Podcast Transcript
Erick (00:02):
Good morning, Dan.
Dan (00:04):
Good morning. Eric Eddo
Erick (00:07):
On episode two of Landscape Gems.
Dan (00:12):
Yeah, it's going to be the best episode we've ever done.
Erick (00:17):
Oh, totally. It's going to totally top the rest of 'em. It's going to be And this time, huh?
Dan (00:24):
Yes.
Erick (00:24):
Yes. This, oh, this time we're going to have probably in the ballpark of 10 million listens to this podcast.
Dan (00:34):
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. News. There'll be lots of people trying to get with us too, of all shapes and sizes
Erick (00:44):
And
Dan (00:44):
Orientations.
Erick (00:46):
Oh, of course.
Dan (00:47):
We were both so damn handsome.
Erick (00:50):
Oh, absolutely. So yeah, today we had a few things we wanted to talk about to provide some advice for landscaping companies. I think today's episode, we were talking about the idea of niching down. Am I right?
Dan (01:16):
Yeah. Not to be confused with niching up, because that'll destroy your business.
Erick (01:21):
It
Dan (01:22):
Has to be down downward niching,
Erick (01:27):
Which I think for anybody who does listen to the concept of picking a niche, picking like a very specific service that you offer, and being the number one person for that service, I think this is a concept that may be a bit more applicable to up and coming landscapers. Not so much the established seven figure landscaper. If they're already doing, doing seven figures in landscaping, and you're offering patios and you're installing boulders or waterfalls, but you're also doing things like SOD and so on, and you've got a lot of clients, there's probably no need for you to cut out a bunch of your services and then niche down. Whereas the new guy who comes along and he has no web presence or very little, and he's only got a few customers, but he really wants to expand, this is where niching down could be a really good idea.
Dan (02:51):
Yep.
Erick (02:52):
Did you want to add to that?
Dan (02:55):
Well, this is a concept that we could talk a lot about. I mean, from a consumer perspective, I've experienced this many times. Someone wants to deliver a service, or I'm looking for a service and I find someone who is, has a wide range, will I do this and I do this and I do this, and I do this and I do this. And if you're the type of consumer like me that is typically looking for a very high quality service, I'm very picky about things, especially if I'm spending money on them. I don't want to pay for something just to get it done and out of the way. Typically, the things that I'm working on are things that I really care about. So if I'm getting a room painted, for example, I want a really, really solid paint job. If I'm having a remodel done in the house, or if I'm having my car washed, or if I'm having whatever it is, whatever, if I'm getting someone to come do my lawn or if it's a hardscape, if it's what I want, I want someone who is the best at that thing.
(03:58):
And when you encounter a service provider that says, well, we do this wide array of things, it almost by default means, well, you can't be the best at any one of those things. Because if I find a company that, here, here's a brief example. Well, on one of the houses that I have, the water heater was leaking and I needed to replace it. And I talked to several plumbing companies and I ended up going with a company called Hot Water Heater Pros, and that's all they do all day long is replace water heaters. And they came in, they did the job really, really well. They were fast and they had better service warranties. They actually warrantied the service and the equipment for five years, which no other company did. So they did set themselves apart. But the reason for that is because they were the hot water heater pros.
(04:59):
And I, I'm realizing I'm plugging, I'm plugging their business. If you're in Middle Tennessee, you can check those guys out. But the point is, is that I ended up making the decision to go with them because I wanted to make sure that whoever was doing that job was a hundred percent at that service. So anyways, from a consumer perspective, it's really, really valid to pick something. And then I think one of the things that might steer someone away from doing this is, well, am I going to get less business? If I can do a wide array of things and I know how to do those things, am I cutting out my opportunity to get business? Cause I'm trying to get my business going. If I say I'm not going to do this, these are the things, or I'm going to turn down this work. And I think that's one of the reasons people don't do it is because they want an opportunity to earn money in every way they can, especially when they're new,
Erick (06:06):
Right?
Dan (06:07):
Yeah. What I would say to that is that's why you need to have some degree of marketing happening. And some people who are starting out, they don't even have a website, they have no online presence. But that's why marketing in general is the subject is so important because the people who are looking for your service need to be able to find you, and they're out there even if you're niched. So I'm sure you have stuff to add to that, but those are the thought I
Erick (06:35):
Have. Absolutely. And you're totally right. It really does fall into the perspective of your client. Another great example is with roof repair and roof replacement. In that industry, you and I have both had a lot of experience with needing that kind of a service. How often is a person going to look for a handyman to do that? A hand? Most handyman are going to be able to do that, but nobody's looking for a handyman to do that. They're looking for the specialist. They're looking for the person who is primarily dedicated to that one thing. Yeah. So from for a landscaper or somebody who's listening to this, if you're just starting out or you don't have an online presence, one thing that you can do to build up your customer base pretty fast is to brand yourself as the specialist in one area. And that could be, I will say that there are people who kind of do this already with lawn care, which has made lawn care a little bit saturated in a lot of markets.
(07:59):
But you could make yourself the specialists in installing sod, for example, and your company, you could literally name your company Z Y X SOD installers or something like that, and a person who, who's thinking with that, if that's your branding, you're probably going to be sticking with that for a while. But you could literally just, all you do is install sod, and that's what you're going to be stuck with by branding yourself as that. What you could also do is you could have whatever you want to name your company, green, green, whatever, landscaping. Then you basically create your website around the idea of SOD installation. But as you bring on customers, these are people who you can sell to again and again with other services. And you talk to somebody and you do a job for them. You install their sod and you say, Hey, listen, we also do landscape design.
(09:20):
And they go, oh, I didn't know that. I thought you guys were just sod. Well, no, actually, that's how weve become known in the market. But because of the number of happy customers we have and the amount of success we've had with so installation, we also found that there was a high demand for landscape design. So we started getting into that as well and became quite good at that. Would you like to work with us on the design of your landscape? So when niching down, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to cut out all other business. You're just looking for a way to make yourself known in the market relatively quickly and to build up that customer base relatively quickly so that you can then sell your other services.
Dan (10:17):
I agree. I mean, I think it's almost something to be said though, for trying to specialize in it, which will simplify the business initially. I know that if I'm dealing with a company that is visually or apparently very small, and the person tells me, oh, by the way, I can do this and I can do this, and I can do this thing for you, and if you ever need this and it's stuff that's sort of all over the board, I immediately get turned off by using that person for service because it seems a little bit desperate. It's like, well, I can do anything. I can do any type of service. And it's hard, again, as a startup business, and I guess we're definitely phrasing this or framing this rather on startup businesses, but it's hard not to be this way because again, you can do those things and that maybe you're very great at all those things.
(11:21):
But I think that the example you gave of how to kind of come out with that, and one of the things that can get around making that type of offer or saying those things is outside of the branding and positioning that you have is just asking the person, oh wow. What services are you planning on doing? Wow, you planning on doing any design in your yard beyond this if facade, wow, after the sod, what else do you want to do? And get the person talking. And at that point, there might be an entrance point to say, well, we actually have done a lot of those jobs and were very great. Would you like to see some photos of my work or some, would you like me to give you an estimate for that? Which is another thing that I will just plug, because a lot of times when we're talking to new businesses, they're not thinking with, let me document a trail of my work, a portrayal of record, and in photo evidence and things like that. You really should do that. Every job that you complete, you should take pictures of it.
Erick (12:40):
No, absolutely. That's huge.
Dan (12:42):
Because again, for me, I so sort of almost want proof as a consumer, have you done this? Have you done this? And have you done it well? And do I like anything that you've done or are you just trying to, because obviously there are people that they know they can do something and they just really, really want to do it, but they haven't really done it very much. Sohow another bit there.
Erick (13:11):
Yeah. From even a marketing standpoint, having a niche service, something that you specialize in within the category of landscaping, from a marketing standpoint, in doing SEO O for example, there are huge, huge benefits to that with SOD installation as an example, if you're number, the number one person for that, most people in that market who see that are going to want to click on your website, and then they see, oh, these guys are obviously the people for SOD installation. And by the way, I'm only using SOD installation as an example just because we recently had sod in installed in our backyard. So it just happens to be top of mind right now.
Dan (14:13):
Did the company specialize in SOD installation?
Erick (14:16):
No, actually, in fact, our company, my wife picked them and I think she picked them just because they were the highest reviewed. And I mean, we live in a pretty small town right now, but they're marketing, I got to say the marketing for this company is kind of weird. They're we're nowhere near the beach or an ocean or anything like that.
Dan (14:50):
But
Erick (14:50):
These guys are all branded around this kind of a beachy, their logo looks like a sunset at the beach, and it's like
Dan (15:00):
Interesting.
Erick (15:02):
It's what
Dan (15:06):
They have the most, they have the most reviews out of.
Erick (15:10):
Yeah, I mean, there's a few land I, there's a few landscaping companies out here, but these guys really worked on their reviews, I guess, and stood out to my wife when I saw their site and their logo. I was like, this is terrible. But my wife really tends to have a, tends to pick and choose companies to work with based on reviews, which is totally valid. I mean, at the end of, you don't want to work with somebody who's gotten it, a bunch of negative reviews.
Dan (15:47):
A lot of people do that. Totally. Which is another note, not to rabbit hole on this, but if you're brand new, you can get a website for very inexpensive and you can incentivize your customers to give you a review. So those things are just, they're really, really, really important. Yeah.
Erick (16:20):
In fact, I know the main topic we want to talk about today was going to be niching down. However, we're only not very far into this podcast. We might also touch on reviews a little bit too. Yeah. What do you think about that?
Dan (16:41):
I think it's a great idea.
Erick (16:42):
Okay. Because I mean, just the general concept of niching down that there's only so much I feel like we could say to offer value before we start repeating ourselves.
Dan (16:58):
And I've already half repeated myself as well. Yeah.
Erick (17:03):
How many different ways can we say this is a good idea for somebody starting out?
Dan (17:09):
Well, and I mean, a couple things, more things that I will say just because these are the genuine feelings that I have about it, because in multiple businesses I've sort of confronted this topic and I know you have too of, okay, how is it at this point in our business, we want to expand. We want to expand with clients that we build long-term relationships with. We want to do the best job that we possibly can. How does having one niche, which means ultimately saying no to business, if you're getting out there and you're in front of prospective customers that you could help with another service that's not your niche, it means that you know may not be able to do that job, or you may try and narrow your focus, you typically, you'll get what you put your attention on. So if your attention is on, I want to do this one type of service and this is the only thing that I want to do, and my marketing and my actions and activities of outright reach are going to be focused on this one type of service, then you're going to be bypassing inevitably some things that you can do.
(18:29):
When we've spoken about that, sometimes the service really is very similar. For example, marketing great example. It really is the same service.
(18:43):
It really is the same thing. Getting a website to rank, whether it's a landscaper or another type of contractor or many different types of services, anyone that wants to be found is the same service. So a good thing that will help guide you is just what do you want to be doing? And we've had many of those conversations. What do you want to be doing? What's your five year plan, your 10 year plan, what do you want that to look like? And this is a question that we ask clients, if you could have the perfect client, the perfect customer, where a hundred percent of the time you're going to knock it out of the park and you're going to be happy doing it, and you're going to get the best reviews and referrals and where you're going to shine, what is that customer like? So yeah,
Erick (19:47):
That's good. And it reminds me of a really, something that we've talked about before with marketing. And I think this is the last thing I'll say regarding on this topic. So there's something called the marketing rule of seven, and we've talked about this before. Basically the concept is back in the day, I want to say when movies were a relatively new thing. I don't know when that was, the early 19 hundreds or something like that, or early to mid 19 hundreds. So something like that, I don't know. But back then, when people were promoting movies, they found that every seven people who saw their ad for a movie resulted in one sale of a movie ticket. And it became a rule in marketing where every seven touches essentially reached somebody with your message would result in a customer. Now, of course, today with so much media, with social media, with podcasts, with the news, with TV and everything today it, it's going to take a lot more than seven touches or seven reaches to a prospective customer. But when you consider your marketing, if you've got a 30 different services you offer and you are hitting on all 30 of 'em with a small budget, you're kind of getting one or two touches here or there on everything, which results in zero customers. But if you budgeted all your marketing into one specific thing, well now you could get hundreds of touches on that one thing that you're offering.
(22:08):
And so your marketing dollars go a lot further when you're really promoting one service as opposed to all of them. Now, if you've got an unlimited budget, then by all means grant Cardona and put yourself everywhere on everything. But if that's not, go ahead. Even
Dan (22:33):
He was niched. I mean, if you look at, oh, sure, he has big segments of his career where he is focusing and niching mean. Niching is sort of the wrong word, but he's tar. He's targeting a specific thing. Early on it was automotive dealerships. Oh yeah. A hundred percent automotive.
Erick (22:56):
And then he became a sales trainer.
(23:00):
Know that was his niche. It was, yeah, this is the guy you go to for sales training. But yeah, first it was automotive, and then it expanded into just sales training in general for all businesses. And then that took off and he started expanding into other areas as well. He did not start off with Cardone Ventures, and I don't know how many, I mean all of it, health system and all these various things. He didn't start with everything. Exactly. He started with one thing and absolutely blew that up and moved on to the next thing, or expanded on the first thing then, and then found more opportunities where, gosh, all these business owners I'm connected with, they need better health. They need to optimize their health. Well, why don't I team up with this other company and we'll create a health system for them, and that's something else we can sell. These business owners, that's what he did. And all these business owners, they've got a lot of money. Why don't I create Cardone Capital where they can invest that money and I'll make a bunch of money from that too. And he started, there's so much more opportunity that way. And landscapers can take a note from that for sure.
Dan (24:40):
Yeah, the more you lean into something, the more deeper you go into something. Going to, first off, the appropriate point to branch off is when you've sort of reached a level of professionalism or a level of success in a particular area or niche. If you get mediocre something, then you learn another thing and offer that service, then you learn another thing and offer that service. It's not the right time, but if you go, I'm the best sod installer in the area, bar none, it's unarguable. No one can be like, oh, no, they're not the best because I'm everywhere. It's my brand. I have a thousand reviews, like SOD is my jam. If then it's like the number one SOD installer is now doing hardscapes because getting sod, I can put the hardscape next to it, and you become total, it's like it's indisputable that you're the best at sod,
Erick (25:47):
Right? Yeah, absolutely. That's the
Dan (25:48):
Point where it's like the best, the top sod person is now going into hardscapes, and people would be like, wow, great. And then you really, it's all about just getting clients, like no one's arguing with it. Because if you make that much of an impact in an area, I mean, look at s, this is not the greatest or maybe most applicable example, but look at Elon Musk. No one's questioning whether he is going to be successful in the things that he does. They're completely unrelated though, which makes it even more wild because he's achieved a level of success with every single one of those things. So
Erick (26:34):
Yeah, it's true. Now, I know I was going to get onto the next topic, but you've already reminded me of some other things that I think are worth mentioning here. So you also have, there are people who are strictly landscape designers, and usually some of them will do really well in their markets providing landscape design. However, sometimes a market can be saturated with a number of people, like I mentioned earlier, with lawn care. One other thing you can do is you could market yourself or brand yourself as the lawn care service or the landscape designer for busy professionals or something like that. And that that's niching down even another step. You might find that there isn't a huge market for that, at least in the area that you're in, you might find, but you could appeal to your ideal client by doing something like that.
(27:44):
So if you want to break into a market with very expensive houses and you want to provide landscape design for that, you know, could market yourself as the landscape designer for busy professionals and is, if you might, even anybody listening to this might ask, well, what does that mean? I can do landscape design for anybody and everybody, but by branding yourself as that, you're going to appeal much better for busy professionals, people who are entrepreneurs. Like right now, you and I, we own a business. If I click on somebody's site right now and I'm looking for landscape design and I see number one landscape designer for busy professionals, what comes to my mind immediately is, these guys aren't going to waste my time. Just not, they're going to accommodate the fact that I have a very busy schedule. Somehow I don't know how. All I know is that their service is designed for me. And what I need is somebody who's fast and who's not going to waste my time. And now if I see that, and I also see another person who, who's just landscape design, I prefer the messaging of landscape design for busy professionals. And in some cases I might choose that person over the guy who has even better photos of their work.
(29:32):
Now, it depends on the quality of photos too. I will say that. So if, I mean some, but that's amazing work.
Dan (29:41):
But that's a really good point though, is if I want a burrito for lunch and I search for a burrito place, and one of 'em just says, such and such burritos, and the other one says Such and such burritos for super hungry people, it insinuates that I'm going to get more full there. I'm going to have a much bigger portion. Even if it's not, yeah, it is a place where I'd be like, oh, I'm going to go to that place for super hungry people. Cause I'm super hungry. I want a massive burrito for lunch. It, it's just that and those things, work, marketing does work because what is the person thinking with? And another way to figure these things out for your own niche is to do sort of a survey. And that doesn't have to be super complex, but you can ask around. You could even go to affluent neighborhoods and say, I have a three question survey for a free bush trimming or something.
(30:55):
Whate, whatever, right? Yeah. I just have three questions. Do you have a landscape company? Why did you hire them? What do you like the most about them? Or something like that. And it could give you an idea of like, oh wow. Well, this person's obviously paying good money for their lawn care. What are the things that they feel are the most valuable? And sometimes when you do that, you'll find data that you never would've thought of. It's like, oh wow. People in this neighborhood really care about the branding on the truck. I had a land landscaper, talked to you the other day, rolls up in a truck and I'm exchanging information. And I look at the truck, it's got a big phone number on the truck, and I said, oh, that's your number. I pointed the truck. He goes, no, no, no, no. That has nothing to do with me. And I'm like, well, so you're borrowing someone's truck that has a big sign with their brand on it, and it has nothing to do with you.
(31:52):
I just worked with an HVAC company. I had to get some HVAC repair on one of my houses. And the guys roll up, they have a fully wrapped logoed, beautiful, massive truck. I mean, I'm just like, man, the truck that you roll up in makes me feel better about doing business with you because you obviously care about your image, you care about your branding. What is the customer's feeling? Am I going to call these guys back? Yes, I'm going to call them back because I know that the business owner, if he cares enough about what the truck looks like, he cares enough about what the job is obviously has discipline his businesses together. If he rolls up in a super dented up truck with no signage on it, you have a gradient scale to all these things. Put a magnet on a magnet that says Jim's lawn care is better than no magnet.
(32:50):
A truck that has been in an accident and is all dented up that has rust showing isn't as good as a truck that has a little bit of spray paint, even of the color of the truck covering up the rust, whatever it is. But you want your communication to the customer is something that you have to figure out is what are the things that matter? And maybe that none of that is a button for people in a specific neighborhood. Maybe they want to know that their neighbor used them or that the person's done work in the area. And those are all things you can take advantage of in the marketing and in your image. Also, I will just throw this out there, understand what the acceptable image of whatever business you're in is what I mean. Some people just don't fit the image. You can survey around and ask what people think of your image.
(34:03):
And I've done that recently if we want some comedy. But I've had several people tell me that with this facial hair, I look sinister, sinister. I'm like, wow, that's not good for business later. You don't see this on my face anymore. But there are acceptable standards of professionalism. If you walk into a bank, you're going to expect the person to at least be wearing a shirt and tie. Yeah. And banker's going to look a certain way. It's going to make you feel comfortable. If the person's got an unshaven face and he is wearing a t-shirt with stain on it, who's the bank teller? I might go, I'm going to go to the other bank down the road or do some online banking. Sure. So be mindful of when you walk up to your customer, what are they going to see? And be able to look at yourself and maybe ask people around you, well, do I fall into some stereotype here?
(35:05):
Or do I, because it or not, it matters for your business. Your image matters. Do people feel comfortable when you come to their house? I've had a lot of people that tuck your shirt in, wash your shirt. Don't make sure you don't smell. Brush your teeth. Cause these are all basic hygiene things. If we're talking to new business owners, I'm telling you the amount of times that I've encountered a service-based business where the person rolls up and they're just so slovenly and unkempt, and there's a massive gap between businesses that I've chosen to use and some of the businesses that I've not chosen to use, but it is indicative of your work.
Erick (35:51):
Oh, sure.
Dan (35:52):
I once had another repair, a repair on a water heater. This was years ago. And I went on, what's that website, Thumbtack or something like that?
Erick (36:04):
Oh, sure, yeah.
Dan (36:05):
I was on a butthead and I was trying to just find someone who could do this little repair, and the guy came and he just was, I mean, it was like, have you showered in three days? Just totally stained shirt, just like zero effort. The truck was, it looked like he had been in several accidents and the quality of work that he did reflected in how he presented himself.
Erick (36:31):
Right.
Dan (36:32):
Whether you or not, that is a thing. Anyway.
Erick (36:35):
No, that's a great point. And it kind of ties into the next thing we were going to talk about with reviews because customer service and how you present yourself is going to make a big difference. In fact, one of the observations I've made in working with landscapers is a lot of the companies who are absolutely killing it make an effort, a strong effort to provide great customer service and to appear just showing off the best that they can that are a good company in whatever way, whether it be their branding and their image. They come up in a really nice truck. The person giving the estimate has a nice polo with their logo on it. Exactly. They've got it's laundered.
Dan (37:33):
It's been, what's that? It's been laundered.
Erick (37:36):
Oh yeah. It's not
Dan (37:38):
Covered in wrinkles. That looks like they crumpled it up and threw it in the back of the truck all night and then put it on right before they came.
Erick (37:44):
Yeah, exactly. And things like that mean, those things do make a difference. And that isn't to say for somebody who's just starting out, for example, and all they've got is a mower and an old truck like that to say that you're not going to get business right away. You might being just starting out, you probably don't have a lot of money to invest, but the best you can do is be personable and that's going to make a lasting impression. And you can be real with people. You don't, all you've got is a t-shirt and jeans and an old truck and a mower make a great impression with the person and be real and say, I'm just getting started, but I really want to just absolutely make my service the best service you've had so that I can make a name for you for myself. And that's a good point. People appreciate that they, they're going to want to support the small guy. They're going to want to support the underdog who's trying to make a name for himself and who seems to be a really great guy. And yeah,
Dan (39:07):
Don't let any of this stuff discourage you. I mean, all of this goes on a gradient. So you are that person and you're brand new, and hopefully you are watching this, so hopefully there's some gems in here for you. But the most important thing is how you communicate over and above anything else. And again, if you ask around and to get someone's opinion, if someone says, Hey, can I have your honest opinion on this? Do you think my appearance is acceptable today? Was there anything, whatever, can you rate me? And you could have, if you were gone to a restaurant or gone to a service and you get a little text message that says, can you rate our service? And it has overall quality cleanliness. I just have that with the gym that I go to rate, was the gym clean? Were the staff friendly?
(40:00):
Whatever those things are, if you get a lawn, you get the job done. Hey, is there anything, please be brutally honest with me. Yeah, you're not going to apprehend me, but you'll find out this HVAC company, they sent three or four guys. They all had big beards. That was totally acceptable to me because they were wearing logo. They rolled in these really great trucks, and their communication was extremely friendly. They had smiles on their face. They were, you know what I mean? They came up, Hey Mr. Eddington, how are you this morning? We're just going to get unloaded. Can you show us where we can go? And it was professional. So you don't have to have all those things mean for almost no money you can get if someone showed up in a clean white shirt that was tucked in with a brown belt, even if their jeans, jeans are ripped and they got work boots, totally fine. I don't care.
Erick (40:59):
Right?
Dan (41:00):
Just
Erick (41:01):
Stop. Yeah, absolutely.
Dan (41:03):
If a customer can see that an effort was made, oh, he tucked his shirt in, an effort was made. There is a corollary between effort in image, how you present yourself, represent yourself and effort in the quality of work that you deliver. And people can see that, whether it's subconscious or not, people know that exists. Yeah,
Erick (41:33):
Yeah, absolutely. And in some cases, someone listening to this might think to themselves, oh, well, I never really did any of that. I really never made a big effort, and I seem to be getting customers. The difference is by making that effort, you might be getting more customers or higher paying customers than you currently are. So it is true. The guys that I'm working with, for example, in our yard that I don't have a lot of options. There's just not a lot of landscapers in my area, so they can get away with not having the greatest appearance. And that stuff doesn't actually bother me so much. But the moment I'm telling you, the moment someone comes in into my neighborhood and they've got some great pamphlets with images of their work, they've got awesome polos, great trucks. The moment that person comes into my market, they're going to be putting everyone else out of business because that's superior customer service.
(42:49):
And it goes a long way. And it also means more positive Google reviews and standing out or Yelp in certain cases, Yelp reviews and standing out in the market because of that. Another great example of this is we also had our air ducts cleaned recently in the house. The customer service was so awesome. I just loved these guys. I was like, man, they weren't too chatty. They weren't overly chatty like they saw were they being themselves? Yeah, they were totally being themselves and they were helpful. They answered all my questions and I asked me if there was anything else I wanted to know. And they told me exactly what they were going to be doing step by step. And they understood that I was working and told me, Hey, when we need to do your office, is that going to be okay? First off, if we're making noise in there?
(44:01):
And I said, yeah. And they said, okay, great. It's only going to be about three minutes in your office and then we'll be out of your hair. I'm like, okay, cool. But the coolest, what I really liked was after they were very social with me, they were very friendly afterwards. I had received a text message asking, how was your experience with us? And I replied, and I said, was great. And they said, would you mind sharing your experience with us on Google? And they asked for a review. And I was like, absolutely. These guys killed it. And I'm sure there are many companies out there that might provide good customer service and potentially even better work. However, I don't want to risk trying another company knowing that I've got a great company that I've worked with. So in my mind I, I'll continue working with them.
Dan (45:04):
Well, all this stuff that we're talking about, it insinuates a higher quality of service, just does, there's a subconscious thing. If you put one guy that's slovenly and one guy that's clean cut with a polo that's tucked in, that's branded, who does the better service? It could be the complete opposite. The person who didn't take any time to make himself up in the morning could have a way better ability to provide a service than the other guy. And the reason I'm saying this is because it also is going to correlate to your price
(45:47):
And how reputable a person is going to assume if this company's branded, if they have reviews. And again, this is not stuff that has to take a lot of time, energy, and effort it. You don't have to go spend a ton of money. You can go to Vista Print and you can get a couple of shirts for very cheap. You can find screen printing if it's got a little logo on, you know, can go on Fiverr and have someone design a logo for you. Yeah, there's plenty of ways to do this and just get yourself there just so you have a base level. But people will assume, I assume, if I'm going to use a guy that is clearly not specialized, he's not branded, he doesn't have a good website, or he doesn't have a website or whatever, I'm assuming that I'm going to pay a cheaper price for that guy.
Erick (46:47):
Oh, totally. And
Dan (46:48):
If I'm paying the SOD pros of Tampa Bay or something, the SOD pros are going to charge me more because the SOD pros, that's just mentally, I'm just going like, oh yeah, it's going to cost more. If I want the reputable guys, it's going to cost more. And coming off as being reputable doesn't have to mean a crazy amount of work for you. Okay. So anyhow,
Erick (47:19):
And one last thing that I think ties into that. I know we're running a little longer than usual actually, but yes, you might think to yourself, these guys are going to, the SOD pros are going to charge more, or they're going to be a little more expensive, but you're also considering they're going to provide better value. I'm going to get more from this. And that may or may not be true.
Dan (47:49):
Exactly
Erick (47:50):
In the mind of the consumer, in the mind of the person who's calling you. It is true that the SOD pros are going to deliver better because it's in their name. Exactly.
Dan (48:02):
So
Erick (48:04):
Anyway, I think that's pretty much all I have to say at this point, just because I think, yeah, we're approaching almost the hour Mark, did you have anything last that you wanted to say?
Dan (48:17):
No.
Erick (48:19):
Okay. No,
Dan (48:20):
I think this is good. I mean, just really, it all happens on a gradient, and it's going to be hard to do any of this if you haven't really established what your ideal scene is and where you want your business to go. What are your goals for your business? And the more from personal experience, the more you have that dialed in, the less struggle you're going to have At times where I'm like, well, I'm just not sure if I want the business to go this way, or I want the business to go this way. I don't know. Really any uncertainty is going to prevent forward progress. So the more crystallized you can make what you want to do and identify it will make it a able for you to identify when you are not going in the right direction, because you can compare your existing situation to the ideal situation. So
Erick (49:25):
Totally valid. I like that. I like that. Cool. All right, well, until next time, this was episode two of Landscape Gems. Yeah.
Dan (49:37):
If you have questions, leave them in the comments below. If you have questions on how to get started with these things, we're always happy to help anyone. You can reach out to us directly. This is also sponsored by Landscape Marketing and seo. Yeah, you can go to landscape marketing seo.com and read about our services.
Erick (50:00):
Sweet. All right. Insert outro music.
Dan (50:04):
Outro.
