2024 Marketing Targets for Contractors

Audio Transcription

Welcome to another episode of Your Concrete Success podcast. My name is Danny Barrera, your host and founder of Concrete Marketing Crew. And this is the first episode of 2024. I'm joined by my beautiful wife and partner, Mady and also our amazing marketing manager, Andrea guys. What's going on to you? 2024. We made it. That's right. That's right. What's something positive from last year that you're bringing into this year? Positive focus, all positive focus from last year to this year is for me change, embracing change. That's good. That's a good one.

That's a good one. I love it. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, I think for me 2023 a little bit of a roller coaster, but roller coasters are fun too if you think about it. So there's a lot of highs, a lot of lows, you, you ride it out and then your attitude kind of impacts the ride. So that's all about right now in the thick of it in life. There's a lot of things coming at, you just enjoy the ride and keep at it. I love it.

I love it. You know, there there's one thought that I carry is like, what is this trying to tell me, what is this trying to teach me? What is God trying to tell me through this situation right now? And I know 2024 is gonna be a year of great reflection for a lot of business owners.  There's gonna be incredible opportunities. You could look at it as challenges, things that are taking you down or opportunities for you to rise to what you've been called to rise in this year.

And this episode, we wanna make sure that we touch into some crucial points  for this year to help you gain direction and certainty in 2024. What do you guys have for us today? Yeah, absolutely. I think 2024 if you're going into it with fear, we can't do it. We have, we have to combat that fear. And I, we have a verse of the year that I think we should definitely share with everybody because it's so powerful to combat fear. Do you have, do you have it um accessible?

It's Joshua 1003. Be strong and courageous. Do not be what, what's the next part? Do not be afraid? The Lord your God is with you wherever you go. OK. So I thought I didn't know it and then it just came, came straight out there because it, it's like ingrained in you. And that's our verse of the year as concrete marketing crew. That's right. I love it. Be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous. I don't know how, how many times the word be strong is mentioned in the Bible, but it's quite a few.

So actually just Google it. I don't know if one of the girls back there can Google that for me.  But embrace that identity of being strong and courageous, whatever comes your way. And this is the beautiful part is God has given you the minion of your life. That's it. Like we spent a few days Mady and I we spent a few days doing some life planning, Mady. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? I mean, it was in all rainbows and sunshine, although it was in the sunshine. Yeah.

Where did you guys go again? Ok. So we went to this place in Merritt Island, this airbnb in Merritt Island. That was so beautiful. It was, it was like a couple of acres of land and it was very um there was nothing around. There was a beautiful dock to go and think from there was a Hammock which was where I spent most of my time on the Hammock. Um and it was on the water and it was incredibly, it was a great place. We literally went to this, this place we locked ourselves in, we took giant post it notes and like, and we had an agenda to tackle and a year to plan and we planned before, by the time we left, all the walls were covered in big giant post it notes, you brought your poster board.

Yeah, we did, we did, we did and we brought up, I mean, there was also like things to encourage us as we were like prayers to encourage us as we were like planning and lots of books to encourage us and guide us in leadership. And that's what we did. And it was an incredible experience. It was a great way to disconnect and I turned all everything off, no phones, no, no communication, no kids. And it was pure planning the best part. Well, so here, here's the real deal is um getting to the point of understanding and we started having this conversation, which is what do you want and getting absolutely clear about what Mady wanted for the year and what Danny Barrera wants for the year.

And then how do we bring those two worlds together when we operate completely different? Like your mindset, your call score, your personality is entirely different. How I run the pace that I like to execute on  the goals.  You know, there's a big initiative for me this year. I feel called to serve divorced fathers and help them reconnect with their Children. There is that initiative that's happening on top of everything here in the agency world.  But the the main point is there was a lot of friction like there, there was a moment where you broke down.

You're like, man, I, I just don't even want to do this. You wanna talk about that? Well, I mean, it was, it was kind of funny and now that I look back on it, but it wasn't funny at that moment. It was a true and total breakdown of like, you know, I can't do this anymore. And it was basically because I was pulling up some numbers and I just didn't write the right number and it didn't get like I couldn't figure out that number that I was looking for and it was just all wrong and it was because I had missed a number and it was, I just had to step back and look at the fact that wait a second, it was just, I just missed a number, but it was all that tension and that friction and that build up that kind of just like escaped on to that particular detail, which was very interesting.

It was very, very telling a lesson for me was  if you are the men and, and look, I mean, this with all respect, women lead, very strong, with love, with passion, with power in ways that men can never be able to lead. However, if you're the man of the house, there's a certain level of leadership that you have to have for where you're going to be navigating this year. And especially if you're the owner of the business you're navigating, you're the leader by nature that's happening.

But if I, I found that in prior years, every single year that I did not sit down with you and set out like realistic expectations, like, hey, one of my mentors told me it's like if you're not growing together, you're growing apart. And that's the moment that was a couple of years ago, I was like, you know what? I, I don't wanna get divorced again, like, dude, you know,  I don't wanna go to that world again. So I started to bring her and get her involved into my world.

 She's become the  the main figure in our company here with our crew members and, and what's happening in the back end. And this has been so beneficial for me as a man as a leader because you see when I'm navigating to the market place as I'm showing my face here as I'm leading this specific conversation, how encouraged do you think I feel as a man to be able to lead this conversation? Check this out. What if the conversation was like, well, you stay home with the kids, which actually would be a lot easier.

I'm not gonna lie, like not bringing the kids here, do the podcast by myself and I, you know, just tell Andre Ha, it's going to would be 10 times easier, right? Or do I bring her to the world that I'm playing at navigating which we're both growing together. She's getting  to, to find herself in the process and how much have you grown and evolved? I mean, you, you were a teacher a few,    , seven years, seven years ago. Well, let's, let me give you a funny story when we first started this business.

Um I had to record a video and it was a breakdown of crying of, I can't do this. J I can't do this. And here I am.  what 78 years later, like filming a podcast, even the first episode, the first episode, I was like, oh, she's amazing. Everyone knows if you're watching this on youtube. Um If you're listening on a podcast, you know, and you have a spouse,  make sure that you have them join in and also ask questions. I believe this is the year where if you're not unified with your partner, there's going to be so much friction because of all the chaos going on right now in the financial system, in the governments.

 even spiritually, there's a big warfare going on.  But this is the time to rise and I wanna call you into action here. Um As we're navigating into 2024 set some real clear targets and be strong and courageous. Be bold as you're moving forward and as you start hitting friction, be strong and courageous, don't give up, do not give up, do not give yourself a no don't be a chicken. Don't be a coward because the moment you start looking at, hey, my marketing spend is 10% and I'm not pulling what I was doing last year or my marketing per,    , percentage right now is 15% and I'm nowhere near what I was doing.

This is go time. Now you're in the game, now you're in the field. Now you start to get some friction.    , my boy Christian here, who's  a fighter, an M MA fighter here, you know, you can have a plan, but once you get punched in the face, I mean, that's it. It's all gone. It's go time. So I wanna encourage you. That's a big message we're gonna be driving. Um by the way, those of you that participated and left comments and participated and put your names in, in the raffle for hoodies.

 who do we, who do we have here as winners?  Mattie, you want to announce? Ok. Yes. So we have three winners and are you, are you wearing a hoodie? I check it out. It's a real one. I'm definitely wearing a hoodie. Ok. So the three winners are, we have Chris from Colorado. Let's go, Chris. We have Matt from Arizona and we have David from Wisconsin. We already um I'm all right boys, you know what to do, make sure you share the love with all that.

So this year is the year of pure empowerment to all of you. I'm excited  really for what's going on.  If you have liked what we have produced here for you. Um First and foremost, thank you so much for your support. This channel is growing, youtube is growing  Spotify Apple Podcast, all of it is growing due to your support and your connections here. So if you have found this valuable, um the content is just gonna increase by four X to five X at the very minimum in quality the quantity.

But also we're gonna give you the tools, everything that you need so that you can market yourself, check this out. We're, we are evolving as a company.  In fact, we were on a call with a client today. And what did he say? Like we, we were  just he, he was an old client and he decided to take it was like an alignment call. He, he decided to take a break. He's like, oh yeah, yeah. Um I'm gonna try it on my own and like I'm gonna, he moved to a different place.

So he was not 100% sure that he wants to continue because he was moving. So um we had a call today and he was like, wow, things have changed. This is everything has changed like this is not what is completely different. And I said this is just one quarter of what we were, what we were doing last year. Yeah. So anyone familiar with the Accelerator, we were, we became very well known for the Accelerator program.  That is no longer  something that we offer as a stand alone, which has benefited so many businesses, businesses have made millions of dollars off of the Accelerator.

And that's because we're looking to grow businesses and partner up with them.  which I'm excited about.  What are you excited about when it comes to what's coming up here for 2024? I'm excited to hit some of the pain points and give a solution to them. So the clients will say, hey, I wish you guys did this. I wish this was offered and our ears have been open that whole time. You know, it's not like, oh, so sorry, it sucks to be you. It's like, ok, thanks for telling us because that feedback fuels us forward and a lot of those things that people have been asking for, we're gonna be able to offer that. Yeah.

No, I'm excited about that too. I'm very excited about the whole idea of being a growth partner because that's, that's more exciting to me. I feel like when we're just like um a media buying company, it's when you're a growth partner, we're so involved in wanting our clients to win. This actually is going to give us all of we're going to touch on all the points that we need for them to win and that's very exciting for me. Yeah. This is not the 50 leads guaranteed or, or you don't pay.

That's a model where it's a three month retention model, just wake up like don't fall for that. It's a three month retention model where they don't give you the results. They're gonna give you a month for free. You're gonna pay for the third month and then you're gonna quit. Like that's it. It's a high churn, high retention. Why, why do I say that is I coach agency owners and I know the cycle like I, I actually gave a speech on  and the seven figure agency stage here recently and it was on leadership on, on the leading the agency and also dealing with clients.

And that was one of the biggest pain points is like, hey, how, how is this churn so low at concrete marketing crew? And it's because of this mindset that we're stewards of our clients, money and your money, your advertising spend is your investment in your business. And we wanna make sure like, hey, three times a week at the very minimum, we're taking a look at your ad accounts. We're making sure our creative team is developing creatives and, and here's what's evolving in one of the cool things is like the entire accountability is evolving to this is how many leads you got.

This is how much you converted like that's on you where now we're like, hey, this is revenue focused, you wanna hit $2.5 million. 20173 million dollars in revenue this year. This is the growth map and every single month based on KP I data track, um, right down to the KP I, we can track and give you the support that you need to make the pivots to make the hires to support your entire business. So, if you are a contractor and you're navigating this landscape, hey, I don't know who to hire next.

Like this guy was saying, hey, who should I hire next?  Who do I hire? Ne guess what?  we have all the job posts that you need to do? We have the landing pages. We have the ads that you need to run and we'll run them for you. So you wanna hire someone.  you're part of the growth program here, the complete contractor program. Welcome aboard. We're gonna take care of you. So instead of just giving you a fraction of the piece of what you need to grow and evolve, guess what?

We're gonna take care of a lot of the things that there have been frictions in the past or you might be implementing something here. Another thing there, another thing there, another thing there and you don't know the true return of your advertising, spend the best clients that we have, have it all integrated with. There is synergy between all the different components in digital media.  instead of trading search as a stand alone, hey, Here's Google ads, Google Maps.  Here is your Facebook advertising. Here's your tiktok, here's your youtube.

How about we just look at your customers journey, we look at your best sales cycle and then plug the means so that you're supporting your prospect, every state, every step of the way.  And we're not just gonna do that. We're going to teach you how you can do that when you subscribe to our youtube channel, when you subscribe to our podcast, that's why we're gonna give it all the way to you. So, you know what to look for if you're working with a marketing partner, great.

We wish you the absolute success. If you are looking to get it done yourself, you're just starting out great. And if you're looking for support because you're trying to do some things yourself or maybe you have a marketing partner, we'll coach you on it yesterday. We had a call with Nick. I mean, he's had a record breaking year for him first year in business like man, I'm pumped. Um And, and he was saying like, this is the best thing  left us a great review and I'm excited about that because this is a year of not holding back, brings me back to, to know us.

 And  you know, the know us Ark when God told Noah to build an Ark, what are some of the facts that happened in that time time frame? Well, he gave him a plan, he gave him a detailed plan. He gave him the size of the arc, the type of wood to use. What specific, how many levels the Ark was supposed to have, what kind of thing to bring, how much food? It was very specific plan down to the. And it was a crazy plan. Imagine if it would have said, hey, I just need you to  to just get a piece of wood.

You know, it was a very detailed plan. It's like, hey, that's like the, the equivalent in this economic environment. If you don't have it all together, those, you're gonna expose yourself in weak points. And you're gonna wonder how come I can't sell at premium prices? How come I'm having a hard time closing at top tier prices? And I have to fight like this guy was saying $3 a square foot for garage for epoxy. I'm like, dude, how can you even make a living at that point? Like you barely cover the, the, the product that you're installing?

He's like, that's what, that's what I have to. I'm like, dude, I want you to be at 850 a square foot, right? And some of it is, hey, find out the weak points in your business and if one of the weak points is sales again, there's coaching, there's resources like we don't want there to be these failure points in your business. We're handing you a lead it's not taken care of properly. It's not, we have another 1, 400 leads. And if you're listening, brother, I love you, man.  We're like, we're, we, we gotta categorize the leads and I'm like, dude, this is the year of a full accountability.

If I see that, hey, your weak point is we need the admin assistant. We need an admin office manager to come in and help you out. We need a full time sales person to take care of all the opportunities. 400 leads, come on like we got at least half a million dollars waiting for you to collect, learn how to use the CRM is a big part of it, utilizing all the tools. So, so that's super.  I, I'm, I'm really stoked about it. I don't know if you can feel the energy here.

 But if there are any specific topics that you need help with, let us know in the comments, we have the entire spectrum of what you need to cover. And the beautiful thing is as we're evolving as a company, I I am hoping and praying that you are also evolving as a company. If you're not transforming, if you're not evolving, you are dying. That's it. That's the reality in business. If you're not making more year after year,  with the way  inflation is this days you're actually making less well and you're not gonna know what storm is coming.

And I think that's goes back to the Noah illustration is like this is an unknown territory. 2024. We have no idea what's coming next. Truly, none of us do. So prepare with the tools that you know, you can do and, and the plan work the plan because in Noah's Day, I think there had been no rain, rain. So he had to God's like, hey, build this for when the rain comes and Noah's like, what the heck is rain? No rain. So, um if you're celebrating, you're resting on your laurels from the past three years, COVID-19 happened.

There was a spike in demand. 2020 2021 18173 2023 you started to get some reality checks in a lot of markets. Um And, and look, here's the bottom line is, again, you have the minion over your decisions and my encouragement to you, my friend. If you're the owner, if you're the marketer, if you're the leader of a concrete coding business, of a concrete business, of a construction business, if you're a contractor and you're leading your own force, um The destiny of your company is in your hands.  Who you hire the systems that you build the processes that you build.

 your KPIS your numbers, your dollars, your ads spent. How much  in profit are you making? Gross versus net? You look at it all, it's all the same thing. It's all the same mechanics like we go from one industry to another. There is no different. There's no difference. We've had multiple industries coming knocking on our door, concrete marketing crew. Hey, you guys  do paper installations. Hey, you guys do this, you guys do that. Hey, you guys deal with this. So 2024 is gonna be a year of evolution for us where we grow with you where this partnership is no longer like, oh they're my Mark.

They run my Facebook ads.  We've had a great run, incredible run.  But this is the evolution like effective immediately. Um And um I wanna give a shout out to Jonathan Henderson here. He's been listening to the podcast, Jonathan, hey, make sure if you're listening to this  youtube video, leave us a comment right down below. I just wanna make sure you watch it. He's from pressure Mark was marketing pros.  He's like, hey, I'm gonna look out for, for the message, just wanted to do that.

What, what do you have to say? No, I love it. And I think it comes down to planning and having a clear strategy and goal and obviously right now that's a talking 0.20 21 goals, goals, goals. But as a business owner, it can't be guesswork, it can't just be spitballing. It has to be measurable and we can help you along the way. That's why we want all of our clients to win. We don't wanna do it halfway. That's what I'm so excited about is we're gonna back you the whole way.

And now, now let's  give him some execution points here.  What do we see working  best  that perhaps last year wasn't working?  What are some of the things that you see working best this time of the year?  versus last year, 210 versus 2500? Definitely like promotions, man, be, be ok with promotions, you gotta be ok with promotions. You also have to be ok with getting in front of a camera. People wanna hire a company that's has that's owned by human beings. Yes, the franchise is good and you owning a franchise is fantastic, but we have franchise owners who their best performing um like marketing is the one where he, him and his son is standing in front of like a garage and being like, hey, me and my son own this franchise and be like, people want to hire a human like they want that human connection.

So get in front of the camera, just get in front of the camera and also doesn't have to be like super, you can get in front of the camera on your cell phone you don't have to worry about and there's a way and a method to do that. And that's why in our coaching sessions, that's what we're bringing in experts to teach you and show you what works best because there are some angles where if you leave the camera all the way out there where the audio, you can barely hear what the person is saying.

Versus there's actually an engagement  or there is a flow to the video and there's strategic positioning  throughout the entire video. You knowing what to do, OK. People lack  perish because of the lack of knowledge, you knowing what to do is gonna help you prosper. And that's the biggest change. I mean, we look at ads, video ads specifically, I enjoy that because I'm like a direct response marketer. I, I love old school direct response. All will be advertising. I'm fascinated by it. Have all the books in the ads and I'm like, dude, where's the hook?

Where's the angle? Where's the transition? What's gonna catch my attention?  And even when you're saying something like there's a way for you to be able to do that, but there's nothing more powerful than you showing your face. Um And being authentic, being yourself, you don't need to be Danny Brera. You don't need to be Mady or you don't need to be Andrea. It's a good thing. You're not, you know, because there's already, there's already a Danny, there's already a ma and spouses. I, I'm not gonna lie.

If, if you're the spouse and you're running  marketing, you're creating or maybe not running the market and you're just helping create assets for social media, man. Show your face. Don't be afraid to do a selfie video. You'll be, you'll be surprised how much you can, how much more you can do, how much better you can do than if you have,    , a guy doing a video selfie. I mean, if, if this is, this is something like she's, she, yeah, that helps. She looked really friendly and kind like that helped us,    , instead of this hardened man, like, well, look at Epoxy Pros Connie on there all the time, you know, and it makes it fun and friendly because it can get serious.

And sometimes what ha what I see is the installer or the business owner, they'll talk shop and it'll be sometimes a little bit like I didn't know those words. They just used, I'm not in the industry. So it does help to get like a little grounded and down to earth and think about it too. I mean, you think about the people buying your floors. It's women wives who want their garage to look nice. It's the truth. Ok, let's talk about. This is a real one. Um One of our Children had actually two of our Children, had the same teacher, she consulted with you on a social media strategy and she became quite literally   what do you call it?

An influencer ended up quitting her teaching career. And um incredible, incredible what happened. And I'm sharing with, with you that specific scenario because there's so much power and you just being able to capture and show and what were some of the things you, you told her? So this she right now is she, is, her stuff has been shared by and if, if you have a wife and maybe, you know, her stuff has been shared by um Magnolia, the Magnolia people from Joanne. And what's his name? Chip?

Maybe you got it. It's been shared by them. It's been shared by Target. I mean, she's, she's an affiliate of Walmart now she's an affiliate of Target. She's an affiliate of Amazon. Um What did I tell her to do? I told her show up consistently. Um, keep showing up even when your numbers are low tag people. Like I gave her like a small strategy and I'm gonna say something right now. If, if you, she's here in Florida, if you, if you have a coding company and you call her and say, hey, I will give you a free floor if you do this for me on your channel, I guarantee you, you will sell a bunch of floors because these influencers have a lot of pull and power.

She's been able to quit her job and make a lot more money. I gotta give a floor for free. Yes, it's, it's, it's nothing like you. If you're gonna give away a floor for free and you're gonna make 22019 more, I would dare to say 2100% increase in sales. You can have, if you have a recognized figure in your local marketplace, someone that's well recognized just by the mere fact that you have a whole bunch of moms following that individual that are instead of you doing 22017 and 18193 floors. I mean, you, you go to 21819.

It's, it's the power of the followers. They are people that don't follow you that weren't thinking about you. You're putting a lot of times your content out on your channel, they're the people who've already bought floors from you. Sometimes they're your friends, but it's not new faces so proud. And then you can run that as a what? Then you take that strategy because you don't just give a floor. You say, OK, I'm going to give you a floor, but I need you to record like five pieces of content for me.

One while the floor is being installed, one, whatever. Then you take that lady saying how much she loves her floor and how great it is and how her Peloton is because that's your thing works out because she's very organized and neat and everything's beautiful and aesthetic and you go to her and she'll tell you, hey, I love my floor so much. It's so organized and aesthetic and pretty and it matches my beautiful Stanley Tumblr and this lady, you run this as an ad and it's fantastic. You get that's, that's a, an amazing ad and you have an actual human talking about how much they love the floor that you installed and then that's gonna get you.

Then another slew of dozens and hundreds of leads. And is everyone else doing that no one's doing. I don't feel like, and let me tell you something. If you live in parts of the United States right now, places like Texas, right? This is like a big thing for my people in Texas. Everybody in Texas every influencer that I know right now in Texas, in Utah, they're all building new homes, they're all building new homes. Like talk to your wives see which one of these influencers are building new homes and reach out to them.

Hey, I wanna give you a new floor for your new garage. Yeah, I, I'm telling you out of like 22021 influencers. I follow. Seven are building homes. Yeah. And here, here's the bottom line like you're smaller and you're like, man, iii I cannot even afford to do that, do it at cost, do it at cost. It's whatever it is like, you know, 221819 75% off, 65% off. Think about the power because this is leverage. You take that asset, it, it's an asset, you run it as an ad, it becomes an evergreen asset and then you rotate it throughout the year.

Like there's gonna be seasons where you do that. Now you do that with 2 to 3 different figures throughout the year. Boom, you're set um there's,  you know, it, it, it, this is an interesting thing because  user generated content is what performs better than, than an ad um than a beautifully crafted with the perfect pitch ad. Well, think about it. That's what all of these big like. Um I don't know about you guys, but Walmart has been doing that lately and Walmart's marketing strategy, Walmart has become cool because now you can go to Walmart and buy cool clothes.

Who thinks of that Walmart's like Walmart? But because all of these big companies are using makeup companies, um um just like clothing coding, they've been using people and influencing people like having people influence their product. And I can even imagine they're not even doing like clean cut commercials anymore. Now the person applying her makeup becomes the commercial. You just literally give them the makeup and say here I got Apr Box for her. You look how great this is and you literally send the pr box to them with the makeup and this can be evolved, transformed and, and used for this industry too and it's not being used by anyone.

No one's, it's, it's something that this year it's like part of the growth strategies, partnering with our clients and saying, hey, this is a required strategy. You're seeing your cost per lead going through the roof. Now this is time to add one of these. We have like 3 to 4 different strategies that we're leveraging right now to slash the cost of lead by up to 20213% 60% in some instances, which is amazing. But imagine if you just got that done and you implemented that boom, that's it. Here's the interesting thing with, with so much influence and marketing, that's all, that's all marketing is, is influence and it's just a new way.

The new face is more personalized and it's the person that you think is, is your friend that you watch online. But you don't, there's so many people who don't even think about their garage floors. And so you have to tell them, hey, guess what? It's unfinished. It doesn't look as good as it could look. You have to create a problem in some way. Yeah, it's antimicrobial. You're on your Peloton sweating all day. That's gross. But a garage floor coating is antimicrobial. Yeah. One company that has done this very well is Premier Garage is, they've taken, I think he's a youtuber and you might have seen this ad here, um, where they've done a black metallic epoxy with some silver metallic and the guy is talking, it's a, it's actually he's not even showing his face, he's just doing a voice over.

   , and then at the end there's a hook for the call to action and they've been extremely successful with that one ad in multiple territories. So Premier mcara is running that specific one.  and he's an individual. I don't even know, the youtuber's name but,    , you know, I found out, ok, this is a youtuber that they're using but it's, it's a very popular ad that's been running for a while. Now. Um, if you're being honest that sometimes you might not have the personality to make this video and an influencer might and a youtuber might.

So it's just worth a shot. And the worst they can say is no, you might come up to a few different influencers and get a rejection. But hey, it's sales. You can do this. Here's the deal is with our clients,  concrete marketing crew  and our coaching clients as well. Guess what? You get the scripts to be able to outreach to these individuals, the offers, the promotions.  What, what is it that you're going to be putting together for them so that it's an appealing situation?

So I know Mady and Andrew are laughing here. Show, show the camera man where, where you're hiding them for. There you go. Look at it. I love it. It's like idea, idea, idea. And that's, that's the cool thing. It's like you gotta keep moving it forward and so you don't stay stuck, you don't stay lackadaisical and you can move forward on your arc. Yeah, I, we love our visionary  Dean Jackson, one of my mentors, he calls this executable ideas and he's like, I can give you all the ideas you want.

But if you don't execute  you're not gonna make money.  So you gotta execute. All right. Um Andrew, what about you, strategies? What have you seen evolve and change  from last year to this year? What should be doubled down on? I, I think that when I'm looking on Instagram, it's kind of a funny thing because I hadn't been on Instagram in my personal life for, I think it was almost two years. So I got back on this year and I was like, h Instagram, what are you up to?

What are you up to these days? And I was just um laughing and but also getting back, back into showing up and checking people's feeds out and that sort of thing. And I would ask you as a business owner, do you, do you engage with other business owners on Instagram? Are you getting on around the time that you post and talk to people in that hour? You post something and you're just hoping that people will show up to see you, but are you going ahead and going towards them as well?

So it might be local. You basically have to make yourself a little bit more of a social presence, not just hoping people will show up to your feed. So I'm seeing that that's still going on, that was going on um back when I was on Instagram all the time. Um But now there's even more fun ways to do it and we were laughing about it before we started, guys, you can go into the comment section of someone's post and leave a gift. And today today there was like a beautiful like shiny epoxy floor and I just went on there and it was Jimmy Fallon doing smooth like butter and I was like, just left it there.

It's just, it could be fun. I think sometimes we get really serious in business and you don't remember like, guys, this is supposed to be fun. This is supposed to be community driven. This is supposed to be community building. And so that's what I would encourage. She's a community builder in real sense of the word. And that's what I love about your strategies is you really think about the person on the other side and it's not just someone that's listening, it's not someone that's just resonating with a message, but like, hey, how do we build the community out of this?

 And this is what we're striving for, but in your world, how does this apply to you? How am I building community in times of financial struggle? Like, dude, you're gonna rely on your community more than ever. And how much have you deposited in your community so that you can withdraw  in times of  whatever uncertainty and prosper together? Like, let's go, let's go. Um So I wanna encourage you to get active and this, this is amazing. So, um I, I would say, look if you didn't take video seriously last year, this is the year where we're not even given an option to our clients.

Like we can't keep you as a client. If video is not present plain and simple  video is part of our entire strategy and video ads perform out, perform static. Well, they give us leverage because here's what happens. Facebook advertising 34 years ago, you had the I OS update where you can no longer target, check this out. If you're listening, this might be worth the entire episode. You could no longer target by specific device by specific location. And, and you you could to a certain degree  be very detailed in your targeting  Facebook decided to remove that.

I personally believe it's to increase their  their share prices.  It always happens and there is a coincidence always.  So what happens is someone watches a certain percentage of a video. Now you have a retargeting audience and now you can grab that and you can run another ad against that specific  watch time um audience and say, OK, anyone that watched 75% of this, let me show them an offer. So and, and Facebook is incredible because you can run a traffic ad, you can run an engagement ad.

You can run so many different things that are top of the funnel to my entire local community and say, hey, anyone that resonates with this message, I'm going to ask  send them a direct response, get lead message  and you're gonna find, you gotta make your video good. Like if you have a shitty video, sorry, they're gonna scroll right past it. Well, they're gonna, if you don't hook even right if you don't take those 1st 10 seconds like two. Yeah. Really? It is. If you, if there is like a slow fade, it's like starts out black and slowly fades.

You lost you. Like I, I tell my, I'm like, dude, you guys taking three seconds, we're dead. You have, you have, I mean, you have quite literally, this is the exercise I want you to do is scroll and see what makes you stop. Like you see one of the ads that we're running at concrete marketing crew, Danny Bharara is like me just quite literally taking the turn and there's like a pattern interrupt because the background is like, what is this guy doing? Is that a metallic floor in the background?

Like I wanna interrupt the pattern and then introduce and once I get the first three seconds, if you're speaking, word overlays always do very well. If you're using some of the advanced  strategies we're using here, always there's a story um a story that's being told. Um If you think about advertising stories is what sells people, it's a story. So if you think about your advertising, how is this telling a story to my audience? So that's what we specialize here at Concrete Marketing C in our agency.

 And now we're opening up to a multitude of different contractors here.  And um again, this year, don't just think about like I need to run Facebook ads, specially if you're decoding space. Um Most offers 500 of static image, you're going to pay a higher price. OK?  And this is what's gonna get you in the fittest  top line.  Next thing is the diversification in channels and the integration of multiple channels. We noticed this pattern, the ones that  are single channel based or probably one or two different channels  based individuals, they might be running a TV ad plus Facebook advertising, they crush at the moment, they decide to turn off the television advertising, they might still perform on Facebook.

But then what happens everywhere else? Like what happens with your sco what happens when someone visits your website and they hop out somewhere else? So the integration and the synergy of having someone that took the time to click on your website, how am I putting a message that's, that's relevant to them  elsewhere. So what are some of the other channels? Yeah. One thing I would say in regards to the channels, you might be wondering what channels should I be on and that depends on if you're gonna be able to keep up with those channels, don't be on a channel that you're not gonna be present and continue to post on.

You know, I go to Instagram and if you haven't posted since 2019, I'm unfollowing you because I don't know why I'm following you. Why would I be following you? Are you even in business? I can't tell, I can't tell that someone might click on and out or have seen something on TV. They go to the website and they're like, this company looks like a joke. Yours. This might not be the same company so that it has to be still in business. They ask us that. And I'm like, dude after that, like we're, we, we gotta do this in the pants right there like all action time.

They were like, um how are you like, what's, what's going on? That's a good checking point. Um To check in, hey, who are you doing business with? How much do they care about?  bringing value like this is actual time we're investing in this, we're investing in bringing your value, developing content strategy. But you know what is, I don't look at it as like, hey, what's my ro I, this is a conversions and engagement tool. Like let's engage together in a dialogue and community. And then afterwards, when we have a conversation, there are episodes that we can refer you to, you could do the ver same.

So I'm gonna encourage you if you're listening. Think about a podcast. What's it gonna take for you to get into a podcast. Well, wouldn't it be cool if one of our listeners was one day on our podcast, you could be, you could be so make sure that you tune in. Um, you know, if you have a cool story, you want to share, you want to be highlighted 100%. Um, and the other thing we're launching, which you better write this one down. Ok. And,    , best contractor in town, best contractor in Town Podcast to highlight contractors in their town and you get to tell your story.

That's it. Clients get first dips. And what happens is, hey, let's hear your story. Let's hear your story. And you get to position yourself as the best contractor in town. You get to leverage that asset. We'll do a press release on it so that it's syndicated. It's ranked when someone's looking for best plumber in guess what? Best contractor in town it's going to be showcasing you.    , so if you're a client of ours, you don't have to worry about,    , any additional things. No, this is part of the complete contractor program.

Got it because we want to know our clients as part of it too. Like if you ask what our, our account managers, if you ask them, what is your favorite thing? Oh, we love being on calls with our clients. We love getting to know our client. It comes up again and again because we're humans and we wanna work with humans. That's right. So that's another thing if look, you don't need to be on that podcast, but if you want to, Awesome ma we would love to have you.

But think about   open up your own podcast. Doesn't take a lot.  We'll put together a list of tools that we recommend here. I love stream yard,  and all of that. So  make sure that you build your local presence, not just in one area in multiple channels here. And  on the next episode, we're gonna start diving deeper into what the other channels are so that you have strategies on top of that, we're gonna have some content here that's gonna be um very relevant to you.

 So if you are  listening to us, you're connected with us for mul multiple industries, aside from concrete codings, decade of concrete, concrete, let us know what industry you're from with your serve  so that we can start building content for you.  Our goal here in the next  quarter within the next quarters to start producing content for at least four other industries. And we're really excited about it because we're already operating in different industries. We just haven't made a pub public and maybe we'll have a cool announcement here  shortly. Yeah.

Would you let me say any, any more or what? I don't know. We have to, we have to hold him back. He's getting excited over here, you know, you said pavers, it's, it's basically what happened was we have concrete coatings professionals who are asking us. Hey, so I do this other thing also. It's a different business that my friend has. Would you mark it for that? It's, it's all connecting the dots. You're a contractor. We're here to serve you. It's the end of the day.  Oh, well, you don't specialize in this specialized look.

I'm an agency owner. I niche down because it does help us develop a strategy for the specific niche. But right now we've had so much  so much advantages in being able to be in this industry for, for, for um how many years, Marie 2017, 1817, 1819, 2021 21819. And it's gonna be, it's, it's almost seven because we started early seven year itch. You're like, I need a challenge. Let's do I need a challenge. That's, that's Danny. He's like, he's like, you know what, let's you guys are crushing the standard. So here it is United States, we're exclusive partners to our clients and we can't take more than one client per territory.

We've had plenty of the demand. I I wanna appreciate from the bottom of my heart to every one of you who has reached out to us. Um And the majority of you that are reaching out um can't become clients because we already have clients there and we're going to honor that and that is, it hurts me to say it, it really does. So in my return, I'm going to bring you the best content I can, I'll share with you. And then if you still wanna work with us in any capacity, this is a coaching program that's available there, there's no restrictions there.

 But that is the reality. That is the reality. Something that we face is like, hey, we're, we're really a capacity here like we got pretty much every state we wanna get clients and we're pretty much booked out.  So that being said, I'm excited about that. Anything else you guys tell? He's excited. He's very excited. That's already letting me know. Hey guys. All right. So let's wrap it up here. Um What's the one word of the year I shared mine on social media Mady. OK. So my word of the year is Shalom.

It's peace. That's my word. That's awesome. I don't know that that's too good. It's Shalom. Ok. My mom would love your mom would love it but like a drop right there. It's Shalom. All right. I do. I, I think I would love peace. That would be amazing.  But I think for me it is adaptability. I love it. There's a lot of things that are just a moving target right now and I think the key just stay adaptable, learn to pivot and then you're gonna have all these cool life experiences.

But that's my world right now. I love it. For me, it's transformation. For me, it's transformation. This is the year where I believe as a leader, you're going to be either you're either gonna transform yourself before you're forced to transform or you will transform. Either way you're gonna have to transform. So  might as well just choose your battle right now. Plan it out, plan the transformation, transform. Um And um you know, that that's something I'm committed to this year's transform.  Any, anything we can do for you, feel free to  contact us.

We have concrete marketing crew.  Make sure that you stay connected in the podcast via youtube channel. If you're not, we have a ton of video coming up um in regarding to how to generate more leads, book more estimates and sell more jobs, more projects for your contract or business.  And also we have Apple Spotify and any other podcast platform we're there for you. Let's connect and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks for watching.