brandUP Your Business Podcast
Hey, I’m Matt Jackson, and I’ve been through the highs and lows of building brands that make an impact. On the BrandUP Your Business Podcast, I take you along on my journey and sit down with other entrepreneurs to share the secret sauce of branding, marketing, and sales that actually works.
In each episode, you’ll hear real stories, fun conversations, and actionable tips to take your business from zero to hero. If you’re ready to level up your brand and learn from the best, this is the place for you!
Let’s turn your business into something unforgettable. Tune in and join the fun!
🌟 Connect with us: brandupyourbusiness.com
Want to learn all about branding? Check Out Our Book on Amazon brandUP Your Business: Elevate Your Business With Branding
brandUP Your Business Podcast
Episode 5: Matt the Driveway Guy: Mastering Seasonal Business Growth and Brand Differentiation
Unlock the potential of your seasonal business with our latest episode of "Brand Up Your Business." What if you could transform the way you market your services with strategic preseason efforts? Drawing from my own success with "Matt the Driveway Guy," I reveal powerful tactics like using email marketing tools such as MailChimp to re-engage past clients and offer enticing incentives before the busy season kicks in. We'll explore how to refine your business strategy by evaluating customer interactions and service offerings, ensuring you strike the right balance between revenue, profitability, and effective time management.
Standing out in a crowded market is no small feat, especially for home services like pressure washing. Discover how differentiating your brand and crafting a unique brand message can elevate your business above the rest. Avoid the common pitfalls of mimicry by creating a distinct identity with signature offers that deliver value beyond just competitive pricing. We'll also highlight the vital role of customer testimonials in building trust and discuss how to streamline the sales process for future success. Plus, learn about building a brand community that fosters valuable education and connection, and join our lively "Brand Up Your Business" Facebook group to exchange insights and expand your learning journey.
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what's up, guys and welcome to brand up your business podcast. I'm your host, matt jackson, and welcome to episode five. This week we're going to go a little bit differently than normal. We don't have a guest on this week and the format for this podcast is I will have a guest and then some days I won't have a guest. But it's important to me that we can kind of go through curriculum. We can go through steps and marketing and branding ideas that I'm learning and I'm growing through and that have worked successful for me. So the guests add a lot of value. But I also think there's value in hey, brand up your business.
Speaker 1:We wrote a book. If you guys are on Amazon you want to check it out. Go to brand up your businesscom. There's a link for it there. But we have this book on Amazon, so it's a 200 page book. It's got like eight or nine reviews. So if you guys are on Amazon, you can check it out for free. On Kindle Unlimited. I also uploaded a audio book there too, so you guys check that out. It's kind of a blueprint for all the branding that I like to do. That's helped me grow, matt the driveway guy, from zero to half a million dollar a year in revenue and continuously grow, as well as like really focus on our brand positioning and our marketing. So if you guys want a non generic approach to business and marketing, make sure to go to brand up your businesscom or check it out on Amazon. You can get it there and we'll put a link in the description on the podcast as well. But to me it's important with this show that not only are we bringing guests on and sharing their branding and helping them brand up their business and getting their insight and what works for them, but we can kind of go through the lessons and everything that I know as well.
Speaker 1:So this time of year for us it's going to be February. It's slow pressure washing. That's our main source of income, so it's a slower time of year, but it's the preseason. So what we do now matters. It's really important, if you're in a business that has seasonal ups and downs, that you figure out a way to create consistency and map out a marketing plan. Create consistency and map out a marketing plan and it's a great time of year to do that as well as like get a pulse on your business. When we're so crazy we don't really know how our business is doing and then usually we can chase revenue. But it's important that our books are good, that our customer list is good and we have a great idea of what brand and strategy we're going for for the for the season. So we have about a month before our season gets absolutely hectic and takes us until about December. So our off season runs from after Christmas to kind of about now.
Speaker 1:So we're approaching Valentine's day and it's is is getting ready for go time, so we're starting to position our business on marketing. We're starting to run advertisements again, we're starting to warm up and nurture those previous customers that we've had. So let's kick this thing off. I have a screen share that I want to share as we go through these kind of lessons of what I'm doing and how you can implement and help your business grow. So let's take a peek Awesome. So let's go. Pre-season marketing. This is going to be everything that we're doing with Matt the driveway guy right now.
Speaker 1:We just shot off on MailChimp, which is our email template and email tool that we use to send off all of our emails, and we have a customer list of about 2,500 emails, and so what we have done? We have entered them all into MailChimp and we've created these emails pretty much not selling anybody, but what we're doing is trying to do a reflection of this past year. So how the email went? It pretty much said hey, 2024 was a great year. As we get out of the winter season, we want to offer you a way to discount your next house pressure washing or next service. We want to allow you guys to take advantage of the fact that, with inflation, our prices are going to raise by about 15% this year, that, with inflation, our prices are going to raise by about 15% this year. However, there's a preseason offer from now, which is middle of February, till about March 1st, where if you book with us or if you schedule your job, then you can get the same rate you were given in the past. That way, they know what they're getting, they can get ahead of things and it creates an incentive for people that may be price driven or more value driven than somebody that sees your brand and just says, hey, put me down, do do this or do that. So what we're doing here let's talk about the, the brand strategy and our positioning. What we want to do is take advantage of these times of year, the preseason we're really dialing in. Okay, last year we hit this much in revenue.
Speaker 1:We've focused a lot on these customers and we also figured out there's certain pain points and certain things that we don't wanna do anymore, whether that be services that we're trying to refine. That may look great when you look at the revenue, but if you start going into profitability, time expenditure or the type of customer we're dealing with, that's that's something we're really trying to tighten up. Like we took on more opportunities, some commercial opportunities. While they look great, there was accounts receivable that played into these jobs that we didn't necessarily like. We were stretching out and running into cashflow limitations just because they were big commercial contracts and, yeah, it looks great, but is that something you really want to do? So we're fine tuning and refining things this year and that's allowing us to position our marketing and branding a specific way to go.
Speaker 1:After that, we want to lean into commercial. Yes, but not all commercial. Sometimes commercial is a race to the bottom, but if we can strategically partner with property management companies, facility management companies and go after more of a professional, larger scale cleaning and we know that there's contracts involved then it's a little cleaner than, say, some guy on Google called me and he says hey, I want you to clean this building at nighttime and then we have to chase down the payment. That's just not something we're interested in as much anymore. So what we've done is kind of segmented out our customers and we have like a residential section. Say, 75% of our business comes from residential, and of those residential customers, we're trying to nurture what we got and see who is using us again and who doesn't want to use us again.
Speaker 1:And we're sorting out that list. And what we've been doing in February it's purging people where they've unsubscribed from our email list or people have messaged us and say, hey, we're no longer in the area because we don't want to have a huge CRM full of customers that we can't sell to, and so it's been the preseason. The best thing we can do is to clean up that list and cleaning up all of our data, because if you're operating on bad data, you're not going in the right direction. So what we'll do? We have a virtual assistant who helps out. He's helping clean out the books. We're emailing and we're using text blast to try to test the waters and see, hey, who's interested, who's a client, who's coming back this year, offering them some preseason pricing just to get the ball rolling, get people on the schedule.
Speaker 1:But we want to get ahead of everything. This is a new year, a clean slate. We have a great idea of what direction we're going in and what our goals are, and we take all of our lessons that we've learned last year, implement and then we grow forward. So let's see, I create a pre-season checklist. That's something that it's important to do If you have a virtual assistant or if you do it yourself map everything out. One of these really cool things that I've learned this past year is ChatGPT has grown to almost like a human-like intellect, where it's great as a data aggregator, what I can do. I can implement task or information and it can simplify everything down and it can plan stuff and schedule stuff. So that can go hand in hand with my business by pretty much having it cross reference ideas, having having it implement marketing strategies and ideas, and you're not leaning completely on artificial intelligence, but you're using it to kind of check yourself almost as a second opinion because you still have to add that human element to it. But you're able it to kind of check yourself almost as a second opinion because you still have to add that human element to it, but you're able to take tons of data and condense it down into really simplistic stuff, that, with the branding knowledge that we have, we can put that human aspect and put our brand voice and value back on it.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the reengaging past customers. What we've been doing is narrowing down that list of customers and reengaging the great, the greatest ones and essentially, like that bottom 10%, we're kind of cutting down, we're not. We're not telling anybody they can't be customers, but our brand position usually filters that out, whether it be raising our pricing or requiring, like a bundled service, stuff like that. Usually a lot of times price, a price increase can weed out those customers. So, refining offers and packages we're creating these preseason bundles or promotions. Like I said in that email blast, these promotions allowed us to get ahead of things and hey, if somebody wanted to save money, they didn't want to think about it in the spring. If they get their pressure washing booked a month in advance, they're going to save money and I'm going to get them on the schedule, which is a win-win for all of us. And then, dialing in that ad strategy we're running some Facebook ads right now we're cranking up our Google spend and we're starting to push those local service Google ads. We just want to start to be again. So here's an action step After this episode check your last 10 social media posts and are they engaging?
Speaker 1:Do they speak to your customers pain points, are they even relevant to the upcoming season? If not, fix them. You got plenty of time. What we do? We want to really focus on separating ourselves from our competition, and by doing so, we all have our own story. Separating ourselves from our competition, and by doing so, we all have our own story. Use relevant information, whether it be the Super Bowl, whether it be some political things. Figure out how you communicate with your customers, the best way, and start posting on there.
Speaker 1:In the other podcast, we have the Wash Bros. My co-host and I, clay Smith we're both big on personal branding and who will post a lot with his personal Facebook and you're constantly nurturing people. So, say, you have 5,000 plus followers on Facebook. If you're posting, people are going to associate you with your business, whether it's home service based business or something else. It's important that you're able to nurture and keep those customers and stay relevant. So we're going to talk about this too.
Speaker 1:Segment two differentiation. The biggest branding mistake is not being seen, and what you're doing, you're blending in there with everybody, and I see this so often with pressure washing, just because there's so many gurus in the scene and what they're doing is they're telling you to do this exact strategy and by doing so, you're not helping anybody else out. When I started, pressure washing, like Facebook, was something that me and a couple other guys were doing. Nobody was really on social media and Facebook, so we were able to hit it hard and grow our businesses that way. The problem everybody's starting to copy it and five down the road, facebook's not as relevant, as important as it used to be. So it's important that you don't copy paste the same strategies that everybody else do and then you're just in a race to the bottom, because people are going to think you're no better, no different than anybody else and they're simply going to go to you due to price.
Speaker 1:So how are you going to stand out? This year, your brand messaging needs to be clearer than ever. What's your unique value? Are you fast, reliable, the best in town? Pick out what that is and own it. So, for example, if you're in the pressure washing business and you're cleaning surfaces, you're protecting homes, you're increasing curb appeal and you're adding long-term value. Nobody necessarily cares about a clean home but they care about, like, how professional you were, how cool you are, how fun you are to deal with and how you like that guy. So find out how you can be known, liked and trusted and figure out those specific reasons and put that out there. You want it to be like a bullhorn.
Speaker 1:So one thing that we do a lot is face in our team. We want to be Matt the driveway guy. We want people to know us as us. We have created a personable brand that people know, like and trust in the community, as opposed to just a business. Everybody's a pressure washer, but not everybody's Matt the driveway guy. What we do, we showcase our professionalism with a friendly smile as we are our neighbors. We all college educated guys. We grew up in Greenville and people know I can trust us. They know the kind of job we're going to do because we care about our job and adding value and we care about what we do.
Speaker 1:So what we showcase on social media, put our face on our reels, put our face in our pictures, do a lot of behind the scenes. We have customer testimonies. We do a lot of customer stuff when it comes to Google reviews and all that, so that stuff's very important. So one big thing that I've noticed in 2025 and advanced people are so used to being lied to. Companies have put out these obscene claims of all this stuff. That's artificial, so we want to shift that into the hands of the customer. We want to showcase, not us telling you things, but customers showing things. So if you guys take customer videos of them talking about you or sharing customer reviews, it's important that customers can be advocates for you and you're not just completely telling people that yourselves, because everybody can make stuff up in today's world and that's a common thing we're starting to see with this whole social media game.
Speaker 1:Another thing to create a signature offer like what is your business known for? And then we're going to package that into your brand. Instead of spring pressure washing, call it the home refresh package full driveway housewash in one visit. We want to make it, make it clever, make it fun. Somebody goes to the store. They don't want to say, oh, I'm going to buy this and I'm going to get this discount at all. They're going to say, hey, it's the discount double check. It's going to be something fun. It's going to be. It's going to be something that's like Whoa, there's a motion behind that. There's a signature offer. It's the home run package. You're not over here saying, if you buy this, I'll give you this one for a cheaper price. You're saying you get the grand slam, it's the big salami, when you're going to the car wash down the street. The packages are what sells.
Speaker 1:Are you a standard person? Are you a? Are you a standard person? Are you a standard person? Are you a premium or are you a deluxe? Nobody wants to be a standard person, so create those offers with that in mind. And one of the big takeaways too stand out and don't compete on price. Compete on value.
Speaker 1:You want to ask yourself what do I want my brand to be known for? And if you don't know the answer yet, it's time to figure that out. What am I personally doing to prepare for 2025? This is what we're doing. We're revamping our sales process. We are making it easier for customers to book online. What we're doing? We have our virtual assistant reach out when a customer comes in. We want to put two points of contact a text message, an email and then we're going to have a digital contact and then we want to put us out there with a phone call. So it's really important that we are going out there and, man, like I don't want this no way.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, our new marketing approaches really puts the ball. We want to be seen by everyone and everywhere and we also want to put that personal spin and touch on things. So what we do is we reach out on social media. We want to connect with people. We're not just saying, oh, here's an advertisement that we put money into to reach you. We want to say, hey, how are you doing? I'm a human being, too, behind the screen. So that's going to be more implemented into our content creation plan. We're going to focus more on educating people with authority, uh, building content. We're not just showcasing, uh, a picture of a clean building. We're going to go through the steps. We're going to showcase, like, how we're actually doing it. We're going to show our guys doing it. We're going to talk about why they're doing it, stuff like that. Again, we want to go above and beyond, because if we're not going above and beyond, then we're just going to compete with everybody on price.
Speaker 1:So here's your listener challenge. Take one idea from today's episode. Start implementing it this week, whether it's creating a pre-season offer, making a branding tweak or getting serious about reviews. Take action now if you're not scrambling when the business picks up. So final thoughts listen, the businesses that win in 2025 aren't the ones that just show up when things get busy. They're the ones that prepare, position themselves as the obvious choice and build momentum before the season starts. If you've been waiting for the perfect time to start marketing, that time is now.
Speaker 1:So what you can do subscribe, leave us a review. Today's episode gave you some value. Do me a favor, hit the subscribe button and leave a review. It helps me bringing you fire content every week. You also want to follow us on social media. We got a YouTube show. We got a Instagram. We got a Facebook.
Speaker 1:So what we want to do with Brand Up your Business, we're creating not just a place where we can interview guests, but we want to talk and educate people, almost like a value attainment. Do I know all the answers? No, but I love to figure out and bring guests on, and I've gone through the ringer with marketing for, I'd say, the last decade, and we've got plenty of resources at your doorsteps. Like I said, here's your brand up your business book. We got the audio book online as well and we got the free version on Kindle, so there's nothing you can lose. You can learn all the the science behind it, essentially. So I have it broken down into the technical. We have examples of big companies and we have direct examples of math, the driver guy and how we implement everything to create the businesses and do all that from there.
Speaker 1:So we also want you to join the brand up community. We have a Facebook group called brand up your business group and that's going to be a place where we can drop all of our insights, what we're constantly doing, what we're currently doing. That way, you guys can keep up to date, interact with each other and if you liked some value and you want to share what you guys do, drop a comment in the brand of your business group, and what we will do there is chime in and help out and give our opinion. So if you guys enjoyed this episode, make sure to like and share and we will see you on the next one.
