Building a Marketing Empire: Rob Murray’s Journey

Jeffrey Scott:

Our guest today is Rob Murray, founder of Intrigue Media. These guys are laser focused marketing company on the green industry. I looked at many of his clients and a lot have come from our community, our peer group community. He has his own podcast and uh he’s recorded quite a few of our members. We run a peer group and coaching community for landscape business owners. We have helped I think about 350 companies in the industry. And Rob, uh that’s where Rob and I have a commonality as well. He’s a sponsor of our upcoming summer growth summit which is now in August, and so I’ll be seeing Rob in person. Listen to this podcast and you’re going to learn common errors he sees, common opportunities he sees, some common best practices according to him and his team.

We’re going to discuss AI as well and its impact on marketing, content marketing versus Google. And so if marketing and lead generation is at all important to you, then please listen to this podcast. If you want to learn more about our peer group community for you as a business owner, go to jeffrescott.biz. You can go to the leaders edge peer group page, and you’ll see testimonials and learn quite a bit and you can apply for membership from that page. Okay, we’re bringing Rob on. Hold on to your seats, take notes. Here we go. Hey Rob.

Jeffrey Scott:

Rob Murray that is. Welcome to our podcast.

Rob Murray:

Thank you Jeffrey Scott. Very happy to be here.

Jeffrey Scott:

Rob runs a successful marketing firm covering all of North America. Rob, tell us about it.

Rob Murray:

For sure. So, Intrigue Media, uh, like you said, we do cover all North America. We focus in laser focused on the landscape entrepreneur. Um, essentially, we’re trying to raise the standard, you know, kind of create the gold standard, if you will, of of marketing that entrepreneurs can trust to grow their landscape businesses. Um, so yeah, we’re just chomping away at making our dent to make that better. Now, some marketing firms are small. It’s a couple people, blah, blah, blah.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yours is fairly large in comparison. Is that right?

Rob Murray:

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, there’s probably bigger ones. I mean, we’re about 30 uh full-time here when we when we get busy. Uh, you know, you’re uh in the landscape industry, you understand more than most. The planning season’s kind of our busy season. So, when we crank up, we’re probably like 36/37 folks.

Jeffrey Scott:

So, how did you give us the quick history? How did you get into this?

Rob Murray:

Sure. So, I’ll try to keep the super short, but long story short, uh, my business partner, Paul Demarco, came to me uh, in the summer of 2006 and said, “Hey, uh, I got this idea to put TVs up between mirrors at hair salons and then we can sell ads to local businesses in a to a captive audience while they’re getting their haircut.” And I thought that was a pretty cool idea. So, um, we sourced the TV randomly and then we walked around downtown G where we are located. We were going to school and just what brought this TV and asked all these businesses, hey, if we put this up at the University Center, would you want to advertise on it? Feedback was really strong. Um, somehow we got it installed at the hair salon, but people wanted the university traffic, not just the haircuts. So, we put it on a swivel and pointed it out to the University Center, the the UC. Uh, and then we sold ads for 50 bucks a month, no contracts. Um, and as we started doing that, it was supposed to be just for, you know, helping pay tuition. It was not meant to be a full-time gig. Um, more and more customers said, you know, they we should put TVs up in different spots and that they would they should put TVs up in their spot. And so, we uh ended up using Future Shop to buy all of our equipment. And one day we walked in and there was a a little kiosk like a self-s served uh credit card kiosk and it said uh apply now for a 90-day no interest no payment credit card. Um so we did that and whatever 8 minutes later we got a $2,500 credit card with no interest no payments for 90 days. So essentially what we did is we said okay and at that time it cost about $2,300 to buy a TV, a mount, a computer, and all the cables to install. Um, so we would buy a unit and we had 90 days to sell $2,500 worth of advertising to pay it off. And so we did that 13 times over. Um, and then in our first year we our plan was to do 8K in revenue. We ended up doing 60. The second year was to do the same. We ended up doing 100. Um, and then we we sold a third of the business to an investment firm that I got actively involved from a management point of view. Um, and then we put that business model into three other cities. We franchised it. Um, and then in 2011, 2012, we got we had so we had maybe a 100 TVs, we had 200 customers, and people just kept asking us, “Hey, do you guys build websites?” And we’re like, “No.” And then they’re like, “How do we get to the top Google?” We don’t know. Uh, what’s this Facebook thing all about? Like, I don’t know. But they kept asking cuz all the people that were helping them do it either didn’t show up or they got busy. My nephew is graduated school. And so we got pulled into online marketing from our customer base. And I remember the the first day I came back to the office and said to Paul, he’s like, “How’s your day?” I was like, “Good. I saw the website.” And we had to figure it out. Um, we did that for like another seven years. And then we started to get a bit more focused in on like strategy and looking internally and like where are we bringing the most value, where are we making the most money, where our customers the happiest, where’s the team doing the best work. So we started to narrow on home improvement and construction. We were a local business. We were kind of a jack of all, master of none. Um, and we started focusing on home improvement construction, which includes but not limited to interior renovation, exterior landscaping, um, pools, roofing, HVAC,  flooring. And then COVID hit and everybody got introduced to this wonderful world of Zoom and we realized we had an opportunity to maybe extend our our service area, but then also go more focused. So, we decided to vertically niche uh in landscaping and we went to our first show. Um it was the first Elevate, but it was still tied to Equip um or GIE at the time. That’s actually the first time I had a chance to see you speak was uh was in Louisville. Yeah. And we realized very quickly that our people were in the room. Um we’ve niched into other areas. We did credit unions, insurance, we tried HVAC and just the it wasn’t the same vibe in terms of the way people rolled in from an entrepreneurial perspective. The openness of the um industry, everybody’s willing to share and help each other even if they’re local competitors. The work hard, play hard attitude, it all just fit and and so for the last 5 years, we’ve been solely focused on helping landscape entrepreneurs.

Jeffrey Scott:

I got to tell you, Rob, I love that story for multiple reasons. So, you’re in marketing, but you’re also an entrepreneur and you’ve built a business from the ground up and you’ve had to pivot. I heard at least two pivots there, probably three, maybe four. Which is what—that’s how a real business is built, through those pivots. And so that tells me that you really understand your clients well from what they’re going through because you and your partners have literally gone through that same journey.

Rob Murray:
I appreciate the comment, Jeffrey. Um, a lot of the So, we’re about to publish a zero to 1 million roadmap for landscape entrepreneurs because a lot of times people come to us when they’re at 200,000 400,000 revenue and they’re like, “Okay, what should I do for marketing?” I’m like, “Don’t go sell. like get involved in your community. And we because we did that like we we got involved in all sorts of community initiatives, sat on boards, went to fundraising dinners, got to meet the community and were actively involved in lots. Yeah. We had six, seven people constantly out uh you know 2, three days a week going to all the different networking events whether it’s a BNI or a chamber of commerce, whatever. Um and and then you know there’s simple basics like wrapping your car well or your truck in this case. Um and so yeah, you’re right. I mean we have built it up and you know we’re about a $5 million company now. So it’s not like we’re the the biggest business in the world but to go from zero to 5 million. There’s definitely some lessons that we can share uh along the way.

Jeffrey Scott:
Yeah. I’m just saying you understand the internal you know you just understand the psyche of an entrepreneur because you guys are one. You’re not just a a marketing guy who’s good at marketing. You really know it.

Rob Murray:

That’s fair.

Jeffrey Scott:

It’s good. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh let’s talk about some of the common issues you’re seeing. I mean, I know that there’s people out there that, you know, there’s different people listening right to to this podcast. Those that are interested in marketing, but you know, they they’re not sure how to do it or they see it as voodoo or I don’t even know. But for the beginners, there’s others that are doing it and they they’re they’re doing parts of it and they don’t really they’re trying to understand how to how do I get more out of this marketing thing and and there’s probably some listening that have dialed it in and doing well and they’re like hoping to pick up a tip or two and so where where do you want to kick off here?

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Well, we can kind of go through um each phase like we hear it a lot like and quote unquote the voodoo like I’ve heard people say those words in the last 6 months, you know, more than five times and there there is a bit of like a I don’t understand what’s happening um when I pay to do this thing. And so what what I wanted to do if we can quick is I’ll just simply break down marketing done well. Um and then we can talk maybe a bit more about like how to get more out of it and then maybe give a tip or two to the advanced. So the the first thing about what marketing is, I mean really it’s about just getting in front of the right people to let them know that you exist to start. And there’s a lot of different ways to do that. Like I referred to before, there are active things that you can do in your own community. be involved at your country club, be on boards, be involved. Like, go to fundraisers, help with community initiatives, do a community garden, you name it, wrap your trucks, put signs on the, you know, properties you do jobs for, um, so on and so forth.

Uh, but when it comes to online marketing, um, it’s it’s it’s about doing the same thingish, um, about people. And a lot of things a lot of times people forget that at the end of the day, it’s all about human interaction. And so if you look at marketing, we kind of do it in three, it’s three simple steps. So the first one is where are the people online. The second one is where do you want them to go your website? And the last one is how do you measure it all? Um and so it’s just if we just try to break it into those three pieces. Um and we say, okay, well the first thing is, well, where are they? Well, they’re all over Instagram. That’s hopefully not news for people. Um they’re also on Tik Tok. I just don’t know if it’s a good place to spend money because I haven’t seen it work very well for this type of business. Um, they’re on Google, they search for things when they’re trying to learn, when they’re trying to be inspired, when they’re trying to buy. Um, some people are even on Pinterest trying to find inspiration for what they might do with their with their space.

Yeah. Um, a lot more people every day are on Chat GPT. And so if we if we just look at this simply about lots of people are on ChatGpt, lots of people on Instagram, lots of people are on Google. Well, then when they’re using those tools, how do we get you to show up? And and so there there’s a it can get pretty complicated, but I’m going to keep it as simple as possible. Yeah. Um when we look at marketing, it’s like a bullseye out. And so the the dead center, the red dot on a dart board is your website. So we got to make sure it’s kickass. And what does that mean? It means well, it’s going to be high rich in imagery. It’s going to have people understand your process. There’s going to be c customer testimonials. There’s going to be social proof that you’re part of associations, your accredited business. Um, you’re going to have uh the different services that you do so people can easily find what they’re looking for. Um, it’s going to be easy to reach out. Um, hopefully you have some sort of resources, some blogs, articles, maybe even a downloadable resource on how to uh design your space or how to make a good decision when hiring a contractor, whatever it might be.

And we’ll get back to that in a second. But then you go back to this. Okay, there’s Google, there’s Instagram, there’s chatbt. Um, and when we’re starting out a budget, the second ring out from your website is search. And the reason we go after search is because usually they’re high intent. They’re they’re ready to buy. So they’re I’m looking for a landscape contractor. So that’s like a a very high value keyword or a landscape design build company or landscape design company. Those searches are high intent. So it means that the people searching for them are likely to buy. So then how do we make it so that you show up when people search that stuff in your area? Well, Google Ads is pretty simple approach. Now, there’s different ways to do it well and ways to do it poorly. You can do it on your own. It may or may not work, but we have a playbook that we run for about 100 landscape companies to make it so that when people are looking for high intent searches, they find you, they click on your ad, they go to your website, they see what they’re looking for, and they inquire.

Instagram is the same thing. It’s more of a display based. So, I’m going to put stuff in front of people based on um interests and demographics. We can also use audiences of people that have been to your website or people that are on your email list or people that look like people that have been to your website and people that look like they’ve been on your email list. So, there’s a way to get in front of those folks. Um, Chat GBT is similar like Google. Um, it cruises the internet and if you look at chatbt and how it searches, it looks for things that are on like Reddit. It also uses Yelp, uses Better Business Bureau. So if you see how uh chat serves information based on the sources, well then we just need to get you on those sources which is by submitting new information.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah. Well, it’s happening right now. Well, I don’t I never thought about that you should be on Reddit.

Rob Murray:

I know.

Jeffrey Scott:

Uh or Yelp.

Rob Murray:

Oh my god.

Jeffrey Scott:

I know. Uh but yeah, that makes perfect sense. You know, when you use chat, it tells you the sources it’s looking at.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Okay. And so we study those um a lot because it’s coming in in a big way. Like chat as of January had 6% of search search share. Yeah. Um that’s like a 4% increase from a year ago. And the only thing that’s ever taken search share away from Google since they’ve existed. So I don’t think it’s going to be shocking, but it’s not going to go anywhere.

So anyway, we’ve got this idea of getting in front of people. So we want to get in front of people. We bring them to a website, kickass website. And then we got to uh measure it. We have a sales and lead tracking tool. Uh it’s also called what converts. This is a big deal. It’s an attribution software. So you put it on your website and we can do it for anybody. If you want, you can do it yourself. Um but it tells you how somebody got to your website. Did it come from Google organic? Did it come from chatbt? Did it come from Google paid ads? Did it come from Instagram? Did it come from email? And then did they inquire? Was it a phone call? Was it a form submission? Did it turn into a quote? Did it turn into a sale? And this system really just gets rid of the the argument or conversation of marketing generates leads. Uh that’s what sales people say. And marketing says, well, sales people can’t close deals.

Jeffrey Scott:

And so, yeah. And the other thing is like I’m spending money. I don’t know what’s working. by the way. Okay, that’s also true. But you you I think you really nailed it. I’ve worked with some marketing firms before or interacted with them on my client’s behalfs and you know, they want they don’t want the marketing company to do any screening at all. I’m sorry. They don’t want the the landscape company to do any screening at all. You’re ruining all my good leads. And the landscape company’s like, “These aren’t all good leads. We have to screen.”

Rob Murray:

Yeah. And and so that’s that’s the other thing too about, you know, how to get more out of it. So graduating from the hey, what is all this stuff, which we’ve covered a little bit, into how do I get more out of it? Um the goal between the person that’s running the company and the marketing team, agency, coordinator, whether it’s in-house or or outsourced, whatever. If if you want leads, then that should be the goal. And when you start to focus on leads as the goal, you start to get good at understanding how much it costs to generate a lead and what your lead to quality lead or quote lead to quote ratio becomes. And so when we start working with people, we tell them it’s going to be a 5 to one. So five leads for one quote in the first year. And then it’s going to take five quotes to get one customer.

Jeffrey Scott:

So, it’s going to take 25 leads to get you a customer. So, that’s quotes without a design.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Well, we we would consider a paid design um as as a customer.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. So, so the the quotable or qualified lead would be somebody you’re willing to go to their house.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. At some level. So, then if you if you backtrack it though and you say, “Okay, it’s going to cost me $300 to get a lead in my first year and it’s going to take 25 leads. It’s going to cost me $7,500 to buy a customer. Now, if you’re doing a average deal of $80,000 for a construction project and your gross margin is 40%. Just, you know, roughly.”

Jeffrey Scott:

Yep.

Rob Murray:

Well, then you’re making 32 grand in gross margin and it cost you $7,500 to generate it. That’s decent math. You know, you’re looking you’re looking at a three uh or four almost 4:1 uh it is 4 to one uh return on investment in gross margin.

Jeffrey Scott:

So when I watch Shark Tank and they say CAC and ROAS is cost of customer that’s that 7500.

Rob Murray:

No that well yeah 7500 customer acquisition cost. Exactly. Yes.

Jeffrey Scott:
And the ROAS is 4 to1.

Rob Murray:
Well ROAS is return on ad spend. So in this case if you’re doing it straight to ads and you’re not paying anybody service fees then you’re right. Yeah. But if you add service fees in like if you hire someone like us then the rorowaz is going to be a little bit skewed.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yep.

Rob Murray:

Okay. Yeah. But you nailed it. Okay. And so then but this all comes down to like once you understand your ratios, how many lead so what’s it cost to get a lead? How many leads does it take to get a quote? How many quotes it takes to get to a customer? Well, now you can optimize. And this is this parlays into that last piece we were talking about before we started recording, which is the idea of a long-term mindset. A lot of people come to us with a now mindset.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah.

Rob Murray:

I want to invest 50K now and I want $200,000 out of it now or the next 8 to 12 months. And it’s like, yes, I I agree. That would be great. Now, if we could guarantee that type of stuff, and we have guarantees in place, but there’s work for the client that has to be done in order for it to work properly, there’s just so many foundational components that need to be addressed.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah, I love it. Well, here’s a question, and sorry, tell me if I’m interrupting your—

Rob Murray:

No, you’re good.

Jeffrey Scott:

—your train of thought here, but um what is there an ideal and what’s the ideal mix? Like, I’m a believer that you shouldn’t just get your leads from one source or prong, you know, or pillar, whatever you want to call it, for multiple reasons, but let’s just assume we agree on that. Is there a ideal mix like paid search should be x% and you know content marketing should be x percent and uh trade shows or uh I don’t know sponsoring local things should be x% do you guys have any kind of framework on that?

Rob Murray:

Yeah for sure um the and it depends on the capacity of the business so the this kind of goes back to this bullseye approach Right? So, if I have, let’s just say, for example, $5,000 to spend, that’s all on marketing for 2025 or 2026, what do I do? My recommendation would be if you haven’t wrapped your truck, do that. If you have wrapped your truck, get a membership into your Golf Country Club. Like, a lot of people like figure out who you want to work with and then go hang out where they hang out and spend money to go hang out with them.

Jeffrey Scott:

I like that you’re saying that because it proves that you’re talking about what’s in the best interest of your client because you guys don’t make any money on that. No golf membership.

Rob Murray:

No, we don’t. I might be able to go golfing with them, but that’s about it. Uh but it but it’s what that’s the that’s where relationships are formed with high value customers. Like I’d be on the board for a local hospital cuz then I’d go to the the fundraising dinners because you’re going to get the, you know, the cream of the crop when it comes to people that are community-minded, connected, wealthy. So that stuff is the most important out of the gate.

Once you once you’ve got that and you’re growing, now you’re over a million, a million, five, two million, whatever. Now you’ve got spend. So you know, I would look at like a a starting point would be 2% for online marketing. So 2% of revenue after a million dollars.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah.

Rob Murray:

So as much as if people listening is under millions, it’s like it’s on you to get to a million. It’s not on a company to help you get to a million dollars. That’s just I don’t think that’s a good spend of money. There are some exceptions, but it’s not the rule, it’s the exception.

Jeffrey Scott:

I like that.

Rob Murray:

Um, and so then once you get there, then it’s okay. Number one thing is we got to get a website. Number two, we got to get Google reviews. Number three, we got to get found on search. Number four, now we can start to layer up and come outside the bullseye into content marketing. Content marketing can do a lot of things for you. Um, especially if you’re a bit more advanced or a bit larger of a business because then we can start to capture, and this is the big thing. We talked a little bit about this before, about how a lot of folks that are making big investments in say a landscape renovation think about it for a year or two. And so content marketing can be a really great way to help people find ideas or solutions to problems before they’re actually ready to inquire.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Murray:

And we and we hear this a lot where someone will um you know Google something like you know landscape design ideas. They can they’ll find a company that’s local that’s got you know a cool blog about the topic. Then they follow them on Instagram for like a year and then they say things like I’ve been following you on Instagram for a year. I want to reach out and talk to Dave because I love the videos he does.

So that’s where content marketing can really come to life. Content marketing, just so that we’re clear, is about writing articles that are educational and helpful, producing videos that are educational and helpful.

Jeffrey Scott:
Um, one of the things, do you help your clients do that?

Rob Murray:

Yeah, for sure. When it comes to filming, depending where they are in North America, we usually help them find somebody if they don’t know somebody. Uh, but we definitely help them understand like the direction that it needs to go. Yeah. Um, Google’s search rules. If you ever want to have a nap, you can just Google the Google search rules and and it’s pretty long, but Cole’s notes is it serves up content to help people make decisions. So, if you’re being helpful to like a lot of people forget with a curse of knowledge that they do this day in and day out. So, when it comes to running crews and and sculpting, you know, the environment, uh, but when it’s a homeowner, they only do it once, maybe twice in their life. So, they’re not informed to make a good decision.

There’s a good chance they’re going to hire somebody cheap, they’re not going to show up, they’re going to do a bad job, whatever. So, that’s the enemy. How can you help them avoid that and then put your arms around them and help them make a good decision to hire you?

Jeffrey Scott:

It’s interesting you said that because back when I ran and co-ran my family’s pool and landscape business, we found that our best clients really were not firsttime buyers. They were second or third time. And you know, we worked for the super wealthy. And you have to think about it. They bought their first house in their whatever it is, 20s, 30s, their second house. by the time they’re onto their whatever second, third, fourth house, somewhere in there. Um, but not their first house, uh, is when they wanted to invest with us and it’s multiple hundreds of thousands. And so if somebody called us up and they’re a first-time buyer, we, you know, we we were not, it wasn’t a good lead, basically.

Rob Murray:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Scott:

Which is fine because then you know what your niche is, right?

Rob Murray:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Scott:

Because they don’t know. Oh, a first-time buyer doesn’t has all the wrong assumptions.

Rob Murray:

Right. Well, and they don’t understand why things are more expensive. And once they get something that falls apart and looks shitty or is wobbly when they step on it, then they realize, oh, there is craftsmanship associated to this.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Pain creates behavior change though, right?

Jeffrey Scott:

Absolutely does.

Jeffrey Scott:

I had a really good client. He’s a longtime client. He was a client. He left, tried other things, and then came back and has been super successful since he returned. Uh Barry Schneider from Surrounds in the DC area. And he has a re he has a he’s gotten very good at marketing and he has a comprehensive mix of approaches and content marketing like you’re speaking about is part of what he does. And I forget the timeline, but he said, “Oh, it takes a while to work for you.” And by It was over, you know, I think it was I think he was counting years or certainly yeah certainly more than 12 months uh or eight nine months to to really take impact but he’s been doing it for a long time and it’s and it’s got it’s really uh layered in and been highly effective for him. And so what is the timeline a new client should think about when they’re investing with you?

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, if you’re if you’re a $5 million business with 50 plus Google reviews and you’ve been doing marketing and advertising and been involved in your community, like we’re we’re going to be able to get you a good return in 12 months. The the content marketing though, we don’t we wouldn’t layer in until year two. So, if you have a budget where you know 2% of 3% represents $100,000, uh we would probably have a little bit of um content that’s going to be part of it because it’s going to help support getting found online. So, search engine optimization as well as being able to provide value through social media and email. Uh, but once you go over 100K, then that’s where it becomes like a good core focus.

But content marketing, like if you we look at cost per lead or cost per qualified lead as a main metric for us up to 100K, it’s tough to make it more effective by putting more budget towards content marketing because there’s so many people looking for things. they’re already searching for what you do and you don’t tap that budget out trying to find that pool of people. Um, in some cases, I mean, maybe it’s not quite there, but that gives you an idea.

And so, and then when we’re finding people that are looking for content now or looking for a a resource now, um, then ROI happens within 12 months. You know, you might have somebody inquire in the fall, they end up doing a job the next spring, so it’s like an 18-month kind of bleed over, but that gives you an idea.

The the thing though that you’re referring to which I think is a huge opportunity for a lot of people because a lot of people don’t do it is content marketing. I would say it’s like you know one to three years because it takes that long sometimes for someone to actually decide they want to do it. They thinking about they’ve been thinking about doing a project and now they’ve come into your ecosystem. Maybe you’re using some advanced marketing through pixels and uh retargeting and they’re you’re following them around the internet so they don’t lose sight of you.

Um and then helping them with here’s how to make a good decision. Here’s what to think about when designing your backyard. Um is it for friends and family? Are you trying to build a you know an oasis for yourself to be quiet? Like here’s a here’s the top 10 questions you should answer before you know making a decision on how you want to design it so you can think about it. Um, you can also use chatbt like crazy and you can actually give people prompts. Be like, “Hey, use this prompt in chatbt and and and run through it with it to see what might be the best approach for your landscape project.”

The more I help you, the more we build a relationship cuz I’m gaining trust and I’m just trying to help.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah. I think the more people figure that out, the better everybody will do. You said something that I had not thought of, which is but it’s super obvious now that you said it. One of the reasons content marketing takes so long is you’re trying to actually it you may actually get in touch with the person sooner, but they’re so early on in the buying process that that’s why it takes long to have an impact. I mean that’s like duh now that you’ve said it, but I hadn’t thought of it that way. And uh that makes perfect sense.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Well, and it also takes a while for all your content to be indexed properly. Um, you know, a lot of there’s two audiences on the internet. One are the humans, which we’ve talked about extensively. The other one are the robots, and you could almost argue the robots are more important because they decide what to serve to the humans. Um, it takes a while for the robots to know that you’re legit.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so that was the reason I was thinking, but you gave the the human aspect to it, and I’m like, “Oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense.”

Rob Murray:

Well, and and the thing is like only 3% of any given market is ready to buy. So out of a 100 people, 97 people are thinking about making a purchase at some point but haven’t decided to do it yet. And a lot of people, the vast majority of businesses we work with before working with us focus on the 3%. So you’ve got a lot of people going after a very small um part of a market. And so we simplify the whole idea of a buying process into three steps. And you might have heard this before, but it’s like tofu, mofu, and bofu. So there’s top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel.

Top of funnel is someone has a problem. Um my kids are on iPad too much. My backyard’s boring. Uh no one’s outside or my my house is so nice and my backyard just is hor my property looks brutal compared to what I’ve just done to my house or I’ve just moved in and this is not what I want. I got the house I want but the property anyway there’s a bunch of problems or it’s there’s a giant puddle that just happens every spring. What’s up with that? So, they’re trying they they realize they have a problem. That’s the top of the funnel.

The middle of the funnel is people like, “Okay, what do I do about this puddle? Do I fix it myself? Do I hire somebody? Is it a drainage problem? Do I have a like a is there a pond there I need to just dig out? Like, I don’t even know what’s going on. Um, my boring my backyard’s boring. What What are like fun entertainment ideas for my backyard for kids between 5 and 10?” So, they’re looking for solutions to their problem. And this is where content can be really helpful cuz if they find you and they build a relationship with you when they’re in the solution, you know, finding should I hire somebody, do it myself, then you’re building a relationship before they’re ready to reach out.

And then the bottom of the funnel is, hey, get a quote, talk to us, hire us because we do things differently. This is how we do it. Listen to all the customers talk about it.

Jeffrey Scott:

Okay. So that 3% you mentioned, that’s just at the very bottom of the funnel.

Rob Murray:

You got it.

Jeffrey Scott:

Okay. So if we take a longer term approach, we’re going to try to target the top, the middle, and the bottom.

Rob Murray:

Yeah, exactly. We could relate it to, you know, our business at Intrigue or, you know, your business as a a coach and and peer group facilitator. I know from conversations many people are thinking about joining your groups, but they’re not ready for whatever reason. you know, um maybe they need to get their own way, but there there’s probably a bunch of content uh we could do to help these people understand the value of a coach, a peer group.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. Um how isolating it feels to be on your own. like there’s all these all these pieces and you’ll see if you follow our uh Instagram feed or if you’re on our email list, we’re giving out value as everywhere we possibly can cuz we know that like our best customers even if they knew how to do everything we do and we we do we give away our playbook completely. Yeah. Eventually they’re just like, “Oh, can you just do this for me please?” Like, “Yeah, of course we can.”

Jeffrey Scott:

Do you have an ideal target client? like who listening now is in your—well, however you want to define it.

Rob Murray:

Yeah. I mean, our our our ideal like uh we call a client is 3 to 7 million. They want to go 10 plus. Um they’ve done some marketing. They’re not that happy with it. They’re typically focused on residential design, building, and maintenance. um and they just they want to improve what’s what’s going on or they haven’t done it at all and don’t understand what to do but kind of know they need to. But I’d say 3 to 7 to 10 plus is kind of like our our wheelhouse.

If you’re under a million, you’re listening to this, by the time this gets published, we’ll have the 0 to a million roadmap. It’s going to be completely free. We’re going to do everything we can for these folks to get them over a million. Then hopefully they end up working with us. But um the three to seven is kind of like that’s our our core. And then 10 plus, they’re just delightful to work with because they usually have a mindset of like trusting professionals to help. They listen well. They don’t micromanage too much. They usually have a coordinator or somebody on staff that can be a quarterback. So, they’re awesome. Uh, but 3 to 7 is our core.

Jeffrey Scott:

Okay. Do you have a uh We’re going to get close to wrapping up here.

Rob Murray:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah. any uh and I’m gonna ask you to like share a couple tips like we said at the beginning that you would but how should people get in touch with you?

Rob Murray:

Uh well, intermediate intermedia.com under resources, there’s all sorts of, you know, there’s our podcast, the IM landscape growth podcast. There’s a bunch of guides you can download for free. Um and you can book a call with anybody on our team. Uh LinkedIn’s probably the best for me at this point. So, it’s just Robert Murray. You’ll find me on LinkedIn. Uh I think that’s probably the best. Okay. A couple different ways.

Jeffrey Scott:

Excellent. So give us a uh a nugget or two uh that somebody on the larger side size may not have thought of or that you’ve uncovered recently or—

Rob Murray:

Yeah, sure. Um, I’d say if if if you’re on the advanced side, um, and marketing’s working, then I I think that goes back to what you were saying earlier about your sales process. Um, we’ve probably spoken to 5,000 plus landscape entrepreneurs and very few themselves have been professionally sales trained, let alone their team. Um, so enrolling in a sales training program is massively helpful. uh whether it’s a Sandler training or I don’t I don’t know what school you want to go even if it’s having everybody read spin whatever it might be having the team study and learn sales is a super important part and this is where I was saying before like and so theory of constraints you’re are you familiar with uh The Goal, I don’t know if you’ve read that one—

Jeffrey Scott:

I’m familiar with it I haven’t read it yet.

Rob Murray:

Anyway really cool parable um that goes through in real life situation the theory of constraints. But if we look at uh a business in different components from lead generation to sales and onboarding to fulfillment, ongoing services. So you look at like there’s four components. You we got to get people to talk to us. We got to close deals. We got to do the work. We got to keep billing these people for life ideally. where is the constraint right now like in in someone’s business where is it being held back and and you know at sometimes you know during co it was the fulfillment like we didn’t have enough people to do the work we were getting our doors blown off we didn’t even put a dollar in marketing so we had a we had an issue with fulfilling work for the most part that’s not quite the same anymore so typically the bottleneck is getting people to talk to you or closing the deals of the people that are talking to you or figuring out how to get them to be a customer for life.

So, if you if you look at it like, okay, what what’s holding us back? Um, leads, I mean, you can you can hire more you can hire someone like us, get more Google reviews, you can spread out how you’re getting in front of people, you can be more involved with your community, but that getting people to do the deal, that sales is typically where we see the bottleneck. Um, and so if that is the the thing holding back your business, then investing there, whether it’s through CRM automation so that you’re contacting people quickly and frequently, you know, we call it play persistence or if it’s sales training, I think that could be a big deal for for someone looking to gain an edge.

Jeffrey Scott:

Gotcha. So that really that part of the—Okay, I like that. I like that.

Rob Murray:

And then and then straight up on the marketing side, uh backlinks are just like one of the biggest levers that you can pull on in order to get ranking. And a lot of people don’t focus on it. Few do. Um and so paying for a high quality backlink on a strong domain, so a website that has a domain authority of 50 plus um is worth its weight and gold. And you if you could do one a month for anywhere between $500 to $1,000 um you know in 2 or 3 years you end up with like 36 to 40. You’ll be kicking people’s butts. It’ll help you rank for everything. Your Google ads will perform better. Your local search will perform better. You’ll show up in chatbt better. Like that’s that’s a big deal.

Jeffrey Scott:

What what is your domain authority of your website?

Rob Murray:

Last time I checked it was 28.

Jeffrey Scott:

What’s it going to take to get it up to 50?

Rob Murray:

We’re working on it. probably probably another 50k. Uh but that’s okay. Just but that’s that’s the long-term approach though. Like take the time. You don’t need to blow your brains out today. You’re less reliant on people googling for you. You do more getting in front of contractors.

Jeffrey Scott:

I assuming 100%.

Rob Murray:

Now we we have a huge content play being rolled out right now. Um, but it’s still getting in front of people. Like we’re pushing information on Instagram. We’re going to put display information in front of people. The search volume for our business is quite—

Jeffrey Scott:

Yeah.

Rob Murray:

But for the typical contractor, it’s much more important.

Jeffrey Scott:

Yes. Totally agreed. Totally agreed. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Excellent. This is good. Any final thoughts you want to leave us with

Rob Murray:

No, I appreciate you guys. Um our our whole goal is to make it better. Like we’ve always wanted to serve the entrepreneur. That’s kind of why we exist. Um and we found out very quickly that there’s a lot of snake oil. A lot of people selling crap. Um and the entrepreneurs don’t get a lot of support in terms of like service professionalism of the vendors. Um and that’s not true for everybody, but it is pretty consistent. And so we’re just going to do our best to treat people right.

Jeffrey Scott:

Excellent, Rob. Really appreciate you, man.

Rob Murray:

Thanks Jeffrey Scott. Appreciate it.