The Small Business Safari

Lessons from "Liquid Death" To Drive Local Leads: Bold Branding That Wins | Jeremy LaDuke

• Chris Lalomia, Alan Wyatt, Jeremy LaDuke • Season 4 • Episode 216

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Summary:
Jeremy LaDuke, founder of Epic Nine, dives into the attention economy and why bold, memorable branding outperforms safe, copycat marketing. He explains how small businesses can set honest budgets, track what really matters, and build brand familiarity that drives conversion — even without perfect attribution. From Liquid Death’s creative risk-taking to networking tips for introverts, Jeremy shares practical lessons every entrepreneur can apply to grow with authenticity and courage.

🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBusinessSafari

💡 GOLD NUGGETS (Key Moments)
• Disruptive branding lessons from Liquid Death
• Defining SMART goals and budget honesty
• Risk appetite and creative differentiation
• Attribution reality and measuring what matters
• Branded search as a proxy for awareness
• Lower, mid, and top-funnel investment strategy
• Climb Club for sub-$2M businesses
• Networking tactics for introverts
• When to use CTAs vs. pure brand
• Distinctive assets: names, themes, mascots

🔗 Guest Links
• Website: https://epicnine.com

• The Climb Club: https://theclimbclub.com

• Book “Climb”: https://theclimb.guide
or Amazon

• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyladuke/

 • Book Rec: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

🌍 Follow The Small Business Safari
• Instagram | @smallbusinesssafaripodcast

• LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrislalomia/

• Website | https://chrislalomia.com

• Website | www.safaripodcast.com




SPEAKER_05:

Um I I think the honesty really comes down to what are they willing to put on a check? Um, right? That's where that's you don't really get much more honest than that. Like what can what can you cut a check for?

SPEAKER_03:

And so Well, and I'm my guess is the answer is hey, if it works, I'll put as much money as I have in it, but they're afraid it's not going to work. Yes. Yeah. So it's like how much are you willing to gamble, Chris? Like when you go to Vegas, what's your number?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, all right, again, there's two answers. Okay. Uh, there's the answer I tell my wife, and there's the answer I tell my buddies, and it's somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_01:

Ten grand, big boy, big daddy's coming in big strong.

SPEAKER_02:

Honey, how much you a thousand. Or I'm at a thousand. I'm gonna tell you, I'm not gonna spend any more than a thousand. I mean, that's it. When I go there, I'm I'm only gonna lose a thousand dollars, okay? And so by the way, it's somewhere in the middle between one and ten. And for that, you can email Chris at the trusted toolbox to find out what the real number is, and I'll let you know. But I not unless you email me. If you email me and say, Chris, what is that number? I'll I'll tell you what it is. Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls, and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there, and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from hitting your own personal and professional goals. So strap in Adventure Team and let's take a ride through this safari. Alan, I can't believe you actually said that before we went on air that you called me an extrovert. I take that thing to heart. And yes, I identify it.

SPEAKER_03:

Kind of implied that you were being obnoxious.

SPEAKER_02:

And I am obnoxious. Thank you again, Alan, for letting us all know that we do that. Once again, everybody, we're back. You're driving. I've been watching the stats. I tell you what, I love that we're getting listens. I just had another person reach out to me saying, Love what you guys are doing, keep it up. You know what? You're one of the few podcasts I look forward to listening to. I was like, hey, tell your friends, tell like a thousand more, will you?

SPEAKER_03:

Come on. Isn't that cool though that there's somebody out there and they they get excited when they see it drop?

SPEAKER_02:

They did. Well, I don't know if he said that, but he did he definitely at one of the golf events. Yeah, he would he came up to me and says, Oh, yeah, yeah, I listened to your podcast. I look forward to it. And uh, I thought that was so cool because um so Alan had a big time, played a little bit of golf, we're in the golf season. We were supposed to be there, and I was supposed to be there.

SPEAKER_03:

We needed the big stick.

SPEAKER_02:

We need we we needed the big mouth, is what we needed. But no, I had played two charity events and uh in two scrambles in a row. I always joke that uh if there are if there are 88 players and that makes 24 teams, I can't do the math. We're usually a solid like middle of the pack 12. And in this case, we ended up in fifth and fourth. Um, not because of this guy, because I play with some really cool guys, and I also play with a really old guy, Alan. Older than me? Older than you. And uh I said, I said, hey Alan, this guy got to play from the red teas. He goes, You mean I could have played from the red tees? I'm like, yeah, I said, and I really wanted you there, but I had gotten invited that one. So loving golf, but uh Alan invited me to one. I was supposed to be there, and I am still super jelly because it's up in the mountains of uh Georgia. It's at Old Tacoa, Old Tacoa Farm. Great course, great course. Uh up in Blue Ridge, got to play with our good friends at DeCouffles who've been on the podcast.

SPEAKER_03:

The whole thing was podcast people. We had Tim from Next Gen Lighting and then Ted. Temple of Ted four years ago, Temple of Ted talking about marketing.

SPEAKER_02:

What are we talking about today? Hmm. I may market full circle. We have come full circle today. We've got Jeremy Leduc on, and we're gonna talk all kinds of marketing. We're gonna talk about personality types, we're gonna talk about how Jeremy should never ever pick up the game of golf. Uh, because while it sounds like a lot of fun, it's super frustrating when you get old and you really start to suck like I am. Jeremy, welcome to you.

SPEAKER_05:

It sounds like a lot of time and a lot of money. Um, two things that that I don't have at this point in my life.

SPEAKER_02:

Time, money, and uh, oh, by the way, your blood pressure goes skyrocketing, and uh, that's why I still take blood pressure medication.

SPEAKER_03:

You're blaming you're blaming golf for that.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's to that with our small business safari bourbon cups Jeremy, welcome to the show, man. Happy to have you on. Thanks for having me. About what you do and um what makes you so cool doing it.

SPEAKER_05:

So uh yeah, so I founded um Epic Nen Marketing uh almost 12 years ago. Um, and we uh do everything from branding strategy to web design, video production, advertising, all the things, right? So we we really like to work with brands that are ambitious and they want to grow, and they have some they have some kind of well-defined goals that they're uh reaching for. And so what we do, and kind of the secret sauce that that we like to bring to the the game is um ideas that push them a little bit on their creativity, on their branding, and and help them think outside the box so that they can capture attention, right? Marketing is a um it's it's we're dealing in the economy of attention. And if it your advertising and your campaigns are not memorable, then they're wasting money. So um that's what we that's what we like to do. We like to make uh those dollars go as far as they can and and grow businesses.

SPEAKER_02:

You mentioned attention. We are in the attention business. I love that phrase because yeah, right now, uh I wish it was mine.

SPEAKER_05:

I'd I'd use some. I got it from somebody else. I it's not mine, but but I love it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I actually already forgot what he said. Do what did he say? I mean, because I had no attention. I mean, they say goldfish seven seconds. This kid's like three and a half flat, baby. I can go from zero to sixty in three and a half. What'd you say? Where where are we at? But you're right. I mean, we're trying to grab attention in a very busy world. I just had a guy say, Hey, my you know, I my my time is my run time. I when I go run, I don't even take music, I just go run. I was like, for how long? He goes, six miles. I said, so is that like 80 minutes? He goes, So a little faster than that. I'm like, okay. I said, so what do you do? He goes, I'm just a man with my thoughts. I'm like, ooh, that's dangerous.

SPEAKER_05:

You you go into some like some strange places if you don't have any music to keep your mind occupied while you run, like you you go down some dark trails sometimes.

SPEAKER_02:

I know dark, and I yes, I know those trails. You talked about it, the attention management. Uh, you talk about being memorable. What do you think the most memorable marketing thing ever was that you you like you come in and tell people, hey, here's my example.

SPEAKER_05:

So I I I need to find a better example simply because this one is just too a little too extreme. And I think most people in the earth they think, oh, we can never do anything like that. But um, it's the Liquid Death brand. I don't know if y'all are familiar with Liquid Death. Yeah. I mean, they came into a saturated market, no pun intended, right? So bottled water. Um, you know, you go to the you go to the cooler at the gas station, you open up the door, and you're just gonna see this wall of blue with some, you know, springs and mountains and maybe some some woodland creatures on the bottles. Um, and it all looks the same, right? It you really can't tell one from another, and they're really not that different. There's some people that say they can taste the difference in water, but they're just really not different. I think they're completely lying.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, right. Yeah, it's um so bottled water is 100% vanity, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I I um actually I started my own bottling water as it's the trusted toolbox water source, and I just use my hose out back, fill up these bottles, and then put them all back on.

SPEAKER_05:

As do they. Well, and and I'm yeah, I'm I'm pretty sure like if you look at it like bottled bottled in Los Angeles, um, it's like, what kind of water is this? So um so liquid death. Yeah, yeah. So liquid liquid death came on the scene, and they just decided, listen, what what can we do just to disrupt this and to um be distinct, stand out? And so one, they put it in a can, right? Um that that gets you points on water quality, in my opinion. Like I can tell when water comes from a can versus a bottle that's like the I can taste that difference. Um, so they're in a can. Um, and they have a they have a purpose behind that, but not really too many people I don't think really care about the purpose uh for it being recyclable. But they came out in a can, they put a skull on it. It looks more like a beer uh can than a water can. And um, they just themed their whole brand around death. Um, they've they had a mascot for a while that was this like headless guy with a chainsaw or an axe or something. And so super yeah, their advertising is just so off the wall extreme as well. Um, they did a uh they took all of their hate comments at one point. Uh, this is a few years ago. They took all of their comments that they've gotten on fate on social media um that were negative and they turned them into uh like an 80s rock album. Um, and and they left all the cuss words in and everything. So it's fantastic. Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_02:

True story. I I uh went to our local grocery store, buy one, get one free, liquid death. I'm like, you know, I'm gonna do it. You know, why not why not? So I got the the BOGO secret sauce, secret story. If you buy one, you still get it half off. Hello. I did it. I brought it home, put it in the uh in the refrigerator. My daughter comes back to visit and she goes grabbing for it, and I watch her and she goes, What's this? Because she already drank it. She was thinking it was like a high noon, like an alcoholic drink. She goes, It said liquid death. I'm like, You better read it a little closer there.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, so you wanted you wanted liquid death?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, she was going for it thinking she was sneaking in, and she's like, I got the vodka, baby. Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

And so, well, and and that's it's a very it was a very risky thing to do, right? Like nobody else was doing it. And if and if it had failed, like several people would have gotten fired, I'm sure. Like if if this was a if a corporate decision and around a boardroom and someone said, Hey, I got this idea, if it had failed, they would have gotten fired. They wouldn't have gotten fired if the clear bottle with a blue label had failed, right? Right, right. Stayed in the north. Yeah, safe. It's safe. What was your role in all this? Oh, I had no role. It's just it's just my example of a great, great brand that yes. I I wish I had a role.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, I'd throw you, I'd throw you a little puttball like that, Jeremy. Hit it out of the park.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, well, tell us how you did something funny like that then. Come on, tough guy.

SPEAKER_05:

What do you give us an example of so we we get the well I want to go back to this example really quick? So the thing that that uh I think kind of proves the the um usefulness of all this is that they went from you know startup to nearly a billion dollar invaluation, um, I think in like five to six years. And so um just in in water, right? Like we've got so many choices of water, but they they knocked out of the park. Get the hose, Alan.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm thinking rebranding your business, toolbox of death.

SPEAKER_02:

That you know what, maybe they'll get people. Actually, one thing I am gonna take away, everybody, is uh we always shy away from bad reviews. Um, we all hate them, right? You don't you don't like bad reviews, especially in the home services business or anything where you're out there in public. We hate them. But what if you embraced them once and did that and made an 80s rock song out of it, or took all your bad reviews and just plastered them up there? Because when you look at all the bad reviews, you can start to figure out hmm, there might be some crazy people out there reviewing you that maybe you weren't so bad, but maybe they were nuts.

SPEAKER_03:

Um wasn't a Kimmel that would uh have people read bad reviews. Mean tweets, mean tweets, yeah. Mean tweets were hilarious, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So uh I like I like that idea again. Something to think about. I'm not saying I'm not espousing marketing. Uh Jeremy is here, he's not marketing. That was not his idea. Um, so if it doesn't work, it's not on him nor I. Uh, and this financial advice is only based on past precedent, not future. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_03:

So toolbox of death, or or we could go the other way and go like, you know, sinister, let's see. Sinister toolbox or or mischievous toolbox.

SPEAKER_02:

What if I did like an animal house? I I branded all my trucks. I just made a big skull out of it, and I just keep rolling around. They always came do-do-do-do-do-do. Here they come. Oh, I'm gonna let this guy in my house. I don't know our our our new uniform is gonna be um a sleeve of tattoo shirt and uh black and skull bones. I'm thinking a Jason mask, and a Jason mask will show up at your door like that. Perfect.

SPEAKER_05:

You just got you just gotta own it. You just gotta own it because you're you're I don't think I can allow it. You're gonna have a market that that that's the only reason that's the sole reason they they uh do it is because they want the Jason mask at their door.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you clearly are all right, that's a great example, and I I know you use that example with people to kind of get people thinking out of the box. Yeah, um, I know you've also branded yourself as going up the mountains, which we talk about here at the small business safari a lot. So when you start to engage with somebody, tell us a little bit about how you work with somebody and because you work with those small companies looking to be a billion in five years, like we all are. Um, I'm just 17 years behind after 17 years. Um I think just a hundred million would be fine, don't you? You know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not greedy. You're a little greedy. I'll do a fractional share jet. I don't need a full jet. Is that good?

SPEAKER_03:

All right, anyway, Jeremy, how do you work with people? You're maturing.

unknown:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05:

So um what we do, the first thing we do when whenever someone uh comes in with us is we figure out goals, right? We figure out what where are you trying to get to. Um, because at the end of the day, if we don't have something clearly defined, then we're not gonna know if what we did was successful or not. And so we try to try to get those uh smart goals. I'm sure you're you're familiar with that um specific, measurable, yada yada, yada. Um so we uh get the goals nailed down and then we we uh start to to brainstorm and think how can we how can we get them to that goal? Um what level of investment are they are they willing to be in on it? Um and then how how risky are they willing to be? And so um we we try to to push them and and um figure out how can we take all the all the things that they have, all the assets they have, whether it's it's uh their current brand, um the the financial uh investment they can put into it, the people that they have, uh the connections and the community they have, how can we leverage all these things to help them get to that goal?

SPEAKER_02:

So you work a lot with local businesses. I know you're very proud of being local and where you are in Tennessee and and doing that. Um how how do you I mean I'm just I'm gonna flip this around, how do you market your business to these small businesses? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So the the um we've done a couple of things over the years. One is we've really established a very clear identity for who we are. Um and we've got that mountaineering or um outfitting um mountain climbing theme, right? So we do we help small businesses uh conquer their marketing mountains. Um and so we we build that around pretty much everything that we do. Um and people people know us, people know our logo, people know our brand, it's uh we're out there. Um the one of the the unique situations I think that marketing agencies are in is that we we're like guitar players, right? Everybody knows a guitar player. Um it some of them are are uh not great, some of them are amazing, um, but there's you know, guitar players are diamond dunces and so are marketing agencies. And so um most of the time when someone is looking for some sort of marketing, they're they're probably going to look, you know, go to someone they know, go to a referral. And so a lot of our marketing is getting out, shaking hands. We um we go to Chamber of Commerces and um the networking events that they have around our area um uh every every opportunity we get. I was actually um just going through some of the the business cards that I've collected over the years and I have probably close to like 2,000 um business cards that I've just got um compiled. And I was just going through, um decided to do this the other day and just kind of go through and say, all right, how many, how many of these people that weren't really good fits for our business a while back, how much how many of those might be good prospects now? And so just kind of going through and sifting through them, but a lot of it's just it's those personal relationships. Um, but I think that's something that is um probably a little more unique to to the marketing agencies and a lot of other kind of B2B service-based businesses. Um and it's not a you know, every industry kind of has its own uh recipe, I think.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, you you hit on uh thing that's you near and dear to Alan and I's heart, but if you think about it, you just said it, uh everybody knows a guitar player. And you know, I just in fact my my image right now is uh, hey, I'm not gonna hire uh I'm not gonna hire the best rock band in the world, I'm just gonna hire a band because I can't afford you guys. I'm gonna go with the cheaper alternative and watch these kids just come, you know, just beat the crap out of it, that'd be hilarious. But you mentioned that you do networking and marketing, it's a personal relationship, right? I mean, in your world, you've got to make that connection uh being personal, where somebody says, Hey, Jeremy, it just because I saw you on LinkedIn doesn't mean I'm gonna sign up and spend five grand a month with you or 20 grand a month with you. It's that personal relationship. You've got to make that. I think in anything right now, especially with what's going on with AI and everything, in any business, I think you've got to figure out your personal connection that you got to be able to make at some level with somebody. I how do you do how do you do that even in the digital world?

SPEAKER_05:

Um, yeah, so I think you marketing guy.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, yeah. I I think so it was kind of a mushy question.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I want to know. I was looking like how do I make that personal connection? I was looking for some free marketing advice. How do you make a personal connection when you're networking, or what are you talking about? No, when you're out there in the digital world, like we're gonna come back to marketing and networking in a minute, but how do you make that personal connection, those 2,000 business cards digitally? Because you can't do it on LinkedIn, right? You just don't send me an email and I'd say, Oh, yeah, I'm gonna sign up. How did digitally how do we make that personal connection with people now? Because a lot of it is digital.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, he's saying he's going out and making them personal. Yeah, I know what he means with it. I want to go, you get out of your basement and you go meet them.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I you know I'm good with that, but uh, I can only that's one at a time. I want five five billion. I'm looking for that five billion story, man. Can I ask a different question?

SPEAKER_01:

All right, fine.

SPEAKER_05:

I think it's a it's a legitimate question. I I I want to answer that. It's legitimate.

SPEAKER_03:

That does not count as a good question. Legit. That means it's on life support. I may have given it CPR. So go ahead, Jeremy. See do what you will with that.

SPEAKER_05:

So I think digitally you can you can think of it in in terms of your personal brand and your uh your business brand, right? And so um your personal brand, it it revolves around uh a lot of personality. Um and can you can you create the posts that that you need to create? Can you create the content that you need to create to really grab people's attention and make that connection? And so for me, that's that is not my strong suit. Like my you know, my personal brand. We were talking about this earlier, uh getting getting a personal brand going on LinkedIn. Um, it's one of those kind of do as I say, not as I do. Um as a as an introvert. It's just it I overthink every post I make on my personal account. Um for a brand, uh, for a for a and introverts don't like to toot their own horn either.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. You're not gonna you don't like to get out there and be the center of attention and tell everybody look at it, look at me, look at me. Yeah, which is why I don't think about any of my posts. I just say look at me. Hey, quit looking at that. Go out there and look, man. Chris Lullaby on Instagram, go check it out, boys. Girls, go check it out. Yeah, that's right. I don't think one thing about what I'm posting. Facebook, check it out.

SPEAKER_05:

Exactly, exactly. So um, yeah, but for your business, for your business building those those connections, it's really it's about getting just getting out there, um, posting as much as you can to get in front of folks and um just be familiar, right? So one of the things that we we like to leverage and talk about whenever we're working with with clients is just really how the human brain works and how people buy, the psychological reasons people buy. Most of the time they're completely irrational. But one of the things that affects who we buy from is how familiar, how familiar we are with them. So if people see you a lot on social media, um, your brand or you personally, they're gonna be familiar with you and consequently, they're going to trust you more. They don't have a reason for trusting you more, they just trust you more because they've seen you more, um, unless you've given them some reason not to. Right.

SPEAKER_02:

The trusted toolbox. Thank you, Alan. Um, and Alan's gonna start the more trusted toolbox. Alan, that's the business Alan's gonna start is the more trusted toolbox. Um, and that's a side joke of death. Of death, more trusted toolbox of death. That's awesome. Awesome, Jeremy. All right, Jeremy. So um you're I that's what I would say. It's hard to make that personal, and that's what you're talking about is you gotta find those channels. One of the things I'd heard from somebody is pick one and do it really well, and I heard that years ago. I think I I I I'm gonna fight back on that one now. I wonder if now you have to do different channels and be out there and see which one's gonna work.

SPEAKER_03:

What do you think? Can I before he answers that? Oh, please. Let's ask, no, no, no. I think you're on to something. Okay, it's a legitimate question, Chris. Thank you. Well, I got another life support question. But what I want to ask is okay, so if you're working with a major corporation, yeah, they have their ad budget, and you can't, you know, your job is to just get the account away from somebody else. But when you're working with uh an entrepreneur and maybe, you know, they've been trying to do it on their own, and one of the first things you said, you know, you want their goals, but you also have to find out what their budget is, they don't know what their budget is. Or they're scared to give you the right number, or the number they give you is probably, I don't know. They're they could go two ways. One is maybe they throw out a bigger number because they don't want to be embarrassed, or they throw out a tiny number because they don't want you to waste it. How do you how do you get somebody to the right number? Because if you don't put enough into it, it's useless, right?

SPEAKER_05:

And I think that's just an honest conversation we have with them in in when we look at the goals. If they say, you know, here's our here's our goal way up here, and here's our budget, then then we've got to we've got to close that gap somehow. We either got to say, all right, well, you've got to be making a whole lot of cold calls, you know, in your spare time to get there, or um you you either lower the goals or you raise the like there's there's gotta be some honest conversation of what can you know, if if this is your real budget, what can you really do with that? What can you expect? And so um a lot of our job is is managing those expectations of of if we're gonna put this much energy and effort into something, what can you r reasonably expect to get out of that? All right, I gotta go back to my original question.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, and that that's why I wanted to start with that because you're talking about focusing on one channel versus a a broad stroke, right? That that's gonna have a lot to do with the budget.

SPEAKER_02:

Or or is it? I mean, that's the question.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean Yeah, so so I think when when social media can uh platforms are first coming out, that statement and that philosophy was was a lot more true than it is today. Um I think people you have different audiences on them, and uh so your audience on LinkedIn might be different than than who they are on Facebook. But um with the the types of content and the and the things that you post, there's nothing magical about LinkedIn that says you only can post this type of content and only this type of content will work on LinkedIn or or even on on Facebook. There's nothing magical about that platform that only says this is what is this is what works. If you're engaging and interesting on either of them, it's gonna work, right? Um, but you've just got to find out what what does what does your audience like? Um, and that's not the same. That's not something you can formalize for every business or even every business in an industry.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, no, I but to Alan's now now. I'll come back to Alan's point. I think yeah, the question, if Jeremy, if I was you and you came and talked to me, you're like, Chris, if I'm your buddy at the bar after playing around to golf, what do you tell me your advertising budget is? Because I've done this, and uh, I will tell you, um, similar to my golf game, I will tell you it's overinflated. But if I came back and you came to me and said, Hey, I want to take your money, how much am I gonna give you? I'm gonna go back and say, Um, by the way, I don't know if you guys saw me play golf, but I'm really bad at it, you know, horrible. So I'm only gonna give you a thousand dollars, um, even though I said my budget was gonna be thirty thousand a month. Um, I think that's an interesting conversation. You know, hey, which what do you tell your buddies at the at the bar after golf? And what do you want to tell me? You want to tell me zero, and you want to tell them, uh man, I could stroke a hundred grand every day. Let's go. I think that's yeah, you talk about honest conversations, but it doesn't start with honesty, especially when you're talking to me. I mean, no, seriously. I mean, I talk to a lot of business owners. I think um we have one public persona and one of the I'm the imposter persona, and it's hard for us to get there. So, how do you get them through that? How do you start to figure out that these guys will have that honest dialogue with you?

SPEAKER_05:

Um, I I think the honesty really comes down to what are they willing to put on a check? Um, right? That's where that's you don't really get much more honest than that. Like, what can what can you cut a check for?

SPEAKER_03:

And so Well, and my guess is the answer is hey, if it works, I'll put as much money as I have in it, but they're afraid it's not going to work. Yes, yeah. So it's like how much are you willing to gamble, Chris? Like when you go to Vegas, what's your number?

SPEAKER_02:

Um, all right, again, there's two answers. Okay. Uh, there's the answer I tell my wife, and there's the answer I tell my buddies, and it's somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_01:

Ten grand, big boy, big daddy's coming in strong.

SPEAKER_02:

Honey, how much you're a thousand. Well, I'm at a thousand. I'm gonna thousand. I'm not gonna spend any more than a thousand. I mean, that's it. When I go there, I'm I'm only gonna lose a thousand dollars. Okay, and so by the way, it's somewhere in the middle, which we would have said. And for that, you can email Chris at the trusted toolbox to find out what the real number is, and I'll let you know. But I not unless you email me. And if you email me and say, Chris, what is that number? I'll I'll tell you what it is.

SPEAKER_05:

But I think part of it is that's free. Part of it is just getting people to think in a in a way that they may have not have thought of it before. Because a lot of people that we see come in, they're they're spending money, they don't really even have a good idea of what all they're spending their marketing dollars on or how to measure it. And so having them having them sit down and think, all right, if I spend this much, this is what I can expect out of it. It's it's uh and in an immeasurable way. Um it's it's maybe a new way of thinking. And so sometimes it takes a little people a little bit to kind of start wrapping their mind around, all right, if this is where I want to be, then maybe I do need to to invest more in it to get there. Um, but then going back to the relationship side, it is it's a it's a lot of building of trust and and saying we're we know what we're doing, right? We've done it, we've done it for for um all these clients over here. We know what we're doing. You can trust us. Is it guaranteed? No, by no mean, by no means is anything that we do guaranteed, right? But we sometimes we try to relate it back to their business. Like if you were a mechanic and and I said, All right, I'm getting my I'll I'll come and get this stuff fixed. Can you guarantee me that my car won't break down in in the next year? No, no, but nobody's nobody's gonna give that guarantee, right? Because there's just so many um things that are that are uh uh variables at play.

SPEAKER_02:

Interesting. You actually hit on uh something that I think is probably disrupting your industry, and that's attribution. How can you get the ROI when you don't know where it came from? Because um, when I first started in 2008, I was told you have to be in the phone book. And I was like, this the fact that's probably one of the top five smartest things I've ever done. Um, and that was I didn't do the phone book, um, but I did do print advertising because everybody says no, you got to be in the valve packs, you'll be the money mailers. Oh my god, and this is all before Google was a thing. I mean, yeah, I mean, but it's happening so so here comes AI, it's another disruptor, right? So attribution's got to be so hard for you to prove to somebody about what to do. So, how do you take them through that? Because there, I mean, hey, you can put up 500 billboards, or you know, in a smaller town, you can put up 10 billboards. Okay, great. It's still a chunk of change, bro. And that's not making the phone ring. So how do you take them through that transactional versus relational advertising?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, so there's there's different ways we measure what what we're doing, and and to your point, attribution is um becoming less and less reliable um for multiple reasons. Um one I partly is because the veil is kind of getting pulled back on all of this, like this data that's um we've been sold uh as as uh really you know, this way to track people and and do all these things and measure everything. A lot of that was kind of a um um we got scammed a little bit on that. Um and so Can you name a name realize it? Who's Canvas? Go ahead and name a name. I'll tell you. Google, Google, it was you. Yeah, Google.

SPEAKER_03:

So I don't know about this. Well, I'll say that by the way what happened.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, one of one of the one of the things that we're dealing with right now, um, and ever since it started happening was uh like Google's performance max campaigns, right? So they'll they'll grab conversions from any place that they can grab a conversion, but they didn't they didn't give that conversion. Like, but they'll they'll say they did because they want your money and they want to say, hey, this is this is very valuable and we're converting a lot of people. Like they maybe saw you know that they maybe saw a display ad that was just like the very bottom of their telephone screen and and then went and bought it when they were going to buy it anyways. So anyways, that sort of stuff is kind of what we're what we're combating and and and trying to to work around these days. But there's other ways to measure, right? At the end of the day, um what we want to see is the bottom line is like, all right, are are you making more money than you were before you started working with us? And that requires some transparency on on our client side of of you know we need to see we need to see sales numbers. We need to see to see if are we going in the right direction you know on the days that we did XYZ did that help or did that did that uh hurt? And so the more the more transparency we can have in that conversation the better because it helps us helps inform what we're doing. And so other ways of measuring just your your brand awareness. So any any sort of brand awareness marketing you're doing from billboards to um you know broad you know streaming ads, that sort of stuff um it really is hard to measure all right is this is this doing what it needs to do. And so one of the ways we measure that is just seeing how how many times are people searching for you by name, right? Let's start before you before you started doing all these things um and get a baseline of of how often people search for your business by name. And then you know a few months after how often are people going to Google and searching for you know XYZ HVAC company or XYZ Plumbing Company by name and and the we've always talked about the funnel like the sales funnel from you know this kind of this uh from the side angle really where you can see the wider top at the um at the top and the the narrow at the bottom what I like to to show people is kind of from the top down you've got three concentric circles right so you got the big the big outer circle is your brand awareness you got a middle circle which is that mid funnel decision making consideration phase and you got that that small circle right in the middle that is your lower funnel um and everybody's fighting over that small that small center circle right like you go HVAC companies plumbers they're paying$20$30 a click um fighting over that that little circle right there. And what a lot of them are leaving um uh for anybody to grab is that big circle if you can grab people out here if you can be that that company that they know by name that they're whistling the jingle to and that they're they're talking about if you can be that company out here, you've already won them by the time they're here because you know what they're not going and searching for you know HVAC Knoxville they're going to searching for you by name um or even if they're not searching for you by name when they see your name pop up they say oh hey I recognize that guy and they click on that.

SPEAKER_03:

And so it's hard to get new new clients to go for an awareness budget though because they want call to action.

SPEAKER_02:

I want an ad that makes the phone ring right Chris I I a hundred percent but I I think what Jeremy's talking about is if if you're just beginning I I need that phone to ring I need that form to be filled out I need that website form.

SPEAKER_05:

I mean you've got to get to me because I need money now because revenue is king well cash is king revenue is queen you know I've said that a lot um but I I but Jeremy's talking about something I just uh we just talked about a couple weeks ago where I'm seeing a change and I'm I'm gonna ask you this question is that name recognition brand recognition is more important today than it used to be because of familiarity and awareness and the ability to get out there and be omnipresent um what do you think about that because that's a lot of money to go out there and spend on uh on that and not get that immediate return um yes so uh so I I would say you you you need to have is some investment at every level of the funnel right um that's ideal right if you're if your budget is is such that you can put some lower some mid some some brand um that's the ideal place to be when you're first starting out though you uh like you said you're you're you're fighting over that that center circle because you don't have you don't have the reputation you don't have the the budget to really fight in this bigger arena out here and so that we we walk um a lot of our smaller clients through uh what we call climb club um and it is uh really built for businesses that are in that two million dollar a year and less range where you you've got you've got to put in some hustle right you've got to put in some blood sweat and tears in your marketing yourself because at that level you really don't have a budget that makes sense to go pay a marketing agency to do the things for you. So you've got to be you've got to be out there shaking hands. You've got to be out there knocking on doors do getting your name out there.

SPEAKER_02:

But I what we try to emphasize is all of that is a lot easier if you have a very strong distinctive brand right if you're going out there as hi I'm uh you know Jeremy Leduc's insurance company it's the most forgettable thing in the world and you are it's you're gonna it's gonna be an uphill battle for you every step of the way um but if you go out there with a with a distinct name something that a a theme a mascot if you if you can have a mascot get a damn mascot like the the saying is fur fur sells and it does and so you don't have a mascot I don't have a mascot what would your mascot be I don't know I was thinking I just got a great insurance tagline because I got a great friend who's an insurance we've had him on Brusty Clifton and I'm like hey insurance you're gonna die anyway we may have we may have to workshop that a little bit what is my mascot oh my god I need a mascot I I had turbo uh because I stole my uh friend's dog actually I babysat for a uh a dog sat for a weekend because um um but you're right uh you know what they do sell that uh they're they're memorable they're memorable stupid lizard I'm gonna go I'm gonna go armadillo I think that'd be great roach to get five roach armadillo armadillos because we hammered it doesn't actually get in a house it doesn't actually have to have fur it just needs to be it needs to have eyes and a smile I think so armadillo could work I mean cartoon ones do squirrel mascot ones would be more appropriate actually I love squirrels because they beat up houses they eat up houses and we go fix them after they're done and you got the same attention span and what yeah okay all right your tagline could be like you're you're gonna go nuts for us oh I got freebie Jeremy LeDuc's insurance aid no it's not it's Jeremy LeDuc's climb club climb club kids that one I love that phrase too because you're right in the beginning if you would have came to me or Alan when we first starting a business and said hey I need you guys to uh invest in the upper end of the funnel we would have said hey Jeremy um you need to invest and get into that door and uh we'll see you tomorrow yeah goodbye because I need that phone to ring you're like dude I can't make the phone ring back in the day because we didn't have the internet I mean it was there but it wasn't there and we had to have that phone to ring because if I if I if you ain't coming in man I can't spend money on sponsoring kids' events or sponsoring golf events like I do or or doing the network but you talked about it in the beginning you got to hustle we talked about networking that's how we made that smaller ring work. Yeah and I what a cool piece of advice I I like that instead of I mean that tells me you know Jeremy's not just coming for my money you know he uh he understands where I am and what I need to do and and you guys both uh let's talk about this so you're both introverts and I know I met Alan in networking and I never knew he was introverted um I'm a gregarious introvert so and Jeremy I'm I'm I force myself to be an extrovert when I need to so you're a forced you're a forced networker you're a forced introvert yeah and it wears you guys out he says I'm exhausted at the end of those I said dude I can barely go to sleep that night after a networking event because I'm so pumped up because for me I get energy from it I know for you guys you have to give but you just talked about it this might not be your comfort zone but if you don't want to spend the big bucks this is the small things to get to that smaller circle and we're all doing this on the YouTube.

SPEAKER_05:

You can see it small circle medium circle big circle so you want to save some money go out there and do the networking and if you can't find a sales guy who can but nobody tells you it's like it's for it's free it's free right it just takes your time you just go spend 30 minutes or an hour shaking hands um and the best advice that I can give to someone if you're if you feel very awkward and you really hate those things the good news is most of the other people at those things do too. And so if if all you have to do is go just work up the courage to shake somebody's hand and start asking them questions. The minute you start asking them questions about themselves and about their business you've you've got some rapport with them and you've won a friend.

SPEAKER_02:

And so um it's a and also it kind of takes the attention off of you and and and lets you um uh make a connection that is a great point because as an introvert and uh uh Alan's a curious introvert here's why I liked him so much he kept asking questions about me and I love to answer questions about me and that's why we hit it off but no seriously enough about me let's talk about me thank you uh Alan please I'm talking but I think that's a great way to look at this when you go to these networking events guys if you just start asking questions to people and talk I'll I'll go back to yeah you're not selling you're not selling it no I was at a Johns Creek uh chamber event what years ago and Alan was there too and this guy came out to me and all he did was talk about himself I mean I didn't get a word out and I love talking about me yeah and I just listened to him and I was like dude this guy doesn't even know who I was he I gave him my card he turned out to be one of my biggest supporters telling everybody how great my company was he didn't know one thing all I did was listen to him he didn't even know what I did I mean I thought he didn't but he did and next thing you know they're like oh no he said call no no bob said call Bob said and I was like where'd this guy come from I'm like I I didn't even I wasn't thinking you were going there with that story I thought we were going leg humpers no this guy these guys are leg humpers oh yeah but but I thought I all I did was sit there and just listen and listen and listen and he told everybody how great of a guy I was but to networking on the other side if you're if you're an introvert and that's what I've seen is the people who overcompensate are the leg humpers. So I don't know how to network.

SPEAKER_03:

Therefore I don't know how to really talk to people so when I get there I come up and I just grab you and I go hey Jeremy um I have the best uh remodeling company and handyman company in the world and you know I'd love to work in your house and what can I work in your house and you're like dude just get away from me refer me to three of your friends and uh yeah get away from my leg you furry friend and so I'm not our mascot by the way but I am furry uh that I mean not up here in the head just I hope to say I told you about the whole uh brand awareness advertising deal at Enterprise didn't I no yeah it was the first time so Enterprise when I started was the fourth largest rental car company in North America and nobody knew about who they were and so suddenly uh and I was at middle management at that point they uh they had a big meeting and we're gonna start an ad campaign which we were all excited about and then we see the commercial and it's the rap car and it's the hey I'm at the shop can you pick us up zero call to action zero discount zero anything and we all looked at each other and we're like what is going on you're spending what and they that's when they explained to us the brand awareness because when people were making decisions and they saw the list of names of companies to call and they saw our name they didn't even see it. And so it was a it was a matter of a couple of years to where the focus groups would show that when they were given that same list of names they were predisposed to calling us as a result of those years of advertising whereas before they wouldn't even consider it they would have gone with Hertz or Avis or anybody that they they knew of so it I mean but that's working with corporate budgets. Not and you know like Chris is saying you know you start your own shop you you don't feel like you have the time to do it. No.

SPEAKER_05:

But is there a way to kind of do that at the same time while you're having call to action stuff I well I I think it's it's one of those things where you having a call to action on on something on a billboard or whatever it doesn't really do you any good. Nobody's driving down the road thinking oh hey I'm I need to call the plumber right now right they're they're thinking I need to call the plumber when they're when their uh sink is is pouring water out from under it. Um so um though those utilizing call to actions when you should just be using from for brand is kind of a waste I believe because you could do some really creative advertising at the end of that um at the end of that commercial rather than having you know 10 seconds of your phone number put up there. So um there there are some you know I'm I'm and I'm I'm being very generalized with that but um I think there are some times when that makes sense but uh if you're gonna do brand awareness do brand awareness do something that's memorable and that people will bring call to mind when they need you yeah all jokes aside if we talked about liquid death and we and then we kept going on with that death theme.

SPEAKER_02:

But but that's thinking outside the box. I mean and you can do that without a marketing agency and then when you get together and start talking with somebody like a Jeremy you know expand your mind a little bit and then open up and have an honest dialogue with them as opposed to to not doing it I think that's what we're missing and that's what we need to do. And I know we're coming up on the end Jeremy so how does everybody find you so we can climb up that mountain we're gonna go to climb camp one.

SPEAKER_05:

Yep actually Chris is on the dad jokes. Yeah it's it's it's a base camp yeah we get we start at we start at base camp oh base camp uh yeah yeah do we eat there at base camp yeah Chris just wants to get a helicopter to the top yeah that's that's can we just uh helicopter up to my versus if you've got if you've got the budget we can take you there yeah now we're talking we'll put you on the helicopter chris at the trusted toolbox.com give me some budget so I can take the helicopter up on your breast if they uh uh give people two two or actually three ways to to kind of um find out more um epic nine uh our agency if if if you're if you're looking to do any sort of branding strategy um uh campaigns um all that sort of stuff epic nine dot com love to work with you um if you are kind of in that that bootstrap mode or you're you're still kind of getting things off the ground and and you got more hustle than budget um right now um then the theclimclub.com is a is a great place to start and so we've built out a uh uh suite of uh packages of of products and services built for um folks in that position um and yeah and then also uh the the book wrote a book about being a a um local entrepreneur in a in a uh you know mid-size America town what does it take to kind of DIY your marketing and so it's a kind of a narrative uh business book um where you follow the story of a of a uh small main street retailer that is um learning how to to do her own marketing and and at the same time you get a lot of you get a lot of practical nuts and bolts um marketing give me the title uh climb um so uh you can go to theclim dot guide or you can find it on uh uh bookshop.org or amazon guys i know a couple of you guys are listening this is right up your alley because uh i've talked to a lot of home service providers but what he's talking about is exactly what i've talked to um at least six of you about uh and this is a great one so there's there's an easy read right there i'm sure it's an easy read for all of us right it's not it's not one piece right you're right yeah no i i i think it's i hope it's easy yeah good so you got that you got the bootstrappers let's go the climb and then if you're ready to rock and roll and take your business from a million to a billion or five billion like liquid death you go to jerry milled jeremy leduke's epic nine dot com i love this stuff man this has been a great conversation alan yep it's been fun you got you guys are fun good all right it's gonna be more fun we're gonna put lots of legitimate questions thank you for the life support did Chris revive the patient oh I think we lost him sir all right now we're checking to see if you uh listened to our or read our email what are the final four questions what is a book you'd recommend that's not yours to our audience uh by if you're leading a team of any sort Patricki's five dysfunctions of a team um one of the just the best leadership books that is just great for for any sort of um team environment all right what is the favorite feature of your home hang on sorry I I lost you can you hear me yeah I can hear you can you hear me favorite feature of your home it's better be your wi-fi you got me yeah yeah I can hear you yeah I didn't hear the second question favorite feature of your home oh favorite feature of the home um uh oh goodness that's that's so tough I would say it's it's the uh the little outside uh patio area that we got um love love sitting out there in the summer because you're in Tennessee got beautiful weather a lot of times I mean that's why everybody's moving there all right we have not talked about customer service talking about how to get customers but and we're kind of crazy about our uh customer we're kind of customer service freaks oh my god yes what's a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're out there and you're the customer um the the over empathy uh you know you know you know talking about that that uh oh we under we understand this is such a this we hate that you are going through this and this is a this is a we know this is a uh uh a disappointment to you just kind of that that just all right just lay lay off a little bit insincere I'll tell you what uh AI is doing that right now we're uh we're implementing an AI agent this and we're trying to tone it back down I'm like people do not want to hear that they do not want to hear over and over and over oh I'm so sorry to hear that tell me more oh I'm so sorry to hear so here's your email and they're giving you the wrong email address so we're we're dialing our AI back back a little bit that isn't that funny yeah like yeah is there anything else I can help you with um yeah the first fucking thing I called you about yeah oh that's awesome all right last thing so I'm in construction I love doing it but um I tell you what I've had a lot of DIY nightmares I want to hear a DIY nightmare of yours because of construction of shit yeah not not a construct or something you did and I'm saying look at these fingers people look at them online you guys don't see them all but there's been a lot of nails put that one in the middle is massive that is bad that was uh that was a hand clamp um this one well actually that one was football but that's different for I so so i've I've only I've only owned old homes like my first my first house was built in 1937 the house we're in now is 54 so there's plenty of things to do uh in in the houses I've been in and um I I've screwed them all up I'm I I've I'm I'm horrible I'd have to I have to redo it right I'll I'll watch I'll watch the YouTube videos and then I'll I'll go through and I'll try to follow them all and then something goes wrong. I would say my my worst DIY um I can tell my funniest I'll tell you my funniest DIY I'm in for funny all right so um I was refinishing the floors in my in my first house and uh sanded them all down got got all that done um and was uh I didn't put any stain on it I was just gonna put the the uh finish the polyurethane finish on it and so I was I was working late it was like one in the morning and I I was you know with a brush painting painting these floors and I started having the weirdest thoughts man I was my mind was going places that I hadn't I had never been before right yeah and so I was I was like what and I I started I started just feeling so weird and I'm like why why why do I feel high like why am I what's going on I realized like I'd I'd forgot to to get the uh I was in the hallway and so there was really no circulation and and so um I was high on polyurethane fumes um and it took me it took me a while of fresh air and just laying down to to get over that that is amazing I love that story oh my god I've been high on fumes before too literally I mean I'm not even talking I mean you're like whoo we're closed in in a room and I forgot that we had plastic off the room so the clients couldn't smell it and we were like we doggy hey everything looks so green all of a sudden yeah man I love this Jerry Milleduc there you go Epic nine the climb club or go check out his book this has been an epic conversation we've had fun we got to get going get up that mountaintop let's make it go happen cheers everybody we gotta go thanks you guys thank you for listening to this episode of the Small Business Department remember your positive attitude will help you achieve that higher altitude you're looking for in the wild world small business understanding until next time make it a great day

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Chris Lalomia

Host
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Alan Wyatt

Co-host