Why Bland Brands Pay More For Leads – Dan Antonelli

00:00Why bland brands pay more for every lead

Dan Antonelli: You know, the cheapest website you can buy today is going to be the most expensive decision you’ll make this year. AI is a tool, but it’s not a brand and it sure as hell isn’t a strategy.

Tyler Martin: 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. Here’s your host, the blue-collar CFO, Tyler Martin.

Tyler Martin: AI is everywhere right now. AI websites, AI search, AI content, AI tools. And for a lot of home service business owners, it’s raising a real question. If you’re not chasing every new AI trend, are you falling behind? My guest today, Dan Antonelli, has a very different perspective.

Tyler Martin: Dan has spent more than 30 years helping home service companies build brands that customers actually remember. In this conversation, we talk about where AI fits, where it doesn’t, and why too many companies are getting distracted by shiny new tools while overlooking the fundamentals that still drive growth. We also get into truck wraps, customer acquisition costs,

Tyler Martin: branding, and why cheap websites can end up being one of the most expensive decisions you make. One of my favorite parts of this conversation is Dan’s argument that the real goal isn’t winning search, it’s winning the customer’s mind before they ever need to search in the first place.

Tyler Martin: If there’s one theme that runs through this entire conversation, it’s that great brands are built long before someone types your name in Google. Let’s get into it with Dan now. Hey, Dan, welcome to the Profit and Grit Show. How are you doing today?

Dan Antonelli: What’s up, Tyler? Good to see you again.

Tyler Martin: Yeah, welcome back. So this is part two. I’m really honored to have you. We did a podcast last year, and so I’ve got a whole new set of topics in it. And you got a new book edition. So I think this is perfect timing to kind of have an updated chat.

02:18Dan’s 31 years and 3,000 home service brands

Tyler Martin: Awesome. Glad to be here, buddy. So you’re the goat of branding, in my opinion, in the home services space. Probably a lot of people’s opinion. So I’d love for just in case people don’t know who you are. Can we start with just learning a little bit about you?

Dan Antonelli: Sure. I run a digital marketing and branding agency here in New Jersey. We have about 65 or 70 employees at this point. We approach everything that we do from a brand-centric perspective. So we look at the brand as being fundamental to the success of all the other marketing that you might be doing.

Dan Antonelli: So if you’re doing direct mail, if you’re doing billboards, if you’re wrapping a truck or doing digital marketing, if you don’t have a solid foundation, then all those other channels, the ROI on them will be somewhat affected by having that poor foundation. This is actually our 31st year.

Dan Antonelli: And at this point, I think we’re north of 3,000 home service brands that we’ve created over the last 30 years.

Tyler Martin: Wow, that’s a lot. Hey, I want to get into where I want to take this conversation to start is obviously AI is huge. It’s changing every industry. There’s been a lot of chatter online, and I follow you on Facebook a lot, LinkedIn. in, there’s been a lot of chatter about AI’s place as it evolves, whether it be websites,

Tyler Martin: whether it be paid ads. I recently was following some dialogue that you had about, hey, AI is important, was the context I took out of your commentary. It was important, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves in terms of what’s worked in the past kind of works, still works now.

Tyler Martin: And I just happened to be, there was an AI influencer, not going to name any names, but she had a totally different perspective and she felt perhaps even your viewpoint was a little bit antiquated. I just want to know what your opinion is. Like, should we be generating AI websites?

Tyler Martin: Does that make sense where you can throw them up in five minutes? Where do you stand on that? What’s your opinion? I really respect your position. You’re, like I said, a goat in this industry. So I think a lot of what you have to say, people should pause and kind of listen and

Tyler Martin: think and go, okay, where does that fit for my business? Yeah. I mean, a couple of things.

Dan Antonelli: And I know you had Kevin Lesage on a few weeks ago talking about the data. And I think you make decisions based on what the data is actually saying. And you anticipate things that obviously are going to affect digital marketing moving forward, right?

Dan Antonelli: So our position, first of all, is we use AI as a tool, as most companies really should be doing, of course. But we are always going to be human first, and then the assistance of AI, and then human last. And the human last piece is actually a really, really important part of that conversation, right?

Dan Antonelli: Because by simply having AI generate thousands and thousands of pages and things like that, those things are actually running in the face of what Google has always said has been best practices, right? So, you know, while we want to make sure that sites are built in a manner that the content speaks to what LLM is actually looking for in responses and answers and things like that, there still has to be a human element.

Dan Antonelli: And there also still has to be, again, a sense of creating content that is unique and specific for that particular client. client, right? So having something that’s spitting out thousands of pages of content, and we’ve seen it before where companies have deployed that strategy and seen a very,

Dan Antonelli: very dramatic increase in organic rankings very quickly, and then a very quick, substantial drop immediately after. And I think it’s sort of crazy in my mind to think about that Google is not going to figure out how you’re gaming the system now using the same technology.

Dan Antonelli: So, you know, we want to be, we obviously we’re very proactive and we’re looking at everything, but we’re also just being very much about making decisions based on what the data says. So if you actually look at revenue generated for a home service contractor that was based on LLM, right?

Dan Antonelli: And you look at how many, what’s the percentage of the whole base of revenue was generated through AI or AI chat, you know, search chat, right? So, you know, the last two months or three months, and this is all the data compiled from Searchlight that pulls in from Housecall Pro and Service Titan and some of the CRMs, that the AI generated revenue still represents less than 2% of all the revenue for a home service contractor.

Dan Antonelli: And so are you going to be changing everything at all about your digital strategy when, first of all, currently it only represents less than 2% of where your actual revenue is generating from? So I think there’s a lot of, you know, listen, I’m going to call a spade a spade.

Dan Antonelli: I think there’s a lot of scare tactics like, oh, my God, you better get your site AI friendly. You better do this. You better do that. And if you don’t, you’re going to get left behind. And that makes for great marketing buzz. But the reality is, is that that’s not actually the reality of where revenue is being generated.

Dan Antonelli: Will that change in the future?

07:34Winning someone’s mind instead of winning AI search

Dan Antonelli: Of course, you’re going to start seeing more and more coming from that. But it’s not like it’s happening next month. You know, maybe in six months, it’ll be 4%. You know, every month you’re seeing like a quarter of a percent increase in revenue generated through AI search.

Dan Antonelli: And so, you know, like I said, we know that there’s a place for it. We know it’s part of our strategy. We know how to deploy it in a manner that I think is consistent with what Google has always said is most important in how they base rankings.

Dan Antonelli: But I think the other thing, too, is like, as you start thinking about what am I going to do to win the AI search battle, right? I think the better question is, is what am I going to be doing to win the battle of someone’s

Dan Antonelli: mind? That’s the question because it’ll render the AI question irrelevant if you’re top of mind to the people you’re trying to sell to. And so a brand centric approach, like what are you doing traditionally? Like, are you out on the street? Are you attending home shows?

Dan Antonelli: Are you doing Facebook ads to put your name in front? So what are the things that you’re actually doing so that when it’s time for service, instead of them going in there and typing in a random search term and getting these results, What if they just type in your name already?

Dan Antonelli: Right. And that to me is really the strategy that you should be thinking about. Right. Of course, AI will play a role. Right. But to me, it’s easier to win on the street and far less costly to win on the street with a disruptive brand strategy that connects with the consumer in a meaningful and emotional

Dan Antonelli: fashion.

Tyler Martin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What are you just kind of going back to this and don’t mean to beat it to death, but I am curious of your opinion. And, you know, there are these AI websites, thousand pages, whatever they are,

Tyler Martin: $5,000 a month, $10,000 a month. If someone were starting today,

09:25Why AI-built sites all blend together and convert worse

Tyler Martin: I had a client recently, they got a cease and desist on their name and they had to rebrand and literally start from scratch. And they were contemplating, you know, a new website. Do they do an AI website or do they do a traditional one?

Tyler Martin: Where do you stand on that? Like, it sounds like you’re still saying, hey, WordPress website kind of stated, and I’m not necessarily WordPress, It could be other tools. Framer, I believe, is another big one. But all these different tools, do you kind of stay with that?

Tyler Martin: Or is there any validity with all these bells and whistles, AI websites? Would you still stay away from it? Where do you kind of stand in terms of your thoughts on that right now?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, I mean, I think, again, if you’re looking at the importance of brand, the importance of connecting the visuals with what they’ve maybe already seen in the market. And that’s why our sites convert better than most sites, because we integrate the brand in a meaningful and significant manner.

Dan Antonelli: And that’s what’s missing from a lot of these AI sites. I know there’s a lot of talk about how, you know, quote, unquote, low code is going to be better and Google is going to like them better. And honestly, there’s just not really much data to support that particular notion.

Dan Antonelli: You know, I think at this point, it’s 50 or 60 percent of every website on the planet is in WordPress. And so I think building something specific for AI tends to really treat brand as a secondary, if they’re lucky, issue. Instead of it’s just a bunch of words, a bunch of generic content, and maybe that is what AI wants to see, maybe.

Dan Antonelli: But then when a consumer gets there, the conversion rates suck, right? So at that point, what are we actually accomplishing? So, you know, from the ones that I’ve seen, I think, again, they all start blending together and they start looking the same. So again, if I’m a consumer, well, why would I go with A, B, or C when all three of those

Dan Antonelli: sites look exactly the same? Generic, generic content, generic wording. There’s no brand voice. There’s no brand colors. I haven’t seen that logo in my neighborhood versus something that they’re familiar with. And you’re going to choose familiar, you know, over something that you’ve never heard of

Dan Antonelli: before, for sure. Because again, you have to think of the psychology behind decision-making, especially as it relates to consumers, is they want to choose someone that they know, like, and trust.

11:47The affiliate sites Google delisted overnight

Dan Antonelli: That will not change no matter what AI does. Know, like, and trust will be the benchmarks for home service companies looking to have higher conversion rates, better booking rates, better close rates. Because those are all the things that factor into a consumer making a decision.

Tyler Martin: Yeah. So if you’re a typical $5 to $10 million shop, where would you, in terms of tools or in terms of just from their branding site, I mean, you kind of answered it just now in terms of don’t lose focus on having your company look and feel on your website, having legitimate content that people are going to be able to connect with you.

Tyler Martin: But what would you tell a typical owner in terms of, because I hear this a lot, Dan, like I hear from my clientele, am I missing out by not going in this direction? Am I, you know, it’s that fear tactic. And maybe it could be true.

Tyler Martin: I don’t think we know 100% like how fast this will move. But it kind of reminds me about 20 years ago, I used to do affiliate marketing and I had about 100 websites. And you could spin, spun out all this content. They had this text.

Tyler Martin: And I had all these websites that were ranking really high. I was making decent money. And then one day Google came out and said, hey, this isn’t quality content. And I literally the next day didn’t have one website that was even listed. I got delisted across the board.

Tyler Martin: And so it kind of makes me wonder, like AI is obviously bigger than that was 20 years ago, but is it kind of the same thing? Could that happen?

Dan Antonelli: And I think that that’s, again, the unknown, right? So you’re putting a lot of eggs into one basket for a very, very tiny percentage of anticipated revenue that might come from it if you actually game the system and do it really well, right?

Dan Antonelli: So again, I think the fundamentals, reviews, posting on GMB often, like all those typical things that you should be doing on a regular basis, the fundamentals are still really, really important, I think, in the mix. And I think, again, a lot of what’s been lost over the last five years, in my view, is over-reliance on digital marketing and not actually investing into the things that make a brand visible in the community.

Dan Antonelli: Because, listen, it takes work. Sometimes it’s easier to write a check to Google every month because, hey, if I send them more money, I get more leads. And that’s me winning, right? And brand building within the community is a somewhat longer game. but again, most people aren’t doing it. PE typically isn’t doing it or doing it well.

Dan Antonelli: And so when people are like, well, how do I compete against, they’re outbidding me on PPC and they’re spending so much money on all these lead aggregators and things like that. I’m like, well, what are you doing to counter that? Like, what are you doing to increase your visibility

Dan Antonelli: in the market you serve? And, you know, again, if you’re driving around in a white van with vinyl lettering that blends in with everybody else, well, you’re not doing yourself any favors at that point, and you will be a slave to Google at that point.

Dan Antonelli: So I think it’s a little scary to see some people so heavily full in on it at this particular moment, because I think some of the tech that’s behind what they’re doing is going to be that same situation that you found yourself in when Google said, this stuff isn’t cool.

Dan Antonelli: And you’re going to be at the bottom of the list at that point. So I’d rather go in and approach it from the perspective of do the fundamentals, do the things that we know that they’re looking for, that we’ve been told that Google has said is important for AI search and build around that.

Dan Antonelli: But to sit there and start using agents to build out thousands of pages of content and pretend that it’s unique and pretend that it’s on brand for you. You know, I think it’s bullshit, honestly.

Tyler Martin: Yeah. Do you have an example of where when you talk about people or owners going out into the community or using different rather than just paid advertisement, getting visibility?

15:44Jolly Goat at cars and coffee and sponsoring every team

Tyler Martin: Does anybody come to mind? I think from a practical standpoint, Dan, I look at a lot of my clients, they’re stressed out, they’re working long hours. If I said to them, hey, be more in the community or do more of these things, they might fire me.

Tyler Martin: No, I’m kidding. I’m joking on that. But they might say, hey, man, I don’t know how I’m going to do that. I just lost my technician. Have you seen where people have been effective? And how, for the people out in the audience that kind of feel the way things that I’m hearing, what would you say to them in terms of how they need to make time for that? And so I guess two questions. One, are there some examples of people that have done it this way? And then two, how would you help maybe give some advice for people that say they might not have time for that?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And I think part of that question is, well, how do you feel when Google whacks your credit card every month? Right. You know, how does that make you feel? Or where your customer acquisition costs is $500 a client before you even step foot in the door, right?

Dan Antonelli: So, I mean, there’s so many examples, but, you know, I can think of one client that we have. His name is Jolly Goat Garage. And we actually had named their company. And they used to be called Garage Door Solutions. Nothing terribly exciting about that or memorable.

Dan Antonelli: It actually sounds like a Google search term as opposed to actually a brand name. And they’ve really embraced the goat, right? So he’s got a goat as a mascot and they go to home shows. They actually were at something really cool that I thought too, where you wouldn’t expect

Dan Antonelli: somebody to go to this type of event, but they were at a cars and coffee event and they brought the truck and they actually brought some goats with them, live goats, because they actually have live goats. and you talk about a magnet for people to come over,

Dan Antonelli: to interact with the goat, the wrapped truck is behind them. And now do you think that those same people, when they need service for a garage, they’re going on Google and typing in garage company near me, or are they typing in Jolly Goat Garage?

Dan Antonelli: So those are the things, again, yes, it’s a Saturday. They had to get up early. They had to pack up the truck. They had to bring the animal there and set up a little booth. But how much did it really cost? You know, out of cars and coffee,

Dan Antonelli: Is it $25 to get a parking space there or a booth there? Halloween parades, 4th of July parades. What are they charging you to drag a trailer from your branded service van and you’re throwing out candy and stuff to all the people that are lining up on the street?

Dan Antonelli: And you’re going three miles an hour. There’s a thousand people that are going to see your brand that day and know that you’re giving back to the community also. So again, is it like, can you measurably say, oh my God, I got a hundred leads from this

Dan Antonelli: particular event? sometimes on a home show, especially you can track leads. And I think a lot of them do very, very well, but some people go to these home shows and they set up their booth. There’s nothing interesting about their booth. You know, the giveaways are, you know, free pen. Oh, you know,

Dan Antonelli: wow. And they don’t even, they aren’t attracting people to even come to their booth because the brand is boring. There’s nothing there that, you know, they could bring their kids to stuff like that. But yes, committing to that. I even have another client that does carpet cleaning that

Dan Antonelli: sponsored literally every single team in his community. And he committed about $30,000 to sponsoring every single softball, soccer, little league, basketball. And his name is on the back of every one of those jerseys. So again, the parents are like, if I need carpet cleaning,

Dan Antonelli: am I going somewhere or I’m going to go to the one that sponsored my kid’s team? Well, I’m going to probably give them an opportunity, right? Because they just sponsored and donated that service to my community. And so those little things, even like sponsoring softball teams,

Dan Antonelli: like how much does that really cost? But we’re going to pay $500 for the click or for the acquisition of that one customer, right? So it’s like, well, where do you want to put your money? Where do you want to put your resources?

Dan Antonelli: And I understand sometimes it needs leads tomorrow. So you got to amp up the budget to get the board booked up. I get it. But it’s kind of just like this short-term strategy that becomes your long-term strategy because you’ve never fixed the foundational problem that you have with your marketing.

Dan Antonelli: And that’s that your brand is unremarkable.

Tyler Martin: Right, right. No, that’s good. That’s a good feedback. You know, when I kind of think about company shops that have really canvassed scenario really well, they have done those extra steps in terms of getting to be known in the community. They’re going out of their way, whether it be the owner or sometimes it’s the technicians

Tyler Martin: even get involved on weekends I’ve seen in terms of visibility can help. So I do see your point.

20:16Educating homeowners on why family-owned beats PE

Tyler Martin: I just do get pushed back occasionally when I bring this up and it’s kind of around the lines of, hey, where do we get time to do that? Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a good point. You said PE’s really not doing this when, you know, I can’t tell you how

Tyler Martin: many times I’ve heard clients and prospects say to me, hey, I’ve got two new PE companies in my backyard and that I’m now competing with on price or whatever. It’s another way to kind of

Dan Antonelli: differentiate from them. Even that conversation too. I mean, honestly, I know a lot of what you talk about on your podcast is things people can do, right? And I would suggest, again, the education related to why your company is different from PE has to start with you. So a lot

Dan Antonelli: people, they’re very quick to complain about PE, but then what have we done to demonstrate what is actually unique and what is actually happening with PE-based companies? You know what I mean? And so we actually developed some templates that people can use that can be sent out to their

Dan Antonelli: existing customers, that can be texted to the homeowner before the tech arrives, all these tools that people can use that address that dead on. Because sometimes the homeowner has no idea that why this is a problem, why they should actually care about it,

Dan Antonelli: and why this company that’s family-owned and family-run is very different than these other companies. So you hear a lot of complaints about it, but you don’t see sometimes a lot of action being taken about it as far as education and letting the homeowner know why there’s a difference

Dan Antonelli: and what that difference means to them as consumers.

Tyler Martin: Right, that’s really good feedback. Hey, I wanted to spend a little bit of time. I have a segment where I talk a call to number and we get into a couple of numbers or a few numbers in terms of an area of a shop.

Tyler Martin: And you had talked about you’re doing a presentation soon and you’ve got a gutter company. So I wanted to get a little bit into that. I thought it was funny if we could start. Maybe you could share like the change of their name, because I think that’s a that’s a good starting point of what they went by.

Tyler Martin: If you don’t mind sharing that.

Dan Antonelli: Sure. Yeah. We rebranded a company that was called Aho Gutters, Aho Seamless Gutters.

22:29Utterly Gutters, 247% more calls and $40k off truck wraps

Dan Antonelli: And it was his last name. The guy’s name was Chester Aho. And obviously, there’s some challenges with that name. You can argue that actually it’s really remarkable or memorable, the particular brand name. But it was renamed Utterly Gutters. And there’s a cow there. And the cow is kind of

Dan Antonelli: surfing on a gutter. That’s kind of the visual that goes along with it. And it’s just been, again, embraced so much to their core. They have costumes of cows that they go to trade shows at and parades and the community just loves this brand. And some of the stuff he was messaging

Dan Antonelli: me about direct traffic being up 58% where people are literally typing in utterly gutters compared to typing in a hoe gutters previously. And then how much the organic search has increased as well since that. Inbound calls, I think, were up, this is a crazy stat, 247% year over year since

Dan Antonelli: launching the brand. And again, even the truck wraps themselves, he had over $40,000 of revenue attributed to the truck wraps by themselves within the first 60 days of launching. So imagine that on a marketing asset that has a five-year life expectancy. And within the first 60 days,

Dan Antonelli: it’s already generated $40,000 in revenue. So again, just kind of showing the visibility in the community and how that visibility and creating something that’s memorable, that’s sticky, that connects to someone on an emotional level. And he had white trucks before, and there was nothing remarkable about them. If I saw that on my neighbor’s driveway, I would say,

Dan Antonelli: oh, they’re getting gutters, but I would never be able to recall their name a week from now or a month from now or six months from now. But utterly gutters, it’s kind of hard to forget that name, especially when you see the big cow mascot. And so, you know, again, like I’m a big fan of doing

Dan Antonelli: things that are cool, that are fun, but I’m always more interested in the data behind all those exercises. And certainly in the new book, in the second edition, that’s what I went deeper into is the results, because that’s obviously the thing that matters most. Who cares how cool it is? If it

Dan Antonelli: doesn’t convert, then we’re not doing our jobs. But seeing some of the data behind some of these rebrands and the effect on conversion rates when they go to the website, the effect on booking rates, closing rates, and even average tickets was another really huge one that we saw significant

Dan Antonelli: improvements. Because again, consumer perception about the brand and what they feel like they should be paying more or less for is based on brand perception. Did you guys help them come

Tyler Martin: up with Utterly Gutters, the name? We actually didn’t come up with that particular name. We do

Dan Antonelli: a ton of naming, but his wife came up with that name. We joked because we always need writers that do naming. And we have a team here of four people that do naming, but we’re always looking for talented people. So I was like, hey, if this whole thing doesn’t work out with the

Dan Antonelli: gutter things and you’re looking for a job, maybe we can hook up with you. But yeah, no, it was her name that she came up with and we thought it was genius. We’re like, oh my God, we could kill it with this name. And so it was a really fun exercise to see that. And again, his organic

Dan Antonelli: conversion rate, I think is almost 8%, which is still relatively high for conversion rates on a

Tyler Martin: digital marketing website, like on a digital site. Yeah. And I think we’ve talked about this a little But you oftentimes in your group will see 10% even can go as high as that, right?

Dan Antonelli: Absolutely. And the other thing that was cool too is customer acquisition costs. And he had said that the average in his industry was $227 with Google CPA. But for him, it was $127. So he’s almost half the acquisition cost of his competitor. So again, you multiply that out and it’s a big number that that winds up saving him because people are just typing in his name and then converting much easier than a generic name was.

Tyler Martin: Dan, when it comes to customer acquisition cost CAC, is there some industry standards that you benchmark towards for, say, an HVAC shop or a plumbing shop? Are there certain benchmarks that you look at?

Dan Antonelli: You know, it’s interesting because I feel like to a certain degree, those numbers are varied by region and competition. So Orange County, California, those numbers can be as high as six or seven hundred dollars. More remote areas, they’re going to be obviously significantly lower.

Dan Antonelli: I will say that, again, as people think about PE and how do I compete against PE, people have this strange, I want to say, incorrect assumption about PE in that they think that PE buys these companies and rebrands them. I can tell you with assurance that 95% of every PE acquisition is never rebranded.

Dan Antonelli: They don’t believe in branding. And that’s actually the wild irony of PE is that they don’t actually understand the relationship between brand and customer acquisition costs. So when I see clients that for their area have very high acquisition costs, typically, again, they have very unremarkable brands.

Dan Antonelli: And that’s why the acquisition costs are so high. I mean, I’ve seen them at as high as $600 or $700. dollars. And again, you know, if your average tickets are $1,700, you know what I mean? Like there’s no money to be made at that particular point. So what are we doing again to lower that

Dan Antonelli: acquisition cost and, and, and try to make it so it’s a brand that people live in their mind is ultimately the goal of everything that we’re doing. And that includes other things too, besides just having a cool logo and a cool truck wrap, like making sure that you are doing things on Facebook,

Dan Antonelli: making sure that you are doing some things where the brand is being shown to people, TikTok, those types of channels. And a lot of people don’t want to invest in that. Or a lot of people say, I don’t want to put myself on Facebook.

Dan Antonelli: I don’t want to do things like that. And I think the craziest thing that I see sometimes for owners, and if you’re an owner and this is you, then I don’t know why you wouldn’t want this. But some owners, especially on Facebook, you click on their profile and it says no workplaces to show.

Dan Antonelli: And I don’t understand the reason behind that, because if every one of your friends knew what you did for a living, I don’t know how that’s a bad thing. I don’t know how that hurts us in any way. But if it’s because you want to post political stuff or whatever, like, OK, I guess.

Dan Antonelli: But maybe do a separate Facebook profile for that if that’s really important to you. But to me, it’s more important that you make money. Right. So when you post stuff about your own company on your personal, it’s going to get more engagement because it’s not a professional page.

Dan Antonelli: It’s a personal page. So typically it gets shared more often. And the more people who know what you do for a living, I struggle to see the downside on that particular thing. So I would be sharing content there. I would be showing cool, funny videos that our team made.

Dan Antonelli: I would make the company feel human. and a lot of owners are just really either afraid to do that or they’re like, oh, that’s not, you know, it’s not me. And I’m like, it’s really not hard. You don’t even have to have things well-produced.

Dan Antonelli: Just use your phone and like document what you’re doing and show what was done. And that builds trust. And that’s how people know, like, and trust you again. Like it’s the same thing.

Tyler Martin: But Dan, I mean, you’re kind of poking me a little bit because when you go to the typical shop website, whether it’s P or not P, there is just literally no personality at all. Like there rarely is, there’s one team picture that’s got everybody in front of a truck.

Tyler Martin: But other than that, there’s like zero personality and it drives me crazy because it’s like, you know, it’s bridging that gap of your brand and that know, like, and trust thing. Like if there are just a few pictures of the owner, a few pictures of the family,

Tyler Martin: I think would elevate that website so much to connect with people.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. Go to one of our websites and let me know what you think. Because that’s something that we’re so much about is branded photography, showing the guys in uniform, showing branded trucks. I literally saw a client yesterday, super proud, posting his new website.

Dan Antonelli: And we did his branding. It’s a really, really high-end company in the home service space. And there wasn’t a single photo on his homepage of his guys, his truck, or his logo, besides just the little one on the top of the site. And I said, I don’t understand what we’re doing here.

Dan Antonelli: Why did we invest in branding if you’re going to have a generic website? There was not one single photo of branded photography on his homepage. And he has it. But I’m just like, I don’t understand. What are we doing here? So even having…

Dan Antonelli: Here’s a little tip if you want another actionable item. Make sure your truck, even if it’s just a mock-up of your service van, is featured high on the top of your website. because chances are Mrs. Jones actually knows what your truck looks like more than she knows

Dan Antonelli: what your actual logo looks like. That is the biggest visual personification of your brand you can possibly have. Make sure she sees it close to the top of the website because then she could say, oh, I saw that at Mrs. Jones the other day. I saw that at up the street the other day. I saw

Dan Antonelli: that in the church parking lot. I saw that at the diner. So now no like and trust. Again, she’s seen it. She remembers it. It’s in her community. Like, again, people like I go to some homepage and I’m like, where’s the truck? Like, do you guys even exist? Right. Make sure that they see things that

Dan Antonelli: they’re familiar with. Anyway, that’s, that’s my little, I’m getting on the soapbox there, but

Tyler Martin: do you ever, yeah, sorry. I poked you back. Do you ever feel like sometimes though with branding, maybe the expectations get set too high. And where I’m going with this is sometimes I’ll see comments where people will say, oh yeah, just put on a fancy, you know, wrap and all of a sudden

Tyler Martin: I’ll get a million dollars of business, you know, joking, like they’re saying it in a, in a mean, in a, in a way that it’s just not that easy. Do you think sometimes that expectation is maybe too high or do you, I mean, what are your opinions around that? If someone goes from the white truck

Tyler Martin: to a beautiful wrap and beautiful signage and really have a unique look, I mean, what is a realistic expectation of how they should impact their business? I mean, there’s a couple of things

Dan Antonelli: on that particular question. First off, from the owner’s perspective, you see a huge shift in their own mindset because they’re much more engaged with the business at this point. They’re reinvesting back into the business because they want a better future, not only for themselves,

Dan Antonelli: but for the team that works for them. So it signals across the board a shift in where we’re going and where I want to take this company. So that’s almost a thousand percent always a net positive. I think as far as expectations, first of all, it will never cure operational

Dan Antonelli: inefficiencies. And I think the people who typically hire us have a good company with good systems. They just don’t look like a good company with good systems. And so if I can marry up what is actually happening behind the scenes with a brand that personifies that and represents

Dan Antonelli: that, that’s typically where you see the highest ROI. That’s where you see you leverage how good you actually are with the service you actually provide. Because again, I can make a company look amazing, like they’re the best in the area. But when you ring the doorbell, I’m out of it. I can’t

Dan Antonelli: control what the tech does. I can’t control what the CSR does and how we leverage those opportunities But imagine you’re doing all those things really, really well, then it just amplifies the effect. Because if the foundation is good, then it just makes everything else work so much better.

Dan Antonelli: And I think that’s really the honest question that I always tell owners to ask themselves is, hey, does the brand you have today really, truly represent who you are today? Or does it represent who you used to be? And more importantly, does it represent where you want to go as a company?

Dan Antonelli: If the answer is no, then that’s the time to think about rebranding. If it is yes, then keep it. Don’t change it. But taking that hard, honest look is hard. A lot of people look at the success of where they are today as the reason why they should

Dan Antonelli: never pivot. But why did Tommy Mello pivot at $30 million in revenue and rebrand? Why did Aaron Gaynor pivot at $40 million in revenue and rebrand? Because they knew that the brand that they currently had had taken them to that point, but was not going to take them to where they wanted to go.

Tyler Martin: Yeah. I’ve seen it too firsthand to your point. Like there’s several in my own client base that have rebranded and are just so proud of the way they now look in the marketplace. When you talk about, you know, how it makes the owner three, to me, I feel like it’s an

Tyler Martin: element of pride. Like they feel so good about their brand. Their employees start to feel good about their brand because now they’re wearing shirts that feel a little bit more professional and have a unique look to them. And so it adds this element of, I think, I don’t want to say dedication to the business, because I think they’re already dedicated, but kind of re-energizes them into the business, I guess I would say.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And it’s funny, too, because, you know, no one comes to us with that as a goal. Hey, you know, I want to rebrand because I want to feel better about my company. I want to be re-energized. But that’s 99% of times is exactly what happens.

Dan Antonelli: And it’s really cool to see. But trying to explain that to someone that hasn’t experienced it is sometimes challenging. sometimes challenging. And I get it because they’ve probably never really truly been excited about their brand to begin with. Right. And then they see what it’s done for the culture. They see

Dan Antonelli: what it’s done, you know, even for the KPIs that they really care about. That’s when they love it even more, you know, initially they’re super excited, but then they see, oh my God, my average tickets have gone up 25% and my booking rates up, you know, and all the metrics that matter. Then

Tyler Martin: they really love it even more at that point, of course. Yeah. So before we wrap up here, I spent a lot of time in the pre-call just chatting with you. So we were kind of running out of time here,

36:48Buying Leveragy so the brand survives the website

Tyler Martin: but I wanted to just spend a few minutes. You, about a year ago, you guys opened up the marketing agency side of the business. So you have the branding and then you have the marketing agency. I wanted to spend a few minutes in case the audience doesn’t know this a little bit about,

Tyler Martin: obviously you do the branding side where you give a new look, feel, theme to a company. What was your intention to getting into the marketing agency side and how do you, How are you bridging that between the branding? Is it typically just only branding clients?

Tyler Martin: Or is it if someone hasn’t worked through you through the branding side, do you also take them on as a marketing agency client?

Dan Antonelli: Sure. Yeah. So, I mean, for us, it was the one piece that frustrated us after completing a brand is then we would see a client take the brand that we had spent so much time creating and building. And then they would integrate it on a website that basically ignored the fundamentals of

Dan Antonelli: their brand identity. And the voice wasn’t there. You know, the graphics didn’t speak to the brand or highlight the brand in a significant way. And we thought, man, you know, it would be so amazing if we could actually control every piece of that journey.

Dan Antonelli: And so when we wanted to get into that line of business, we looked at other agencies that had a really great track record. because if I’m going to put the KickCharge brand name behind something, I’m going to make sure that we can deliver on an amazing experience, an amazing outcome, and deliver great results.

Dan Antonelli: And so we completed the acquisition of the company. It was called Leveragy. It was run by a good guy, Ryan Redding. And I had known him personally for years just through the trades as a stand-up guy that always did the right thing. So from a value perspective, it really aligned with what we

Dan Antonelli: believe in. And it’s been a great experience because I think when you look at the sites that we design from an aesthetic perspective, I don’t think it’s going to sound like ego here, but I don’t truly believe anyone can touch the aesthetics and match how great these sites look.

Dan Antonelli: But from a performance perspective, the team that we have that’s running SEO and digital marketing and LSA and PPC, just great ROAS. And we’re so driven by that, making sure that we’re delivering a great return, making sure the experience of getting digital marketing is something that is

Dan Antonelli: top shelf. And one of the biggest complaints you hear from people about digital marketing, first of all, is obviously not getting great results. But secondly, it’s the constant turnover of who is managing their account. That’s the one thing I’m super proud of. Honestly,

Dan Antonelli: in the last, after the acquisition, they had, I think, about 30 employees or 25 employees. And we’ve added probably a dozen more since then. And I think we’ve literally only had one leave to pursue another opportunity. So we don’t have turnover. We treat the people right. We want that

Dan Antonelli: consistency in the client experience. And we’ve worked so hard to maintain that continuity because I think that’s the biggest frustration is all my account manager left and now I’ve got to start over and the ramp up of getting that new person up to speed is awful. So yeah, it’s been a great

Dan Antonelli: thing for us. It’s just nice that I know after the branding is done that if we have the opportunity to do the digital marketing, that it’s going to be on brand, on voice. But we also have probably 50% of our digital marketing clients we actually haven’t done their branding for. But we do,

Dan Antonelli: a lot of them do eventually rebrand because they can actually like we can benchmark it out and just say here’s the exact same similar company your size in a different market but in the same demographic profile and look at the conversion rates on their website versus the conversion

Dan Antonelli: rates on on your site and so that bridge between those two we can demonstrate a lot clearer because we have the data for the companies we’ve done the branding for and we have the data for the companies we haven’t done the branding for. And without question, the ones we’ve done the branding

Tyler Martin: for are delivering better results. Hey, Dan, is there anything you’ve learned from now having the marketing agency as it relates to branding? Like, is there anything where you’ve, I don’t know, where you reflect back on things you’ve done with branding and maybe it’s like, oh, wow,

Tyler Martin: now that I have the marketing agency side, I’ll tweak this a little bit or do this a little differently to make the marketing agency more efficient or make it more successful. Anything come to mind or any changes you’ve had to make or wanted to make?

Dan Antonelli: Oh, that’s a good question. I think as we consider, again, things like conversion rates, especially, right? And you think about what is truly affecting conversion rates. Obviously, there’s aspects of the user experience on the website that have to be really considered really from that perspective.

Dan Antonelli: So sometimes you have to sort of go back to fundamentals on the design side and put things in where you might say, aesthetically, this isn’t exactly what I would love to see, like a huge phone number and a call to action this high on the page.

Dan Antonelli: But we know that they actually convert better when they’re done that way. So sometimes you do have to sacrifice a little bit of aesthetics for functionality. Sure. And I think we’ve definitely learned and experimented doing A-B testing and things like that, where we’ve kind of benchmarked some parameters where we know, OK, listen, we always have to do this.

Dan Antonelli: And even though we don’t love exactly the way this looks, let’s do it in a way that still looks on brand and still functions properly, but accomplishes the needs of someone that’s searching on a mobile phone or that just needs this information quickly and things like that.

Dan Antonelli: So we have had to make, I think, some pivots with that. And I think that that’s also, no matter whether it’s digital marketing or even just branding in general, it’s always good to go back and look at results and then look at the data that you’ve been presented with.

Dan Antonelli: And I think I enjoy going back and looking at brands that we’ve done and then seeing, oh, you know what? Maybe we could have done this slightly different or maybe we could have made this slightly bigger on the truck or things like that.

Dan Antonelli: I think that overall that everyone should really be doing that on a consistent basis.

Tyler Martin: Yeah, that was kind of the spirit of my question as I was thinking, gosh, it even makes you that much more powerful in terms of seeing both sides of it to get the most effective result for your clients. That’s cool. That’s really cool. Okay. So just wrapping up here, you’ve got a second edition

Tyler Martin: of your book, Branded Not Blended. Excellent book. I don’t even remember how many reviews, but there’s a ton of reviews. So that just recently came out. Your website, kickcharge.com. Anything else as far as people wanting to reach out to you or anything else you want them to go?

Tyler Martin: I know you’re now doing some long form content. Anything else you want me to include in either the show notes or right now on the show? Yeah. People want to check out our YouTube channel.

Dan Antonelli: There’s a lot of content there that talks about all different content related to marketing, truck wraps. You know, there’s a whole series we did on evaluating truck wraps and how you could self-evaluate your own brand. So check that out. And listen, if, you know, I always make this offer on podcasts.

Dan Antonelli: If you have a brand that you currently have and you want, you know, a quick assessment or you want me to take a look at your truck, you want me to take a look at your logo. I’m not a hard sell kind of guy, but quite often there’s feedback that I can give that can improve it on a next go around.

Dan Antonelli: And if I can help you, great. I mean, the trades have been, I’m blessed to be in the trades. It’s been amazing for my team, myself, my family. And if I could give back in any way, that’s why I wrote the book. I mean, you don’t make any money writing books.

Dan Antonelli: But I was so getting crazed seeing the same mistakes repeated over and over again. And I’m like, oh man, if people read this book before they launched their business, they would be so far ahead of the game than most. So that’s why I did it.

Tyler Martin: Well, Dan, I got a signed copy from you. Your PR person sent me one. So I’m banking. That’s my retirement. Someday I’ll be able to sell that. Anyway, man. Hey, thanks so much for your time. Version two was just as awesome as version one.

Tyler Martin: So thanks for being here again.

Dan Antonelli: Appreciate you, my man. Take care.

Tyler Martin: There’s a lot to get out of this conversation. But one thing that really stood out is how easy it is to get caught up in the latest marketing trend and lose sight of what actually builds a great business. AI is changing a lot, and it’s going to keep changing.

Tyler Martin: But Dan’s point was that if your company looks like everyone else’s, your website feels generic, your truck blends into the background, nobody in your community knows who you are, AI isn’t going to solve those problems. I also liked what he said about trying to be top of mind before someone ever needs your service.

Tyler Martin: That’s a very different way of thinking about marketing. Instead of relying on Google every time you need another lead, you’re building a business that people already recognize and trust. From my side as a CFO, I see this show up in the numbers a lot.

Tyler Martin: Strong brands often spend less to acquire customers, convert more leads than they get, and aren’t as dependent on constantly increasing their marketing budget just to keep the schedule full. So I don’t think the message is that everyone should rush out and rebrand tomorrow.

Tyler Martin: It’s really about taking an honest look at your business. Does your brand reflect who you are today? Does your marketing help you stand out? And when someone finally does call, does the experience live up to the promise? Hey, if you’d like help understanding your numbers, what they’re telling you,

Tyler Martin: where your business has opportunities. I’d love to help you. You can go to Profit and Grit. Our front page has a cashflow test. It also has an intro meeting link. I’d love to meet with you. I’d love for you to take that cashflow test

Tyler Martin: and just get a feel for your business. And then let’s have a discussion about it. You could go once again to profitandgrit.com or if you just want to go straight to booking a meeting, cfointrocall.com too. But most importantly, thank you so much for always listening to my podcast,

Tyler Martin: My listenership continues to grow and it’s because of you. And I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to listen and enjoy the podcast. Have a great one. Until next time, this is Tyler.

Related Episodes

• The Name, the Wrap, the Win – Dan Antonelli
• The Costly Marketing Gap That Goes Beyond the Truck Wrap – Sarah Ghirardo
• The Pay System Top Home Service Companies Use to Double Revenue – Ryan Shank
• The Hard Truth About Starting A Home Service Business – Mike Venidis

Tyler Martin works with owners on the numbers behind these stories: HVAC business coaching.