Phil Risher - Get More Leads and Fill Your Schedule with Phlash Consulting

In this conversation, Branden Sewell interviews Phil Risher, owner of Flash Consulting, about strategies for home service business owners to grow their businesses and get off the ladder. They discuss the importance of visibility, conversions, and retargeting as key focus areas. Phil shares tips on improving visibility through search engine optimization and Google Local Service Ads. He also emphasizes the value of building business-to-business relationships and referral partnerships. Additionally, Phil highlights the significance of lead management and retargeting past customers and prospects. The conversation emphasizes the importance of taking action on these strategies to achieve business growth. In this conversation, Phil Risher and Branden Sewell discuss strategies for increasing visibility, converting leads, and retaining customers in the home service industry. They emphasize the importance of marketing tactics such as SEO, Google My Business, and social media advertising. They also discuss the value of building relationships with customers through personalized communication and follow-up. Other topics covered include leveraging neighborhood presence, sponsoring local events, and offering service contracts. The conversation concludes with a reminder that success requires determination and a willingness to find solutions rather than making excuses.

Takeaways

• Visibility is crucial for home service businesses, and strategies like search engine optimization and Google Local Service Ads can significantly improve visibility.
• Building business-to-business relationships and referral partnerships can provide a steady flow of leads and help fill scheduling gaps.
• Effective lead management is essential for converting leads into customers, and automation tools can streamline the process.
• Retargeting past customers and prospects in specific areas can help fill scheduling gaps and generate new business.
• Taking action on these strategies is key to achieving business growth and getting off the ladder. Increase visibility through SEO, Google My Business, and social media advertising
• Build relationships with customers through personalized communication and follow-up
• Leverage neighborhood presence and sponsor local events to generate buzz and leads
• Offer service contracts to retain customers and generate recurring business
• Success requires determination and a willingness to find solutions rather than making excuses

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:01.258)
Hey everybody, I am Brandon Sewell, owner of Seal Pro Painting and now also Seal Pro Seal and Wash located in central Florida. I'm also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast and we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off of the ladder. I have Phil Risher here today. He is the owner of Flash Consulting. Welcome to the show.

Phil Risher (00:28.174)
Yeah, thanks so much man. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to talk.

Branden Sewell (00:31.434)
Yeah, absolutely. So I got introduced to you through the Jobber Masters of Home Service podcast, which we have both been guests on there. So I thought it would be pretty fitting to get you on here and talk to my listeners about the service that you provide. So if you could really quick for those who are listening, could you just tell them a little bit about your background? Tell them about your business and the services that you offer.

Phil Risher (01:00.206)
Yeah, for sure. So I used to be the director of business development at a $3 million AirDuck cleaning company. This was about seven or eight years ago. Helped them scale to 6 million and then ultimately sell to private equity. And so I've kind of been through all this stuff. My biggest frustration when I was at the AirDuck cleaning company was that the digital marketing company, they just cared about leads and impressions and all this stuff. They didn't actually care about sales and revenue generating actual, you know, return on your investment. Yeah. And so I was like, well,

Branden Sewell (01:26.634)
You're right.

Phil Risher (01:29.422)
What if I create a consulting company? My background was in digital marketing and sales that actually bridge the gap for companies. And so I decided to make a consulting company that works with home service businesses, uses their CRM data. We do the digital marketing stuff like local SEO, Google ads, website development, email marketing. But then we take it a step further with actually using their data, whether it's Jobber, Service Titan, Housecall Pro, all those different ones, pulling their data out and then making decisions off of real data.

And so that's kind of what we do, how we do, we'll be doing it for about five years now. As you mentioned, I've been featured on Jobber about seven times now, talking about all this marketing stuff, fun stuff. And I love what I do. I'm extremely passionate about it, but more importantly, it's about the impact that we can make. My dad actually, he was in pest control. He still works in pest control for 40 years. So it's near and dear to my heart and it's something that I'm very passionate about.

Branden Sewell (02:08.394)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (02:23.85)
That's awesome. Well, as we were talking about before the show, our goal is to help these home service business owners who are out there, they're trying to figure out, man, how do I get off the ladder? What does it take to go from working in the field, they're taking in the phone calls, they're trying to do the marketing and the advertising, they're trying to go out and do the work.

and get it done and then do estimates and still make time for family and other personal obligations. Maybe it's hard for them to see the light at the end of the tunnel and to make their way off the ladder. I know there's so many different terminologies for that, off the ladder, off the truck, out of the bucket. Ultimately, to see these guys and gals out there who have these businesses,

Phil Risher (03:16.91)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (03:23.018)
get to a point where they can work the old adage, working on your business instead of in it. And so obviously a big part of that is the marketing, right? You've got to be able to keep people busy. If you're going to hire on employees who need to put food on the table, provide for their families, they need to be able to work, right? So I think a big concern...

that these business owners might have is like, man, how in the world do I keep a team busy? So I know there were three things that you mentioned that are a focus. Could you really just maybe dive into those three things and break it down for the listeners on what they should be focusing on?

Phil Risher (04:13.998)
Yeah, so three things, the visibility, conversions, retargeting. Let's just talk about visibility because usually that's where people start, which is I need leads coming into my business. I need to get more leads. And when it comes to visibility, I would say for home services, there's really like three main ones that we see that can move the needle. Some quicker than others, but I would say let's maybe just talk about those three. So the first one is search engine optimization. And search engine optimization is kind of thrown around. There's like, you know, this Voodoo, Blackmagic.

Branden Sewell (04:25.034)
Right.

Phil Risher (04:43.502)
that happens with SEO. But what it comes down to is there's two types. There's your on -site, which is your website, and your off -site, which is your Google Business Profile, that kind of stuff. So to keep this super simple, what I would recommend is if you go to Google, do a search on your Google in your local market. So let's say that you do lawn care in central Florida. Go there, type in lawn care in wherever you're at. Then see what your competition is looking like. So go there, see the number of reviews that they have, see who's ranking there.

and then make it your mission to get more reviews than that person. Because one of the biggest ranking factors is Google reviews. And you can go onto your Google business profile. And if you don't know how to do this, go to YouTube. You can ask it. And they'll give you your review link. You can take that link and send it to everyone that you've ever helped before, anyone that would recommend you, your vendors, your customers, your employees, and have them leave your reviews. From an SEO search and optimization perspective, that's going to set you up. Because then when someone searches for it, you're going to be shown right there.

So that's like the first thing that I always tell people is like, get that part covered for sure. What are your thoughts about that?

Branden Sewell (05:46.442)
Yeah, no, I think that's huge. So I did exactly what you just said in the market that we're in right now. I had an office over in Orlando, Florida, and now we're trying to make our main location over on the coast, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. So we got a new office here. And we started this location, I guess it would have been like four years ago.

And for the first few years, I was trying to get Google reviews. And that's another way we could talk about how to get them. But I struggled at first, and then I switched over to Nice Job. I started using Nice Job to get reviews, and we had it skyrocket over the last year. So...

We only have one of our competitors that has more reviews than us right now. And so like my goal is to have the most reviews in our local area by the end of this year. So, yeah, so, but I mean, collectively online, we have like over 200 five -star reviews between three locations that we have. And for our type of service,

That's pretty good because we do larger jobs. We're not doing multiple services per day and servicing, let's say, 20, 30 clients a week. We're servicing one or two or three a week, if that makes sense. We've done pretty well with that, but yeah, it makes a huge difference because in my opinion, I try to think like a consumer.

and what are my consumer behaviors? When I'm looking for a service for my home or maybe I'm just looking for a restaurant to go out to, literally everything that I do in that sense revolves around Google. When I'm looking for a service or a product or whatever, I'm looking for a couple of things like how many reviews do they have and how does that compare to their local competitors.

Phil Risher (07:53.806)
Yes.

Branden Sewell (08:05.482)
Do they have a five -star rating with three reviews or do they have a 4 .9, 4 .6 with like a thousand? It's like, well, they have three and it's a five -star, but that's not a good, when you think about it, you're basing it off of less data on what your experience could be like. So obviously, more reviews, the better. Obviously, you want to focus on having a good rating.

You don't want to have like a three star, but yeah, so I guess all that to say is like I think that's huge.

Phil Risher (08:40.686)
Yep, I agree. So when you think about getting off the truck, how are you going to get these leads funneling in? The first thing is to set your business up to be the number one person that people are finding on Google because everyone goes to Google to ask those questions. Once you get to that point, and even if you're not number one, but you're number two, three, four, five, there are things called Google Local Service Ads. And what Google Local Service Ads, when you do that search, you'll see this little green thing that says Google screened up top.

Branden Sewell (08:52.746)
Yeah.

Phil Risher (09:06.83)
Google's picking two of the top companies. Usually it has to do with the number of reviews. That's the number, that's the company that they're showing. But these are pay per lead. And the reason that they're so good is because you get the number one space on real estate and you only pay if you turn into a lead. So if they call you, that's when you pay. So we have a company that we partnered with, they're a long care company. They had zero reviews in January. They were not shown anywhere in January.

Over the first three months that we worked with him, we got him to 65 Google reviews. So he ranked number one in his city. We turned on Google local service ads. So now he's number one there as well. And last month he got over 60 leads just before he had zero leads. So this is within three or four months that now he's starting to get leads. So like those two things usually are where you would start. And if you're out on the truck and you're not able to do a lot of this stuff, it's really, it's hard, but you got to figure that out. Those are the two things.

And I mentioned there was a third one with visibility. And this one is really good because a lot of times when you're trying to get off the truck, you're worried about that steady flow of keeping your schedules full. Like, yeah, it's good now, but then I'm going to bring someone on. And in six months, what happens if it slows up? Then I got to let this person go and I'm messing with people's families. It's like a mind game of like that whole thing because I've been there too. So the third one is business to business relationships. And the reason that this one is so important is because you sell it one time and you get a steady stream of deals coming from it.

as long as you manage that relationship of that other business, where the other ones are fighting hand -to -hand combat one -to -one every single time. If you build that business -business relationship, you're going to have a steady flow. So the duck cleaning company I mentioned, what they did was they only did duck cleaning. So what they would do is find HVAC contractors all around them and build relationships with them and say, like, hey, you don't have to do duck cleaning. But if you send us a duck cleaning lead, then we're going to give you X amount of dollars for that lead.

And then they could just go out and get a bunch of contractors that were feeding them leads. So they knew it was a more predictable steady flow of lead flow. And so I would say definitely that's that are the three pillars from a visibility perspective that you got to hit those three for sure. Have you guys done anything like that before?

Branden Sewell (11:15.978)
You're saying like as far as the network thing you cut out for a second. So.

Phil Risher (11:20.974)
Yeah, the B2B relationships and referral partners.

Branden Sewell (11:23.018)
Yeah. So we actually really changed up our focus. I guess it would have been, what was it, like two years ago now? Yeah, about two years ago, we were actually using those lead services where you pay for the leads like Angie's, HomeAdvisor, CraftJack, and all of that. And we were spending tons of money.

Phil Risher (11:33.742)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Risher (11:42.83)
And we'll see you later.

Branden Sewell (11:49.226)
And you know, we had a really great strategy as far as like I had an admin who was answering the phones right away, you know, scheduling the estimates and we were trying to, you know, get get to those leads quick and you know, that's kind of like the name of the game with those but we really saw a shift with that in like 2021, 2022 where it just like the leads went awful and we had put too much of our

you know, put like all of our eggs in that basket, right? And I was like, not good, or I hadn't done good with like networking and getting out and like networking groups and networking with other business owners. But we really switched up that strategy a couple of years ago. Now we don't do any of like those pay for lead services. We just heavily network. Like, so I go to like three networking meetings a week.

and really just focus on building community and network with local business owners because now they become like my prime source for leads and referrals. So yeah, it's a huge strategy. I think people are doing a really big disservice to themselves if they're not focusing on networking with other businesses.

Phil Risher (13:09.71)
Yeah, I agree. And I'll give you two pro tips on how you can do this. So the first thing is, let's say you do lawn care, go and find a complimentary service. Let's say it's siding, roofing windows, whatever. Go on Google, go and find all the companies in your area. Just do a quick cold call to them and say, like, hey, do you guys have a company that you partner with for lawn care leads? Because we're looking for a company to partner with for siding leads because some of our clients ask about that or whatever that relationship might look like. And they're going to say no. And then you say, okay, well, who do I need to speak with to...

to build a relationship because I think I can get you guys some more leads and vice versa. That's a great starting point. Then a second thing to that is you could join a BNI, business networking international, like networking group, or just go and be a guest. And these are people that are willingly looking to pass referrals. And you could, if you have different markets or different people in your company, stick them in three different ones. You can go be a guest all these different ones, start building new relationships. So those are the two tips to build those relationships. Now, one huge thing that happens, and you probably experienced this, is like,

Branden Sewell (13:52.394)
Yeah.

Phil Risher (14:08.526)
I built these relationships, but then now they're contacting your admin, trying to schedule calls or all this stuff. And you have, it's a lot of moving parts. And especially if you're still out on the truck and you're doing this, it can be a lot going on. So what we typically would recommend, and this is a very good pro tip that works great, is make a landing page on your website, like your website .com slash contractor or partner. And then on that page, put a referral form that they can fill out a simple form. And when they put on that form,

Branden Sewell (14:35.21)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Risher (14:38.766)
They can submit a lead to you basically, and then you call them and schedule the service. This will alleviate the back and forth. It will alleviate the you call him, he call she, whatever. Go there, fill out this form, submit it, and then we'll call them and schedule on behalf of you, and we'll make sure that you get credit for that deal. It's a great way to get off the truck, but then start building your referral partners for sure. What do you think about that?

Branden Sewell (14:58.986)
Yeah, I love that. That's phenomenal. I'm going to do that today. Yeah, that's huge. I'm a part of BNI and they have like, you know, where you can put in a referral. I actually had my BNI meeting this morning. But yeah, you can do that like with your BNI. You know, you go in and you, you know, put in a referral or whatnot, but to do it on like your own website and build out some other networks, that's genius. So I love that. That's a good idea.

Phil Risher (15:03.246)
Yeah, okay. There you go.

Phil Risher (15:27.502)
Yeah, and one way to kind of take this to the next level is on there, you have your referral form, then link to your customer testimonials like, hey, read our reviews here. If you have a customer who's on the fence, send them this link. But then a really good one is have a frequently asked questions because a lot of times if someone's going to refer you complimentary service, the person that's referring them might have frequently asked questions or questions that they're asking that then they can just pull up right on that page.

Branden Sewell (15:43.626)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Risher (15:53.102)
And you can even take this a step further to making a simple guide of how you do something. In that example of duck cleaning in HVAC, a lot of times they have questions or how do you do this kind of thing. So being able to just have one platform to send all these people to, imagine if you have 100 HVAC companies that are referring you. It's like, just go here, go here, go here. And then what we did was we made that URL like a QR code. And then we made mouse pads.

Branden Sewell (16:18.602)
Mm -hmm.

Phil Risher (16:23.118)
for all the people. So everything on there was everything that they needed to know about the duck cleaning service, like the pricing, everything. And then QR code, they could easily scan it with an iPad or something and fill out the stuff. So it was just like trying to streamline the process of getting referrals as much as possible. Yeah. So from a visibility perspective, we talked about those. Yeah. From a conversion perspective. So we talked about adding that lead form to your website. From the conversion side of things, what happens is...

Branden Sewell (16:24.938)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (16:42.826)
Yeah, that's really good.

Phil Risher (16:52.686)
You know, your admin's getting calls, you're starting getting forms in all these different places. Ideally, if you're using a CRM like Jobber or something else, you want to try to have all your leads flow into one place. And you can connect like Zapier for this or something else. But that way, all of your forms are going into your CRM and having a simple place to live. Because a lot of times what we found was as a marketing company, we could generate leads, but then you would get a lead form at 10 o 'clock at night on Saturday. No one would call them back till Monday morning.

You call them back, they don't answer, and then it's gone. So what if there's a way that you could kind of automate this follow -up process, like maybe an email goes out to them to start the conversation or a text message. And these are things that we help build these automation funnels, but start thinking about like, how can we capitalize on these leads? Same thing at the air duct cleaning company, we would get all the lead forms in. They'd literally print them out. They'd stick them in a pile right next to them like this. They'd go through, they call them, they check off that they called them and then they were just dead. And it's like, okay.

Branden Sewell (17:24.202)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (17:49.834)
Right.

Phil Risher (17:50.702)
All the leads are gone. Tommy Mello, who I have his book right here, Home Service Millionaire, he says, is it a lead problem or is it a lead management problem? And a lot of times people don't manage their leads properly and they just have a ton of leads. And it's like, oh yeah, I really worked these leads hard. And it's like, did you really? So I would think about what does your lead management process look like? A lead comes in, what are you doing at that point?

Branden Sewell (17:55.05)
Yes.

Branden Sewell (18:00.202)
Right.

Phil Risher (18:15.758)
Are you calling them? Are you putting them in a MailChimp automation to follow up via email until they convert into a quote? That kind of stuff. What do you think about that?

Branden Sewell (18:25.546)
Yeah, no, I think that's brilliant. One thing, like I took a couple of notes here and I said, one, like a lot of people, they want to know how to grow their business. And I love Tommy. I listened to his podcast. And one of my favorite things that he says, and I just like, it's so true, is he says, people might ask me, why do I give away all of my secrets for free? And like, why am I telling you all of these things?

you know, to my competitors and he says his response is because none of you guys will do it. You know, like I can sit here and tell you everything that has worked for us and you'll still sit back and not take action on it. And so for those of you who are listening, it's like, um, Phil and myself, we're not sharing with you things.

that don't work, it will work. So maybe you're the type of person where it feels like saying, hey, go do some B2B networking and build up business referrals, get out there and start talking to people and meet people face to face. And you're like, oh, well, I just don't like doing that. Or I'm not a people person. I don't like talking to people. It's like, well, then don't be a business owner.

If you're not going to do the things that you have to do to grow a business and to keep employees busy, then do everybody else a favor and just close up shop and go work for somebody else and just be a tradesman, right? Because there's guys out there who are business owners, who are running great businesses, and they need great people. And so if you don't want to do what it takes to be a business owner, then go just work for somebody.

But here Phil is sharing like really great advice like go and network with people do these things now Someone might say well, I don't know how to put that You know, you're talking about the website thing now for me myself I actually know how to do that Like I could jump on my website today and I could implement all that What if they say like oh, how do I do that? I don't even know how to put that in my website. Is that something that you guys help with?

Phil Risher (20:34.638)
Yeah, we help with that. A very, very simple one that you could watch a YouTube video on how to do this is go to Google .com, type in Google Forms. Google Forms allows you to make a simple intake form and you can watch a YouTube video on how to do it. It doesn't have to be on your website. Just make a simple Google Form that people can fill out this form and it will connect with a Google Sheet if you can get that far. If not, don't even worry about that. Just create the Google Form and then now you have an intake form. That's all you need. Even if it's not your website.

You have a URL, an intake form, you email it to them. That's a very simple process. So like, yeah, we can help with that, but like adding, adding a form to the website, if you work with a web development company or you have a website or something, it's pretty straightforward on how to do that. But yeah, we definitely helped with that thing. The other thing that I wanted to talk about was the retargeting side, because this comes up a lot when you're trying to get off the truck and you're thinking about, well, what if I have holes in my schedule and I can't fill my schedule for my guys? Do I still have to pay them? And then they leave and that whole thing. So.

Branden Sewell (21:09.322)
Yeah.

Phil Risher (21:33.838)
What we found is that when you're slow or you have holes in your schedule, you got to have a plan of how you're going to fill the schedule. So this kind of goes back to that lead nurture process, but then also retargeting your past customers and prospects. So ideally what we recommend is you have a bucket of all your past customers and all your prospects that you never converted. And hopefully you would know where they're located. If you have past customers, probably you know what city that they're in. And so a very simple one is this.

tomorrow you need to fill your schedule in Orlando and you don't have anyone. So go to all your past customers in Orlando, filter your database or go there. Just pick up the phone and call them. Say, Hey, we're going to be in your neighborhood tomorrow. We're offering you $30 off since the gas fee, we're going to be right around the corner. Can we come out and do some service for you? Like do that. It's not even that automated. You could, you could set up an email campaign and blast this out. You could do a text message campaign to everyone in Orlando, all that stuff. Like we help with that.

Branden Sewell (22:23.914)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Risher (22:32.782)
But like just simply having a plan so that way when you have holes in your schedule, what am I going to do? That's a great way to have some peace of mind to get off the truck is like, okay, here's my game plan and this is not like this. Here's my game plan over here. So yeah, that works really good. And we've seen that to be extremely effective from a retargeting perspective.

Branden Sewell (22:41.578)
Yeah.

Branden Sewell (22:49.866)
Yeah, and I just want to throw in here again is like, if you want these things to work, if you want to get off the ladder, do this stuff, right? So like if you hear something today and, you know, Phil's giving you a good idea, don't sit on putting something into action. Listen to this, you know, listen to it again, but take some notes and say, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to get this implemented.

and I'm gonna get this done by this day and I'm gonna start doing this in my business. And if you do those things, it'll start to snowball and you'll start to see the momentum build, but you have to be willing to take action. So I love these ideas that you're bringing up, even that simple thing, retargeting when you're already in that area, especially if you have...

a business that's doing smaller services. If you're lawn care, window washing, pressure cleaning, those smaller one -off jobs, we're in the process of building a pressure washing and paver ceiling business that I mentioned I bought from a buddy of mine. When I got it, he had let it go for a year, so there really wasn't a lot of momentum. It was basically like,

getting this business and now I have to like resuscitate it. And like one of our strategies is going to be literally getting the truck, hooking up the trailer and driving into a neighborhood where we know our clients are and literally just showing up and saying, hey, we have everything that we have here today to do your job. Can we do this? And we'll give you a discount, you know, because we're here right now to get this job done.

But just having like, I think part of business ownership and, you know, just being an entrepreneur is like having that tenacity to say, hey, like, I'm going to go out here and just make it happen. There's a lot of these things. It's not like it's new. You know, some of this is like stuff that business owners, home service business owners,

Branden Sewell (25:09.898)
have been doing and can you get like ideas that you haven't heard of before? Yes, but it's not like it's like this, you know, it's not like crazy like outlandish to go do some of the things that you're talking about. It's just a matter of doing them, right? So it's like, okay, well now you've heard it. Maybe you didn't know that this was a strategy before, but now you do and it works and other companies are getting results doing it.

Phil Risher (25:26.094)
That's right.

Branden Sewell (25:39.018)
Now all it takes is go do it. Right? And if you and maybe there's some things that they don't know how to do. Well, if you don't know how to implement it, you can reach out to somebody like Phil who will come alongside of you and show you how to implement it. But really the biggest thing is taking action on some of these items. So, but it's really valuable.

Phil Risher (25:42.926)
Yep.

Phil Risher (26:02.062)
Yeah. Another idea that you mentioned about taking the trailer into the neighborhood. This one works really good to capitalize in your, when you're in the neighborhood. A lot of times people do yard signs or clover method and that kind of stuff. What we've seen to be a unique thing is every time that your truck is there, have one of those like foldable things, you know, like the caution signs when it, when it's wet, like that yellow thing.

Branden Sewell (26:26.25)
Yeah.

Phil Risher (26:26.862)
make one like that for your business and stick it outside your truck and say, free estimates since we're in your neighborhood, call now. And as all the neighbors are driving by, they'll see this thing and they're going to call you. It might not be this tech that's giving them the estimate, but it just generates the buzz and the urgency. Like we're in your neighborhood, we're giving out free estimates as you're driving by all day. So that one works really good from like owning a neighborhood works good. And also like sponsoring local events in the neighborhood.

Branden Sewell (26:33.194)
Mmm, that's good.

Branden Sewell (26:43.466)
Yes, no, that's really good. I mean, we just even just putting a, you know, a yard sign out that has your information on.

Phil Risher (26:55.118)
I know that's a really good way to get in front of all the neighbors. And one really cool way to leverage that is if you sponsor the event, let's say they're doing like a spring day and you want to sponsor the event, have a booth there, but have a special giveaway and, and do something that's not necessarily just your service, but have a giveaway that they enter something and they give you their email address and their phone number, and then call every single person and say, Hey, unfortunately you didn't win the top prize, but you came in place for our second one and we're going to give you a free ceiling and a free power washing or whatever.

Basically you have a ton of free leads at that point to capitalize on.

Branden Sewell (27:25.45)
Mm -hmm.

Branden Sewell (27:30.026)
Yeah, that's so good. I mean, with some of these smaller services, like we've noticed, like with the pressure washing and paver sealing, like we went into this one neighborhood and just by simply being there doing the work, having our trailer out there, guys working, having a yard sign up, we ended up doing five bids in one day from one job. And, you know, so yeah, you create that...

that visibility even when you're on site. You get the neighbors talking about it. They see you there working. That can turn into a lot of work. And then it's like, we didn't sit on those opportunities. My guys gave me the information. I wasn't there, right? But they're on site. They got all the customer's information, got all the measurements, got all the details of the job, sent it over to me. And I literally sent those bids out same day.

And that converted for us like three more jobs. So yeah, I think some of this is just like, you just got to do it. Have these ideas and then do it. Another thing I wanted to talk about that we do as far as that's been a pretty big game changer for us is, well, let me say two things. One, a monthly newsletter that has nothing to do with selling either. It's just,

Like the one that I did the other day, it was my son's birthday. So I sent out a newsletter and we have like, I don't know, I think it's like 1800 contacts. So we sent out the newsletter and I was like, you know, told them like, hey, it's my son's birthday. Talked a little bit about him and like how special he is to us. Hey, it would mean the world to him if you would just send him an email back.

and say happy birthday, we'll read every email that comes back to our four -year -old son. And so we've been getting emails over the past few days, you know, just, hey, happy birthday, Emmett, you know, you have such special parents, like, and it just keeps the conversation with those customers going on and on and on, even after the initial service. So now we're building that continual relationship, which is staying top of mind with our clients so that...

Branden Sewell (29:50.762)
you know, when that next service comes up, they're thinking of us already. You know, they've been receiving our newsletters. Yeah, go ahead.

Phil Risher (29:55.694)
Yeah.

We have a good saying for that. We say, you can't get lifetime value if you don't have a lifetime relationship. And it goes back to that whole thing. If you don't build a relationship with them through email newsletters, through being a genuine person, it's not a constant sales pitch over and over again, but being genuinely a real business, that will build that relationship. So then you're top of mind and you're going to get that lifetime value. But a lot of times people just think like, oh yeah, they remember us. We did such a great job. Like, yeah.

Branden Sewell (30:05.898)
That's good.

Phil Risher (30:27.374)
and then they go over to their house and they say, oh, I didn't know that y 'all did this service. Oh, I told my other person about the whole thing. So you gotta stay top of mind for sure.

Branden Sewell (30:37.578)
Yeah, that's a big one for us. And then I was going to say the other thing that we did is there's not very many or any that I can think of that do this, but we actually were a painting company and we started a service contract. So I took time to just really break down. I was like, okay, well, what would it take? You know,

Phil Risher (30:53.934)
Mmm.

Branden Sewell (31:02.954)
to do these, what are some services that I know? I've been in business for almost eight years and I know there's some services that we offer that I know we can get done in a day and really within a small period of time. How could I structure this service contract for us to do two services per year for the people that sign up for it? And it would give me the ability,

to now lock in with that customer for let's say the next five, 10 years. And so now I've turned that customer with painting, most of the time it's like you go in and you paint a house and they don't need it painted for another 10, 15 years, whatever. And so we designed this so that now what we're doing is we're going back in and let's say the customer has a birthday party.

and they're like, you know, they got little kids or dogs and the kids and the dogs have like scuffed up the doors and the trim and walls have scuff marks and stuff. Well, now we have this service contract where, hey, give us a call, schedule a service. We'll come out and we'll freshen up your house with this painting and make your house look great for that birthday party. You know, and we've rolled some other services into that, but now,

Phil Risher (32:21.582)
I love that. I love that.

Branden Sewell (32:29.418)
we've turned this business model where it was just one -off jobs and not staying in, being able to get that work over and over again. Now, we're seeing some customers three, four times a year, whereas before we might have only seen them once or twice. Anyway, yeah.

Phil Risher (32:50.19)
That's awesome. That is awesome.

Branden Sewell (32:53.706)
That's something that I'm hoping to eventually teach some other painting contractors and show them how I've implemented that. But it's been a game changer and it makes me super excited that we've been able to come up with that and implement it. So service contracts are big. If you can create a way to stay in front of your customer over and over again.

That's a game changer for your business and staying busy. And I'll say like those smaller jobs can be fillers on down days. Like let's say we finish a job early and we have that gap in our schedule. Well, my guys can still get their hours because now we have these little jobs that we can fill in and stuff. So that's another reason why the service contracts are great. So yeah, we talked about visibility. We talked about the importance of

converting. So it's like not just are you getting the leads, but are you converting them? Are you nurturing them? Are you following up with them? Do you have a process for, you know, like you use the example, do you have a list of, you know, a bunch of leads and you're waiting to talk to them, but you know, by the time you get to them, they're all bad. They've hired somebody else or you've missed the opportunity. So staying on top of those leads, getting to them quickly. Don't wait.

24 48 hours to send a bid after you do an estimate send it same day. You know, you're gonna help your conversion that way I know too many guys who it's like they go ahead. Yeah

Phil Risher (34:27.598)
Another thing.

Oh, right. I was just going to say another thing with the lead conversion that's extremely important. And we all get this call. It's like, Hey, how much does it cost to pay my house? It's like, dude, I don't know. I got to come out and give you an estimate, you know? And then they're like, okay, well, it's like a rough range. I got 1500 square feet or something. And they're like, okay, I'll talk with my husband or my wife. And it's basically like a lead, but then it's dead. So having something that you can take that and like put them into some automation to like, Hey,

Branden Sewell (34:49.354)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Phil Risher (34:58.734)
You know, I know I gave you this quick estimate over the phone, but what I like to do is just send you a quick information about your painting project or about our company or whatever. Let me gather some information or send them a text message like, hey, this is Brandon. I know we talked earlier. Just want to see if you had any follow up questions and then start some nurture sequence off of just that call. Because what happens a lot of times, like when I was in the duck cleaning space was you get a call and they just want to know the price, price, price, price, price. When can you do it? When can you do it? You give it to them and then they're going to call back.

down the balls in their court. You got to take the ball back and say, like, let me follow up with you tomorrow and keep that lead nurture process going. That's something that's extremely important that so many people miss the mark on every single day.

Branden Sewell (35:40.394)
Yeah, that's actually really good. That's something that I fall short on. We have our pricing on our website and usually what I do on those calls is we try to screen the customer before we go out and do an estimate. So if somebody calls in and they're super price conscious or they want to know what our price is, we'll simply say, yeah, have you looked at our pricing on our website?

It has a rough idea of how much it would cost to do the different services based on square footage of your home and stuff like that. Typically, we can... I don't know if you would agree with this or disagree, but sometimes we try to just eliminate people that are going to waste our time. If it's like...

somebody's expecting their home that's 3 ,000 square feet to get painted for $3 ,000 and we charge, let's say, seven to $8 ,000. It's like, well, that person's expectation is not going to align with what we offer. So sometimes we use that as a way to eliminate people that aren't our customer. But to your point, if you have somebody who's receptive of that price over the phone,

I think it would be foolish to just let them go. So I think there's a differentiation between those two scenarios. Would you agree with that?

Phil Risher (37:07.278)
Yeah, one thing I would say though is you might miss an opportunity to say like, Hey, Brandon, I'm glad that you asked about pricing. We actually put together a complete guide and I'll be happy to email that over to you. What's the best email? Then you capture some information and then you just send them the link to that website page. And then now you put them into a MailChimp automation or something that's going to follow up on that.

Branden Sewell (37:27.402)
Yeah, that's good.

Phil Risher (37:31.79)
And then like, I'll send that over to you, but let me learn a little bit more about your project. Like, what are you looking to do? And then you can say like, no, they're not the right fit or not. But at least then you can get something like, should I text that link over to this phone number that you were talking on now? Yeah. If you would send that over, that'd be great. It's like excited to solve their problem for them. And then you can capture that. A text message gets 95 % open rates. Emails get 20, 30 % open rates. So if you can text it to them, now you have that channel wide open that you can follow up like.

Branden Sewell (37:47.498)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Risher (37:59.15)
Hey, just want to make sure you saw this link I sent you. Did you have any questions about this? Hey, here's a little bit more about our company. Hey, here's a great customer testimonial. On and on and on and on. All that. So I definitely think there's a lot of opportunity there. Pricing on the website is great, but then sending them that and getting that okay to then nurture that lead is very important.

Branden Sewell (38:19.53)
Yeah, no, I love that. That's really good. I've heard different people say it, different entrepreneurs, very successful people say, your email list or your contacts is your net worth. So if you're missing those opportunities to get people's contact information, to retarget them, and who knows, to your point, you could get that information and maybe they don't buy from you today.

or tomorrow. But maybe they get your information, they end up hiring somebody else maybe because it's price, and then they have a bad experience. And then next time they need that service, let's say it's six months down the road, a year down the road, they're needing pressure washing done or cleaning done again, or lawn care, or they have another painting project, whatever it is.

Well, now they're like, okay, I'm not going to use that company, but now I understand. I got what I paid for. And this other company has been sending me their newsletter. They've been building a relationship with me in that way, communicating. I see their business. I'm going to give them a call and give them a shot. And so maybe that opportunity isn't instant, but maybe it's six months, a year down the road. And...

So yeah, I really like that perspective on that. That's good.

Phil Risher (39:48.846)
Yeah. Another thing to consider on that whole branding side of things is a lot of times, I mean, shoot, I'm trying to get some work done in my house and it's so hard to communicate with different people. Like it's just a black box of an email in, hopefully they email me back, blah, blah, blah. If people, especially if you're marketing to the affluent, they just want to get the job done. Like price is an object, but it's not the object. They just want someone that's going to be responsive, get the job done. If you open the line of communication where, hey,

My name is Phil. I'm going to solve your problem for you. Text me anytime if there's any issue. I'm your go -to person. And then someone else that's out there that's a black box of an email. People are going to pick that company that has great communication every single time, if they're the right fit for you. So to your point, open those communication lines. People are going to realize, like, wow, this company is accessible. They want to serve me. They want to help me. I need to work with that company.

Branden Sewell (40:41.93)
Yeah, that's really good. I've had people tell us that they chose to work with us just based on our communication. They're like, yeah, they're like, you know, I reach out to this other company. It's like, I wanted to hire them for the work, but it's like, I can't get through to them, can't get a call back. It just seems like they don't want to work. And then we'll have them reach out to us and they're like, wow, you guys are super responsive, super communicative.

Phil Risher (40:49.774)
Same.

Branden Sewell (41:09.29)
you know, we're going to use you. It gives them that feeling of like, wow, these people really care. They really appreciate my business. They're ready to work. They want to go to work. And that can make all the difference in how somebody perceives you and your company, opposed to lacking that communication and follow up and reaching out. So that's a really good point. So,

I want to start to bring this to a close. Thank you so much for your time, Phil. I think you brought a lot of really great insight for those who are listening to this and some really practical advice on how home service business owners can just get more work, get more leads, and get more traffic coming in. And that's one of the first steps to getting off the ladder is you've got to have the work to keep a team busy because if you...

If you don't have that work, how are you going to hire people and make sure that they can put food on the table and provide for their families? So that's a big, big first step. And just to recap, you want to focus on your visibility, focus on conversion and retargeting. And as you said, Phil, that's going to increase your sales and keep your schedule full, right? So...

Phil Risher (42:25.646)
That's right.

Branden Sewell (42:27.402)
Phil, for someone who's listening to this who might be in need of your services or might want to have a conversation with you, what's the best way for somebody to reach out and connect with you and learn more about your services?

Phil Risher (42:40.142)
Yeah, so we do free marketing audits where we literally audit all of your stuff. We sit down on a call for 30 minutes and go through your exact whatever you're doing from a digital perspective and give you a roadmap. Those three pillars, we give you a roadmap for your business and talk through what that would look like. Whether you work with us or not, we're basically giving you the recipe. We sell the cooking, give you the recipe. So the way that you can get that, you go to Flash Consulting. It's P -H -L -A -S -H consulting .com. It says discuss your business. You click there, you set up a free marketing audit.

You hop on a call. Usually it's me that's running the call. So you get to talk with me. We come through with a game plan and then we let you roll and you have questions or anything. I actually, I hired a coaching company and they're like, Hey, you got to charge like $5 ,000 for these audits because they're so comprehensive. And I'm like, no, I'll just stick with the five star reviews. Literally we almost have a hundred five star reviews just because of these audits. So they're very valuable. It's not just a sales pitch or anything.

Branden Sewell (43:34.282)
Right. That's good. Well, I'll make sure to put your website in the show notes so people can reach out for that. Are there any other ways that people could connect with you online?

Phil Risher (43:46.862)
Yeah, LinkedIn is where I usually hang out, Phil Risher, and I usually communicate on there. I'm on all the platforms like, you know, TikTok, Instagram. We have a really good YouTube channel. We interview a lot of cool people, just Flash Consulting is our YouTube channel. A lot of great videos on there of educational stuff. Like, yeah, okay, Phil, I heard about the SEO, but like, what do I do on the YouTube videos? I literally like show you what to do. So those are really good, just tactical things. And they're also broken down by like industry. So lawn care SEO.

Branden Sewell (44:10.634)
Yeah.

Phil Risher (44:17.038)
Air duckling the SEO all that stuff. It's all broken down into industry. So it's it's very niche. So check us out on YouTube, too

Branden Sewell (44:23.946)
Awesome stuff. Well, Phil, if you get me those links, I'll make sure that those go in the show notes for those who are listening so that they can reach out and connect with you. And then is there any final message that you would want to leave with the listeners to just bring home some final value for them?

Phil Risher (44:40.206)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing, there's a quote that I live by. It's like, if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse. And at the end of the day, it's like, how bad do you really want it? And I find myself doing this too. Like, if I keep making excuses for things, I just ask myself, like, do I really want this bad enough or is it not something that I really want? So if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse. And just like, just go for it. You have people like Brandon, you got people like me. Like, I am a resource. I'm happy to give, give, give. Just like, hit me up. Like, I'll help you.

Branden Sewell (44:47.722)
That's good.

Phil Risher (45:09.422)
points you in the right direction, whatever. So like, don't just feel like you're out on an island because it can feel like that as a business owner. Like you got good people around you that can help you. So feel free to reach out for sure.

Branden Sewell (45:19.402)
It's so funny as you said that I thought about this I saw this video yesterday and it's this entrepreneur and I'm gonna struggle to remember his name and maybe if I tell you a little bit about it maybe you'll know who I'm talking about and be able to help re -jog my memory but his wife is like the founder of Spanx and he's like a big like Oh, Jesse Jesse like yeah, I was looking up Jeremy. Hold on. I want to

Phil Risher (45:41.422)
It's Jesse, um, Jesse something.

Branden Sewell (45:47.85)
pull up this um what is his name jesse is it it's there yeah jesse it's there yeah so he posted this video um and and he said he was like tell me why you want to scale like why he's like um you know you're you're at five million you know you're doing well he's like

Phil Risher (45:53.998)
Yeah, that's him.

Branden Sewell (46:12.202)
Do you really want to scale it a 20 million like it there's gonna be more headache for you? You know, what's your reasoning and so like to what you just said like how bad do you want it? You know because like I think about it all the time. I'm like man like You know, we'll just put in perspective Tommy Mello like running a 200 million dollar company Like what does that take? What sacrifice does it take? to run and scale a business to that size and I

You know, you might look at somebody like that and be like, man, I really want what they have accomplished. I want to be able to do that. But it's like, do you really? And, uh,

Phil Risher (46:50.19)
Yeah. And nothing against Tommy because I think he's a great dude, but like when you think about it, like he doesn't have kids, he's not married. He literally devoted his life for the last 20 years or whatever to building this business. And that's the choice that he made, which is not a bad thing, but how could I compare myself when I have a wife and a daughter and a family and all this stuff? Like we have totally different priorities. So it's also like the comparison factor is different. And just because...

Branden Sewell (46:58.218)
Yeah.

Phil Risher (47:16.654)
I'm not saying if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way if not find excuse. If you want it bad enough to spend time with your daughter, you'll find a way. If not, you'll find an excuse. That plays in the role too. So I think it goes back to that.

Branden Sewell (47:24.554)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's so good. Well, I think that's a good place to wrap this up. And, you know, as you listen to this, you know, if you want it bad enough, you'll implement these things that Phil and I are talking about and you'll go out there and make things happen and you'll see the fruit of it with your focus, your intentionality and your hard work and it'll pay off.

Well, I appreciate everybody who is listening to the Off the Ladder podcast. I hope it's bringing value to you and your business and helping you learn, like we say, so that you can lead well and get off the ladder. If you are enjoying watching this, if you're watching on YouTube, please like this video, comment on it, share your feedback.

Share it with somebody else subscribe to the channel turn on those notifications and help us out there And then also if you're listening on Apple or Spotify or any other major podcast platform Please rate and review the show that'll help me out so that we can reach more people and bring this valuable information to them also we are now accepting subscriptions, so if you want to

support the show and help us to you know bring better quality and to bring more value. You can support the show for as little as three dollars a month. That's like a cup of coffee. You can do that in the show notes. There's a link to support the show. Also just

you know, support us by getting involved. We have a community group. It's the Off the Ladder Contractors group. You can get in there. I really want to work to getting in touch with you. So if you're listening to this on any of those platforms, YouTube,

Branden Sewell (49:12.362)
Apple, Spotify, wherever, reach out to me and let me know that you're listening. Let me know what you're getting from that. Let's chat. Let's talk about your business. I'd love to connect and build community. So thank you so much again for listening and we'll see you next time on the next episode of the Off the Ladder Podcast.