How to Start Generating Ductless Leads Online with “The Ductless Marketing Gal”, Michelle LaFrance

Michelle LaFrance Ductless Sales, you need a strategy and plan that is better than the competition.

Tersh Blissett: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone out there in podcast, world. Hope you’re having a wonderful day. You’re listening to, or watching the service business mastery podcast. I’m your host tur licit. My co-host Joshua crouch is at baseball tournament with his son actually in Charleston. No, not Charleston in Myrtle beach, South Carolina.

And so I wanna wish his family good luck and safe travels and between now and getting back home. But, yeah, we’re gonna talk ductless today and we ha our guest today, Michelle Lara, she’s been on the show several times definitely gonna be a familiar face, familiar voice. If you’re listening to this show If by some happen chance, this is the first time you’re listening to this episode.

Please click that subscribe button. And so you, that we have, you have every other new episode with amazing content right there at your fingertips. If you’re a longtime listener and you haven’t before we would really value, if you would leave us a five star review if you’re not gonna a five star, eh, don’t really worry about.

But five stars are definitely amazing for us. It really helps the apple podcast catcher know how amazing we are. And unfortunately it’s very difficult to leave a five star review or a review period on the apple capture catcher, but We would really value it if you did do that. But we’re gonna talk ductless the ductless directory.

Michelle is famous for the ductless guy and bringing ductless to the forefront of our industry. You may not even realize it, but you’ve probably seen her content around. She’s got, before we, we [00:01:30] got started, we were talking about the fact that she loves creating content. She’s a she’s. She is very much a content creator as a content creator.

It’s. It’s very hard to consume other people’s content because we’re constantly creating content all the time, but Michelle’s one of those that she’s a consumer and she’s a producer of it. So she’s also one that’s constantly in the chats and is

commenting. And you’ve probably seen her there, but she’s full of amazing information, especially anything around the duck.

The ductless or mini splits or whatever you’re gonna call it. Inverter driven technology. We’re gonna talk today a little bit about it’s probably gonna be three different little mini sections here. We’re gonna, there’s a big change coming up in the Douglas list directory. We’re gonna talk a little bit about the Douglas all stores and how contractors can get featured on an existing any existing.

Blog post, which is SEO. That’s a little bit about Michelle she’s. She does a lot of SEO types things and helps with the marketing side or growing your business by Making sure that you have a strong SEO presence. Just Josh is probably really hating the fact that he’s not here and can’t talk SEO nerd stuff, but guess what?

I get to screw it all up this week because he’s not here to talk digital marketing, but again, I hope that Josh’s son has an amazing time and the best of luck to him at the baseball tournament. And with that being said, I want to give a huge shout out really quick to Sarah Billy Stevens.

He was on the [00:03:00] show. He actually came on the show a couple weeks ago that wasn’t live and Josh and I just recorded it off air. And I’m still working on that show. And it’s an amazing. Episode. I had to chop it up into a couple pieces because it was a long conversation. That’s the thing about Billy.

He’s so willing to give back to the community and Sarah’s just another way he’s doing it. And we could talk for hours. Billy is such a great guy and he’s so smart. But Sarah is one of our sponsors on the show and. Since we partnered with them. We’ve, I’ve learned so much stuff. Not just about Sarah, but about the business side of things in general.

But huge shout out to Sarah. Next I’d like to say Hey to, to company cam. And if anybody hasn’t used company cam before or checked it out, it’s a really cool, a cool program getting chunked out over here. Another SEO type thing. I don’t know if you know this or not, but metadata is important whenever you add photos to your page or to GMB other areas as well.

But that’s where it’s really important. That way Google can see where you’re physically at. There are some review and reputation platforms that’s their

thing. Make the location of your website show that you’ve been in this area and that area and all this other good jazz. company cam is doing the same thing, but with photos.

And you can actually have it. So it automatically uploads to a carousel on your homepage or any page on your website, but then Google can crawl the page and show. And the metadata shows that you’ve been in [00:04:30] X, Y, Z location. Or if you’re terrified because like you have. A team member like I do, or team members like I do that are practical jokers.

And you don’t want it to automatically upload to your website because there’s no telling what they’re gonna put on there. You can also see that approve it before it actually goes onto the website and then edit descriptions and everything else, because I absolutely love my team and my guys but they don’t talk maybe.

The most grammatically correct. And then they use the talk to text feature on their iPad and that’s the description of the photo. And so sometimes it comes out. Comical to say the least. And so it’s very nice to be able to re-edit that, but anyways, it’s, that’s a whole nother thing, whole nother conversation.

Honestly, we need to have company cam on the show as well, because. There’s a lot of stuff that I don’t even mention about company cam whenever I’m doing this intro, but there’s a lot of other things that are really good about ’em, but huge shout out to them, huge shout out to everybody that has ever partnered with us and all of our future partners.

But with that being said, I hope you enjoy this show and if you have any questions and you’re watching this live don’t hesitate to reach out and. Messaging the chat. And we’ll bring those questions to Michelle, but hope you enjoy the.

Michelle LaFrance: Are you looking for valuable business advice to reach that seven figure revenue mark, do you want [00:06:00] actionable tips to properly navigate through

Tersh Blissett: every business challenge

Michelle LaFrance: you encounter along the way? Let ter BLI and Josh crouch be your guide in

Tersh Blissett: getting you to the top here at service business mastery tune in as they sit down with world renowned

Michelle LaFrance: authors in business leadership and personal growth.

Who share valuable insights about management,

Tersh Blissett: marketing, pricing, human resources, and so much more. Let their nuggets of wisdom, gold guide you in owning a thriving,

Michelle LaFrance: profitable, and

Tersh Blissett: ever growing business. Here are your hosts, tur and

Michelle LaFrance: Josh.

Tersh Blissett: Hey there, Michelle, how are you? Oh my

Michelle LaFrance: gosh. That is such good music choice. like rocking out over here, jamming .

Tersh Blissett: So if you wouldn’t mind for those who are listening or watching and they’ve never heard or seen or interacted with you, can you give us a little bit of background on you? And in that intro I was like she does this and does a little bit of this, but.

The more you and I talk, it’s everybody else should know Michelle the same. I know Michelle. But that’s not the case. I don’t want it to any, I don’t want, I don’t want to take that flame away from you. I want to make sure that everybody understands exactly who you are and what you do. Yeah.

Michelle LaFrance: Yeah. Thank you for that opportunity. Yeah, I often get, my friends are always going, what is it with you in the stockless heat pump for crying out loud? Yeah. I am a [00:07:30] marketing gal. And so I’ll give you a quick, low down on why you wanna listen to what I have to say and why would I do is so impactful?

and the search results. My company, Turk, I’m gonna be 20 years old this year. My, yeah, my company is turning 20. So here’s why this is important. Before I ever started my own digital agency, I worked for a really large web

development company in Portland, Oregon. It consulting all that stuff. We did websites for fortune 500 companies, websites that were three and four and $500,000.

But when I went out on my own, I took all that knowledge that I knew about building big corporate websites. And I started applying it to the small business owner because I was starting a business and I, you need to start someplace. So I have a lot of expertise behind me. And I’ve always worked with contractors and I always have liked a niche.

So niches are so powerful. And so when I first started my company, I found a niche with the Portland home builders. I’ve always worked with contractors, but building contractors, remodelers and that type of thing. And that was going really well till, 2000 and eight. Okay. yep. And if I hadn’t found a way to.

Survive that big recession. We wouldn’t be talking today. And part of the reason that I’m so passionate about working with HVAC contractors is because it was an HVAC contractor that saved my bacon in 2008. So all the home builders B [00:09:00] by they disappeared overnight my target audience. But during the time in the home builders association, I did business with one HVAC.

During the recession, he contacted me and said, Michelle, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to save my company. That I really see the future with this ductless heat pump. Now I was living out in Portland, Oregon at the time, right? So it was new back in 2008. And this guy was a visionary that I really see a future with this ductless heat pump.

And I’m curious, you did such a good job with my website. Can you make me number one in the search? And I was so excited. To have an opportunity, cuz I thought I was going down. And I like, yeah, I can make you number one. Hell yes. I know how to do that. And then I had to pause and I went, what? What’s the Z pomp I go, huh?

What is that? And so that’s my backstory. So I’ve been working with HVAC contractors for 13 years. I was doing website building before, like when you think about the internet. And how can you influence that? When I started my company church, there was no Google maps. Can you imagine that? And there weren’t on the scene.

It was just paid advertising and a bunch of websites. So you have to learn. So

now Google maps comes on the scene and you go what will influence my contractor to get on that map? It’s not. It’s not static. We bump people off the map all the time with my strategy.

Tersh Blissett: Yeah.

And so getting there is one thing, and for me, I’m very guilty of this, especially I think that I [00:10:30] equate this back to my like policies and procedures creating. It’s okay, so we have a problem. I’m gonna create a policy. Now I’m gonna forget about it. I’m just gonna set it and forget it, but you can’t do anything even remotely like that, because if you get on the three pack or whatever, you get up there in the Google maps, and then all of a sudden, you just forget about it.

You’re going to Michelle’s cuz she gonna bump you right off. I am. you’re

Michelle LaFrance: not my client. You’re gone. That sounds harsh. But that’s but we’re bringing up something that, maybe most contract, how would you know how the Google map works? And so there’s an algorithm and it’s different than your website.

And when you hire somebody skillful, like my company we look at there and we go of the three companies who’s vulnerable. What did they do to get themselves on the map? And then what do I need to do better than that to knock them off? so right. Sorry, but not sorry. We’re in a competitive. Sorry, not sorry.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Tersh Blissett: So let’s get let’s dive in. Let’s get started. First off you got some big changes coming with the duct list directly. What do we have going on? You

Michelle LaFrance: wanna start with my big changes? I’d love

Tersh Blissett: to. Yeah, you do.

Michelle LaFrance: all right. We’re gonna talk about why all these things are important, but you wanna keep

Tersh Blissett: First off for anybody just in case somebody doesn’t know what the Douglas directory is what is that? Yeah,

Michelle LaFrance: let’s talk about that. It’s a turnkey marketing solution that will elevate any ductless contractor.[00:12:00]

On the internet search and it will expand how many times they get found.

Tersh Blissett: Now this is okay. So is this how much as a business owner am I going to have to do. Nothing to make it work. Okay. not cause we have plenty of time, so

Michelle LaFrance: Yeah. You guys have all the time in the world to be thinking about these things.

I know. And let’s just go back and address Josh. Love talking to you always. And I’m like, I sent a little note to Josh and he’s I’m not gonna be there. And I was like, what? We could have this great onsite offsite, SEO conversation. So maybe another time. Absolutely. You turn to someone like Josh, when you want to build your website, you wanna do the onsite SEL and I’ve seen his stuff and his strategies.

And it’s very good, but it’s like the left arm and the right arm, onsite is everything that happens on your website. The way that it’s structured, the way that the navigation is the content on the site, the keyword density the tagging of the site. That’s all stuff done on your. And one of the biggest things and most important things for contractors to understand is that when you wanna be the dockless guy and you want to stand out from everybody else, that wants to be the dockless guy.

You need a super strong off site strategy. So everything I do is off the website. You love Josh. You. And if Josh and I were ever to have the same client, that would be like [00:13:30] insane because I go, Hey, Josh, take this video that I created and put it here. And you’re gonna get that synergy. But everything I do is offsite.

And so that’s so important because you want to have an impact on the search result and a website is just one asset. Yeah. And the problem that contractors make is they keep building bigger website.

Tersh Blissett: And so the, so basically we get some back link from. Backlink juice from the ductless directory to help Google legitimize, our website.

And so is it the ductless directory that ranks high or is it our website that, that would rank

Michelle LaFrance: high? Yeah. I sometimes wish church that I didn’t call it a directory, cuz it’s has a connotation with all these spammy directories out there. Yeah. And so you have to discern the difference between spammy quantity stuff and quality.

So the Deus directory is a quality play. Yeah. What is it? It’s really a way where to get that powerful back link. It’s like this. I like to demystify SEO and just put it in really simple terms. It’s if you went out and you saw a musician or a movie star or a sports, like I like hockey, so if I saw Sydney, Crosby, I’d probably be running across the room going take my picture. Why do you want to go have your picture taken with somebody? Because it elevates you, it’s

Tersh Blissett: association,

Michelle LaFrance: yeah, exactly. Same thing with the ductless directory. So I mentioned my background and the skillset.

that my company has. And there was a time when I was [00:15:00] working out on the west coast that I had building websites for all these HVAC contractors and in 2008, nine and 10, 11, and 12 ductus was really big out there. So I had to solve the problem. If I’m building a website for a contractor and I’m doing everything I knew to do on site I know that Google needs to see somebody else referring to you.

Otherwise, it’s just you saying you’re. Exactly. It’s me building a big website. It’s like that annoying person that goes to a networking event and is just running around like dealing out cards. It’s just whoa,

Tersh Blissett: they’re giving it all, but don’t wanna help and take that. Yeah.

Yeah. I’ve seen

Michelle LaFrance: that person. Yeah. And it’s obnoxious. And so what you’ll learn by listening for me as I’m very strategic and I like to solve problems. So

there I have. All these contractors with HVAC sites and everybody is saying, I wanna grow my ductless business. I want more ductless because the rebates and incentives were so big out there.

So me being competitive and my team being competitive, we know that Google wants to see who else is referring to you and the higher the relevancy and the higher, the authority of who is referring to your website. You can call that a back link. The boost. You. So SEO companies that wanna get back links, you gotta pay for them, or you gotta go create them.

And I thought hang on just a second. If I know this is a ranking factor, and this is gonna elevate my contractors, why don’t I just [00:16:30] create an authority website? Oh, I know how to do that. so that’s why I created the duct list directory. What does Google want? And then we watch. So Google wants to see a robust website.

Google wants to see rich content, Google likes, video marketing. So I’ve created the duck list directory. It’s everything that Google wants. So the mere fact that someone would come in, even at a basic listing and become a member and just get a basic listing for like really a low amount of money.

Tersh Blissett: Yeah, it is.

It’s ridiculously cheap, especially for what we all pay for everything else. Yeah.

Michelle LaFrance: and So we’ve seen contractors go from the bottom of the search, move up in the search, just from a back link. We’ve seen them from not being on the map to getting on the map. We’ve seen these incredible things and I have examples of why bigger is not better.

And

Tersh Blissett: So would you say that bigger is not better? H, how big is your online footprint like the, is it is it okay to have a large online footprint or do we need to be super niche? Because you, you mentioned earlier you found a super niche audience with our podcasts. We would be considered a super niche.

Podcasts. We serve full. We serve directly to service, business owners home service, business commercial service businesses. We could take this and make it very broad and get a lot more audience, lot more listeners, but because

we’re super niche, we have to be okay with the [00:18:00] fact that we’re only gonna get so many listeners because of how.

Niche our audience is. And so we are good with that, but sometimes whenever you’re talking to advertisers or you’re talking to other people who, even in the podcast world and you’re talking numbers the vanity part of it it’s we have X, Y, and Z as our download and each month.

And then they’re like, oh, and you get this kind of. I don’t know, condescending look or is oh, that’s it. That’s but we are niche and we’re providing. To very we’re providing guests to a very small and direct market. So the it’s less broad. And so when we’re asking questions, we’re asking questions, the same questions that a lot of our listeners are asking too, versus having such a broad audience that it could relate to them.

It might not relate to them. How is it. Is it good to be that way with our website, like super niche and just be okay with not having, 20,000 visitors a month to a website, be okay with having 1500 visitors to a website a month, but we’re converting. We’re ha we have much higher conversion rate.

Or should we really just. Sling it out there, like create content for Facebook, for Instagram, for LinkedIn, for Twitter, for TikTok, for [00:19:30] our website blog post, and every, and let’s just create a podcast while we’re at it, should we do it all and then see what sticks and like what’s your take on that?

I know that’s a very long winded question but what’s your thoughts on that? It’s such

Michelle LaFrance: a good one. Yeah. You know an answer to your question. I just first wanna acknowledge you. I don’t know if you know how powerful what you do is to your body.

Tersh Blissett: not really

Michelle LaFrance: not. Let me tell you. So I tried and text you after, we did the, a podcast, like in March of 2021.

I it’s been a little over a year, right? Yeah. And first of all, your listener audience is amazing. I have, they are, oh my gosh. And then what they tell me. So I try and text you and I know you get busy and everything, but I’m like, oh, I just

talked to so and and blah, they said whatever.

So now you really have to in answer to your question, you’re serving your tribe. You’re in your lane. Serving community. Now you can, it’s always the thing. You can look at the analytics. You can look at this or you can look at the impact that you have. And a lot of your listeners don’t know how to reach out to you or whatever, but they tell me, I learned so much from that guy.

I, I even had somebody come to the ductless directory two months ago. Hello, Chad, in Kansas city. He said, oh, I just listened to your podcast. And I went that was last year. That was like a year

Tersh Blissett: ago. That’s the great thing about podcast. If. Is thinking about doing podcasts and they’re like it is not gonna be relevant later on, do it, just do it because it’s evergreen.

Most of the times, it’s evergreen. Now I do have some recordings [00:21:00] that were like right before the pandemic happened. And then I was listening to ’em and I’m like, Oh, how things have changed. Yeah. But yeah, it is so much of a content is evergreen when it comes to podcasting. And we’re like Josh and I think I was telling you this earlier, Josh and I are working on a course for local, what I would call micro audiences.

To teach people how to do a local podcast and have other local guests on the show and to help build your authority as a business locally. And because that’s the tricky thing about podcasts. Like we can’t tell the podcast directories who to direct this information to. It just goes out to everyone.

So to get that super niched micro audience is. It’s a challenge. And so we’re building a course out for that. And if anybody’s listening to this and you want to grow your authority within your city reach out to us and let us know, because we’d like to know who, who would even be interested in something like that would that to you, Michelle, with the SEO side of things what’s your thoughts on that?

Putting it in that micro audience kind of category it’s super niche. It’s gonna be super like, let’s just say Savannah. So I have a podcast called shop, small SAV, shop, small Savannah, and it highlights local business owners. And my target with this podcast is. [00:22:30] I probably should have made it the same as my name of my business.

But I didn’t, that’s on me live and learn, but I wanna make evergreen content for them, but also on that show, I want to make sure that I’m the expert in ductless, mini splits and heating and air conditioning and all of that good stuff. Is that, I guess that goes back to my other question is our, should our online footprint be large or should it be.

And this is

Michelle LaFrance: such a rich topic. Okay. I got a lot to say so much to say the first thing I wanna say I want, let me just go back to what you were talking about before. Let’s just talk about the HVAC contractors and why I niche down. The saying the riches are in the niches. That’s right.

. Yeah. And so for contractors, some of them are just becoming ductless specialists. They go, that’s all I wanna do. I can build a healthy business doing that and good on you. They are the happiest customer. They give you rave reviews. They re for you like crazy. They’re happy. I like to say push the happy button, but when you look at the HVAC contractor and they’re one of the problems for the industry is the search terms are so huge.

We in one of our for one of our contractors, we had them ranking on over a thousand map listings. Now, Google doesn’t come out and tell you, oh, for the HVAC industry, we have X amount of map listings available. You have to discover it. But when we saw that we had a thousand, cuz we ranked these things and we track ’em.[00:24:00]

I was talking to my SEO and I go, who knew that there was a thousand map listings for HVAC. So it’s like this big, huge, vast. And so then you have to priorit. And a contractor comes my way. I go, tell me what your priorities are because in your industry, , there’s just so many keywords to go for. So where do you make the most money?

What’s your biggest priority and what do you have the skillset for? So when I do SEO, it’s about prioritizing it. Now let’s get to your podcast. I always like to say, there’s a ripple effect. So you’re doing a podcast for business owners in Savannah. And so that’s your lane. And so be in that lane.

But you will have a ripple effect because every business owner. That you teach right. To do a there’s that ripple effect where they might come back to you and realize that you’re a heating and cooling company and oh yeah. He’s the

podcast guy. and somehow, and so the interconnectedness of things is really important for me when I speak to contractors about.

How big is your online footprint? Are you Bigfoot? Are you little foot, right? You could have the biggest website and still only have one, one. One, one asset showing up, whereas suppose what I do with my offsite stuff, I do video marketing. I do press releases. Just my top contractors get a landing page in the duct list directory.

All of those things show up on the first page of search. And so what I do, which kind of leads me to who is the ductless guys? Some people think it’s the biggest [00:25:30] contractor and it’s. It’s the smart, it’s the one with the smartest marketing,

Tersh Blissett: right? Yeah. So sometimes as a smaller contractor.

It’s nice because you can get super I don’t wanna use the word niche again, but you can get super focused on a particular topic. Like I have some friends of mine who are doing building science and they’re just. Sure they can do air conditioning. They can change out your HVAC system.

They can do maybe they, their plumbers or electricians. But they really. No building science. Yeah. And that’s their thing is they want to improve the healthiness of a home versus just changing, swapping out air condition units. So you can be that same person, but on the ductless side of things as well, like you, whenever people have issues with ductless, Like dev.

I have a friend of mine, Devin he’s in North Carolina. And when there’s a VRF issue, like they send him to Florida, all over the country to fix these issues from this particular manufacturer, because he’s. That guy. You can definitely become that and you don’t have to be a massive company. All Devin happens to have a large company.

But some of the other guys that are doing building science, they it’s, some of them are small companies. Some of them are larger companies. Yeah. But like you said, you don’t have to be that massive company.

Michelle LaFrance: No. Many of. Companies that I consider to be the [00:27:00] ductless guy are smaller, medium size contractors.

Some of them came to me and they go, am I too late? I really feel like I really wanna get on board with the ductless. And I go, no, if you play the same game that everybody else is playing, then yeah. Then it’s gonna take some time. But when you want instant results, because what I’m doing is so different and powerful.

No, I can get you immediate results. And so I like. Yeah, there’s a lot of contractors that wonder if they’ve been too late and you’re just not, you have to play a smarter game. That’s what I bring to the table. We have videos as an example that pop up to the search result. I had one video in a territory pop up to the search top.

Number one in the search in 10 minutes.

Tersh Blissett: after posting it.

Michelle LaFrance: It’s crazy.

So this is a whole big home services organization that decided they wanted to get into HVAC. And so they turned to me and they said we really are interested mostly in the ductless aspect. So I built them a website and we got it ranked.

And then I put them in the ductless directory. So here they are new to HVAC. and the operations manager called me and he said, I wanna tell you, and we just closed a deal on a duct list. And the consumer told us why she chose us. And I said, D tell she went and did a Google search, ductless heat pump for ductless mini store, whatever she said in the, in this town.

And she said you were on the map. So that was good. And I saw your website brand new, by the way. On the first page of search results [00:28:30] because it’s in the ductless directory. That’s how powerful it is. She says, but you’re different because I found the ductless directory. And then I found this video and I found all these other places that referenced you.

And so I thought you must be the ductless company to work

with. Oh, that makes get three quotes. She called them cuz she. The leader and

Tersh Blissett: he had the authority

Michelle LaFrance: and the online footprint. Yeah. So when I come into a territory for one of on behalf of one of my clients, the ductless directory shows up in their territory. Then my videos show up in the territory, the video tops, the search.

And then if I do two and three videos, Google puts in a Google carousel of three videos. Guess what happened? Somebody got pushed off the first page of search results, cuz I’m taking it over on behalf of my client yeah. For that career. So yeah. So the three videos show up and then their listing page shows up and then the ductless directory itself shows up in a territory.

And before they know it, contractors that used to be on the first page are on the second page and there’s my client dominating the search and getting the leads and building the rapport. In the territory as the ductless guy, it’s really a beautiful thing.

Tersh Blissett: So you’re you do a lot of mainly organic, is that correct?

Less or no, or less pay per click or paid ads.

Michelle LaFrance: Yeah, and I, yeah, I’m just gonna stay in my lane.

Tersh Blissett: yeah, I don’t blame you. [00:30:00] Josh. Josh has told me that several times, he was like, if you want to do, if you want to, be amazing at paper, click. Talk to this person. Yeah.

Michelle LaFrance: I like the organic for these reasons, paper, click, the money is spent and gone like that.

Yeah. And getting, I like building strong foundations. So when you get in the duct list directory, you get that valuable back link and it helps you with your map listings. And the same thing with the website, I’m doing very few websites. These days, I’m pouring pretty much my heart soul into the ductless directory.

But when I decide. To do someone’s website. Yeah, we deploy from the ground up. SEO is from the ground up. Sometimes I get websites and people want me to take them over and I look at it and I go, boy, howdy. Yeah. What happened under the hood? Like on the surface, that was the nice looking website that would go what’s happening underneath.

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. It’s. And the thing about it is if you do spend a lot of time B building that very strong foundation and getting the proper back links, not paying for junk back links when Google doesn’t update when there’s an update that’s performed across these different search engine platforms.

It doesn’t affect you. If anything, it might make you better. Our website, the service business mastery website, it actually Google did an update and it was hurting a lot of people, but our ranking shot up because of the long form content that we have on our page every single week,

Michelle LaFrance: because penalties happen, updates happen. So when you build from the ground up and you build [00:31:30] it solid, it’s really good. By the way, I I did that video for you a year ago. Is it still on the first page?

Tersh Blissett: I haven’t looked lately, but yeah, every now we did a lot of calls for ductless and that’s pretty much our, one of our only advertisements for duct work.

That’s one of the few things that we do for duct work. We had, we actually did an date on our website. I think not long after that. And you went to our site and you were like, this is missing. I was like, oh, Cru,

Michelle LaFrance: oh, that’s right. We added some content. And then, okay, this is such a good example. So the video in and of itself will rank at the top of search and it’ll stay there cuz it’s a year later and the video is still there featuring your company.

Consumers love that. Let’s talk about this as well. A lot of consumers do their search on. So YouTube, right? When you look at a piece of the pie and where are people searching? And it used to be, oh, everybody’s searching on Google. They’re searching in a lot of other places, so video, and if you’re missing video in your marketing, you’re really missing out because video.

Is so powerful. I can I’m going off on video for a second. Yeah. Do

Tersh Blissett: that because I want people to understand that you don’t have to have this amazing face or voice. Like I have a face for radio and I get on video. Or you can just not get on video and you can do other forms of video at the same.

Michelle LaFrance: Oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah. Video. I do a couple types of video. Let me talk about the video that comes with the top level membership in the ductless directory. [00:33:00] We solve so many problems. Let me tell you first why I like videos and I’m just trying to organize my thoughts cuz I’m like, blah, I have so much to say videos are the most versatile and powerful marketing tool that you have.

And if you’re somebody and you’re in a territory and your website, maybe you’re not even anywhere found for ductless you get in and I’ll start doing some video marketing videos, pop to the top of the search. I wanna go back to the company you referenced earlier, that’s doing all the meta tagging everything.

Everything needs to be optimized. Everything needs to be SEOed. So I write the script for the video. My, my production team puts it together and then my SEO ranks the video. Let’s just talk about this for a sec. So much to say this is a statistic. YouTube is so popular that every minute, 500 hours.

Video content is uploaded to YouTube. Yeah. Let that sink in every minute, 500 hours. So when I make the case for wherever you are in your journey to deploy the ductless directory in our video marketing, we pop to the top of the search. But guess what? Not every video does. It’s so special. There’s thousands of contractor videos that don’t rank the way my videos do.

I’ll give you a case in point in the state of Massachusetts, they’ve got these rebates that are up to $15,000. Yeah,[00:34:30]

right. 10, 10,000. And then it could be as much as 15,000. So do you think it would be valuable for a contractor in the state of Massachusetts or similar things are happening in New York to be at the top of the search and multiplying? How many times you get found at the top of the search? So much is at stake.

People that maybe don’t need to upgrade their furnace or their air conditioning right away are going $15,000 rebate. Say what? So I’ve got a contractor in Canton, Massachusetts. I wanted to help him get found for ductless heat pump rebates, and our video shot to the top of the search in one hour.

This is how powerful the marketing that we do is now once you get a video

from the ductless direct. I say, download it and give it to your web developer and get that video on your website. Because a video on a page of your website will create rich what Google calls, rich content, and it’ll elevate your site

Tersh Blissett: now should, in your opinion, should they embed it from YouTube or upload it straight to the.

Michelle LaFrance: That’s a thing for my dev. He’s told me that and I forget. Yeah.

Tersh Blissett: It I feel like, yeah, I think uploading it straight to your website is gonna be too heavy and make your website too slow. I think what everybody does, if I could be wrong, I know on our website that we embed it straight from web embed the YouTube yeah.

Code in there. And it’s all. What’s the best way to say it’s transcribed and everything like that. And that’s what Google loves to [00:36:00] see.

Michelle LaFrance: Yeah. You do it for the SEO benefit and you do it for the consumer experience. So a consumer comes consumers are digesting video, like crazy. So you add the video to your blog post, you add the video to a webpage.

Guess what I like to solve problems. Contractors are coming to me, wanting to know, can you help me with my social? And I said, no, I don’t wanna take over your Facebook page, but I can provide you with high quality content yeah. That you can share. So take that video that I create and share it on your social account.

Send it out in an email and start like we talk about the internet landscape and it’s important. I’m gonna help you dominate the search. I just and I’m offering people a chance for me to get an appointment with me and we will let’s take a look at your competitive landscape. What will it take for you to get the search?

But in the meantime, those videos are so important because you can just use them in multiple places and they just boost everything. They make everything better.

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. I think it’s just a, it is, it’s another piece to your puzzle. And especially if. You can do it and not me do it. That’s even better. If I don’t have to

spend the time making the website or making the video myself.

Yeah. Then that helps out a lot.

Michelle LaFrance: Yeah. And I like to tell contractors too, it’s just I am an inner net marketing strategist. I’m a creative, a content marketer. But there’s also the case for pushing your message out. So we, of course, when people are searching, we want them to find you, but there’s [00:37:30] also the case for really planting the FA flag in your territory and pushing your message out.

Like I am the ductless guy in the area. Here’s my video. Oh, let me tell you about the other type of video that I do. That’s completely separate from the ductless directory. I have to come up with a name for it, but they’re like snack size. So the way it works, I did one of these videos for a contractor in Boise, Idaho who really wants to push his message out.

And I go you need to start claiming it. You push that out. So I met him in Riverside and we did an hour long interview. I wrote the questions. I told him what some good answers would be. He was really nervous. I said, don’t worry about it’s gonna turn out. Great. And then I sent that clip to my video team and they broke it up into little snack size bits about why he chose the mid.

SBII brand. And he said, I chose Mitsubishi because of this. And then I go, what problems do you solve? And he’s sometimes husbands and wifes need a break from each other. So it’s perfect for the she or the man came. You can go and find your quiet little place. What about this?

And so he got 10. Snack size videos and I go push it out there. We put it in blog posts. He put it on his facial. He did FA facial Facebook. he see it on Instagram? I go send an email out, but start pushing your message out. So that’s really what I do is help people become the ductless guy on the internet, but also in your messaging.

So

Tersh Blissett: I. Okay, so let’s talk one more thing. This, the different, a little bit of a different subject here. Let’s talk [00:39:00] The vitamins that needs. This is something we, we talked about this last year before last, something like that. Yeah. But I wanted to bring it back up again.

Michelle LaFrance: Thank you. Last time you had me on as a guest, I really like to simplify things and I’m like, how can I make it so that people, don’t feel like it’s overwhelming or wanna glaze over.

So it’s like this, you got a website and your website needs some vitamins, just like your body needs some vitamin. So what would the vitamins be? Great. Vitamin B is the back link. Somebody else referring to you and your website. And if you want to grow duct list, then let that back link. The most powerful back link you can get is from a source that’s highly relevant and has high authority.

That’s what the duct list directory is. That’s why we elevate your website. Then I started thinking about vitamin. What’s that? You gotta be on the map listing for as many terms as you. and that vitamin C is the citation. Google is looking for. Where else other than your website, can they find a citation which is your name and your address and your phone number, even just a basic listing in the duct list.

Directory gives you another citation and guess what? It’s a highly relevant. Citation and it’s high in authority. It helps. And then vitamin D is using directories, not spammy directories. Just the other day, I got an email that we can get you in 20,000 directories. And I’m like, this is why people.

Tersh Blissett: And then the next thing, Google changes it [00:40:30] up and says, all of that is black hat. And now it’s yeah. Hurt hurting your.

Michelle LaFrance: And so quality. I have a quality asset, so you can read more about it. ACHR news has been publishing my articles. So you could go to ACHR news and put my name in there, and you’re gonna see my articles on more information on vitamin B, C and D for your website, why it’s so important and why these simple things can be such a differentiator.

Let everybody else do the same old thing. You’re just gonna play a smarter game. That’s what the ductless directory. Yeah.

Tersh Blissett: Awesome. Okay. So now let’s do some announcements and your, yeah. The big change that we’ve mentioned earlier in the show .

Michelle LaFrance: Okay let’s talk about the first big change.

So I had indicated to you, I like solving problems. And so I talked to a lot of my contractors and more and more of them are saying, gosh, Michelle, there’s more, there’s other contractors. That wanna be the ductless guy. And people are thinking they start commoditizing this product, big mistake.

They think they can do it themselves. And there’s online wholesalers. So I go, okay if this is what people are running into, out in the field, what could I do? That would make a difference for them that would elevate them in the eye of the consumer. And it was one Saturday morning and I went, oh, so when I first created the ductless director, it was more about the product and how exciting it was, cuz there was an education and I thought, oh, the time has come. So now my big news and the [00:42:00] press release went out a couple weeks ago and it says the ductless direct. Contractor advocacy is job number one.

So not only do we rank everywhere, but if you go ductless directory.com, you’re gonna see that I’ve made the contractor, the star of the show. So it’s not about the product anymore. I’m putting my top contractor front and center stage. So if you go look at the directory today, you’re gonna see just right heating and cooling the dicon comfort pro in salt lake city, right there in the hero image.

But they’re on the homepage right there on the homepage. And then the press release went out promoting that. So let’s solve some problems. So they’re out there in salt lake city. There’s other contractors that do what they do, but there’s not other ones that are featured on a nationally recognized.

Authority website like the ductless directory. So every month there’s gonna be a new contractor. So next month I’ve got green energy mechanical. They’re a Mitsubishi elite diamond will be there next month with a press release. They can use that in their marketplace. Campbell comfort is coming up home mechanics in Pittsburgh service one in Omaha, Excel comfort in Sioux city, Iowa.

They’re. Dyke and comfort pros, Hanco in Boise who comfort in Massachusetts. So my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. They’re getting front page now when you move through the directory, so consumers find the directory and consumers. I get leads all the time, which I really don’t [00:43:30] want. I just want more contractors to send leads to.

They’re coming to the ductless directory. And part of it is if they come to your

website, they expect you to say, you’re great. If they go to the brand’s website, they expect that brand’s website to say great things. They like the ductless directory, cuz it’s a third party source. . And so I’m just educating them about many things about the product I’m educating them, how to choose the right contractor and.

To that point on all of the subpages as you move through the directory on every subpage like if you go to ductless AC I’m featuring a contractor, so that’s nice exposure for them. And so I’ve got, I think I’m the ductless AC page. You might see green comfort. I got a picture of the business owner, and then I put a little quote underneath it.

A statement is really a better way that just advocates for the contractor. So as a consumer moves through my robust website, every TA every place that they turn I’m advocating for gotta hire the right contractor. Yeah. It’s the first, it’s the most important choice. So that’s news number one.

And right now, those are my highest level contractors that are being featured. But there’s room for new people coming in. And right now I’m not charging for that increased visibility, but I have room for more contractors to come in. Those contractors coming in the month of July, I’ll find a place to feature.

On one of the pages of the ductless [00:45:00] directory so that they can get more visibility, more recognition, more third party validation.

Tersh Blissett: So with that being said, who are the ductless all-star but you sent that video. And I seen that.

Michelle LaFrance: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I love to solve problems. Okay. One of the problems is there’s increased competition.

So I go what could I do for this group of contractors that I just they’re quality contractors. . And so I came up with the idea like why don’t. Craft a group and we’re gonna call them the ductless, all stars. So in the ductless directory, one of the problems that I solve is messaging.

It’s a very fresh and unique voice. And if you go look at my blog post there’s a chance for contractors to get featured, but the most okay. When you get featured in a blog post, you get more visibil. Yep. You get third party validation and you get another high quality back link to your website.

This is how we build the foundation and build the online footprint, but the all stars I had so much fun with because I selected them. You really do have to be. Somebody I consider to be an all star. So what do they get? They get featured in that blog post. They get featured in a video. So your listeners can just go ductless, Allstar, search it.

You’re gonna find my video at the top. And that’s is that, did you love it? Is that, yeah, that was

Tersh Blissett: good video. It was great.

Michelle LaFrance: And so this is where again, I say that not all contractors are created equal and if you want to enjoy. The full benefits of what a ductless heat pump has to offer, gotta get the contractor straight.

So I give a [00:46:30] shout out to all of those all stars and my press release that they’re gonna get featured in, goes out today. And I guess what they have that marketing, but they have that video that they can go share on their social. They have a press release that they can add to their website.

They’re saying I’m not your average contractor. I’m a ductless all star. And this is why you would choose me to do your business. Because it’s important. That’s cool. Yeah. So I advocate and promote the hack out of my contractors.

Tersh Blissett: Yeah. That’s so true. If you visit, like I’m on Michelle’s website now Douglas list, director.com.

It’s super simple. But if you go on there pretty much every page you go to is find a contractor. Yeah. So it’s not like other directories where it’s like. Want your information as a client, as a consumer, and then they’re gonna sell that information to the contractor. It’s. It doesn’t give that feel.

It doesn’t. So you don’t, you’re not worried about that vibe at all. Which is really good. You get ranked in your area because you have this high level domain authority that’s giving you a back link and then they’re constantly. Trying to share the contractor information versus selling the consumer’s information to the contractor, which is a great,

Michelle LaFrance: yeah.

And can I say this church do it because for the SEO do it for the market positioning because if you are in your town and you do a search for ductless contractor, you’re gonna get a typical search result. But once you come into the directory, I’m gonna own that search on your behalf. [00:48:00] So that’s why I say I struggle that I call it a trajectory.

It’s really market positioning because the assets that I create for you will rank in your territory. and separate you from the rest of the pack. So if

Tersh Blissett: anybody wants to sign up to be part of it where do you go to, to actually sign up?

Michelle LaFrance: Let’s do this, go to the ductless guide.com. Okay. And that’s a page that I created.

That’s gonna have some resources there for you. And then there is. A link I’m this is the last time I’m doing it. Tur. Okay. I’m doing, it’s the tur special. I’m doing the basic listing, which is your name, address, phone number for $99 for the entire year. You’re gonna find that link on the ductless guy.com.

It’s normally $37 a month. So it’s like ridiculous. It’s 70% off. I’m never gonna do it again. I’m doing it to the end of July. And then we’re gonna move forward with the protocol of just really working. With contractors. Cool. Come the ductless guy.

Tersh Blissett: That’s really cool. I will actually put this link in the show notes as well.

And you don’t have a whole lot of time to sign up for that and Believe you me, this you get busy and you’re like, oh, crud, I forgot to do this. So you wanna do it you wanna do it now because I’ve I, she sent me stuff and I’m like, oh yeah, that’s great. I’m gonna do that right now.

And then I don’t. And then she’s Hey, did you ever do that? And I’m like, oh, crud. No, I got busy and I know how great it is. And I let it slip by. So don’t do that. Don’t be me. Don’t make the same mistakes [00:49:30] that I did with that. So get signed up and I’ll put this information in the show notes as well.

Michelle, is there anything that I forgot to ask you?

Michelle LaFrance: I don’t think so. We covered some really great topics here. I just wanna thank you for always making time to bring me on to the show. So I just have a heart full of gratitude, and then I’m gonna thank you for all the contractors that I’m about to meet as a result of knowing you.

Because I’ve. Some really good connections with contractors. And I’m even gonna say friendships, where I’m helping these guys grow their business. I genuinely care about them. I, and they text me and they’re like, I just got this deal. I celebrate. I get so excited, that they take the time to let me know.

So thank you for the opportunity.

Tersh Blissett: Absolutely. I’m very honored. It’s been many years now since we first met. And the first time we met, I was like, This girl is a ball of energy and it’s great. I’m not a normally a morning person. Josh is a morning person. That’s why we do the shows in the morning.

My, I, my hit my rhythm about 3:00 PM, 2:00 PM. And I’m ready to rock and roll. Michelle, every time I talk to you, it’s like. All right. You’re like Josh on steroids make me very much energized in the morning. , I

Michelle LaFrance: appreciate that. And I, together, boy, that’s gonna a little lobbying the data back and

Tersh Blissett: forth.

Yeah. I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing all of this with our audience. There’s several key takeaways here that I hope people got they found value in. If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to reach out to Michelle. She’s super fast to responder. And if you want to, you can reach out to me, but I’m [00:51:00] honestly just gonna direct you to Michelle.

And with that being said, I hope you have a wonderful and safe week until we talk again. Next time on service business mastery podcast. Thank you again, Michelle, for coming on the.

Michelle LaFrance: Thanks so much. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening

Tersh Blissett: to this episode of service business

Michelle LaFrance: mastery. Now that you 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

Tersh Blissett: and share it with other owners as well.

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