Is Word-of-Mouth Obsolete? Modern Marketing Strategies for Contractors with Robert Murray

Derek:

Welcome to another great episode of the Contractor Business Builder podcast. We have the honor of hosting Robert Murray, the CEO and co-founder of Intrigue Media. How are you doing today, Rob?

Rob:

Very well. Thank you so much, Derek, for having me on. Pumped to do this.

Derek:

Right on, me too. So, can you tell us who you are, what you do, and, uh, what’s the idea behind Intrigue Media?

Rob:

Yeah, for sure. Intrigue Media has been around since 2007. We started in digital out-of-home homes. We put up flat screens in high-traffic consumer environments to help be an alternative ad medium to, say, the local—what used to be—newspapers and radio stations.

We got dragged into online marketing in 2011 by all of our customers because they had a hard time getting access to or building websites, getting to the top of Google, and figuring out how to use social media. Then, in 2018, we started focusing on home improvement and construction services. We’ve niched even more narrowly into landscaping specifically, but we have probably 130 clients—of which, say, 50 are in home improvement and construction services.

Um, and so we focus on lead generation for entrepreneurs, typically between $3 and $7 million in revenue, that are going after high-end residential customers.

Derek:

Very cool. Yeah, so you’ve been around the block. You’ve gone through this process with a lot of contractors. You know what works and what doesn’t work. I think word of mouth is always the big thing for contractors—and referrals and everything like that—and definitely any business doing, you know, multiple millions in revenue is going to have some sort of social media or strategy and something like that.

But what’s, like, the important aspect of embracing it for businesses? Like, when they come to you and maybe they’re at $3 million and want to get to $10 million—what’s the important mindset? Or how do they need to approach that in order to grow through social media marketing—or, sorry, online digital marketing?

Rob:

Yeah, that’s cool—and a great question. So, first and foremost, the mindset, to your question, is people often overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade.

And so, very few people take a long-term approach to trying to build something that’s going to be sustainable and predictable. A lot of people, when they come looking for marketing help, they want to know results now. And the thing is—it’s doable, it’s just expensive. Like, if I could give you results now cheaply, more people would do it. To make it more expensive—that’s just Porter’s Five Forces. If there’s profits to be made in a marketplace, more people will enter the marketplace.

And a lot of people don’t understand the economics of marketing. What I mean by that is: the value of the job is correlated to the cost to get the lead. So, the more valuable the job, the more expensive the lead is to get. And it’s supply and demand. There are fewer people looking for $250,000 projects, and there’s more competition going after them. So, competition is high, supply is low—then the price goes up.

There are some fundamental economics that apply to marketing that a lot of people don’t consider. And so the first thing is: if you build it properly—and people in building should appreciate this kind of approach—if you want to go high, you’ve got to go wide and deep. If you’re going to build anything of substance that’s going to be a large building, you need to have a strong foundation.

And that’s the most important component. Foundations, when it comes to sales and marketing, are going to be a kick-ass website and a solid attribution/reporting piece with a CRM. That is the most important component for anybody to have in place properly.

One of the things you said about word of mouth, which is really interesting—we did a bunch of research on how people find companies. Without a doubt, word of mouth is number one for construction businesses, especially under $5 million. And it’s still a massive driving force for people over $10 million.

The interesting thing about a buyer journey when it comes to word of mouth is they say, “Hey Derek, neighbor—I love what they did to your place. Who did the work?” And you’re like, “Rob, it was these awesome XYZ Construction guys. You should check them out.” And I’m like, “Cool, I will.” So I Google them.

The first thing I see is their Google Reviews and Google Business profile. The second thing I see is their website. The third thing I see is their social media. So even word of mouth is going to validate the referral online.

Very, very few—if ever—does a word of mouth referral come via a third-party introduction. Like Derek says, “Hey Rob, XYZ Construction did my stuff. Let me send an email introducing you so you guys can connect.” That doesn’t happen often, if ever. So you just have to recognize the path people take to find you.

And the reason I say this is because word of mouth can overcome a bad website. Word of mouth can overcome no Google reviews—if it’s a raving review and you see the work, the proof is in the pudding. But why put friction in the system?

And then the other thing is—this is technical—but viral coefficient. What’s the propensity of a user to refer? Out of 10 people, how many of them refer? Out of 100, how many of them refer? So what is the viral coefficient? What is your word of mouth coefficient? Do you even know what it is?

A lot of people don’t. That’s fine. But the idea is—if you have a really strong Google Business profile, and you have a really strong website, and you’ve got at least a timely, relevant social media feed—and for the record, I recommend one feed that’s focused, more than many feeds that are haphazardly managed—and for the most part in the world today, I would just focus on Instagram.

You’re going to get more people reaching out that were referred to you—because there’s drop-off from word of mouth. And we just want to limit the drop-off. If we’ve done the good work, we’ve made a great customer relationship, let’s take the friction out of the system.

Have a great Google Business profile, lots of Google Reviews. Have a really great website—designed well, loads super fast, easy to understand what people do, and what they should do when they get there. And have a relevant social media feed that provides value and showcases the work that you do.

This is pretty bare-bones, fundamental stuff—but it can often be ignored because people say, “You know, I don’t spend any money on marketing, and I’ve grown my business.” It’s like, okay, cool—that’s fine. You don’t have to. I’m not suggesting you have to.

I’m just suggesting that if your average deal size is between $50K and $100K, one extra job per year makes a pretty big difference—if you only have to invest, say, $40K or $50K to get all this stuff figured out.

That’s the mindset piece—around the long-term mentality, the economics of marketing, and understanding the buyer paths.

Derek:

Yeah, I love how succinct you were. And really, a few things to unpack there—building consistency, sustainability. I like that thought of, you know, not just looking for a quick win to boost a bunch of jobs now. Because that’s really not what builds great businesses—or long-term businesses.

Looking at getting that foundation, the fundamentals right and in place. And like you said, it’s not complicated. Nice website. Google reviews. One social channel that’s at least somewhat active. Cover your bases, if you will.

And very, very true—where even if you rely on referrals or you do great business and they refer you and word of mouth and stuff like that—those referrals are going to fall flat if they go and your website looks old, outdated, or it’s not representative of the work that you do. If you don’t have any Google reviews—it’s, you know, there’s competition, like you mentioned.

If they ask one person for who did their work, they’re probably asking someone else. So you’re still in a word-of-mouth competitive landscape, if you will. We don’t want to give somebody looking for you a reason to look somewhere else.

And so, if I come to your Google Business profile and see six Google reviews and a 4.1 rating—that’s not a lot. It’s just a little bit of doubt.

So anyway, it’s just the idea of taking friction out of the buying process.

Yeah, so I think that ties in a little bit with trust, right? People will trust the company—the owner, whoever—if they’re more built out online, so to say. How do you look at trust in marketing?

Rob:

Oh, the best way to get trust is just say, “Trust me.”

Derek:

[laughs] Right.

Rob:

So yeah, I think trust is a really interesting point of view. Actually, I just did a session on how to get the most out of your leads over lunch today with a group of about 20 entrepreneurs. And we specifically talked about the idea of developing an environment of trust.

And so, the one thing you can’t do is say, “Trust me,” right? When I say to you, “Trust me,” I elicit emotions that are associated with sleazy car salespeople. And not—anything against car salespeople—they’ve got a bad rap, and it’s for a reason.

I just got a new ride, and man, there were a couple of experiences I was like, “This is stereotypical at its best.”

Anyway, so—Zig Ziglar, if anybody’s heard of him—Derek, you probably have—timeless guy, right? Mentor. And you know, one of the best. To quote Seth Godin: “If people like you, they’ll listen to you. If they trust you, they’ll buy.”

The question then becomes: How do you build trust?

And so, there are a couple of things that we speak to very specifically when it comes to marketing and sales. I’m going to speak more to marketing because that’s just the nature of our podcast—or the interview—today.

People trust people that are like them. And a very easy way to understand how this comes to life—maybe in your own experience, or for people listening to their experience—you travel anywhere in the world and meet somebody that’s from where you grew up. A level of trust increases for no reason outside of the fact that you’re like them, because you grew up near where they grew up.

It’s actually bananas. There’s no reason to trust somebody for that reason—zero. There’s no logical approach to it whatsoever. Trust, however, is built in the Olympic brain. It’s an emotional response.

So how do we build that on purpose?

First and foremost, we use the foundational idea that people trust people like them. And people trust people like them because they understand them. So we need to focus on understanding these people.

When it comes to marketing, how does that come to life? Well, this is where we get into understanding customer profiles. People call them avatars, ideal client profiles (ICPs), personas. There’s a bunch of different names for understanding the client you want to go after.

And so this is where we want to get a bit more focused. We always talk about the idea that the riches are in the niches. The more focused we become, the more we become the choice—not a choice.

However, there’s a lot of opportunity to help understand a customer’s problems better than they do by focusing on one, two, or three [segments] as opposed to everybody.

If you look at a construction business that is a full-service renovation company—meaning they do kitchen, bath, basement, full renos, additions, you name it—either they’re kind of like, they’ve got something for everybody, right? They’re a jack of all, master of none.

If you’ve got something for everybody, by definition, you have something for no one.

And so what we try to do is help people understand how to niche down.

You can niche down on customer type. For example, you could niche down on multi-million dollar income types of people. So we’re talking like CEOs, entrepreneurs, exited, extremely high-net-worth individuals. They might have a very high level of service expectation. They want the best of the best—quality, whatever. There are nuances to that.

We might focus on the busy professional growing their career. We might focus on a number of different customer segments depending on your business.

We could also focus on the type of property we want to work on. So we could focus on suburban neighborhoods. We could focus on estate properties. We could focus on urban environments—so like downtown areas. Those different properties have different issues and challenges that come along with building them. There are different permits, there are different codes, there are different nuances to space, and there’s different equipment that’s required to do the said work.

Then, you can also focus on the exact type of job that you do. So we’ve got: customer type, property type, and the work that you do.

Some people could be kitchen and bath specialists. They could be basement specialists. They could be whole-home renovation. That’s all they do. They only do the whole home. Whatever it might be for that person.

Now, what happens when we start to get more focused is we start to understand—through repetition—the patterns of problems people have before they work with us. And we understand the patterns of solutions that we have to create.

So then we start to say, “Okay, well—like—you live in downtown. Where are you right now?”

Derek:

Myself? In Vancouver.

Rob:

Yeah? So, downtown Vancouver.

Okay, downtown Vancouver has a lot of really interesting issues when it comes to development and building in a downtown Vancouver environment. Not only is it elevated and hilly and weird and tight, but the municipal government is actually really difficult to get building permits from. They’re not necessarily pro-build, right?

So as a construction person, I can say, “Do you live in downtown Vancouver and you want to do a construction or addition project? Well, I’ve got your back. We know all the permits and all the issues.”

We have all the equipment to work on hills. We can get into tight spaces because we’ve done it time and time and time again. We are the downtown Vancouver construction experts.

Now, I go to that website versus the one that says, “I’m a full-service construction company. We do everything for everybody.” Who do I call first with the job that you have or the service that you need?

Exactly.

So, trust is built through demonstrating—which is the key term—demonstrating expertise. If I outline the problems that you have better than the way you’ve outlined them, I build trust. Because you’re like, “Oh, this person gets me. They get my stuff better than I do. I might want to talk to them.”

The other thing is—give value. Understand that we’re in competitive environments. Give away opportunities for people to make better decisions.

If you follow us—Intrigue Media—at any level (Instagram, email, our website, podcast, whatever), we give all of this stuff away for free. Like, everything I’m speaking to you about, Derek, we do for our clients.

If somebody listens to this and does it on their own—all the power to them. If they try it, it doesn’t work, or they’re too busy and want to hire us—great. But we give it all away. And we try to help clients do the same thing.

People doing a renovation project—I’m just speaking in residential terms for the sake of the conversation—they’re making a big decision one time, maybe twice. You do it every single day, all the time. You’re an expert. You know this stuff better than they do.

Help them make a good decision. What should they look for when hiring somebody? How should they read a proposal? What are the top 10 things that should be in every single proposal so they don’t get, you know, the wool pulled over their eyes?

If you can figure out how to bring them value as they’re interacting with your business before they speak to you, you’re going to build trust.

And then the last thing I’ll say about the whole thing is: Google reviews. Google reviews. Google reviews.

A third of all customers should leave you a Google review. The number one reason people don’t leave a Google review is because they weren’t asked. The number one reason they don’t leave one once they’re asked is because they don’t know what to write.

So two things:

• Have a QR code on your phone when you’re on the project. Do the walkthrough. Ask for a Google review immediately.

• Use vocabulary like: “It would mean the world to us to get a Google review so that we can help somebody else like we helped you.” It’s very powerful vocabulary.

The next piece is: if you’re going to do it via email, then just send a link—directly to your Google reviews—and just say this simple:

“Please answer these three questions in your Google review: What service did we do for you? What city do you live in? What did you like about working with our company?”

It’s easier for a person to answer a question than it is to just write a review.

So again, there’s a common denominator in our approach: take the friction out of the thing that you want to have happen—whether it’s them buying from you, or them giving you a Google review.

If all else is equal—one person’s got 20, and one person’s got 80 Google reviews—who do I talk to first?

Derek:

Yeah, I love that. Lot of depth there on trust, and actual tips and ways to go about it. So, very cool.

I love how you touched on niche. I think niche, for a lot of contractors, is hard to define. And it’s probably something they’ve heard about, but the mindset clicking of, “This will actually help you grow and remove roadblocks,” not limit the amount of people you get—it’s a little bit scary for some people.

Rob:

Like, if they’ve been the jack-of-all-trades, or they kind of do everything for anybody. But your marketing gets easier. Your sales get easier. And your operations, on the system side, get much easier—because now you’ve got a standard type of client.

And it’s a lot easier to provide amazing services to a specific person, area, location, service—whatever—than doing something for this guy, another thing for that person, then you’ve got a family over here or whatever. And you’re just retooling, retraining, redoing everything.

Every customer is a Rubik’s Cube job. And then, in this case, every customer is like a coat hanger. You’re just manufacturing coat hangers—and it’s way easier to be profitable manufacturing the same thing over and over again.

Derek:

For sure. So, what are some common mistakes you see contractors making with their marketing? What’s some common mistakes that you see over and over again?

Rob:

Well, I mean, the biggest thing—and this is like one step before the niche thing—is they’re always company-focused and solution-oriented.

“This is who we are. This is what we do. This is how we do it. This is how many years we’ve been in business. This is our team. This is our communication. This is the services we provide.”

And it sounds crass, but no one cares about you. Customers care only about one of two things: accomplishing goals or solving problems.

So if we can address that and become customer-focused and problem-oriented, we can get a lot further with helping people inquire.

And that’s where the niche comes into play.

The other thing about niching—because if we understand—it’s difficult to build content on a website, on social, in email, anywhere around the problems of a customer if we service all customers. Because the problems aren’t all the same.

So, if I try to say, “You know, we address all these different problems,” it’s just this huge laundry list of every single problem that exists in the world.

And what you said about people being a little afraid to niche—we hear that all the time. However, I do want to mention something.

First of all, you can have customer segments. So, you don’t have to niche to one to start. You can niche to five or three.

And you look internally—and probably work with someone like you—and ask:

• Where are we making the most profitability?

• Where are the customers the happiest?

• What do we love to do?

That’s like a Venn diagram—you know, like the hedgehog concept, essentially. What’s in the middle of: where you make the most money, where the customers are the happiest, and what you love to do?

That’s a good spot to build a customer segment.

Then, instead of on your website having “Services”, you could have “Who We Serve.” And then you can have your segments listed. And then the segments—hopefully—they see themselves. They pick the segment that they’re in. And then you can speak about the problems of that segment.

So like, we can go back to the area we talked about—the multi-million-net-worth entrepreneur, or stock-made-it, or lottery-winner type. Then you’ve got the busy family, the busy professional building their career. You know, there are different customer segments.

You’ve got different property types. You’ve got different work that you specialize in.

Maybe pick three to five to start with and get more focused. And then, after a couple of years, do that analysis again: Where are we most profitable? Where do we like doing the most work? Where are customers the happiest?

And get more narrow.

I think that idea of being jack-of-all, master of none, is the biggest mistake people make. As you get bigger, you can be a master of more than one.

So if you’re a $10 million or $20 million company, you have different crews that specialize—no problem. But when you’re at $1 million to $2 million, get focused. Because then you have price control, because you become the expert. You can then build a relationship in the community around your expertise, and you become the go-to person for that thing. That’s a big deal, I think.

The other thing a lot of people ignore: in any given market, only 3% is ready to buy. So, out of 100 buyers, only three are ready to buy now. And a lot of entrepreneurs try to focus on getting that person to buy from them—and they forget about the 97% of the marketplace.

I’m a great example of this situation. I have a problem in that my kids are growing up, and I’m in a bungalow with a walkout basement. So my house today is big enough—but tomorrow, it won’t be. I want to put a second-floor addition on my house, renovate it, and punch out my garage and do a big thing.

I’m not going to buy it this year. I might not buy it next year. But I’m going to, in the next two.

Right now, when I’m researching this stuff, I can’t find anybody locally helping me with content about how I should consider getting this right in my head. And so if we can build content—like, Are you thinking about putting an addition on your house in the next two years?—here are the common problems that happen with additions. Are you thinking about renovating your kitchen?—here are the top 10 things to consider with kitchens that nobody ever thinks about.

You get me some resources from your company—through videos on YouTube, Instagram Reels, blogs—I build a relationship with you when I’m at the top of the funnel, where I’ve acknowledged my problem.

I’m going to use you as a resource to get me to the middle of the funnel to find my solutions. And then—guess what—I’ve been following you for a year, and I’m probably going to talk to you first.

So a lot of people ignore the 97% of the market, and I think that’s something people should consider—especially when you’re in high-ticket sales. People don’t make decisions right away. They enter the market, and they’re in it for like two years.

Derek:

Yeah, I like what you said there. And for me, I think of that as like a nurture sort of process.

You mentioned having some social media content—what are some other ways that contractors can keep those touchpoints and that information going, so that when that buyer is ready to move forward in a year or two, they call them?

What would be the strategy you’d propose for that?

Rob:

So, I mean, there’s a lot to it, so I’m not going to go through the whole thing. But I’ll tease out a couple of specific points.

First and foremost, you want to have a remarketing pixel for Meta and for Google on your website. You need to build helpful content via blogs and videos—using YouTube, or Instagram Stories, Reels, or clips.

So what we typically do is help somebody figure out what a pillar piece of content is going to be. What’s the thing the company wants to be all about?

Then we write a 3,000 to 5,000-word article about that thing. So in this case, it could be urban residential renovations in Vancouver. I write a thesis—a 5,000-word essay—on everything you need to consider when doing a project in Vancouver.

Then I take that piece of content and I break it into 10 to 15 blog posts and 10 to 15 videos that are exactly like the blog post. I speak to the camera like I’m speaking to you. And I can use my phone—I don’t need a huge production.

Ideally, it comes from the owner or a key person inside the organization, and it’s consistent. And you help people understand all the different problems around building in downtown Vancouver and how you help people get through them—in 1, 2, 3, or 5-minute clips.

So now I’ve got myself on Instagram. I’ve got myself on YouTube. I’ve got this giant piece of content on my website. I’ve built out my website properly for SEO. It loads super fast so Google sees me as an authority. I’ve got good Google reviews. I’m starting to rank. I’ve got blogs that are helpful.

So when people Google stuff—or ChatGPT search, because that’s getting bigger and bigger by the day—we’re looking at almost 5–6% search share in North America over Google.com, which is the biggest chunk of search share that’s ever been taken from Google.com since it existed. So it’s a big deal. And it’s not going anywhere.

Now I’ve created this net that people can find me through when they’re trying to solve their problem.

They found me, they’ve seen some YouTube videos, they’ve come to my website, I’ve pixelled them, I’m retargeting them with other content.

We use a lead magnet—something like: Download the number one way to read a proposal when renovating your house. All the tips and tricks to make sure you’re getting a good proposal from a contractor.

Whether it’s us or somebody else—doesn’t matter.

Now you’ve got their email address. And now you put them into an email nurture sequence. The email nurture sequence should always be value-add:

• Here’s a resource

• Here’s a tip

• Here’s a testimonial

• Here’s a story

• Here’s a case study

A nurture sequence can be six emails over 12 months. It doesn’t have to be aggressive—just something to keep in touch.

But that outlines, in broad strokes, kind of how to play that game.

Derek:

Perfect. Thanks for breaking that down. Yeah, because the sales cycles in construction are very long—and like you said, it’s a decision that people aren’t making every day, or even every year. Having that nurture is so vitally important to consistency, which you also mentioned earlier on.

Browsing your website, you guys have a CRM that you utilize and offer to clients. Can you talk about some of the systems that make marketing or lead generation easier—take less time—as it relates to the CRM, or maybe other systems or processes that you’ve developed?

Rob:

Yeah, oh for sure, man. And this is, again, another big mistake—about measurement, or lack thereof.

Derek:

What would be the average revenue of a listener and/or customer of yours?

Rob:

So average revenue for my clients—they would be similar to yourself, maybe $1 to $10 million. In that range?

Derek:

Yeah.

Rob:

Okay, great. So we’re talking about owner-operator entrepreneurs. Some are more involved than others in terms of their business, but they’re still actively managing the company?

Derek:

Yeah. On the $1 million side, it’s more or less the owner with a little bit of personnel. Closer to $5 to $10 million, they’ve usually got managers in place and they’re more in a leadership-only role.

Rob:

Yeah, that’s cool.

So, I’d say there are two things, from a systems point of view, that we need to discuss that are foundational. We’ve talked about website and Google reviews. The next thing is reporting and CRM.

And by CRM, I don’t mean job costing and field service. There are a lot of great tools that have been built—like Buildertrend, or Jobber, or Housecall Pro—which are more for maintenance and stuff like that. And they are valuable.

I’m not saying otherwise. You should have them. You should use them. They’re super important. That’s how you know your numbers. That’s how you make sure you’re profitable and that your actual-to-budgeted estimates are good.

But very few of them have anything to do with sales and marketing. Like funnel management, lead management, lead nurturing, review management—these aren’t necessarily the core focus of those tools.

And so that’s why we developed this CRM. We call it The Landscape CRM—because we typically work with landscapers. And so the whole idea is: how can we give people more visibility into lead flow, sales funnel, and opportunity manager?

And every time I’m doing this—and it might happen to somebody listening to this right now—but how often have you had somebody inquire, and then you follow up with them, and it goes to ghost because you forgot to follow up again?

Then you realize two weeks later—“Oh [ __ ], I forgot. Derek reached out to me. I reached out back and I didn’t hear back. I never followed up.”

I follow up two weeks later—Derek’s already found somebody.

So there’s an issue with response time and response rigor.

And there are some crazy stats about this: if you respond to somebody within five minutes, they’re 100 times more likely to be contacted from when they inquire.

And 78% of people work with companies that contact them first.

There are some really strong reasons why people should be responding to inquiries immediately.

With response time and response rigor, there are some crazy stats. If you respond to somebody within five minutes, they’re 100 times more likely to be contacted from when they inquire. And 78% of people work with the company that contacts them first. There are some really strong reasons why people should be responding immediately.

Now, that’s not necessarily a CRM solution, but it does suggest there’s an opportunity to have an office manager that’s dedicated to lead response.

The other thing—and this is where CRM comes into play—is that, on average, a lead needs to be followed up with five times before they turn into a customer. And so few people we meet have a system for follow-up that’s consistent and quick.

I’m talking: email, phone call, text today.
Then email, phone call, text tomorrow.
Then email, email, and close the file. Give them the outs.

We have a whole bunch of scripts around how we do this, so it doesn’t seem like we’re just trying to say, “Ah, work with us!” We take a whole approach around: I want to make sure you don’t feel like you’re slipping through the cracks. You’re a valued potential customer for our business. We’d love to help you if we’re given the opportunity.

“Hey, I haven’t heard back—has this fallen off your radar?”
“Hey Derek, it’s been a couple of days. Last thing I want to do is become a pest. Just let me know if this is no longer a priority.”

There’s a way to make the vocabulary feel servant, not salesy. I’m not here to pressure you—I’m here to make sure I take care of you.

That’s a really important piece. And with a CRM in place, you can automate some of those workflows—email sends, follow-up sequences—and that can be really advantageous, especially if your lead flow kicks up during busy seasons, or you’re on the tools, or just too swamped to keep up.

That kind of approach can be super valuable.

The other tool we use is something we call SALT—Sales and Lead Tracking. And it’s a game changer for marketing and sales.

It’s an attribution tool. It tells you:

• Where every lead comes from (phone, chat, SMS, form submission)

• What source or medium (Google, Facebook, email, referral)

• Was it Google Ads? Organic search? Google Business Profile? ChatGPT?

• What keywords did they use?

• What campaign did they come through?

• Did it turn into a quote? Did it turn into a sale?

The cool thing about this system is that it’s built to sit on top of or between your other systems. You don’t necessarily have to fill out another thing. It can sync with field service platforms, so you can still use your tools—but now, you get full visibility.

You’ll know:

• How many leads are turning into revenue

• How many quotes are converting

• How many calls are being missed

• And you can record all your calls so you understand the voice of the customer

You can even take the transcripts from all the quotes that turned into deals, feed them into a chatbot, and create a checklist of FAQs. Then train your team with it.

It’s a really valuable tool.

It’s $1,800 a year—or maybe $1,500 for your audience—around $150/month. But honestly, it’s game-changing. It gets rid of that whole sales-vs-marketing finger-pointing.

You’ve probably heard this a lot, right?
Sales says: “Marketing gives me crap leads.”
Marketing says: “Sales can’t close.”
This tool cuts through all that and shows what’s actually happening—so you can invest in what’s working and stop investing in what’s not.

Derek:

Yeah, sounds like an amazing program. There are some incredible tools available out there—like what you guys have developed—that can really open people’s eyes.

Rob:

Once you have those numbers and systems in place, first, it saves you a bunch of time and makes you more professional. But then, like you said, you can see:

• Do we have a marketing issue here?

• Where’s the bottleneck?

• Where are we dropping the ball?

• Where should we double down?

If we’re investing in ads or different marketing avenues, which clients are the best quality? Where are they coming from?

You can actually get an idea of what’s going on. So—very cool.

You’ve worked with a lot of different contractors and landscapers throughout your career. What’s one that stands out to you—where they started, how you helped them, and where they’re at now?

Rob:

I mean, there’s a bunch. But one comes to mind because we started working with them earlier on—his name is Morgan Ray from Bavarian Windows. (Morgan, I’m about to send you this—you rock.)

We started working with them when they were at about $2.5 million. They’re now north of $14–15 million. He’s bought a couple of manufacturing businesses, made some partnerships—he’s taking over the world, one window at a time.

Awesome guy.

It was a collaborative relationship. He’s probably one of the most visionary and conceptual entrepreneurs we’ve had the opportunity to work with over the years. He was always pushing us to be better. And for the most part, we did our best to level up.

He wanted to get into Facebook when it was just starting. He understood the value of SEO. He understood the value of leads. He’s just a consummate salesperson—so he always had a really good backend for any leads coming through.

We had conditional formatting and lead routing done through his website. So based on the value of the inquiry, it would get routed to junior or senior-level reps. They built a solid CRM platform using Salesforce to manage the workflow of all incoming deals. Just a really sophisticated cat.

From video production on value-based messaging to everything I’ve discussed with you—he’s run the playbook. And it just worked.

But that’s also because—and I’ve got to say this before we wrap up, because I know we’re almost out of time—one part of marketing is making the promise and getting the customer.

The other part—which is arguably more important—is delivering the promise.

So, you’ve got to do good work, and you’ve got to make promises that can be fulfilled. That’s probably the most important part of any marketing approach: lining up what you say to the market with who you really are—as authentically as possible.

And I think that’s where things really win. And that’s where Morgan was really great—execution.

Derek:

Yeah, nice way to tie that all together. Looping back to your original comments: that long-term view.

You might overestimate what you can do in a year—but underestimate what you can do in ten.

Doing great work, setting that foundation, and focusing on lifetime value of clients. It’s not about just trying to get a lead and deposit and make a quick buck. You’re building something sustainable for the future—something strong and truthful, in line with your values. That builds trust with your ideal clients.

So, if people want to reach out to you, your company, or your team to learn more or get into your content—what’s the best way for them to do that?

Rob: Yeah, I mean, on Instagram: @intriguemedia

We have the IM Landscape Growth podcast where I interview entrepreneurs about the primary growth constraints holding them back. You can find that at intriguemedia.com/mpodcast

We’ve also got a bunch of resources and guides. If you go to intriguemedia.com, in the main nav, there’s a Resources section—guides, podcasts, blogs, events. If you want to learn more about how we roll, that’s a great spot to check it out.

Derek:

Mhm, perfect. Right on.

We’ll put those links in the description of this video or audio—depending where you’re checking it out from.

Thanks so much, Robert. Any final word of advice or tip you want to tell our listeners?

Rob:

No, I just appreciate the entrepreneurs out there listening to this.

They’re the crazy people who put their houses up for mortgages to grow a company, hire people in their communities, support local hospitals and sports teams.

Entrepreneurs are the ones who jump off cliffs and learn how to build planes on the way down. So I just appreciate them. We’re here to serve whenever we can.

If you ever want to reach out—I’m in one-on-one. Whatever I can do to help—that’s what we’re here for.