Let’s talk Branding with Thaddeus and Evan

Tersh Blissett: Hello everyone out there in the podcast world. Hope you having a great day. You’re listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery Podcast. I’m here sitting virtually next to my co-host, Joshua Crouch Tersh Blissett, the host of Service Business Mastery Podcast.

 

Josh Crouch: You forgot who you are, buddy.

 

Tersh Blissett: You’re popular, whatever. So we have some great friends of ours on the show today and it’s I’m super excited. We’ve had Evan’s been on the show, but Thaddeus has not been on the show and we’re going to talk. So we’re going to start off with a little bit of of paper marketing, branding, magazine branding. But honestly, this conversation is liable to go in any direction, and it’s going to be a good one. So I’m honored to be the pregame for Thaddeus and Evan’s podcast. They they record every Wednesday afternoon and there’s a it’s [00:01:00] very relaxed and I mean it’s a lot like ours honestly. And they talk, talk a lot of business and marketing side of things. They have a marketing agency and I ask them questions all the time and they’re super helpful, but I’m super excited. Josh, you got anything to add to that?

 

Josh Crouch: No, I mean, Evan and Thaddeus started their marketing team about the same time I did were literally like like very closely related when it comes to that. We’re we’re in a coaching group together and stuff. So I’ve gotten to know these guys really well. They’re great guys and I mean, hell, they’re from Canada. Who doesn’t like who doesn’t like them Canadians up.

 

Tersh Blissett: There, right? That’s right. That’s right. Cool, man. Well, I’m excited to get started with the show.

 

Announcer: Are you looking for valuable business advice to reach that seven figure revenue mark? Do you want actionable tips to properly navigate through every business challenge you encounter along the way? Let Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch be your guide [00:02:00] in getting you to the top here at Service Business Mastery. Tune in as they sit down with world renowned authors in business leadership and personal growth who share valuable insights about management, marketing, pricing, human resources, and so much more. Let their nuggets of wisdom gold guide you in owning a thriving, profitable and ever growing business. Here are your hosts, Tersh and Josh.

 

Tersh Blissett: What’s up, guys? How are you all today?

 

Evan hoffman: Fantastic. Even better after seeing that video. That was.

 

Tersh Blissett: Sharp.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, we’re always trying to make it just a little better, right? So y’all got. Y’all got snow this week. I saw. Yeah. Was that both of you, or is that just by you, Thaddeus?

 

Evan hoffman: No, we got it. 2 hours melted, though. His wife’s still outside shoveling while he’s doing so.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Yeah. Cheers to her.

 

Josh Crouch: So she [00:03:00] better not be.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Oh, she actually was outside shoveling this morning, and I’m looking outside.

 

Josh Crouch: And were you cheering her on?

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Yeah, I was knocking from the window. See, our dog. Our dog likes the shovel, though, so, like, our dog will literally whine if you’re outside shoveling snow and she doesn’t come out there with you. Just wants to chase the snow.

 

Josh Crouch: My mind likes to chase a rake, so when I rake leaves. There you go. So little, little weird tip. But so let’s talk marketing guys. So we’ve obviously, you and I know we talk offline or online, but offline quite a bit and we’re in a coaching group and stuff like that together. So which is cool because we’re both about two years or so and we’ve been able to kind of help each other out and just make sure you kind of get through the same growing pains.

 

Tersh Blissett: Hey, Josh? Yeah? Just in case you were wondering, there’s a microphone right in front of you.

 

Josh Crouch: Is it too.

 

Tersh Blissett: Loud? No. You keep smacking it. You just hit [00:04:00] it.

 

Josh Crouch: I’m smacking the table.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, geez, Louise, man, he’s amateur like this. These amateurs around here. One thing I forgot.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: To mention a little bit closer to.

 

Tersh Blissett: You. Right, guys? No, I didn’t mention this earlier, but I mean, y’all’s podcast, you have a podcast and y’all release every Wednesday. Did I say that earlier because you’re thinking about it? Okay. I thought about it anyways. Well, good, because y’all have a podcast and what’s the name of y’all’s podcast for anybody that’s listening?

 

Evan hoffman: Hvac success, secrets revealed.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Or fact, depending on how you want to phrase it.

 

Tersh Blissett: H back. Yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: So these guys, yeah, they stream live YouTube, Facebook, some other places. I think you guys can find it through your website too, right?

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Yeah, we put it on the website after we’re done so on purpose mediocre and you can find H revealed on there you can see the youtube links. We do it [00:05:00] on YouTube, on LinkedIn, in our Facebook group, on our Facebook page, on both of our profiles. We go everywhere.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s what’s up. You’ve got to tick tock.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Tick tock. We do our snippets on Tik Tok. We don’t do the actual podcast. I think you’re limited to ten minute long videos on Tik Tok. So we’ve been putting on three. No, they.

 

Tersh Blissett: Bumped it.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Up. Yeah. There’s 10 minutes now so I know our team came back with us and said You can do up to 10 minutes. And then I was in there today setting up tick tock ads account and saw that you can do up to ten minute videos now there.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s wow dude. Yeah, we just set up our TikTok account. And so if anybody’s listening to us watching this and you’re on TikTok, make sure you follow us service business mastery. And then what’s your your TikTok.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: On purpose media.

 

Tersh Blissett: On purpose media. So you’ll follow these guys too.

 

Josh Crouch: I had the download Tick Tock today.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: How does it make you feel old?

 

Tersh Blissett: Let me tell you an [00:06:00] old man’s story about Joshua. He texted me, right? And he’s like, What was I doing? I can’t remember what I was doing, but I wasn’t sitting in my office and we have our new VA and she was doing something and he was like, Can you respond to her? I’m headed to basketball or something like that. I’m like, Oh, you’re watching your kid’s basketball. He was like, No, we have a basketball tournament. It’s a it’s I’m playing in a basketball tournament tonight. I was like a tournament tonight. This is like Monday. Two days ago. Three days ago. And he was like, Yeah, we have a tournament. I’m like, you got to explain this to me around like like it’s going to be a week long thing. He’s like, No, we’re going to play. It’s three, three versus three, and then you’re going to play all night long. You’re going ain’t going be worth the crap tomorrow. And he comes in there and he’s like, Oh, it’s an old man’s league. And then I’ll let Josh finish the rest of the story.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah. So we lost our first game, and then we played this kid, these kids that maybe I thought were like, 23, 24. I have no I have I can’t judge age anymore. Once you get to [00:07:00] a certain age and.

 

Tersh Blissett: You start having gray hair in.

 

Josh Crouch: Your beard. Yeah, we lost that game. I won. It was actually really close. And then we finished our third game. We had to play right after that. We won that one. But then I’m sitting there watching that same team that we the second team we lost to and some guys here is like, Oh yeah, it’s my kid. And I’m like, Oh, he doesn’t look much older than I am. I’m like, How old’s your kid? 18. The other kids are 19. I’m like.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, so much for being an old man’s tournament.

 

Josh Crouch: I’m like, they’re like, half my age. And then the one kid is trying to walk on at like Division one school up north here in Wisconsin. I’m like, Oh, that’s the kid I had to guard. I did not I did not sleep while my legs were screaming at.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: I was about to say, how were your legs the next day?

 

Josh Crouch: Well, so here’s the thing. We’re packing up the house, right? Because we’re getting ready to move while the Advil is packed away. So I had no Advil. I had no pain relief. I just was I was in pain, man. So I had the next [00:08:00] day, first thing, I got up and went to the gas station. I’m like, I’m getting I’m packing up some Advil. So I have some.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Old age problems. Where is the Advil, right?

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah. I said, honey, why did you pack this? You know, I need this after basketball.

 

Tersh Blissett: I have to take two of these every night so I can wake up the next morning after activity.

 

Evan hoffman: I’m reading Tony Robbins new book called Life Force and Fuck. There’s some good secrets in there, so I highly recommend it.

 

Josh Crouch: We’ll give secrets to like. Yeah, what are you talking about?

 

Evan hoffman: Pain, relief, longevity, living another healthy 20 years kind of thing. It’s good stuff.

 

Josh Crouch: Okay.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: So how do you relieve pain other like I mean, people might say CBD oil.

 

Evan hoffman: Now there’s a ton of different secrets in there. A few is one method that is quite effective. So this guy, he was a marine. He comes back from serving overseas. He’s in a ton of pain and [00:09:00] they tell him that they can’t treat him. There’s nothing that they can do. Him being a marine, having that mindset decides, yes, there is. There’s something I can do. Decides to create his own methodology. And it’s phenomenal for pain relief. And it’s like simple exercises that literally anyone could do and it’s like corrected humpback kind of posture issues and it’s corrected that. So it’s phenomenal. I highly suggest you check it out.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s cool. Do they have the audio version or just the book?

 

Evan hoffman: Yeah, I bought it on Audible. It’s 22 hours on Audible.

 

Tersh Blissett: Wow.

 

Evan hoffman: Yeah. It’s a beast of a book.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s one that I get my $14 credit, but I have to judge it because I get a credit every month by my $14. Yeah. So if it’s less than $14, I just buy it, right. And I’ll use my credit. And if it’s like $75, which is probably what this book is, I’ll use my $14 credit for that one. Totally.

 

Evan hoffman: Yeah. If you bought the actual book like it would be a doorstop, like it’s it’s a beast.

 

Josh Crouch: Hey, [00:10:00] guys. Jim, Jim’s. Jim’s saying that you guys don’t know how to wear your hats.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah.

 

Evan hoffman: I played baseball as a kid, right? And my coach, when I was like, I don’t know, 11 or 12 comes up to me. And this is when Griffey was still, like, hot shit, right? So of course, I’m wearing my hat backwards, looking all cool. At least I thought I was.

 

Tersh Blissett: And he comes up to me, he.

 

Evan hoffman: Says, Listen, there’s only two types of people that wear their hat backwards catchers and cock suckers. And I don’t see you with equipment on.

 

Tersh Blissett: It’s in the dugout. You go put it on.

 

Evan hoffman: So there you go.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, that’s terrible. That’s terrible. Cassie. Cassie mentions that she’s. She’s hanging out with y’all here in shortly.

 

Evan hoffman: Yeah. I can’t wait. I’m very excited for that.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, she’s.

 

Tersh Blissett: She’s awesome. The whole team’s awesome, really.

 

Evan hoffman: There’s there’s some some some fireballs in [00:11:00] in Oklahoma. There’s some really.

 

Josh Crouch: Like it’s like it’s like like a hotbed right now, especially on the social side, stuff like that, like Oklahoma, Texas, those areas are hot. And there’s some power ladies doing some like awesome, awesome, epic shit. Yeah, amazing. So it’s really cool to see. But so.

 

Tersh Blissett: Let’s talk branding.

 

Josh Crouch: Like I was going to say let’s talk Brett because you guys of were shot with your.

 

Tersh Blissett: We’re starting out here and then one of you guys have a background in is it magazine advertising.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: We actually we both do yeah. So it’s actually.

 

Josh Crouch: You guys met.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Right? We actually met selling cocoa knives back in 2009.

 

Evan hoffman: Back when we were the age of the kids that beat Josh.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yes.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: There you go. So we’ve known each other for quite some time, but I got my start in advertising, in print, in magazine, specifically [00:12:00] in high end community specific magazines. In fact, it was a US company and when it came to Canada, I was the fourth person ever to launch a magazine, the first person ever in western Canada. And now, I mean, they probably have 100. I don’t even know the number. I mean, obviously left there a few years ago, hundreds of magazines throughout North America. So it’s just just phenomenal to see that that growth. Right? Yeah, I grew up on the ranch. Right. So but the thing is like branding in I classify that as mass media in magazines and print and radio or all those mass media branding type type plays. So I’m sorry, I’m still laughing at that important one. I grew up on the ranch. I would actually disagree with that statement that I think it is super important as a business. And then we were actually chatting with.

 

Tersh Blissett: I think they were talking about branding. Branding cattle. Yeah.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Yeah, I missed that.

 

Tersh Blissett: You know, I small.

 

Evan hoffman: Town Alberta guy, this is.

 

Tersh Blissett: The branding.

 

Evan hoffman: Joke.

 

Tersh Blissett: I’ve branded.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: I’ve branded [00:13:00] cattle before, so I should have picked up on.

 

Tersh Blissett: That. Have you ever done a thing like Mike Rowe where he. He did the sheep castrating the sheep.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: No, I haven’t done that.

 

Tersh Blissett: You have. You’ve heard this, right? It’s either sheeps or goats. They castrate them by taking and putting their. Balls inside their mouth, biting down and pulling it off. Oh, you’ve never heard the story from Mike Rowe? No, no. You got.

 

Josh Crouch: A story I want to.

 

Tersh Blissett: Hear? Yeah. It’s part of the Dirty Jobs series that he was doing. And they were talking about cash trading and they were like, Oh, yeah, this is how you do it. And he was like, No, no, you’re joking, right? You only put like a rubber band around it and let it fall, like, yeah, but then they’re in pain for weeks. This is like instant. They’re in pain, but then it’s gone. I was like, But there’s got to be something else besides that. Like, you can, like a contraption of some sort to somebody do the deed.

 

Josh Crouch: If [00:14:00] somebody is looking for an invention to make. You got your idea right there.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. There you go. Maybe there is. They just enjoy doing it that way. I don’t know. Yeah, we’re going down the wrong path.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: My testicles are sore. Just thinking.

 

Tersh Blissett: About that. So I assume you didn’t do that on the ranch?

 

Thaddeus Tondu: We. I wasn’t the one who did it. I’ve watched them put the elastic band around around the nuts on a cow before, and they they buck wild inside the chute. Like, it’s it’s. Yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: It looks painful.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: It looks painful. And then they go flying out after. But so anyways, back to the other type of branding. So that’s where we got our start was, was, was branding. And I still think there’s a place in today. I know when everybody goes to the digital marketing realm and like, look, Evan and I have a digital marketing company. Josh, you have a digital marketing company and the church has the company. I still think there’s a very important place because you think about what do people see first and what do people recognize and remember first? Well, it’s your company name and your brand and also how you the brand also goes further than [00:15:00] just what you see on billboards and radio and TV and print. It also goes involved in, well, what are your customers first impressions when you show up at the house, you know, do you have a vehicle that doesn’t look like a truck and a truck and you could be a one man band. And that’s completely fine. There’s there’s a lot of people that need that, but have something that looks a little bit more professional, you know, when you show up to the door.

 

Tersh Blissett: Right.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Perception is reality, but that’s also part of the brand of your company, too, that you show up with an untucked shirt that’s wrinkled as fuck with grease stains all over it.

 

Josh Crouch: Can I can I add to your point? So I recently had an electrician over here because when I was moving my office downstairs down here from where I had an office, we needed some extra lights down in the basement. So we hired an.

 

Tersh Blissett: Electrician.

 

Josh Crouch: And it was a local guy and didn’t have literally showed up in a pickup truck with no marking, no branded shirt, nothing. He literally called us like on his way, be like we didn’t know what day he was coming. He called us on the way. Hey, is it okay if I come today?

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah, [00:16:00] I’m.

 

Josh Crouch: Home. Like. Like, go.

 

Tersh Blissett: Ahead, I guess.

 

Josh Crouch: And then he he and he had to do it like a ceiling fan and something else. And so he again, when he had to come back, he had to order materials. Didn’t know when he was coming, like, hey, is electrician come in. I kind of need these lights downstairs. And again, literally, like the night before, like 7:00. It’s okay if I come in the morning tomorrow and it just then he left, he put the he drilled the holes for the lights and everything else didn’t vacuum up the floor. Just you get what you pay for. A lot of times when people don’t care about their appearance and it goes back to even caring about your appearance and your personal life, it doesn’t mean you have to, like, get all dolled up and dress up for the day, but care about how you carry yourself, care about your well-being. It shows because it shows in your work ethic. It shows in so many other facets of your life. But it was a perfect example. I literally, as I tell other contractors this and you guys have these same conversations, I’m like, Yeah, and it’s [00:17:00] exactly what you get when you hire someone who their stuff’s falling out of their truck. There’s no branding. They don’t they don’t have a system or crisis.

 

Tersh Blissett: When you hire someone who is like a, you know, above par or the perception is they have the good brand and everything else, but then the technician shows up and they’re in the gut crap all over the dashboard. They open the door and the drinks roll out, you know, that’s that, that’s.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: They roll out with it.

 

Tersh Blissett: Too.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah. This is my this is my old boss. He’s giving me shit because he knows I love under armor.

 

Tersh Blissett: He’s, he’s wearing under armor now. He’s always in the under armor.

 

Josh Crouch: I’m sure the t shirt underneath it that has under armor too.

 

Tersh Blissett: So I mean.

 

Evan hoffman: To me branding is reputation. And when you’ve got a solid brand in terms of like just the logo itself, that’s great. You’re going to stand out and you’re going to get attention, but then the reputation [00:18:00] is going to catch up and it’s not going to back up what the brand says and the two go hand in hand. And that really comes back to culture. And this is something I know we’re going to talk about later today with Cassie and and what she’s built at her organization. But like that culture and how you take care of your employees, that’s everything when it comes in PA to matching the brand that you’ve tried to build for yourself.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s that’s a great conversation that we had with Cassie when she was on the show. And whenever I was asking her about it, like, that’s the response that she kept giving. And it’s like it’s, you know, your brand is great. Their brand like logo. When I call, when I say brand, I’m implying the logo and the van wraps and truck wraps and stuff. It all looks amazing. But then she she kept saying, like, it’s it’s how everybody performs and interacts with each other every day and how the client perceives us. That’s, that’s the brand that like that’s your legit brand. Yeah, that’s your brand. Your brand.

 

Josh Crouch: Promise.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: It [00:19:00] all goes hand in hand.

 

Evan hoffman: Absolutely. You can’t have one without the other because it’s just going to provide.

 

Josh Crouch: What’s going to happen.

 

Evan hoffman: People are going to see it or.

 

Josh Crouch: What’s going on. If somebody wants to price themselves like they’re the the high end plumber HVAC company or whatever, but they don’t have everything else that goes along with it. That’s when you start getting those bad reviews and things don’t match up. And people people can smell BS a mile away like they can see like, okay, we’re just putting lipstick on a pig over here type of thing versus this. This company really has it together. Every time I hire them, they got booties. They call me ahead of time. I get notifications, booking alerts, all this stuff that comes along with it. And every single time it’s they take the same process, they’re thorough, they follow a checklist, etc., etc.. And that’s really where I mean, that’s where we’re all trying to get at least if you really care about your business.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: 100% agreed. And look, here’s the other part of it. When you have a great brand from [00:20:00] the get go like your your logo in that along with the reputation that goes involved with it, your digital marketing actually becomes more effective because now you people, people know it, they feel comfortable with. And even if they don’t necessarily recognize it, if they go to Google and they search, know AC repair near me and you’ve got a decent online presence or you have a Google ad or you have a Facebook ad going out, they may not recognize you from some of your mass media efforts or your branding, if you want to call it that. But when they get there, there’s familiarity with it. And that’s what really helps that too, because it helps your conversion component of things when they get to the website even they’re like, Oh man, I remember these colors from somewhere or remember this logo from somewhere. If they’re a new customer, obviously repeat business makes makes a world of difference because they remember how how you treated them, how did you make them feel when you were over there? And if you made them feel like you were a sleazeball, well, guess what? They’re not going to call you back. But if they if [00:21:00] you made them feel like you were a great company, who cared about them? Amazing. That’s what’s going to get you your repeat business.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, companies grow so fast. I mean, it’s the ones that the ones that do grow fast, they have this stuff in place and it is part of their everyday life.

 

Evan hoffman: Yep. So Tersh, I mean, you went through a rebrand and.

 

Tersh Blissett: Josh and I were talking about this this morning. Yeah.

 

Evan hoffman: So, like, what? What for you? What was the reasoning behind it? What was created as a result of it?

 

Tersh Blissett: So here’s my thought process. When I when I purchased the company and I use that term loosely, when I purchased the company, I didn’t like the brand or the logo. I originally wanted to start my own business whenever I became part of this business and I. I didn’t want to change the name necessarily, because I already had several clients, you know what I mean? And so that was a concern of mine. But then as it was brought [00:22:00] to my attention, that ice bound plumbing wouldn’t really make sense when it came to penguins and plumbers, it would be kind of a challenge. And so we so we swapped over and knowing that we were going to we were going to add more trades to the company. And also, like we had an ice, it was ice bound us. We couldn’t get the ice bound domain. And so that was another thing. And that’s petty, I know, but a lot of people would put ice bound in and they couldn’t get to us. They just that was a habit that was created. And so we we searched and made sure that Service Emperor was good. And so we took it and kind of because we had a couple of different names in mind and that was that was actually the ultimate deciding factor was the one that we could get the domain for. And now it was a real pain because we had yard signs that said ice bound. We had [00:23:00] shirts and uniforms and all that stuff, but and we had to get new stuff. And I’m the type person where I’m like, I don’t like throwing away stuff that’s still good. So I had an internal conflict with that one for sure, but.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah. You like to keep all your goodies, your hats and everything else.

 

Tersh Blissett: Even though I won’t wear them when we got them all behind me and stuff right there.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: I mean she’ll put it on the put it on a wall inside of a frame to remember your humble beginnings of where you came from.

 

Tersh Blissett: I do have a couple. I’ve got a couple of them. Just. Just for that reason, but.

 

Josh Crouch: So somebody asked. I’m sure your recommendation is the same as ours.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s Ty Brannaman. And he’s also the one who had the the he grew up on the farm and he didn’t castrate that way, which I’m not so sure I believe Utah, but we just live with that.

 

Josh Crouch: So he was asking for a recommendation for logo design. I think we’re probably all in agreement here just because we’ve seen the work that he’s done and super consistent. But if [00:24:00] anyone’s looking, I would I would talk to Dan Antonelli to kick charge. I’m sure you guys would agree with me.

 

Tersh Blissett: He does.

 

Josh Crouch: Primo work.

 

Evan hoffman: Absolutely. Well, and it’s always great. The thing with Dan is he’s not cheap, right. But when you look at the expense of rebranding later, like going with the cheaper guy up front and then rebranding later after you’ve got three trucks, uniforms, letterhead, website, all this shit like to do it upfront is going to save you a ton of money.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: You just have to be prepared to be able to spend the money up front if you have the opportunity to be able to do that. So that’s going to separate you, right? It’s going to it’s definitely in a separate you in your marketplace.

 

Tersh Blissett: Absolutely. So I asked Dan this question. I think it was whenever Evan, you and I were with Dan, too, I want to take you all I want to see your take on this. And like what happens when you’re starting out or you’re really small and you’re like, I don’t I don’t [00:25:00] have whatever the investment is. Call it 5000, $8,000. I mean, at that point, you could call it $100,000 because I don’t have that. I don’t have $5,000 to spare. Like what what do you say to someone in that situation? Like they’re legit just starting out. They’re trying to bootstrap the company.

 

Evan hoffman: Why are you getting into business right now?

 

Tersh Blissett: I would yes. I don’t disagree with that comment. But you would be so surprised. You probably wouldn’t be surprised at how many companies start out because they got fired or they quit and started a business the next day and had no plans on doing.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: It or they see the revenue that the business is making and they’re like, well, I can make that, too. But they don’t understand. Gross and nets.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would hope that that individual would say, all right, let’s let’s plan this out. Like, let’s have six months worth of cost.

 

Josh Crouch: Well, I would I guess my take on this and there has been super successful companies in the trades in [00:26:00] every space that they maybe their brand doesn’t catch your eye to that point, but their service and everything else is world class. And they can you can grow in HVAC contracting business if you hustle. I mean, $1,000,000 in a year, two years, three years. You’ve got to know something about business. I mean, you got to be willing to learn, but you don’t have to you don’t have to start with some crazy brand. Like, honestly, the most important thing is to make sure you price yourself right. So that way you can do these things later on. That’s probably the biggest mistake people make. All just undercut the big guy by 500 bucks. 1000 bucks. So I can stay busy. I’ll get that job. I’ll get that customer. But that customer is not going to replace that furnace again for 15 to 20 to 25 years. So you just that’s one opportunity to make that extra $1,000 you will not have. Yeah. And putting that cash aside allows you cash in hand, allows you to fix a lot of problems in your business at some point. And [00:27:00] I would caution people to like if you’re at 200 and 500,000 in revenue, make sure you have the cash. If you have the cash on hand, do it. If you don’t, don’t sweat it. Get to a million. Get to a million, five, 2 million. Then you can still do it later on like it’s okay. You don’t have to do it today.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Oh, 100% agree. And like, if you want to bootstrap a company like there’s there’s different ways to bootstrap a company. I mean, heck, we bootstrapped ours when we started and did a lot of the stuff ourselves. We also had a pretty good idea on branding to begin with. So when we came up with our I mean, we actually went through a color rebrand actually with our business. We started it with blue and green and we rebranded to the black and pink and white that you see now. I think if you are going to do it yourself, I mean, there’s plenty of resources out there. I mean, go to five or dot com, you’re going to n pay, I don’t know, five people, 20 bucks each to design a logo for you, but just don’t do red, white and blue. And no disrespect to anybody that has red, white and blue. I know there’s a lot of people that have that. It’s [00:28:00] just a very common color that you see and get something. I mean, look at examples, do some research, spend an evening looking through different examples of different brands. Just don’t copy just don’t rip off the brand. That is that is 100% a no go because and like we see that with Dan when he makes those posts, if somebody’s like, oh, look at this brand, it’s almost identical to the other brand and they’re in the same fucking market.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. They just flip the like flip it around or reverse or it makes it easier.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: And so so you can do it. It’s just make sure that you and there’s enough people out there that are willing to help that if you and I mean. Maybe take this one with a grain of salt because you’re going to get like a million different answers because you could post your four into one of the one of the groups and maybe not like one of the big groups that are out there, maybe one of the smaller ones that has some of the owners in there and see what people also resonate with and like. And do a poll and do a survey and do a group think to be able to have some data that you can then go make a decision on yourself.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah. [00:29:00] You actually. You reminded me of a situation. I had a plumber in Ontario, actually, and. I had somebody else contact me because my name was on the bottom of their their website and I knew it was the company I was working with had been designed by Dan. And then all of a sudden this this other guy was like, Hey, can you do this work for me or whatever? I took a look at his website and I’m like. Wait a minute. Hang on. This is like, the same. Like, everything is like, the same. I’m like, what is going on here? So I brought it to Dan and the owners attention and they, they did their thing with the lawsuit or cease and desist all that kind of stuff. But people will rip off anything and it’s not worth it. Like it’s a shortcut. And you feel like, okay, nobody’s going to know he’s 30 miles away or 100 miles away or across the country, but just don’t do it. It is not smart. It will it will save you a headache in the long run by just [00:30:00] if you’re going to do it, get it done right and don’t don’t copy. That’s the worst thing you can do.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Well, and you also mentioned that other point, too, like cash in hand, right? I mean, the majority of businesses fail due to improperly managed cash flow. And you can spin that a million different ways to come up with underpricing. Right. Is is one of the biggest ones. You don’t have the cash flow. But if you know that you want to to spin a rebrand and hire like a Dan Antonelli, we’ll find out what he costs up front and then squirrel away little bits every single every single month in order to be able to get to the point to say, okay, now I’ve got my ten K or however much he costs to be able to do the rebrand before you get into three, four or five, six trucks, maybe you got to and it allows you to be able to to build that into be able to get some revenue, build in your systems and then flick the switch even higher once you’re once you’re at that point.

 

Evan hoffman: Well, and that’s something that we had Peter and Alicia Green from Go Green Plumbing and heating and air conditioning out of Pennsylvania. [00:31:00] I think they’re.

 

Tersh Blissett: In.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: North Carolina. I think North.

 

Evan hoffman: Carolina. Anyways, he runs a great Facebook group as well. And the one thing that he said was when you’re doing your pricing, you need to price for the business that you’re becoming, not the business that you are today. Yeah, right. And forecasting out what size of business do you want to run? Do you want to have your own shop when you don’t have a shop yet? Do you want to have CSRs and dispatchers and all of this in your office? Well, you need to price as if you do have that now so that you can get that and build up to that.

 

Josh Crouch: So that’s the hardest transition I see. It is, especially when we talk to people that are like in that 500,000, a million mark, they don’t have the extra cash to hire and they’re constantly stressed or they’re working 75 hours a week trying to just make things work. And personally, they’re making good. Hire because they don’t have enough that they can give somebody else. So that way they can take this load off their plate or they can hire an answering service. So they’re not answering the phone at 2 a.m.. Know stuff like that. But. [00:32:00]

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Well then that, that all funnels back to your like your pricing rate to be able to be able to do that. But they actually flip my mindset on marketing budgets too, because if you want to price yourself to the business you want to become so. Let’s say you did $1,000,000 last year. We’ll make our math easy in what what a lot of people say is. Okay, well, you did $1,000,000. Well, now you can budget off of what you did last year to be able to spend 10% of your marketing. I’ve got 100,000 towards my marketing for the next year. But if you want to grow to $2 million, is that 10% of 1 million going to get you there or do you need to spend 10% of 2 million to be the company that you want to become?

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s a good question. Yeah.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: And so like and that’s and so when you look at that, it’s saying, okay, well where do you want to become? Now I get that part of it is you’re going to be spending more on a percentage of where you’re currently at. But it’s going to get to where you get you to where you need to go to be that organization. So I mean, like, I guess [00:33:00] for you guys, I mean, that’s I know we’re kind of the guests on your show, but I want to ask you a question anyways. I mean, like, what is your philosophy when it comes to ta ta planning marketing budgets?

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, I just wing it.

 

Evan hoffman: Grabs one of your 375 hats and pick a number out of it.

 

Tersh Blissett: Right. No, I mean, that’s been a question that I’ve been asked all the time. And so that’s a large growth. And a lot of people like going from 1 million to 2 million is a pretty hefty jump. And a lot of times people. Like in my mind, they’re going to do like a like 1.3 million or 1.5 million at the most if they coming off of $1,000,000. And so then their their budget for marketing. Definitely includes. It would include that growth. But I don’t know that. [00:34:00] I mean, we all have bags. I mean, we should have bags anyways. Big, hairy, audacious goals. But in a realistic budget, like John said here in the comments, the budget should include the growth projection. And so you have to realistically know, like you have to be able to afford the $2 million, you know, 10% of to 2 million versus. And you’re only generating 1 million in revenue.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Yeah. Just for clarification, that was just a simple example.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because because we all I mean, we all say like, hey, I want to do 10 million. And you’re like, Oh, well, you just did 500,000 last year, so let’s tone that one back a little bit. So and I mean, realistically, you can put yourself in a damper thinking that, yeah, I’m going to hire ten people, I’m going to have X, Y and Z budget, and you’re like, Yeah, but where are your [00:35:00] marketing leads? I mean, where are all this stuff coming from? And you don’t have money to cover overhead if you hire ten people and you don’t have the calls coming in. And so it’s it’s it’s a fine juggle there.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, it has all it all has to match up there, like when it comes to the budgeting and stuff. Here’s you have to know your numbers like literally if if you. Because I it’s one of the first questions I ask when I get on a call, someone is like, well, what did you do last year? And the one the ones I know that the conversation is probably going to go well, they know right away that number and they know what the number is for the next year. But you get a lot of conversations where it’s like we were like, I don’t know, like, like this to this.

 

Tersh Blissett: Like it’s April.

 

Josh Crouch: It’s April. Like, how do you not know this number? Crms literally add this up for you like you don’t even have to like try to know this number and.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s assuming that the data is being put incorrectly. [00:36:00]

 

Josh Crouch: Well, that’s another story.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: And then they’re looking at it as one of their KPIs.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: Well that’s, that just goes to like the whole business of like if you’re going to be a business owner, you have to learn how to be a business owner. If you’ve never been one or you’ve never been in like a leadership role where you’re looking at financials and your pals, because if you if you don’t take 15 minutes a month minimum to look at your pal and understand what you’re looking at, how do you know the business is? How do you know that ship is going the right direction? You don’t you’re literally blindfolded. You’re probably going to run the Titanic right near an iceberg. Right. So it just or I guess maybe it’d be more of like a little sailboat, but you get you get the drift there. Like, you just you you don’t know where you’re going. So some of those first initial hires, like everyone’s like leads, leads, leads, leads, leads. I’m like, well, you need to know your pricing. You need know your numbers, and yes, you need leads. [00:37:00] But then you also need to like every single call that comes in, treat that as if that’s the last call you are ever going to run.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. Love the one you will.

 

Josh Crouch: Follow up with that call until they tell you.

 

Tersh Blissett: No, it’s wild. How, how? Well you do follow ups when you don’t have leads coming in versus the summer, when you just start ghosting people, it’s like, Oh, never mind. Like, I have 12 other calls coming in right now, so like, I’m not going to do your search.

 

Josh Crouch: I don’t think this is something I’ve ever asked you. So a question for you. And I know what we did.

 

Tersh Blissett: Great.

 

Josh Crouch: Let’s do it last night on the.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Best way.

 

Tersh Blissett: To do it.

 

Josh Crouch: So hopefully now your customers listening.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Hang on, hang on. Should we should we get the bus ready?

 

Josh Crouch: So so with so with that being said, summer we know gets busy. Right. What is your opinion or thought process on changing pricing from oh.

 

Tersh Blissett: Changing pricing.

 

Josh Crouch: As far as like in June, it’s it’s going to be 95 and sticky as hell in Savannah. [00:38:00]

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. So we like our our consultation fee will will adjust that and also.

 

Josh Crouch: So the entry level barrier goes up.

 

Tersh Blissett: Sure. Yeah. And also our willingness to waive it goes down. So like when we’re slow. My rule is if they mention the consultation fee twice, waive it. Because I just I need to get in the door. So now during the summertime, you can mention it til you blue in the face. Like I ain’t waving like you have to have some skin in the game during the summer. During the winter we’re trying to get guys know, keep the guys busy. Now pricing itself, the only the only time that I would adjust it is if my costs go up. So I try to stay pretty even kilter. And I so this is a risk management part of it. Like if I ever get sued because I have friends who have been sued [00:39:00] because they were accused of price gouging and I cannot prove the reason that I cost the way I cost or the way I set up my price book. Then there’s a high probability that I’m going to have to pay out on that lawsuit. Now, if I increase just because of supply and demand, like, sure, people do that all the time, supply and demand like the demand went up.

 

Tersh Blissett: So the price of of everything is going up. If I ever like if I ever get sued and I did that, I would have to I would I would have a different argument to it, just playing a little easier. And I’m not saying that I’m doing it right, but I don’t adjust it. I. So I mean, hell, I’m probably doing it wrong, but that’s just the way that I do it. And because it’s more of a risk people’s risk manager on that, because I. Sometimes you have to take a risk and I get that 100%. But just seeing how quickly. This one guy got [00:40:00] sued and I was like, Oh my gosh. And it was over frivolous stuff. And I was like, Sure, anybody can sue over anything, but if I’m if I have it locked down that I know these are my prices, these are my margins, these are good margins to have. Let’s let’s just stay here and let’s let’s get this done. And John, John’s not registered for some reason, so he’s not showing up in our chat log as a.

 

Josh Crouch: Person with John.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: That’s there’s a little link in the bottom of the description on the video that you’re watching. You just have to click that link.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. So John Weinman, he he mentioned that if your budget’s built right, you don’t need to make the adjustment. That’s true.

 

Josh Crouch: And but how many people how many people actually have a budget that is built the right way? No way.

 

Tersh Blissett: So legit. Shout out to John. John’s a good buddy of mine, by the way. And if you have issues building your budget, if you have issues creating your price book, [00:41:00] reach out to that guy because no one is.

 

Josh Crouch: Going to float his message.

 

Tersh Blissett: No, no, no. He’s been embezzling it. He’s he’s creating a he’s got another business that he helps people. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. So for real, if you have questions, reach out to John because we did a we did a offsite with him, myself and a couple of other people and we build out our budgets for the year and we knew exactly where we need to be each day. Like down to the day. We know if we made money or we’re on budget or not based on our sold days and sold hours. But either way, neither here nor there. But John is the man when it comes to doing that budgeting stuff.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, sorry to throw you under the bus, but so we did the same thing with professional. We, we would raise the barrier entry, the fee, the initial consultation service fee, whatever you want to call it, went up. So people ideally we if people really wanted us, they would stay on the schedule [00:42:00] if they didn’t or they want to find someone else. Okay, we’re like, we can only take so much. We had like a level two for like harder repair. Like if it was in a furnace, in a closet, stuff like that, or if it was more difficult, it was going to take more time. We had a level two, but we didn’t really use the level two for like.

 

Tersh Blissett: So you’re telling.

 

Josh Crouch: Me.

 

Tersh Blissett: That something in the closet is more difficult than an attic? Because my guys get my guys get a closet job and they’re like, shoo. It’s going to be an easy day to day.

 

Josh Crouch: We have basements, so everything is literally like, I can walk ten feet this way. It’s wide open. You can get all the way 360 around the unit.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh yeah.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: A lot of things.

 

Josh Crouch: You’d love it. You’d love it here.

 

Tersh Blissett: I would hate it. Yeah, yeah, my guys would love it, but not me. The first time I have to shovel snow.

 

Josh Crouch: Well, you’re already remote, so just stay in Savannah.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah, no. So screw that snow. So I drove through it one [00:43:00] time and I was like, nope, nope. This for the bird.

 

Josh Crouch: I drove through it one time.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. For real. You think I’m kidding?

 

Josh Crouch: Well, that was like, I think whatever snow you guys got, either it hit us before or after we had snow, like, last week, we had to cancel our baseball practice outdoors because there’s snow on the ground again in April.

 

Tersh Blissett: Oh, it’s 80 degrees here, by the way. Yeah, that’s a are where.

 

Evan hoffman: Yeah, I just left 89 in Costa Rica so.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah.

 

Josh Crouch: That was dumb.

 

Tersh Blissett: I know this.

 

Evan hoffman: Was my family. They all wanted to come back. I was ready to stay for another six months.

 

Josh Crouch: Yeah, but that’s awesome.

 

Tersh Blissett: Cool guys. Well, we are about out of our time limit. What’s the best place for people to reach out and get? Learn more about you guys and follow the podcast where you can repeat all that information that we said earlier.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: Yeah, on purpose media CAA is the website so that’s that’s the Canadian you can also just search out HVAC revealed or HVAC success [00:44:00] scans revealed both lead to the same place for the for the the podcast itself you can follow us on the YouTubes or on the Facebook, wherever we’re kind of go everywhere.

 

Evan hoffman: Yeah, we got our Facebook group, too.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yes.

 

Evan hoffman: Facebook.com Forward slash group’s forge slash HVAC revealed.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: There you go.

 

Josh Crouch: I don’t even know what ours is. I just. I just copy the service business mastery.

 

Tersh Blissett: That’s what it is. Just search it. Well, I don’t know.

 

Thaddeus Tondu: I see group’s forward slash.

 

Tersh Blissett: One five service business mastery. No, I’m kidding. I appreciate you guys coming on.

 

Josh Crouch: It’s a great hanging with you guys.

 

Tersh Blissett: Yeah, we.

 

Evan Hoffman: Had a great time.

 

Tersh Blissett: All right, guys. We’ll see y’all.

 

Announcer: Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery Podcast. Now that you [00:45:00] are equipped with essential business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don’t forget to subscribe to the show. Leave a rating and share it with other owners as well. Visit Service Business Mastery Podcast to learn more.