Episode 2: The Power of Social Media & Paid Ads

In this episode of The Clean Hour, we break down why social media and paid ads are no longer optional if you want to grow a successful pressure washing business.

From Facebook and Instagram to paid advertising strategies that actually generate leads, we talk about how to get your business seen, build trust online, and turn attention into booked jobs.

We cover:
✅ Why organic social media still matters
✅ The biggest mistakes pressure washing companies make online
✅ How paid ads can accelerate growth
✅ Building a brand people remember
✅ Turning views into real customers

If you want more leads, more visibility, and a pressure washing business that grows consistently — this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the second episode of the Clean Hour Podcast. Today's episode is the power of social media and Facebook ads. So we're going to be touching on social media, what it can do for your business, and also we're going to touch on paid ads as well. So hopefully you'll find that useful. If you listen to episode one, which I encourage you to do, it laid out the foundations of what we're trying to achieve for this podcast. So go back and listen if you can. See it as like the kind of build-up as if you're watching a series on TV and this is setting the scene and it's going to ramp up from now on with really actionable things. So yeah, that's what today's episode is going to be. Matt, how's it going? It's been a week since we spoke. You alright?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Yes, very well. Very well indeed. Yeah, it's been a week. It feels longer than that, doesn't it? We've been busy, really busy. Everything's going the right way. Um, yeah, I'm right looking forward to filming um the second episode. Um, and this this is a this is a good topic. This this is a good topic. Social media, Facebook ads, absolutely. This is bang on the money at the right time. So, yeah, let's get into it, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

You've been fishing?

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yes, yeah. I've had two weeks in France. Um, yeah, yes, a long two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Um I've got to flash up the photo of the fish that you caught. It's unbelievable. I'm gonna flash it up right now on the screen because you sent it me. I showed my wife, I was like, look at this, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Yeah, yeah, caught two big fish, £62 and £40. So yeah, job done. Ticked off back there in September. But yeah, all is good, mate. All is good. Life is good at the moment, innit? Life is good. We'll take that as a win, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Wicked. Right, so let's get into it, man. The power of social media and uh and paid advertising. Let's touch on social media first. This is social media, right? If you get it right with a pressure washing company or an exterior cleaning company, it can absolutely elevate you and smash you way ahead of your competitors, can't it? This is so powerful, but it's so often overlooked or done incorrectly, and I think it can make a break, make or break a business. Would you agree with that social media?

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, um, I do. I think in the modern world we live in today, if you don't embrace it, you're gonna get left behind massively. You know, if you uh if you look at the people that embrace it and look what they're doing, they're just they're just they're winning, they're winning the race. Social media, mastering social media, mastering marketing, wins the race. Wins the race, hands down. There's no other way of saying it. You you've got to be in it 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

I think social media is important because I tell I say this to all my clients, anyone who asks me like questions and stuff. Um I think, well, I don't think I know that the pressure washing industry and and pretty much a lot of trades, I know pressure washing isn't a trade as such, I think it's be put been put into that category now as it gets more popular. But we have a bad name, right? And I'm talking overall, not talking individual companies. There's a there's a lack of trust with with with um the public, I think. Would you would you say that's fair in terms of people know us or think of us for being late, for being um maybe ripping people off, being a bit dodgy, not being, you know, not being nice people to work with. I'm talking overall then, not individually. So social media is great because it helps to break down those barriers. And if you break down those barriers, it makes sales so much easier. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

It is, and there's a couple of points there, right? The first point is yes, as a as a group, a body of people, there is a fly by night attitude towards the external cleaning world, that it's cash in hand, it's unregulated, it's unsavory people ripping people off on the doorstep. So it has got that reputation. Using social media to build that trust and to gain over people's confidence is massively important. But then you went on to sales, right? The idea of social media is to turn your cold audience into a warm buying audience. So when you go to quote, they already know who what you are and how good your work is, and that it's a it's an easy sale. So that that's the the three things that I think it it does for you, doesn't it? Straight away, straight away.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

And the first thing to to talk about is it's free, it's absolutely free. Uh obviously paid ads we'll get into that later in the episode, but social media in terms of posting on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, is absolutely free. It's I don't know why people don't take it more seriously. And maybe why don't you think people take it seriously? In terms of we'll get into what what we recommend doing on there in a minute, but why do people neglect it? Is it because they're too busy, can't be bothered, don't don't appreciate what it can do for the business. What do you reckon it is?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I think it I think it all comes down to mindset, right? I think it comes down to mindset and it comes down to age. If you're of a certain age, if you're a certain age, you've never used social media to build your business, so you just literally put it to the side and go, social media, nah, load of old shite, don't need to put pictures on Facebook, you know. And then if you look at the age group that is the young, up and coming that have grown up with social media, they fully buy into it and understand it. Um, and I think that that that's the two differences straight away, but also you're then looking at people are embarrassed with social media. I think they're not embarrassed with the work they do, they're embarrassed in putting a picture on, or they're embarrassed in putting a video on, and somebody, you know, we've all got the everyone's got these keyboard warriors, and we'll have them on this podcast. Someone will comment and say, Oh, what do you two know about being running businesses? Because that's because that that's just what people do. There is people sat in the the mum's bedrooms who have got nothing better to do than to find people that are trying to make a difference and slate them. Because in their own sad little world, they get they get that little bit of oh, I've told them, haven't I? And and I think that puts people off. People are doing great work out there and they just don't want to put it online because they just don't want that, oh god, that negative comment. You know, if you're a very positive person, you know, generally, and you've got a spring in your step, and you click onto your Facebook and somebody's slated you, that that can really have a a really real big knock effect on your on your mental well-being. I just don't people I just think people don't want that in the world, and they think if they if I don't post, I ain't gonna get it. But you're missing such an opportunity, and you've just got to have some you've got to have some um mental resilience, haven't you, for that? You know, just delete it. Or I I I'd seen another contractor said, I don't read the post. I post it and then never look back at it. I never look back at it. And I thought that's quite a good idea. Granted, you might miss leads, but then when I look at it and think, how many leads have I taken directly off a post? Probably none because you message you, don't they? Personally, they won't put it in a chat in the comment because everyone, every other contractor will message them. So you I think that was quite a good tip. That post it, don't read the comments, don't ever come back into them. Don't read them, you don't read them, you can't you can't get upset by them, can you?

SPEAKER_00 7:53

It's true, it's true. I think what you said about the reading the negative comments is really true. I think as humans, you know, if we were to get 99 compliments and then trolled once, we you'd focus on the troll and the negative comment, I think. Um it's holding you back. If you're scared to post or you don't want the aggro or don't want any knob eds commenting stuff, it's holding you back. So if you can find it within you to to push past it, because some of the things that we're going to talk about in this episode will it's not even it might propel your business, it will. Like there's no two ways about it. Look at all the look at anyone who you know online, right, in this industry. Anyone who's doing well or is known, what do they do? And it's their post on social media. That's how you get the names in this industry. Whether they're good cleaners or not is a different topic altogether, but they'll they'll be having leads and and getting working from it because you know them already.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

It it is, it's it's it's such an undervalued resource. Um, and and not just social media. How many companies do I speak to that haven't got a Google My Business or have got a Google My Business profile? I click on it and it's just out of date. It's not been updated. The information, oh yeah, my website's changed or my phone number's changed, or it's just unresponsive. It just looks like a dormant company that nobody's gonna use. It's another free asset. Yes, jumping through the Google hoops to get it up and running can be a bit of a pain in the arse, but once it's up, then just invest time in it. It's only your time, innit, to put a couple of pictures on a week, put an update on every two or three days, you know, just show Google that you actually are who you say you are and what you're doing. And and just you know, be responsive. If somebody puts a review on, reply to it. Because if you don't reply to it, looks like you don't care. It's like you just all you wanted was the sale. All you wanted was the sale. And and I go through it. When I when I do my when I do my deep dive mentoring sessions with with um new clients, this is all part of the journey. And I look at I look at the business from a consumer point of view, and very quickly I'm like, ah, mate, I wouldn't use you. I wouldn't use you because you look like a dormant company. You know, your social media, it and I'm not saying it needs to be filmed by a videographer and it needs to be all polished, it just needs to be active, authentic, and real. And you can do that with your phone. Everyone's got one of these smartphones now with a camera on. You can do it on your phone, and it's free. That's the beauty of it. It's free.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Well, I think I think thinking like the consumer is a great thing to say, because let's just picture yourself buying, I don't know, a holiday, a car, I don't know, any any purchase that's above 200 quid, let's just say. If you went to check them out on social media, which I'm guessing a lot of you would, that the hotel or whatever, you know, whatever you're gonna check out, and they hadn't posted in like a year, or they'd posted once in every two, three, four months, there's a bit of a bit of doubt creeps into your mind, doesn't it? Why haven't they posted? Why are they not active? Are they still there? Are they still trading? And I think as we said at the start, there's that there's that negative attitude towards us as cleaners and trades. Why would you why would you risk making it worse by by not posting and removing even more trust? So just picture it, yeah. Think another consumer is great. And you've said before, would you buy from you? I think that's dead on. That is the it's so powerful to ask yourself that question. Look at your socials and go, Would I buy from you?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I I I did that last year, as you know, I ran the networking events for external cleaners, and every group that we did three at the end of the year, three groups, and the one of the questions that halfway through the day is you know, was right, honesty. This is now time to be really honest. Looking at all your social media, from your website to your Google My Business to your social pages, would you hire you to clean your roof or your patios? And what was interesting, we had 22 people attend, and I would say 15 said no. And that they just said no, yeah, they just said no, I wouldn't. And then you could literally hear the penny drop. They went, Christ, I know it's my company, and I wouldn't buy from me. Well, how do you expect the customer to buy from you if you wouldn't honestly buy from yourself? You know, um you know, and it's if you're gonna be on it, if you're gonna be on social media, then keep it current, keep it updated, don't let it sit dormant. Literally post every day. Make it look like you're not even making it look like you're busy because you are busy. Just put the updates, just put the updates on it. It's like you said at the start, it's building trust, it's removing barriers, it's warming up cold leads into warm leads. That's that's what it's for.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yeah, so I get um I don't know if you do, as well, I'm sure you do. I get asked questions um a bit through like my DMs and stuff and on my YouTube, and people ask, what's the like your number one tip or the number one thing you can do I could do to help grow my business? And it's always the same for me. It's get in front of the camera. Let's talk about this. This is the most powerful thing that you can do right now for your business. I'm telling you now, even if you don't believe it, I'm telling you it's true. It's it's getting if you get yourself in front of the camera, as in posting reels or uh just flipping the camera around, uh introducing yourself, like if you're on a roof clean or a patio clean or whatever, driveway. Hey, this is Michael here from Clean Soul. Uh today we're cleaning this roof. Uh come along with me for the journey and show that showing you there on the job. What that does is it really creates trust with you and the any potential leads, and it's giving you a personal brand, and both of those things are so important. And you told me this a year ago. Like I I'd gone from the camera before, but when you said you know, implement this and you'll see the changes, I did. And I can tell you right now, from me and anyone else who's done it who I've spoken to, the changes are massive. And uh yeah, getting in front of the camera is massive, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, 100%. I I look at the I've probably well, I haven't probably I've mentored in the last eight months, I've mentored ten people one-to-one. Um eight of them have jumped in front of the camera from never doing it. Eight of them have scaled beyond the wildest dreams with the help. Two of them haven't got in front of the camera. Still great businesses, but are still doing exactly the same numbers eight months on. Eight months on because you the problem is when you when you go in front of a camera, right? What you're doing is like you said, you're building a personal brand, right? You can scale a personal brand quicker, more professionally, than you'll ever scale the name of a company. Ever. Doesn't matter what the name is, so I'll use my company Cotswell Roof Cleaning, right? I can't scale that brand as quick as I can scale Matt Brookfield. It's just more personal. People know exactly who I am, people know exactly what I say, people know that I swear a lot, people know I'm bloody good at cleaning roofs, they don't care about the name on the van, they care about what I'm doing. Oh, they don't I'm not saying they don't care about what I'm doing, they like to know what I'm doing. I've I've scaled that company so fast by being in front of a camera. By being in front of a camera. That that's it's as there's no other way around it. If I'd never gone in front of a camera and just done time lapses and before and afters, I'd be scratching my ass for work, I think. I think I'd still have work, but not on the volume I get it now. The number the number of organic leads we get a day for roof cleaning um is phenomenal. I I've got paid ads, but also the the organic is phenomenal. And that 100% believe is because I'm in front of a camera. You know, yeah, there's gonna be people that don't like it, they're not my customers. There's gonna be people that buy into it massively. Two of my biggest sales came from YouTube. Two of my biggest sales came from YouTube, being in front of a camera, talking, interviewing. You know, you've seen my I interview the client. I interview the client on the doorstep.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

It's powerful that.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, absolutely, because it's not a written, it's not a written review. This is this is somebody still on their doorstep after the clean saying what they think. It's not scripted. We put a mic in front of them and we ask them a load of questions. It's just getting in front of that camera. As as people were nosy, we want to know what people are up to. Yeah, you know, you can see you've and now don't get me wrong, right? Time lapses, I'm in the industry, I still watch time lapses, right? I do, but they're all the same, aren't they? They're all the same. I'm more intrigued when I'm scrolling. If I see an owner operator in front of the screen, I'll stop and listen to the first 10 seconds, see what they're talking about. If it's something that gets me, I'll watch it all. And I might sit and watch a two, three minute reel of them talking. If I scroll on the first 30 seconds isn't what I'm after, I scroll again. Time lapses, I'll probably watch five seconds and scroll again.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Well we'll we'll get into time lapses later because they definitely have the time or time and place. But I would I think to think of it like this, time lapses will get you views, getting in front of the camera will get you sales. I think that's a good way to think about it.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

And I think um something that's it holds people back a lot, and we spoke about this at the start is the insecurity and people not wanting to get in front of the camera. But the truth is people buy from people with in any walk of life. That's why we have celebrities, you know, that's why people are drawn to other people. Um it just that's just how we work as humans. We like following people, we like seeing people's journey, we feel attached to them. Um, and you've got to think remember, let's just take roof cleaning, for example. Some of these jobs can be above £2,000. And it's not it's not weird to say that people a roof, right, is is protecting someone's main asset, their home, it's protecting their family. They've got to trust you to not balls it up, and they've got to trust you enough to come to their home. And driveways and patios, any kind of cleaning, they've got we've they've got to trust us to go to their home where their safe space is and carry out work. And if they see you on socials, they can see you looking you out looking you in your eye and seeing hearing your voice and making a personal connection. They're far more likely to trust you than just a faceless business because a faceless business, going back to the start, bad rep in this industry, we have a lot. That compared to seeing someone every day. I've had it for my own cleaning business. I've had so many people say, I've booked you, I've been following your videos for ages. Yeah, I've seen them. And you I know you've you've been the same. People have said to you, I've followed your journey, I've seen you cleaning every day. And the sale, which and we know that sales are marketing the hardest things, it it ticks both boxes then. Marketing tick gets you out there, sales tick because the sale is much easier because you've already done the hard work by building the trust. So that's why it's so powerful. And I think if you just get over that initial embarrassment, when you first start talking, you will forget how to speak, you won't be able to get your words out. I was awful when I first got in front of the camera. I was like about 10 takes later. But guess what? The next time you do it, you're a bit better and a bit better and a bit better. And yeah, your mates might laugh at you and you might get a few bit of shit online. That's cool, that's fine, man. As long as you're building a business and you're you're getting to where you want to be, who cares? Just get over it, and it will really, really help you.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

100%. And you've got to remember, haven't you, that your mates aren't paying your bills. Yep, they're not paying your bills. You it's your responsibility to get the most out of it to pay your bills and to make it successful. And if you're if you're really worried about what people think about you, then just go and get a job. Go and get a job. Because you're gonna flog a dead horse trying to make this this successful. If you the biggest, freest tool we've got in our armoury is social media. A phone, your camera, your face talking in front of it. And if you're not prepared to do it, just go and work for someone. Seriously, go and work for someone because you're just gonna, you're just not gonna take the opportunities. It's a gold mine.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Because I guess if you haven't got confidence, if you haven't got the mindset and the confidence to do it, you can always build confidence, mindsets, you've got to have the right mindset. If you're not willing to show you and your brand, you shouldn't be growing a business, really, because what it says to me is you don't trust it, you don't trust yourself, you don't you don't want to show it off. You want to show off your business. If you're embarrassed of it, what's the point? Like Matt said, go and get a job. It sounds harsh, but it's true. You want to shout it from the rooftop, you want to get you want to get your business in front of as many eyes as possible. Absolutely. And you're the face of it. It's your yeah, okay. There are businesses that people invest and they hire someone to do it and they want to be a silent partner, but most people listening to this right now will be a one-man band or you know, a small team, and you've got to you've got to show it. You've got yeah, you have to do it if you want to be taken seriously, I think, in this game anyway.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

And and there's a good point, yeah. I'm gonna pick up on a point there you just mentioned, right? About people hire people to do it for them, right? I I scroll social media like everybody, because I live in social media in the businesses I run. So I do live in the depths of social media. I can very Quickly spot when an external cleaning company is paying a third party to do their social media because they make it really corporate for the domestic user.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

And it stands out. It just stands out and it's just so wrong. And I look at it and I go, okay, that's shite. I can't believe you're paying someone to do that. Because it's not what the consumer wants. The consumer don't want this polished corporate thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

They want realism.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

You want you walking round covering shit, showing them what you've done and talking about your job. You don't get that. You don't get that with somebody sat in an office fucking two hours away who's never jet washed a patio in their life. And you send them a couple of pictures and they put this corporate music and video together of your it's just, and I can see it, it stands out at a million miles. You're better off, even if it's just a 30-second reel. Doesn't have to be polished. Hiya, it's Jim. We're in Runcorn today and we're cleaning this drive. I'll put the before and after pictures up later. Done. That's it. That is it. And then just put your before and after pictures up at the end of the day. Job done. That's all you need to do. Don't need to overthink it. Don't need to have a script. You don't need to be polished. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake, carry on. If you swerve, carry on. Doesn't matter. You know, it's just doing it, innit? Just doing it.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

The best my videos that I like look back on now, and the ones that probably got the most views. Maybe I'll pop one up right now, just a few seconds of it. I'm like, you can't even see my face, it's just covered in mud and it's in my hair. I know my hair's wild anyway, but it just looks horrendous. But that's real. There's nothing that's genuine, real, and it you want transparency. And yeah, of course, you say, Yeah, we clean up, we make sure we clean up, we click rinse the windows and everything. But just showing the journey, honestly, guys, it's so so powerful. And it just like Massive doesn't have to be anything crazy. 15-second clip would do you three, four times a week, bam. If you if you haven't got a job, if you're leafleting, I'm out today leafleting, I'm in this area, I'm cleaning my van, I'm doing this, I'm servicing this. There's so much you can do, it takes less than 20 seconds.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

You know, and and don't think as well on the on that, don't think it all has to be perfect. If if you fucking mess something up.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Imperfect imp imperfect is better, I think.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah, if you mess something up, tell people you messed it up. You know, people are people are human. We do get things wrong. You know, you can't just have this really clean image that everything you do is is perfect. Because people aren't stupid. They know that every job, when they go to work in their place, they know things go wrong. You know, so if you get something wrong, then just say it, yeah, we got it wrong. We got it wrong. We broke this, but we're gonna repair it and fix it. It's not a problem, you know. But I think I think the biggest thing is you've just gotta get, you've just gotta get in front of the camera, right? You've got to get and I always say, if you've never done it and you're really, really worried about it, the top tip I give you, right? Next week, or from tomorrow, after you've watched this, tomorrow morning when you go to work, turn your camera around and just film, just film it. And don't post it. Just make a 30-second film and do that every day. Do that every day for a week, two weeks, three weeks, just filming you to get used to talking into that camera. And then all of a sudden it'll just become natural to you and then start posting them. After the first post, it's fine. It's the first post you're worried about, and just don't go back checking it every 30 seconds, waiting to see who's who might have slated you. Just leave it, just put it on there, get on with your day's work.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Don't I wanna I wanna give someone I don't know I won't sh I won't say his name or his business, because yeah, I just won't. But it's a client of mine who's just started in Essex, right? And he asked me the other day what's um a bit of advice that would that would really help me. And I said, I said this, I said get in front of the camera. And he said he's willing to, he's just never done it before. I said, film yourself in front of the property, introduce the clean, then maybe put a time-lapse in the middle, and then show the result at the end. I said, just do it. I said you probably will it'll probably be awful your first one. His isn't, but I said you you you probably will be, and you'll get better and better, right? So I'm just looking here. So I've got his Instagram up here. It's so he did it, he did it like yesterday, I think it was. He did exactly what I said, he put some subtitles on it. So it's him introducing it in front of the property, it's a time lapse, and then him saying look at the result, and it is by far his most watch real. It's it's clearly I'm just looking at the views right here. There you go. And that's just his first one. Yeah, he's gonna keep doing that now weekly. Imagine how where he's gonna be in five, six months' time. That is proof. Go and try it. If take anything away from this episode, right? If you got a clean tomorrow or this week or whenever your next clean is, try it and and prove us wrong. Get yourself in front of the camera, film a bit, put a reel up and see how it performs.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

And I and I think sorry, quickly, go on. I think just picking up on a point there is what we also do as well. What people do is they put they start posting on social media, right? Don't get anything from it, and then just bin it. And and a part the put the part of the point of social media is consistency. So I said earlier that two of my biggest sales came from YouTube. That's after three years of posting, no more than a hundred views, one like, no comments, bar nasty ones. I just fucking laugh at, you know. But I was consistent, consistent for three years, and then I got the first sale, and then straight away after that, I got the second sale. That's three years, and I look back at that and I think, you know, I fucking made those videos, you know, rightly or wrongly, shit or good, whatever, and made them, but for three years I never did a single sale. There was nothing positive on there, there was not hundreds of views, no hundreds of likes. Most videos got three views and no likes, but I kept doing it consistent because I knew it had to be on there, and then bang, two sales. It was like fucking what's up.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

But look what you've got now. I mean, the point of this is like you said, what we'll get into paid ads in a bit, but what people are gonna do is they're gonna, once they come across you, they're gonna check you out probably in your website and see if you're on Google, then they'll check out your Facebook and your socials. What you have there, if someone was to check you out, is three years of trust. They'll scroll and scroll and scroll. Oh bloody, I used to do it this year's, hasn't they? Oh, look at all those cleans. And even though it felt like nothing at the time, shit, man, there's no there's no likes, there's no traction. First, that's not what we're doing. This we're doing this for sales, not vanity. A lot of views can be vanity on social media. There's look, and look, there's great, yes, it's building the brand, and and there'll be it might be different avenues like sponsors and stuff in the future if you're doing that. But what would you rather? Would you rather have a thousand views and no sales, or one view and one two grand roof sale? That's the way to look at it, and that's what getting in front of the camera will give you. That will give you the roof sale, won't it? That's that's the way to look at it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Uh 100%. I I see people on um on social media platforms in this world that that are obsessed with followers. Obsessed, obsessed with followers, you know, and you know, and if that's what floats your boat, that you're obsessed with having 30,000, 100,000 followers, right? And and that's what your goal is, um, is to get followers. But then I look at them as a company, they're not that registered, they're one man, they've got fucking a million fucking followers, and they can't do 90,000 in sales. I then look at other people, right, who have got fucking no followers, they've got a hundred followers, two hundred followers, but they post every day just raw material, and they've got three vans on the road and they're doing three, four hundred thousand. So where would you rather be? Where would you rather be? Do you know what I mean? It it's collecting followers is to me is like collecting stamps. Fucking waste of time. Waste of time. Waste of time. You want you would like you said you'd rather have fucking 10 followers that bought off you every month than a million followers that never bought off you. You know, because it's pointless, innit? You know, followers don't followers don't always buy, you know, but it's not, it's about the social proof, it's about building truth, trust, and the social proof that you do what you say. And I always look at it, I always say to my clients, this is a place that can be, social media is a place that can be very positive or very negative. If you don't do what you say, or you go to Mrs. Jones' house tomorrow and you really fuck it up, right? The likelihood is you're going to be all over social media. So, if you're not on social media, if I was if I wanted to buy from you and you're not on social media, I'd be like, why aren't they on social media? Why aren't they on there? Why aren't they on there? Fucking nah. It's because they don't do what they say they do and they don't want bad reviews. If you're on social media every day, you've nowhere to hide, have you? You're in a big world of nowhere to hide. That instantly gives people trust in you. Because you're not hiding, you're not hiding in the shadows, saying you're gonna do it, you're proving you do it, you know, and that that's why it's really important, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Yeah, I agree. So, yeah, so that's about um getting in front of the camera. Like I said, if you can take one thing from this, is go and do one. Just try one and then try a second one and third one and keep doing it, and you'll see. Um, but that's about building a personal brand. Let's talk about um briefly is is time lapses and before and after pictures, because they are really important as well. But picture this, it should be your or we think I think we we would agree that get getting in front of the camera is job number one. That is your that should be your main content. But in between those posts of you, to to spice it up and to keep the variety for people, add in the time lapses, why not? And it's an easy thing to do. Let me just say what I do for my roof cleans. I mean, I I my agency has taken over a lot now, so I'm not cleaning as much. But when we do roof cleans and stuff, we use a camera, like a 360 camera, uh, insta insta X4 camera, you can use your phone or whatever. Put on a big selfie stick on my tower behind me. I just filmed the whole roof clean. You can do it for a driveway or patio, whatever you want. So just hit record, clean, stop record, speed it up with a bit of music. That if you want the vanity and the followers and the reach, that's really good content for you for yourself. It doesn't have to be high budget, it can just be a phone if you've got the space to do it. But using posting that kind of content with your personal brand and then before and after pictures, that is really powerful. All of those combined will will give you the trust, it'll give you the sales, and it will help you grow your followers, which again you can you can leverage that in the future if you want to. Like I said, sponsors or whatever you want to do with yourself in the future. If you've got all of that stuff, my own personal views. I mean, I I know your most viewed video was uh was it six million or something? You you your time lapse of your roof clean, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Six million, six point two million of chemicals going on a roof.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Powerful.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Just like bizarre, innit? Up blew my mind.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

I I wasn't for the first maybe three or four months my business, I wasn't um posting much at all. And then I invested in a 360 camera. The camera wasn't what did it, it was what I was posting, but the camera helped me do it. Um and it went from like 240,000 views or something over six months to now we're past 10 to 15 million, and that was just all from one post in my personal stuff, but two, those those time lapses, people love watching them. It's how I came across this industry anyway, and it's how a lot of you might have come across it. So, yes, get in front of the camera and do all that, but also try out a few time lapses, why not? It's so satisfying, it just sells itself. There's no need, this is all free stuff, remember. It's uh people love watching them, especially you've got a really, really good transformation. Even if you're just starting out, actually, let's talk about that. You know, starting out, starting out right, people start out and they have no footage or know anything right. Something that you could do right now, let's just say you've just started, let's say it's January, for example, let's take January 2027, and you're gonna start a pressure washing company in March. You could have two or three months of doing friends, neighbours, families, drives, roofs, gutters, whatever, and you could have three months of posting continuous time lapses before and after pictures, and you could put yourself in front of the camera on every job, and then by the time pressure washing season comes around, you are bam, you're ready to go. You've had three months of practice, three months of contact, three months of building trust. That's what you can do right now. It's what I did, and you could really help yourself if you start doing that now. So that was a bit I went off a bit there, but that's um it's just advice that I wish everyone could know because you won't believe how much it'll help you. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

And and absolutely that that's what when I started the Cotswold roof cleaning, that's what we did. We did the first I don't know, five, six, seven cleans with friends and family, just to build content. Document everything. We'd never worked in a domestic field, everything I'd done and was doing was commercial. So this was this was now I needed social media for domestic. So that's what we did. We just did them for free and made content, made content, and I look back at them now because they're still on there, they're still on Instagram and Facebook. I look back at the very first post we did, it was awful. Don't get wrong, I don't think the ones we do now are much better, but you know what I mean. It was that journey, it was that building trust, showing people this is what we do. Um, and you're right, just start, just start filming it, just start filming it. Or if there's two of you, just get the other bloke to film you. Yep, get them to follow you around when you're on the flat surface cleaner or you're on the scaffold tower, just get them to film it for you, send you the videos, cut them up, cut them up, make reels, dead simple. Put a bit of jazzy music to it, post it. Job done. Easy as that.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

And you'll probably start enjoying it after a while as well because it's fun.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Absolutely, absolutely, and it's but we keep saying it, it's free. It's free. There's no spend bar your time. That's it. You're doing the work anyway, you've got a phone in your ass pocket, just record it. Just go and buy yourself a little cheap tripod. What are they? 10, 12 quid?

SPEAKER_00 36:39

Yeah, you should get Amazon Basics sorted.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

Yeah, put it on a tripod, press times lapse, clean the patio, clean the render, clean the windows, clean your van. Just record it, record it. Um, and yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Let's go on to the next bit then, which let's assume you've done all of this, right? I wouldn't go on to the next bit until you've done all of this. But the next bit's going to be paid ads, is is investing into your social media. So everything that we've mentioned is free. Before you even think about running paid ads, have these foundations in place. Make sure you've been posting for months and you do it consistently and you're in front of the camera. But what let's just assume you have done that, right? Something great about social media is you can invest in paid ads, and this isn't gonna be a whole tutorial of how to run paid ads, but it's I think it's important to mention that this is this this comes under social media is Facebook ads. And I'm not gonna try and sell anything to you. This isn't a sales video. Obviously, what I do is I do paid ads for exterior cleaning companies, but I'm not gonna talk about what we do too much, I'm gonna talk about the benefits of what it can do. Let's say for both our businesses, we've both invested in Facebook ads, right, Matt. But we also have the foundations before we started doing that. But Facebook ads, right? A lot of people in this industry will tell you that they don't work, and they'll tell you that because they've done it incorrectly. They've probably put £10 behind a post that they did, and they got no leads, maybe they got a couple of leads, they found out half of them were rubbish, and they'll tell you all in the groups now that Facebook ads don't work. I can tell you right now, if you want to grow a successful cleaning business, Facebook ads are your friend, and you have to go there. And if you do it with the right mindset, wow, it would just fill your calendar fast and it would transform your business. Um, what are your experiences with Facebook ads, Matt?

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Um, I agree, and just on that note, this isn't a sales platform, right? That's not what we're here to do. But I'm just gonna put a bit of clarity on that. So I work with Michael as uh as his mentor and he runs this Facebook ads group. Now you would think Michael would do my Facebook ads, and he doesn't, he doesn't do mine, you know. So I'm not but I I can say from the person I use that they work 100%. 100%, you know. Facebook ads are if you've done everything else and you're established and you're ready for more work, then investing in paid advertising is the next step, you know. Regardless who you use, there is some good and there is some bad out there, um, and you'll know pretty quickly who the good and the bad are, but it works 100%. It's what it allows you to do with paid ads, right? If you look at everything that's organic and word of mouth, you can't scale. There's no clarity on when your next job's coming with word of mouth and organic, so you can't plan for the next period, the next quarter, the next six months. With paid ads, I know from my business. So we're in April now, right? We're in April, and I am booked up till the end of August, right? That's through organic and paid ads. Now I can turn my paid ads down now because I know how far ahead I'm booked up, but I also in the same breath, when I need more work, I can ramp that up. I can go to my agency and say, I need to put more money into it. Okay, because I know what I get because I count the numbers, I count the leads, I count the conversions, I get everything is on data to me. So if I need, if I know if I sell, if I sell one in three roof cleans through paid ads, and I need another 10 roof cleans, then I know where I need to up. I know how much I put in to how much I get out. So I got that data. So if you want to scale and have a predictable pipeline of work, you can only have that with paid ads. You can't do it waiting for someone to come organically to stumble across your website or to someone said, Oh yeah, Jim cleans my driveway. Ask Jim. If you want to be absolutely ahead of it and have predictable work, the only way is paid. Is the only way. The only way. Don't listen to the naysayers who say it doesn't work, it works and it's predictable. That's my take on paid ads.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

It's it's true, it's absolutely true. You know, I I work with lots of clients in this industry. You know, you mentor and you speak to lots of clients. The ones who are doing well are the ones who are investing in it. But it's about having the right mindset to paid ads. Um, and I say this a lot in my videos you have to be willing to invest. So if I say to you, you know, you have to spend at least £25 a day, or $30 a day if you listen in America or whatever, something like that, a month. So about what, £700 to a thousand pounds a month. If I said that to most cleaners, they go, Don't be silly, I'm not spending that, I ain't got that money. But if I said to you, well, give Facebook nine hundred a thousand and it gives you back ten thousand, what do you say then? That's the reality of it. It's invest a thousand, let's just say approximately. Get seven, eight, nine, ten times back each month. And guess what then? When you have that profit, you put that into next month and the next month and the next month. So you're not you're not losing a thousand pounds of ad spend each month, you're taking out a profit. So you really you only need one month's ad spend if you've got that to spend, and that keeps you going then. And what that does then, power pair that with your with your strong foundations on your socials to paid ads. Paid ads take you to the next level, they take they get you in front of so many eyeballs, and they get you X amount of leads. And like Matt just said, he knows his figures now, so he knows how much he spends versus what comes in and then how many he converts. Then it's just a simple math game, then it's how many how many leads do I need to get to hit my quota each month. And if your cost per lead is X, you've got to spend that to get each lead. And it's as simple as that. And um, it's just it's just powerful, it's it's absolutely crazy. But the truth is, and I I say this in my videos, sorry if you if you've seen them before, most agencies won't tell you, but I will tell you right now, and Matt will tell you, that most of the leads, or a good half of the leads, are going to be a time wasters and a waste of time. But that's absolutely fine when you know that, when you understand that you can play the game, then then it's just about getting back to people quickly and weeding out the time wasters and finding the goal that is within paid ads. You know yourself, Matt, how many time wasters are on there, but you also know, I'm sure, how many golden gems are in there. I mean, if you don't mind talking about it, um tell us a bit about what you spent last spring, Jemba when uh with obviously Sam your guy uh to show people tell people about that because that's powerful. Yeah, so um if you don't mind if you're no I will.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

I'm just saying if I had the numbers to hand, I can give you exact figures, but I haven't and I should have.

SPEAKER_00 43:31

Just roughly.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

But roughly, so if I talk about March last year, right? So 12 months ago, I spent £3,000 on adverts. That's what we put into the Facebook fruit machine, and we took out £38,000 in confirmed sales with deposits paid in 31 days. Crazy 31 days. That was it. That that that's it. And I think um was I think January, January we probably did I think January we did 1,500 pounds I'd spend and we took out probably 16,000, 17,000. February was 1,500 and we took out probably was it 21, 22,000? And then we ramped it up then. We ramped it up in March and we had our best month in March. April slowed down. Oh, it didn't slow down. We put £3,000 in and we took out £31,000.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

If that's slow, you'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yeah, and then May, but then what we noticed then was then the market started to change. The market started to change. We reduced our ad spend because we were but months ahead, right? Months and months. We reduced the ad spend back down to about a grand. Um and we were taking out probably it actually it actually was quite quite noticeable the drop-off, if I'm honest with you.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

It probably more people start advertising whether there's all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

And it was, but don't get me wrong, when I say the drop-off was there, it dropped off to about I think May was a really bad month. I think we did seven grand, but that's still a 6X on investment, you know. But but from the bigger numbers, yeah, it dropped off and then it sort of plateaued at about six grand for a couple of months, and then once it started to pick up again around about August, I would say. August it picked back up, and we've been constant now from August to today. We put, I mean, we this year, this year's ad spend, we did January, we were doing January, February, March, we did £450 put in, and we've taken northwards of 15 grand to 22 grand a month out of it, or 450 pounds.

SPEAKER_00 46:13

That's not bad, is it?

SPEAKER_01 46:14

No. But that's because everything we spoke about is built behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Everything's built behind the scenes. So they may find me on a paid ad, then when we contact them, speed to lead really quickly, AI and all that jazz. It's then they go and look at our socials, and what we send them, it's then then they've gone from a cold lead to a warm lead. We're back up to a thousand pound ad spend at the moment, and we're doing we're doing anywhere between 15 and 22,000 pounds a month.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

There you go. Um so it's uh and the and the point that is not to show off and go. It's not a boast.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

It's not a boast, is it? It's not sat here to flare, you know. It could stop tomorrow. It's just it's that's factual what we do. It's it's what we do.

SPEAKER_00 47:06

But it's what Facebook can do for you.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

It's the predictability of it. It's the predictability of that pipeline, isn't it? Yeah, you you can turn it up and down as you need to. Never turn it off, just turn it up and down. Yeah, never turn it off, just turn it up and down. And I I hear this, I hear this, I hear this a lot. And that do you know one of the biggest things I hear, right? People turn that this this, I mean, this blows my mind that people believe that this is a strategy. They turn the marketing off to save money.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

Oh, yeah, just quite a lot.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Hold on, hold on. So you're telling me, right? To save a thousand pound and your 500 pound um agency fee. So that's 1500 quid. To save that 1,500 quid, you're going to turn your marketing off. Yeah. So the only thing that gets your leads, you're going to turn off. Yeah. And I want to say that back to them, I say, can you not see how stupid that sounds? And they go, yeah, but I'm going to say 50, yeah, but you're going to lose 10 grand.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

What's more expensive, uh, an ad spend and agency fee or a whole month's worth of no work and all your expenses going out?

SPEAKER_01 48:23

It it's it's absolutely bizarre, isn't it? But but people are of that mindset. They're of that mindset that they're going to save 1500 quid by turning their ad spend off. And I'm like, ah, but it's the only thing that gets you leads.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

And the thing is, I I kind of get it to a level because people I just don't have not are not aware of it. Like I get I can see the mindset of want not wanting to spend when times are tough, but it's the wrong mindset. So don't so don't feel bad of having that because uh we've all been there at some point. But if you want eyes on your business and you want regular, consistent leads, Facebook ads will do it. Don't turn up, don't turn off your lead source because it's only going to go one way then. If you're not bringing in anything and then you've got no leads, you're gonna be selling up very, very quickly. And the the companies who are big and doing well, not even necessarily big, just doing well. All Facebook ads, they'll all be running Facebook ads, I promise you.

SPEAKER_01 49:17

Yeah, it it's it's the number one, you know, and and it's and and if you look at why it works so well, right, is Facebook as a company, right? And I'm not technical and I don't know social media, but I look at Facebook and I think the number one revenue stream is having agencies run paid ads, and it's probably worth billions to them. So they want to make sure that it's perfect and it runs like clockwork, and so the agencies like yourself use it, but the client end user, the roof cleaner, external cleaner, has to get the money out of it. So Facebook are really, really getting this right, putting it in front of the right people, so it's a win-win. They're not just sat there going, Oh, give us your money and we're gonna do nothing about it. You know, they they're they're working behind the scenes to make it absolutely on point for the agencies like yourself, or or if you even if you're not an AT, if you're clever enough to do it yourself, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

You don't have to go with agency do it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

If you're clever enough to do it yourself, then they want you to be successful on there because you're paying them to be on there. It's it's just it's a massive, massive tool for for but I think for me, the one thing to take away from it, it's predictable. If you want predictable income, if you want to stop worrying about next month or the month after where your work's coming from and be predictable, then Facebook ads all day long. All day long.

SPEAKER_00 50:59

I consecutively hit my 10k month because of Facebook ads. It's not even up for discussion, it was Facebook ads. Yes, the foundations were in other places in the business, but the lead source was Facebook ads, and it has been for a few other companies that have run. Um and it can get and it can fill your calendar quick. You know, if you're just starting out right now, you could run Facebook ads and be booked up very quickly. It doesn't Facebook, people on Facebook, apart from apart from how you portray yourself on your socials and your website, people don't know how long you've been going. Who's to who how would you ever know who someone's been in the game? 10 years or 10 weeks. If you're running ads, you're in front of them. If you're if your competitors aren't running ads and you are, you're in front of people, not your competitors. So if you want to get ahead quickly, Facebook ads are there, but you have to have the foundations.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

And another note on Facebook ads, right? I think the people that slate fake Facebook ads, right? Because there is the people out there, in there? Yeah, you see them in these groups that are slating Facebook ads. Do you know what? Do you know what I think it is? I I think they can't they can't close, they can't sell.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Yeah, everything that's gonna be an episode coming up soon about sales, but yeah, just touch on it now, it's important.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

But I think that's what it is, you know. Um, I think the people that can't close slate Facebook ads. Yeah, they haven't got all the free stuff built up, or you know, they're just not they're not the right person to stand in front of the client trying to close, you know, and I I I see it all the time. I see all the time people are going, they go to every quote, right? They go to every quote and they can't, they're not closing what they need to close. Yeah, well, maybe you need to change that. Don't go to them, email them. If you're not a naturally gifted talker and you can't naturally build rapport, but you're a shit hot external cleaner, then don't go to the quotes. Yeah, because you're just gonna talk yourself out of it. You know, not not everyone can be confident, can they?

SPEAKER_00 53:00

That's fine if you're not, no, no. No, exactly. Horses for courses, yeah, for sure. Look, we'll we'll do a whole episode on that because that's sales is sales and follow-up. Oh my god, massive, massive. Probably the biggest topic for discussion, to be fair. So we'll do a full episode on that. Um, we're coming to the end of the episode because we're approaching 60 minutes. Um if it's the first time listening, our episodes are capped at 60 minutes. So if we talk over that, the episode will just cut off. So that is that's the thinking, the process behind this. Um, each episode we do uh we ask each other one question unprepared, um, just to see what the other person would say. And it can be on anything. Um I've got one for you, mate, today.

unknown 53:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

You ready for my one? Yeah, go on. Uh if you were given a million pounds to spend on your cleaning business, but you can only invest it into one thing, what would you spend it on?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Can I split the million pounds?

SPEAKER_00 53:57

No. No.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

Okay. Um mentoring.

SPEAKER_00 54:07

To to get mentored.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

Yeah. And that the logic behind that is right, and and it sounds like I'm trying to sell mentoring, but I've spent 25 years building my businesses, right? Four successful businesses. The change came 12 years in when I invested in mentoring.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

So you'd find you'd find like the top, whoever's top of the game in the world, and you'd that's good, yeah, that's a good answer to that. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

Because I I it I went from I went 12 years just you know, struggling, doing 150,000 a year, then started getting mentoring and went to three million. That's the game changer for me. That's what changed the game, that's what brought wealth because I didn't know. I always say it in everything we do, you don't know what you don't know. And it wasn't game changer, it was just little things. And I went, fucking hell, man. I've spent 10 years doing it wrong.

SPEAKER_00 55:13

Copy the successful people, learn.

SPEAKER_01 55:14

That's what I would say. That's what I would say. I have a question for you.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Go on there, I've got four minutes.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Good, four minutes, right. If you were starting, no, no, not that. If you were starting from scratch again, social media is the topic, right? As an exterior cleaner, you could only pick one platform to showcase your business, be it reels in front of the camera, or time lapses, and time allows because you haven't got loads of time because you're busy. What platform would you choose and why would you choose that one platform?

SPEAKER_00 55:56

As a cleaning business, not an agency, cleaning it's it's Instagram for me, I think. I think you can post you can post stories, you can do lives, you can post your reels, which are powerful, you can post before and after photos. I think a I think the majority of your audience, your core audience, who are gonna buy off you are from Instagram. That's what I that's what I think from my experience. You can rack up loads of views on your time lapses, but you can also get I we get them all the time. People messaging, can I have a quote? Can I have a quote in into your DMs? I think Instagram does that. I think Facebook's dying a little bit, but it's but it's by no means dead. But I think if you I'd say dye in. I think Insta and TikTok are taking over. Um, I would say it's Instagram. I would say TikTok, but that's for more um business to business, I think.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Yeah. I and I I agree. If I if I had to get rid of all social media today for Cotswold Roof Cleaning bar one, Instagram would be the one.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

I'd keep it. I'm gonna wrap it up. I don't want to go over guys. Thank you very much. That's been episode two, the power of social media. We'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

See you on the next one. Have a good week.