Jacksonville, Florida.
Dan Antonelli: They used to be called Air Source America, uh, which is a really strange name. It sounds like an oxygen supply company. And he was the same thing. He would literally get to the door and they’re like, What’s what’s the name of this company?
Dan Antonelli: They knew his name. His last name is Bueller, it’s Jason Bueller. And this is a person too, and I think it’s a good point, and especially Tyler, for you as a numbers guy, you’ll appreciate this. But he was at 2 million in revenue when we rebranded him.
Dan Antonelli: And this is about five years ago, five or six years ago, and was just growing like five percent a year, 10 a year, like nothing, like you know, you know, you could see the trajectory, but it was not not anything amazing. He was 10 years into it, I think, at that point, at 2 million in revenue.
Dan Antonelli: And I said to I said to him, Jason, I said, I said, dude, why why don’t we embrace this name? Because it’s such a memorable name. People know the name from the movie. Let’s just go all in on it. And we created this brand, it’s a huge head with sunglasses, and it says Bueller, and the tagline is Stay Cooler with Bueller.
Dan Antonelli: And he literally went to, I think he’s north of 25 million in revenue right now. But what’s the beauty of his trajectory and how much he was growing is he was growing like almost 100% every year at a four or five percent ad spend.
Dan Antonelli: So I think that that’s that’s really where you recognize that that visibility in the community was affecting so much of the digital spend and the rest of his marketing spend that people were no longer just typing in air conditioning repair, Jacksonville, Florida, they were typing in Bueller Air.
Dan Antonelli: And as a matter of fact, like we had stats from him from one July that he had over 1500 branded keyword searches for his name alone. So imagine how much it would have cost to buy those keywords or to buy that click instead of people typing in your name.
Dan Antonelli: And I think that that’s the beauty of that disruption and having that name that sticks in someone’s head, that they’re just typing in your name now. And now you’re not competing with every other air conditioning company. You’re just competing against your own branded keywords, which is going to be a much less cost per click, even if you’re paying for the click than the others, the other one.
Dan Antonelli: So that’s a that’s that I mean, we have so many, but that’s one that sticks in my head is like an amazing story, not just as it relates to building something that’s sticky, but how it affected the marketing strength.
Tyler Martin: But doesn’t that also have an anecdotal kind of funny story too? Didn’t he the big head he was like totally paranoid about? He thought it was way overboard, and then that ended up being like everybody said they loved it or something.
Dan Antonelli: Well, yeah, so it is it is a funny story, but like literally the day before he’s supposed to rap six trucks. He he sends me a text in the morning, he’s like, Dan, like I can’t do this. Like the head’s too big. That’s literally what he said.
Dan Antonelli: He said, The head’s too big, and you know, I don’t I probably shouldn’t curse on this podcast, so I won’t, but I’m like, I’m like, Jason, the the effing head is not too big. And and I said, just let me do my thing, bro.
Dan Antonelli: Like, let me do my thing. And he’s like, All right, like I don’t know, like it’s it just feels like it’s so big. And I’m like, that is the whole point. You know, if I make the head smaller, then then it’s less disruptive.
Dan Antonelli: But having this big giant head on the side of your van, people gotta point to it, they’re gonna remember it, it’s gonna be sticky. Oh, that’s beautiful, bewell it, be it, big head, bewell it. Like, that’s how the repetition works. Well, of course, like months later, it’s like, oh my god, I’m so glad I listened to you, and everything like that.
Dan Antonelli: But but you know, I sometimes feel like we’re a brand psychologist or or or therapist because we often have to talk people off the ledge because the natural inclination for someone is to go to where it’s safe, right? They see what all these other companies are doing, and they’re like, that feels safe.
Dan Antonelli: Like that feels like an air conditioning company should look like. And I’m like, no, the the minute I start doing something that looks like what what the other air conditioning companies are doing, then it’s less likely to disrupt, it’s less likely to stand out.
Dan Antonelli: Like, you want to do what everyone else is doing, then why didn’t we do Sun and Snowflakes for your logo? Yeah, you know, we’re fire and ice. Why didn’t we do that? Well, because we were trying to do something disruptive disruptive. So it happens more frequently than you might think, where where literally it’s the ninth hour and or the 11th hour and people get cold feet because it feels foreign to them.
Dan Antonelli: It feels like, oh man, we’re really going up there. Yeah. If it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable, it’s probably not gonna work as well as it could.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, yeah. It’s got such a ring to it, too. Like I can see how it just people catch on to it. It reminds me of I had uh Lou Hobaika, and everyone likes a hobaika. I think that’s a slogan or something like that.
Tyler Martin: It just sticks with you. Once you get their name down, it’s like you just it just framed in your head. It’s it’s one of those types of branding uh that Bueller has. And like you said, because of the movie, that makes it extra exciting.
38:37Buying a digital agency and reading Searchlight data
Tyler Martin: Yeah. Anyway, okay, I want to switch gears and talk about uh you’re now going to a full service agency where you’ve introduced, I guess, one a client can come to you and get all services. Is that correct?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah. So we were in the digital space many years ago. We got out of the digital space and we acquired a digital marketing company in January. So, you know, we have their whole entire team now. We we run the digital marketing for about 40 or 50 home service companies now.
Dan Antonelli: But what we found like is that we would do branding for someone, and then they would go to a social media company, and then we start seeing ads that already had messed up the branding that we just created, like wrong fonts, wrong color, things like that.
Dan Antonelli: And it would literally make me insane. Like I would screenshot it and send it to my mouth to my client. I’m like, dude, what are we doing here? Like it’s the wrong font. That’s it’s everything’s wrong. And then I would see the same thing in email marketing, I would see the same thing on their website, brochures, even sometimes truck wraps.
Dan Antonelli: They’d have us do this first truck wrap, and then their wrap company would do the second, and the second one would be all messed up, and it would just make me insane. So we launched this. I mean, we had done a lot of these things individually, like we did email marketing, we did social media marketing, we had done all those things, but we launched Kick Charge one with the notion that everyone really could benefit by having a unified marketing strategy.
Tyler Martin: Sure.
Dan Antonelli: So it’s like part fractional CMO because we’re really figuring out budgets, really figuring out analysis of your marketing spend and where we should be budgeting for different parts of the year. And then we can execute across all the channels. So I could do your email, I can do your social, um, we can do your digital marketing.
Dan Antonelli: Obviously, we can do your branding and we do your print collateral. Like we had always done the print collateral and some of those other services, but I think people are are really hungry for a fractional CMO role, especially when you start getting north of five million in revenue, uh, where you’re like, I don’t know where I’m supposed to be doing it.
Dan Antonelli: My digital marketing company says I should be spending this. Well, first of all, how do we know your digital marketing company is actually performing well for you? Right. Do we know the key metrics that we can judge that? And we’re not even talking about, you know, the monthly report that they send to you, which they can spin any number of ways to make it seem like they’re doing it.
Tyler Martin: Right, right. I’ve seen it a million times. Drives me crazy.
Dan Antonelli: So we really wanted to do something, first of all, that was fully, fully transparent because I want you to hold me accountable for the results. I want to make sure that you feel value in what we’re providing. And and so integrating some technologies on the websites that we handle the digital marketing for, like SearchFlight.
Dan Antonelli: I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Search Flight, Tyler, but it’s an amazing aggregator of data that analyzes your customer acquisition costs, your lead costs, your booking rates, your close rates, like all these things. How many open estimates? And what I love about it too is because so much of the so much of what you should be doing is right there in SearchFlight.
Dan Antonelli: So yeah, I was just looking at booking rate for a client today, and whose booking rate was just a little bit over 30%. And I’m like, I’m like, we had we had$800,000 in revenue opportunities this month that we provided for them, and they only closed for half of it.
Dan Antonelli: And I’m like, dude, like we got to fix the booking rate because imagine if we fixed the booking rate and we got up to 50%. That would have been another 200,000 in revenue for you. Like, like invest in your CSRs, like fix the problem.
Dan Antonelli: Like, so so I just love that we can look at this data and we can help people really understand. And then, okay, well, shoulder season is coming up, but what should we be doing two months prior to shoulder season to make sure that we’re not struggling during those slow months, right?
Dan Antonelli: So looking at those things, I think has been great. And I think people really love the fact that now we can really oversee. And even if you don’t use us for all those services, you can have us as a basically a third party to help manage and look at those services.
Tyler Martin: That’s what I was gonna ask you. Like someone that wants to enter into your firm, do they have to enter in on the branding side first, or can they enter in on advertising, for example, to start with?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, they they can enter in any any which way. But certainly they do have weak branding, it will be part of a conversation because we know it’s going to affect the other metrics. But we will do whatever we can with what you have if that’s that’s the parameter.
Tyler Martin: And I want to echo something you said about the CMO. I feel like this is the biggest gap in that five to let’s say 15 million where they don’t have in-house help. They hire an agency. Agency tells them what they want to hear to some degree, tells them to spend more money or whatever.
Tyler Martin: And then they give them data that really they don’t understand unless they really tear it apart. I mean, I’ve seen this so many times. They’ll give them back an ROAS number. And I’ll say, Well, how are you computing the ROAS number? I’m just curious.
Tyler Martin: Oh, well, we’re we’re taking the lifetime value potentially of a client. Well, I mean, dude, that’s totally distorted. Like, come on. Well, that’s the industry standard. No, it’s not. Like in the client thinks they’re getting like a 20x return or whatever that number is.
Tyler Martin: And it’s not. It’s like, it’s just, it’s not true. And it without that CMO, that strategy part, I think, you know, I want to share, share two stories with you. There was something on LinkedIn yesterday, I’m not going to name the company name, but the guy literally wrote a post about how his essentially his company is going out of business and he blamed it on the agency.
Tyler Martin: I’m not sure if this is totally true, but I think there’s some element of truth that the LSA, I think he said the keywords weren’t grouped correctly or something. And he didn’t realize it. And it turned out uh he was losing all his lead generation because they had done this, and now he’s having to lay people off.
Tyler Martin: He was turning over vehicles because he couldn’t make the lease payments. What are your thoughts when you hear that?
Dan Antonelli: Sadly, it happens more often than than really than you think. You know, and I and I think that that’s that’s one of the reasons initially why I got out of digital marketing, you know, five years ago was because it was the one area that people were most frustrated with.
Dan Antonelli: And so I thought so carefully when we were looking to acquire a digital marketing company to make sure whoever we were looking at was delivering value, was delivering great results that I could put my name behind. Because listen, the kick and charge brand is something that we’ve worked so hard over 25 years to develop a reputation.
Dan Antonelli: I was not going to put my name associated with something that I couldn’t stand behind and that I couldn’t be proud of. And I see every single day the results that we’re getting for these companies. And it’s just really incredible, I think, the work that we’re doing in that particular space.
Dan Antonelli: But there’s a lot of bad players in that space. And and and I sort of hate the fraud, I hate the deception. Like I hate that it’s like all they’re, you know, all digital marketing companies are snake oil. Like it sucks that that’s what the industry is known as today because there’s been so many bad players and there’s people like that that got taken advantage of that didn’t know.
Dan Antonelli: I think that that’s why even just having someone looking over their shoulders to ensure that whatever they’re being sold is actually working. And again, like we won’t build a website unless Searchlight is integrated on it. Because without Searchlight, that to me, you can’t hide from the data in Searchlight.
Dan Antonelli: There’s no, there’s no like way to spin it. It is what it is, you know. So I love looking at Searchlight and I love that we include that as part of our fee. Like it’s free, like you don’t pay extra for what we included because I want to make sure we can be held accountable for what you’re spending.
Dan Antonelli: So if I can demonstrate, you know, we just had a client today, the same thing I was just saying, the same guy spent$9,700 and had$800,000 worth of revenue opportunity. Like you would spend$9,000 all day long if I could generate$800,000 worth of revenue opportunity all day long.
Dan Antonelli: But it’s there, you know. But then I I saw the booking rate was was weak. And I’m like, we got to fix the booking rate, bro, because like if I can get the booking rate to 50% or 40% up from low 30s, that’s that’s another 200,000 in revenue right there.
Tyler Martin: You’re printing money basically.
Dan Antonelli: And I think Tyler, too. The other cool stuff on that is you can even look at the open estimates. You’re like, okay, why do we have so many open estimates? And who’s doing the follow-up? Are we using rehash? Are we using chirp? Like, what’s happening with this?
Dan Antonelli: So, like, you can literally look at that screenshot and you could identify so many deficient areas and so many things that need to be improved, but you have to know enough about what the data is telling you. And as an owner, you know, you know some of it, right?
Dan Antonelli: But it’s hard sometimes to know exactly what the data is actually pointing to that needs to be fixed. So while I’ll say we’re we’re we’re great at digital marketing, I love being proactive in a sense of reading the data and trying to help owners understand, hey man, like we fixed this, and this will just multiply the effect of the ad spend, you know, and looking at that and being able to help educate them on some of those challenges that the data is literally telling you, like just looking at the data, you know.
Tyler Martin: So do you have any concerns about one of the knocks I hear with larger agencies is it’s hard to maintain that quality as they get bigger? And when I talk to the community and I’ll bring up names, they’ll be oh man, they’re they’re terrible now, they’re just too big.
Tyler Martin: How do you plan to circumvent that as much as possible?
Dan Antonelli: What we’re doing is we’re just trying to minimize how many accounts each person is responsible for and then anticipate when we get to a certain threshold where we know that’s gonna push us over the or push us over needing another person. We’re anticipating that and hiring ahead of it because I don’t want to do that to you, man.
Dan Antonelli: I’m not gonna not gonna scale for the sake of scaling and then lose what we set out to do initially in the process. It’s even the same thing with branding. Like they were like, well, how can you do five brands a week and maintain that that quality?
Dan Antonelli: We’ve been able to do that, you know, all day long. But again, you have to invest in the right people, you have to invest in the infrastructure, and you have to just make sure you can support it in the way that which people expect to be supported from a kick charge brand.
Tyler Martin: Yeah, very cool. Okay, in terms of last things I want to cover here, do you have a mantra that you tend to lean on as an entrepreneur or anything that come to mind?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, like I I think I mentioned earlier, like the just the notion of two things I would say design as if lives were at stake is one of the things that does lead us here. And we are very diligent about making sure that each team member understands how crucial their role is in the work that we’re doing for our clients.
Dan Antonelli: So that’s definitely one. And I mentioned earlier, just the notion of nothing you do today should be considered to be good enough for tomorrow.
Tyler Martin: I love that. And that just basically emphasizes how fast things change too, right? I mean, we’re just constantly evolving world, especially now in the world of AI. Awesome stuff, Dan. Um, so many good things. I do want to mention as we close out here, your wonderful book, Branded, Not Blanded, Kick Charge, your home service brand.
Tyler Martin: You’ve got a second edition that just came out in September. I read the first vision edition. It was great. I believe you said the second edition has more data. I think she had case studies too. What else is in the second edition?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, so the second edition has an entire chapter on data and analytics. So the the data behind rebrands. And then we also had an entire chapter on brand story and how important brand story is and the development of a home service brand. And then, yeah, and then there’s probably another two dozen case studies uh highlighting the examples of what’s happened to these companies after rebranding.
Tyler Martin: Very cool. And then websites, guys, uh Instagram, Kick Charge Creative is the handle. And then company uh website is kickcharcharge.com. Uh, I’ll include Dan’s LinkedIn and Facebook in the show notes. And then last thing I just want to mention, Dan, you mentioned sparktests.kickcharge.com.
Tyler Martin: People can go there if they want to just get it sounds like take a little test to see where your branding stands. Is that correct?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, it’s an interactive website where there’s a video of me talking about each criteria. And then you’re gonna self-judge your your brand and and enter the number of one through ten on each category. It’s gonna add it up and then give you a score at the end.
Tyler Martin: Awesome. Okay, hey Dan, thanks so much for your time. You’re as much as I expect is an awesome guest with a wealth of wisdom. So thanks for sharing.
Dan Antonelli: Thanks for having me on, Tyler. Appreciate it.
Tyler Martin: So Dan’s story is proof that branding isn’t just about looks, it’s about growth, confidence, and culture. What I hope you take away is this the way you present your business impacts the jobs you win, the prices you can charge, and the people you attract.
Tyler Martin: If you’re listening and wondering how branding ties into your financial health, that’s where I come in. I help home service business owners get clear on their numbers, fix cash flow headaches, and build strategies for profitable growth. If you want to talk through where your business is today and where you want it to go, go ahead and book a complimentary no pressure intro call at cfointrocall.com.
Tyler Martin: Let’s map out our next steps together. Most of all, thank you so much for listening. Have a fabulous week.
Related Episodes
- Why Bland Brands Pay More For Leads – Dan Antonelli
- The Costly Marketing Gap That Goes Beyond the Truck Wrap – Sarah Ghirardo
- The Hard Truth About Starting A Home Service Business – Mike Venidis
- The Habits That Separate Profitable Shops From Busy Ones — Jason Noel
Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: profitandgrit.com or Book a free intro call. For where your business sits right now, read the $3M to $15M scaling breakdown.
