How To Stand Out As A Local Epoxy Floor Installer

Audio Transcript

Hey there. Hey there. Hello, Welcome aboard, decorative concrete contractors. Welcome to your concrete success podcast. And in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about setting yourself apart from other epoxy floor installers in your area. So whether you are an installer or the owner or operator of a concrete coatings or epoxy flooring business. This episode is for you and I’m gonna be sharing four for different tips and strategies that you can implement that are very low cost to actually money should be the issue here. It’s just things that you can actually do right now to stand out and set yourself apart from all the competition.

Uh, and epoxy is becoming, it’s a trending, it’s a trending topic, whether you like it or not. There’s a lot of guys that are taking a lot of training nowadays, uh, and, uh, manufacturers and distribution centers and, and all these shops are, are really selling into training individuals had installed epoxy. And you have a lot of these guys that overnight, you know, they take a weekend course or two day course and all of the sudden they’re in business installing epoxy, right? So how do you set yourself apart from all the competition that’s coming in into the marketplace so that you can, you can not, not only be respected by your prospective clients, but they can actually experience the difference right from the get go.

So, uh, in today’s episode, we’re gonna talk about, let me see, I’m going to be sharing a couple of different things and see see what, when you can use their, I said four, but it’s actually five things that you can leverage right now. There are either low cost or no cost. Uh, that means that you should be able to do it right away. So, again, my name is Daily Barrera with concrete marketing crew. And if you don’t know who we are, we are a digital marketing agency that specializes in marketing, decorative concrete works or whether you do concrete coating, stamped concrete stained concrete, anything decorative concrete, flat work or vertical.

We can help you out and we actually, our promise is to double your leads with our concrete marketing plan. So enough about us. Let’s go ahead and get started with the first, the first. And this is the most important one. High quality pictures, high quality pictures of your work. And let me tell you this. If you have an iphone that’s two years old or less than two years old, you have a good enough camera to take pictures of your work and perhaps what you need to learn how to do is how to use the camera the right way and how to take uh, high quality, high resolution pictures.

Now, if you do not have an iphone and you have an android, I can’t I can’t tell you I have an iphone, we have been using an iphone for the past couple of years. I was an android user. But let me just say uh there are some things that are way easier to do an iphone, especially when it comes to the camera settings. That’s one of them. So whether whether you’re doing this on on your new iphone or it’s 22 years or less old, you can actually take high quality pictures by going to your settings, your camera settings.

And there are other applications as well that you can use. But in this case I’m going to keep it very brief and short here. High quality pictures. Let me explain to you what that means. High quality pictures means taking the end product and taking a magic shot of the finished product of the finish installation, the floor installation a lot of times. One of the problems that I see with epoxy floor installers is uh is they take a picture but there’s a big shadow, right? Especially if it’s on the driveway or it fits on the garage floor and and you know the sun is going down.

You can kind of see the shadow and it’s all dark. Uh Probably two thirds or or three thirds of the garage is very dark and you can’t tell the quality of the epoxy. So play around with the angles and the cameras, you can actually tell the difference. Uh You know, when you’re taking a good shot versus not a good shot. So here’s the thing is if you have 100 and $50 flying around uh that you can spare invest the $150 you know take a day where you know you go and visit your past customers and this is what you do.

You go to craigslist or you go to the market place and you look for a real state photographer. And uh what the real estate photographers do is they usually take pictures of the entire home before it goes to sell and they clean them up etcetera. But what you can work out is you can work out a deal Instead of paying 250 say hey look um I just need a couple of pictures of garage floors that I’ve done and you should take about an hour. So you know an hour or two go through a couple of clients homes that you’ve done the work and they will be able to take amazing pictures.

I’m talking about like really professional looking, nice looking pictures, they have the equipment and all you have to do is spare the 152 $100 for them to take the photos. We do this all the time with our clients. Uh, so you can go to either either craigslist. Okay. Look for real state photographers in your area or go to the facebook marketplace. Those are two places where you can find uh, individuals that specialize in real estate photographer. They will know very well now if you do have a DSLR, okay, um, you can get a DSLR, doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you get a clear picture of the finish product, what does it look like right now?

And here’s the thing is you want to take different shots, You want to take vertical. You want to take horizontal. You want to take all these different pictures and then start sharing them on your social media. Right? So high quality pictures. Okay? Um, if you’re using instagram you, if you know, you should be utilizing the best settings on your pictures, um, and make sure that they’re, they’re clearly, you can clearly tell what what the finished product is about. Okay. Um, now, high quality pictures, what’s the second thing?

This one is an important one, which is videos. I love videos. This is the second way you can stand out from the rest. There are different forms of videos. I actually wrote an article in the concrete, the core magazine explaining how you can leverage video and I’m gonna give you 22 ways. You can leverage video. One number one way is by taking selfie videos uh, in in uh, in in the landscape form. And what you do is you actually record yourself walking through a project and just excited sharing with with prospective clients.

What is it that you got done there? You know, and you can start in the morning, make an update in the afternoon and then wrap it up afterwards. And then you can put that video together and it is your video, it is your personality and smile and give, you know, just just get everyone involved from your team and your group to say hi in the videos And you know, those types of videos, I rarely see uh an installer that does that the right way. Usually they don’t like to be on camera.

I can tell you just getting their smile in front of camera and if you’re not the type of guy that smiles or the gal that smiles, um, you know, just walk through. But just bu bu and that’s what matters. So make sure you get videos Now. The second type of video is the short form video, which is uh what we call the stories now. Stories, you can use those on linkedin. You can use those on on instagram, you know, like the instagram stories, You can use those in snapshot.

Uh, it’s not, not snapshot. What am I talking about? What you can use those uh, in Tiktok. Uh, and what you do is you record yourself, uh, and you simply, you know, 15 2nd, bits of different um, progress reports, if you will, where you’re you’re telling the person that’s watching that video, you’re just sharing with them, what what’s happening, what’s going on with that project? Right. So that’s one of the things where you can really set yourself apart. And let me tell you, if you if you do a couple of jobs a day and your crew is handling a couple of jobs a day, man, you’ve got enough footage to fill up your, your your, your instagram, your tick tock feeds, your linking feed, your facebook feed.

I mean you got you got all those different ways, so make sure that you get out there and create those two types of videos. Now there is another level of videos that the majority of concrete contractors or decorative concrete contractors really want to do, which is the professionally edited videos. I can tell you on social media, personal videos win over highly produced videos every single day of the week, any day of the week. So make sure that again, if you’re using an Apple, just go to your camera settings and make sure that you have the right resolution.

If you have the newest iphone man, you got, you got a powerhouse right there on that, on that camera, it’s a beast of, of lenses that you’re getting. So video is the second way that you can get yourself differentiated from anyone else. And look at the end of the day, there’s a lot of epoxy flooring pictures, that it’s just the same picture being shared on social media, share your before and afters on video. Make sure that you’re, you’re standing out by putting yourself into the picture and speaking to that person on the other side of the camera and saying, hey, if you’re interested in getting your poxy floor, give us a call.

Uh it’s very easy. The first thing we do is talk about your project. Second thing that we do is we we go into your into your site and we actually take measurements, make sure that we’re ready to go and then provide a proposal quote and then you make a decision, right? So spelling out the steps that you have in the process will help the other person on the other side of the camera make a decision. So that second way to stand out. Third way, third way, uh, not talked about often is there’s a lot of these, um, competitions.

Whether that is a local competition. A lot of times you have to pay to enter these competitions. But let me tell you awards do count. Awards. Do count. I know Angie’s list. For example, they want you to pay to be part of this whole deal. Uh, and they award the best rated, uh, contractor in a specific, uh, in a specific category, thumbtack does the same thing, but you don’t need to go and do that. There are plenty of local um, how can I call it? Just uh, local organizations that run this events, local publications, I should say where they want local businesses to submit their business information and people vote uh, for for their business.

Um, I’m from new york. Long Island, so I can tell you uh, Long Island Press has a big presence there where every single year they’re running. I think it’s it’s they start somewhere at the end of the year and towards the end of the year, they run it again. But basically, you know, they rate contractors, they rate businesses in different options. So getting yourself entered into a competition and is fairly simple. And I got to give a big shout out to the american Society of concrete contractors or the decorative concrete council.

So here’s what it is. If you’re not part of an association, make sure that you get yourself in there. And the decorative concrete council has the uh projects award where every year they run. Projects award is, is uh, Dubai, I think mid March of every year and you submit your best work and I can tell you your chances of gaining exposure at the national level is insane. So, leveraging those competitions now, entering those competitions is going to get you recognized. It’s going to gain, uh, it’s going to give you the recognition that you did not have.

So, the fact that you put yourself out there, it’s very powerful. And at the same token, the next step is once you start winning these awards and recognitions is used them in your marketing. Uh, it sounds cheesy, it sounds like, well, you know, or you might not feel like you’re worthy of those awards. I can tell you, uh, chances are pretty big because not a lot of epoxy guys are thinking that big just to let you know, Not a lot of epoxy guys are really thinking like business owners, they think more like just installers and that’s it.

But the fact that you put yourself out there into an institution organization that’s recognized in your service area or nation wide gives you an edge over anyone else. And uh, last but not least. This is the fifth point right here, which is reviews, reviews, reviews, reviews, reviews, reviews, get positive reviews every single time you install uh and you’re finished installing a floor and you do this at the time when your perspective client is satisfied. Uh you do this right on the spot and I know it’s very uncomfortable because a lot of times the floor is still uh drying up and you might still need to follow up.

And this is why we recommend, you know, you have a good customer service, right? You have a good follow up because it is during that follow up. It is during that that time where you follow up with that client where you can actually ask that question, hey, you know how was the service? How would you rate our our installation? Uh and then when they tell you the positive? Excellent. Perfect. Hate it would mean the world to us. If you can leave us a five star review or leave us your positive review over in facebook or google mind if I text you the link. Perfect. Boom.

There you go. And you capture that review. Now the other thing is getting a bandit signed Uh that says 100% satisfied. Uh some epoxy flooring franchises do this very effectively where you know you just get a bandage sign that says 100% satisfied. Uh put some words in there, put your logo in your phone number highly visible with us, maybe an epoxy picture in the background. And what’s gonna happen is you take that big bandage sign. Uh and I’m gonna, if you’re watching this video, this is a band inside, right?

So you can see there, give me a thumbs up right there. And uh, that one, you know, just take a picture of dissatisfied client, right? When they’re satisfied with their project and market that, push that over uh, throughout all your social media. So that means lengthen facebook instagram, um, share it everywhere, even the marketplace right to instead of instead of just Putting the finished product there, put the 100% satisfied and then put the next picture being uh, your work. So, so again look, reviews, reviews, reviews, reviews matter.

They won’t go away. And if you’re the owner of a concrete coatings company, you better have a google my business listing that you can actually get reviews so make sure that you have your business, um, set up the right way and google my business. Optimize your listing, rank high on the search engines with your reviews and start getting more epoxy flooring lead. So again, we talk about five different ways to stand out as an epoxy floor or concrete coatings installer. Number one, high quality pictures. Either you do it yourself or get a real estate photographer, they will do an amazing job.

Number two ways, leverage video. Okay. We talked about different forms of video. Uh, and number three is enter competitions, enter local competitions, believe it or not, that does work. It does give you recognition. Sometimes you gotta pay to enter, which is cool. Sometimes you don’t, but look for the local ones. And if you, if you’re ready to play at the national level and you’ve done a great project recently, go ahead and enter the decorative concrete council projects award, which it’s uh, the deadline is usually every march of every single year.

Uh, and then once you start winning awards or recognition, even if you didn’t win the first place, but you were recognized, then you start leveraging that all throughout all your social media. And you do that repeatedly, right? You start using that on your website, you start using that on social media, you start putting those logos of those, those uh, institutions as, as uh, as a watermark and you put them through through your different pictures and you know, that’s going to give you an edge over the competition and last but not least is reviews. Reviews. Reviews.

How do you get reviews? Uh, Number one way is social media reviews. Number two way is to get a review on, on google, and number three way is make sure you get the bandit signs that says 100% satisfied. Uh, and uh, bandit signs, you can get and print it out in a specific way and have that say 100% satisfied and and take a picture of that customer and share that picture throughout all your social media and tell the story behind that picture. So again, my friends, thank you so much for tuning in.

This was supposed to be four ways to stand out as many packs installer. I gave you five ways. If you liked this episode, go ahead and give me a light. Give me a comment. And if you have any questions or how to market your concrete coatings or epoxy flooring company online, visit us at concrete marketing crew dot com. Or call us at 3059024888 Have a great rest of your day. I’ll see you in the next one. Thank you for watching.