66 | Unlock Growth in 2025: Mastering Marketing with Crystal Williams from Lemond Seed Marketing

Welcome to Freedom Blueprint podcast. are going to have actually we have a friend of the show who's joining us again today. We've got Crystal Williams from Lemon Seed Marketing hanging out with us again today. Crystal, how are you doing?

Thank you.

I'm doing okay. You know, it's end of the year, so everybody's pushing through, but I'm here for it.

Isn't it crazy? It is almost the end of almost at 20, 25. So almost the end of 20, 24. and I don't know, it seems like it just, blinked and it was gone.

Ha ha ha.

man, from the minute that August 31st hits, I feel like it's January 1st. So snap of a fingers. So yeah, definitely a busy time of the year, especially for marketers and people getting ready to launch great things for their business in the next year.

Yeah. Cause, cause now's the time, you know, I think, you know, you, you got a plan and, now's a really good time of year to start planning. So before we jump into, to the topic of today, crystal was on before it was episode 30. so go back, check out that episode. It talks a little bit about how you even got here because you are from the trades and grew up in the trades. And I think it's a great story. but yeah, go definitely go check out that, that episode.

yeah.

And then today, what I wanted to dig into a little bit was marketing is just, it's a moving target. It's difficult. It's, I'm sure you have adjectives to add to it, but, you know, it's, it can be expensive, you know, that's all these things, but at the end of the day, it's the lifeblood of our business.

haha

yeah, yeah. Well, you know, marketing is a necessary evil. It's one of those things that you, and it depends, right? So some contractors absolutely adore the puzzle and like the mysteriousness and the pushing and pulling that comes from marketing. But a lot of business owners like marketing is very daunting to them.

They feel like everything's a scam or everything's like, you know, empty promises. And so you kind of, have people that sit on both sides of the spectrum, but definitely marketing has to be a focus. And so what I've really been on this path lately is helping contractors understand, you know, Limitsy, we're marketing coaches. So we're not a digital company. We're not a direct mail company. We are strategists and coaches and branding experts that help you understand like.

how to have a comprehensive marketing plan that doesn't just rely on things like PPC or direct mail or mass media all on independently. It's how do I create a comprehensive plan? And so, you know, when I talk to contractors, a lot of times they're just overwhelmed with marketing. Like it's the easiest thing to push off their to do list. It's the easiest. It's the hardest thing for them to focus on because they don't feel creative and it just becomes a task. And so, you know,

I've watched contractors, you know, in their annual planning, you know, so a lot of my, our limited clients are coming out of annual plan and you know, they spend a lot of time on operations, a lot of time on pricing, a lot of time on negotiating contracts with other, you know, with their vendor partners. And then they're like, yeah, and marketing, you know? And I'm the opposite, like, I'm like, I'm like a cheerleader, like let's do it because I have chosen to accept the marketing challenge.

I've chosen to accept it for contractors across the United States, much like I accepted it for McWilliams. McWilliams and Sons, my family company, go look it up. We're in Lufkin, Texas, and now we're in multiple places. But I started there grassroots where it was me and my brother and my dad in a room with a whiteboard. How do we grow this thing from 1 million to 3 million to 10 million to 20 million? How do we keep going?

And I was tasked with that marketing side. And so my encouragement to contractors really is like, embrace the suck of what marketing is, you know, and just start like, just start plugging away at it or partner with people that you trust that are bringing ideas to the table and not just asking for an invoice payment, you know.

Yeah

That's one of the things that I did for McWilliams is, you know, my brother was like, just organize this marketing strategy that we have. Like, what are we doing? How are we tracking it? What are we, are we using all of our co-op dollars? How do we keep our employees? And those are things that are really important that marketing encompasses.

Well, and I think, I think a lot of times is it can be the easiest to blame for contractors for not, winning the way they want to win or succeeding or whatever the case may be. And, the truth is, is a lot of times when you start to look at certain things, I mean, there's the marketing coming in, but then what's happening once it's hitting your door, are you doing the things and the activities that you need to do in order to be successful and in order to book that customer? Cause at the end of the day,

Mmm.

You can spend all the money you want on it coming in, but if your booking rate is 20%, 30%, you're, you're going to have a hard time ever winning at that game or getting an ROI on your, marketing as well.

Yeah, and marketing gets all the blame, none of the glory.

So, you know, they'll say, man, we killed it this summer. The weather, really. And I'm like, and your creative ideas and your PPC spend and your best media campaign. you know, sure. But at the same time, as soon as leads aren't coming in the door, I'll tell you who really takes it on the chin are digital companies. And I'm not one, but I watch digital companies. They get all the blame. I will watch a contractor who says, I gave my digital company $500 a month and they didn't do anything with it.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, sir, that's not even enough to move the needle on a hot day, much less on a day during times of low volume. So I really want to encourage contractors to be a vocal partner. Unfortunately, marketing is one of those things that is not set in and forget it. You can't just like check that box off and be like, okay, I'm not going to meet with my vendor. You know, I'm not going to meet with, I'm not going to make my monthly calls. I'm not going to tell them my revenue. It's another business and I'm not going to hold my seat. I you, I see it every day.

Mm-hmm.

Literally, I had a client.

a couple of months ago and he was like I'm changing my digital companies and it was one of the digital companies that I have seen great success with it so I was like man let me dig into this like maybe so I start looking and I'm like they're like 200 and something phone calls of which like 22 % was answered so when I asked the client like okay so 22 % of this so I start like again on the side of the contractor like are these coming in after hours on weekends and so he goes well

my gosh.

I just have a very laid back office atmosphere. Like, you know, sometimes they might be taking a break and I'm like, okay, so we're not on a beach sipping margaritas. we got to, somebody has to like grind to get these leads in cause you're spending all this money and then it looks like your digital pieces are not performing. And that really is not the full picture. That, and I also see on the other side.

I see, I watch digital companies say, well look, you're ranking number one for like 20 search topics. And I'm like, listen, I'm not a digital expert. But if that's search, I rank number one for heating contractor in East Texas.

who's actually searching that? So I love that I write number one. Too bad no one's actually searching for that search term. So I see it both ways. But again, I just encourage, like we have to be vocal partners. Squeaky Wheel gets the grease, friends. So the more vocal you are and the more interactive you are with your vendors, the more successful you'll feel with the performance.

Yeah, that's a really good reminder, especially coming into the end of the year, because right at the end of the year, you should be working on things like your planning for next year and your budget for next year and all the things that happen in a business or that should happen in a business. So yeah, be looking at that number and what is that percentage, right? So what is the percentage that you're spending for your marketing and is that where you want it to be or is it not where you want it to be? I don't know. That's something each business is going to have to

Yeah.

yeah, and people ask me this, so I'll give this information now. This is free information. So depending on how aggressive you want to be. Listen, everybody has an opinion of this. This is my professional opinion from what I've seen personally with my own family's company and with my own roofing and pest control companies that my family both owns now. This is what we deploy. But there are different schools of thought.

I like it.

Our school of thought on marketing is when we are brand new to a new market or a new service. So my brother and sister are running our family's pest control company. So we bought a small company. We wanted to grow by like literally a hundred percent. We wanted to like, you know, really kick it up a notch. So we went in at about 15 to 18 % marketing spend of what our revenue goal was. So we were hoping to hit. Now is that like, that's a cash.

We bleed cash for a little while because we understand the importance of you got to spend money to make money, right? Same thing, I own a small portion of a roofing company. The owner, she and I, we work through a marketing budget. Some months we get very aggressive. So we're probably running a 12 to 14 % marketing budget. Versus my family's heating and air conditioning company, who now has hit a pretty good high revenue number, we can back that throttle down a lot in our existing markets, more like

Yeah.

5 % 6 % marketing spend because we have an established brand presence and we people know who we are. So now we can kind of settle in, right? So it's kind of like a race. You start off strong, then you have to hit your pace. And then at the end, you got to finish strong. So if we want to really push into a new market, so our brand is very good in this market, but we're going to go two or three towns over from it and try to fill in that little gap. Then we probably have to hit the gas for a little while.

and be hovering more at 14%. Some of y'all like literally if you're driving, you're gonna wreck your car. If you're on your Peloton, you're like coming off Peloton because these numbers, you're like, there's no way. It is all a matter of where you prioritize spending your dollars. So we all might get to the same finish line. I'm just gonna get there faster.

And I'll tell you this too, like if I were to come into your market, this is what I want you to think. If I, Crystal Williams, bought a company in your market and I had 14 % of, let's say I wanted to $2 million in my first year, and I came in at a 14 % marketing spend, and I hit the ground running with social media, and I wrapped a few trucks and hit the ground, how fast could I overtake you? Probably in a year. I'm just gonna outpace you.

For some of you now for some of you that are more aggressive already you're gonna be who I'm eyeing I'm looking at them like how I gotta be that's who I'm pushing after and so whether we like it or not like I'm a competitive person so I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but I think many of you want to have an active marketing strategy you're just unsure of Committing the money up front like all of you will give me more money when you see performance first

But sometimes it's, you know, the greater the risk, the greater the reward style thing.

I think that's such a good point, especially for people that are in the middle of doing their budgeting for next year is, is when you think about that and you said, I may, I may spend 12 to 18 % of what our anticipated growth is going to be. So yeah, I mean, you're, you're going to be investing. And then on the other side of that, you've got to make sure that on the backend, you're doing the things to capture all of the, you know, all of those phone calls and all of those.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Okay, I actually have like four things. So let me start with what I think is the easiest one to do that everyone's gonna hate. I wanna talk to you about brand awareness. So.

Let's do it.

This is not new. Those of you that have bought and sold businesses that have been in your business a while, you probably know this, but to be honest, you're not willing to do it. So, and this is where I will go talk in my own market about what McWilliams did to grow in front of our own competition. And they will still not go do what I tell them to do, even though they saw us be successful. So unfortunately, many people can know they know what they need to do. They're just not willing to do it. So one of those things is brand awareness. So this is a

Mm-hmm.

boots on the ground, I'm gonna shake hands and kiss babies all day long until I can get my name out there more. So I think that even all of our digital platforms like all the Google's, Bing's, DuckDuckGo's, ChatGPT's, all of those search engines are going to start prioritizing user-generated content. So that's a fancy way to say they want your customers talking about you, they don't want you talking about you.

So you need to get creative about getting people to talk about you. So is it a yard sale? Some of y'all have been doing this, but let's get more aggressive. Is it a yard sign contest? Is it a review highlight contest? it a, you know, tag us in social media and we're going to, you know, enter you to win. What you need is to somehow incentivize people that are utilizing your services or love your brand or love your mascot, love your jingle, whatever. How can you incentivize them to talk about

Okay, I like that.

about it publicly on platforms and get them to tag your business, mention your business, comment on your stuff. Because what happens is Google starts realizing, I say Google, the internet world, starts realizing that users want to hear from other users and not advertisers. So that's a very layman's way of approaching user generated content. So guys, if you do not have an automated,

software of some sort helping you get reviews, please, you're about 10 years behind, number one, and you are missing a huge opportunity. And if you have one, are you then diversifying that content? Meaning, take those five star reviews and post them on your social media, put them in newsletters, talk about them in a video, open that and say, hey guys, it's Crystal Williams from McWilliams, heating, cooling and plumbing. I'm going to read this five star review that we just got from Janice in Lefkin, Texas.

Janice says, and read it out loud and post that. Y'all, liquid, it is literally like video gold. But what you need to do is try to encourage your actual users. So when you're doing a new install, encourage them, hey, if you posted before and after, every month I give you back, if I draw a winner, I give you back $300, $350, things like that that really will move the needle, that it is well worth the $350 to have four or five of your install people talking about.

Number two, this one's also controversial but hate me if you want to. Maintenance clubs. So this is the way I think about it and I don't know how else to tell you.

okay.

I could talk a whole podcast about Target Market, because some of you are trying talk to everybody, but the majority of you should be talking to a contractor that is, or I'm sorry, to a homeowner that is 40 years and older with expendable income that owns her home, okay? Because she, the end of the day, is gonna be the one that decides. Because whomever her partner is, is probably just like, get it done. So I think about my parents. I'm gonna have to call you to edit.

That's me.

So I think about my parents. So my parents are six in their early sixties. I know they had me when they were very young, but 18. That's what you do in East Texas, I think. But so my parents are in their sixties and people were like, this monitoring, it's a new age thing. Guys, it's not, it's not. So let me tell you about the peace of mind that would come to my mom and dad. So my mom and dad travel. They're both retired. They still go on our church, like volunteer Christian outreach team.

So when there's disasters, they get deployed and they go to these things and they serve food. So one of the things that would be an easy sell to them is, hey, we come up to your house already to do these couple of checkouts on your system. We do a visual inspection for your plumbing, but now you can pay an additional fee every month. And we actually install monitoring, whether that's a thermostat or smart AC or something like that. We install that.

and we're able to pinpoint a problem before you get home. So we're still doing the preventative side of things, because we still want to prevent things from happening. But we also have this monitoring piece on there so that we literally could call the homeowner and say, Ms. Williams, this is Crystal calling from Yellow Bear Air. We noticed that your system has been consistently running for three days. We noticed that it's running high on this or low on this or whatever the triggers are. And now all of a sudden, you're a resource.

Would you like for us to go ahead and dispatch a technician to your home to see if we can identify the problem? my gosh, yes, we're traveling. I'm glad y'all caught this. So I want contractors to really start thinking like, number one, if you don't have a basic maintenance plan, let's go. Like, where are you at?

Yeah.

You need to have something. But now those of you that have had one for a while, I encourage you like, let's reinvent that thing. Give it some new life. Give it some new perks that are what people want now. And for a lot of you listening, you will be the innovative one in your market. So don't be scared of it. Start exploring options and think about monitoring.

As a customer, think, think about that as a, from a customer standpoint. And, and I know a lot of times it's, hard for us to, to separate ourselves, in our industry, but even think about vehicles, right? So vehicles nowadays, they'll give you monthly diagnostics and they'll send you an email and tell you if anything's wrong. Like for me, I know it's definitely a good piece of mind to not have to think about it, right? Like I have a thousand things to do and focused on my car or my

any other mechanical piece of equipment, your customer will 100 % appreciate that. Cause now, now that's how you're the guy or the girl. You're like, well, I don't even have to think about it because they're going to call me if there's a problem.

Yeah, own the thermostat, own the home. Right, so that's not even my saying, but it's a great saying. So, and let me tack onto that a little bit. Plumbers, electricians, landscapers, pool companies, if you are not stickering.

Mm-hmm.

anything that pertains to your service, you're wasting opportunity. Especially those of you that are in transient places, like you have a lot of people moving in and out of your market. So plumbers, why are you not tagging under the sink? So get a zip tie, get a tag made that's laminated or waterproof, and it says, this plumbing system might be under warranty. Call Yellow Bear Plumbing, right? Tag the water shutoff valve.

Mm-hmm.

Put a magnet on the refrigerator that tells them how to shut the water off. Sticker their water heater. All of those things. Electricians, why is your information not all over their panel?

in the garage or wherever it is. Why are you not even like, I've seen some cool things like wrapping their panel to help it match the interior of their home. You can do like open the panel. You can have one of the diagrams that's logoed out with your tons of cool stuff to do for electricians, right? And then HVAC companies come on now we should be labeling the indoor equipment, the outdoor equipment, the thermostat.

so many places for you to put your own logo because people, what's the first thing you do when your garbage disposal won't turn on? You open the cabinet and look at it. People like me, all I can do is look at it. That's as far as it's gonna get. And then I'm like, my husband's name is Ray, so I'm like, Ray something's wrong with it.

But if I look down there and Ray was at home and it said, this might be under warranty, I might go, I should call them. And then you can tell them, it doesn't look like the system's under warranty, but we have been at your home before. So we're familiar with it, right? So that goes to me along with that monitoring and maintenance is like, make it easy for the homeowner to remember you and think of you when they have a need. And if you're a multi-service friends, everywhere, everywhere you can be, you should be.

Another one is AI, which everyone is hating this, but here's how I want to talk about AI. So I want to preface this by saying one thing. I am a huge person for innovation, e-commerce, all this cool stuff, but I really want to encourage so many contractors have not passed basic training before we're over here trying to go to office or school. Okay. We've got to get through basic training. Okay. So

Meaning like a lot of you don't have the basics down yet nor the budget to be focusing on things like e-commerce. Now I can argue a different point there as well, but my point is you as an owner, you only can have so much focus.

So if all of a sudden, mean, literally this, is what I encountered. I was at a show, for a manufacturer and this guy comes up with me to me and his email, the first indicator is his email was like, you know, hot dad, 87 at AOL.com. So immediately that tells me that he probably is not very far advanced on his digital presence for his company. He doesn't even have an email. As a matter of fact, it's a random email. Okay. So that's a big identifier to me that we're probably in a bad place.

you

And so he wanted to know how he could launch e-commerce.

And so you see like those two things are not, you're not in the right place. You're not in the right head space yet. So I literally said, well, let's back this up. Friends, if you do not have a website that has active SEO and a strategy around how you're growing your digital presence, e-commerce needs to be step two. And so you've skipped step one and you've jumped to step two. Just like when my dad and my brother try to put something together, they just go to the end of the instruction manual and then they're like,

Mmm.

Why do I have all these extra screws? It's the same problem here. So don't skip being foundationally prepared to do some of these cool things. So those are the foundational pieces. Is your brand solid? Are you solid on social media? And is your web presence solid, meaning a good website and probably an email that doesn't end in at gmail at hotmail at Yahoo. It should end at your company name.com.

So, but let's talk about AI in the sense of, I'm foundationally secure, what should I do? AI, so the chats and automated voice answering and speed to lead style things. So, speed to lead means how fast can you respond to leads that are coming into your system? So we all know the early bird gets the worm. So we need to have an aggressive strategy for grabbing leads as soon as we get them.

Mm-hmm.

So there's tons of things to deploy. I'm not here to promote specific AI tools. I just want you to pay attention. And guys, there is so much information out there right now, just in Facebook groups. Like when someone recommends someone, ask them, hey, do you have personal experience with this company? I've been looking at them. You don't have to adopt every shiny object. Like some of you are fish in the lake and y'all would have been caught by the first shiny thing that went by you.

Some of you just need to, yes, some of you just need to sit down for a minute and actually do some think through it. So, but AI, so the chat, the virtual voice people, the e-commerce side, like the automation that you can put in through things like Turp and Hatch. All of those are smart tools that you can deploy. I lump all of that in together.

Yeah.

Because AI is artificial intelligence. So don't get hung up that AI is chat GPT. AI is a huge umbrella with so much underneath it. It's just a matter of figuring out what do you need.

Right.

There you go. That's a good one.

How could I work through that? that's one. I mean, have you seen that? you relate to that at all?

I do. So what was interesting is, Kristen and I did a recap after being at service world this year. And one of the big things that caught my attention at service world, and this is all the events, but it just so happened to be a lot at service world was the amount of companies that were AI style companies. It was, it was amazing. and it's just like anything else, to your point, it's a tool in your toolbox. So it's not a replacement.

a ton.

And you, you've got to make sure that you're using it intentionally, just like anything else. It's like, even if you hired a, let's say a call center or somebody to do your chats, you're still going to check in on that. Not just blindly go, well, here you go. Kick it out to the world. So, I love it. I use, I talk a lot about AI. People are so worried about it and that it's new. And I mean, the truth is AI has been around, it's been around for a minute.

it's just now really starting to have this evolution much faster than it's ever had before. But I mean, let's be honest, spell check is AI. So, it's been around a minute. So, but it is cool. And there's some things that, you know, there's some call center stuff that, that I have seen that I really, really like. I've had some on the podcast. everybody go check out the podcast. There's, there's always some AI and there's a couple of AI people that we've talked to on here as well. So.

Yes, yes, yes.

So yeah, I think AI is really can be an opportunity to really grow and scale your business as long as you do it correctly. That's not just AI, that's anything. It's anything you implement in your business.

Yeah, I appreciate that because that's very true and again I just I want to encourage contractors on here like you know it right now like we feel like if we're not ahead we're behind and it's just not true like you know I'm a very devout Christian and so like part of me wants to tell people like you know we get so enamored with the thought of

man, I'm not doing as good as they do. Like they're growing and they're building and they're adding and all these things. And as contractors, like you have to live at your pace as long as you are pushing yourself to consider new things and be an adopter at times and be a person that sits still at times. Like, and I'm guilty too. Like I love to chase new things, but you know, my encouragement to contractors today is settle in and run your own race.

It's just you can't stop, right? So if you're running your own race, that means that you're still running, right? You're not like standing still at the top of the hill, like I'm never gonna make it, you gotta keep running. So AI has just been one of those things that I see contractors like, they get real defeated, like, man, I don't understand it, I'm never gonna launch it. And here's the good news, like you don't have to. But we do need to be constantly educating ourselves on, you what could this do?

Am I willing to invest the time to learn it if it increases efficiency in my company? So then how do I adopt it first and get on board at first and then pass that on to my team? I also have seen some like what I call them like seagull managers, like they fly in and they poop on everything and then they fly out.

You know, so bringing a new AI tool to a team and then flying out me like y'all figure it out is definitely not a successful strategy either And so it's just some encouragement there for these things that I'm mentioning today Most of you just probably would be successful from cleaning up your solid just solid traditional strategies these things that I'm mentioning today other than the brand awareness and the And couple of the content pieces are just some added-on pieces That you could start considering and the last one that I'll kind of mention to you is content

So again, y'all will hate me for this. If it is not you, so if you're a contractor and you're like, hate it, Crystal, don't put me on a camera. Don't make me write an article. Don't make me talk. Don't make me take pictures. Then you need to employ someone that will do it for you. I literally think it is so game changing that you need to consider either at least a part-time person that their goal is to gather content for your company.

Mm-hmm.

because everything is going content motion movement wise content directionally as I should say. So yes operations are what separates the men from the boys. Okay. But

Well, then we realized the impact that brand ambassadors could have on just bringing awareness to your brand that we deployed three other ones within a year and a half. And so this was an affordable position. It was great for people that like to be social, but like to be, they're great with their people, they love to love on again, shaking hands and kissing babies. They love that. So I literally went and did all of that work. And when I needed a drag tray with me,

I drug him with me because it wasn't, he wanted to focus on operations. would much rather sit in a pricing meeting and an availability meeting, capacity meetings, than he was trying to go with me to a chamber breakfast, right? But I realized when to deploy him and when not to. And so content, with content being so important, so putting out video content of loading your truck or talking about the R20, R20.

the phase out of a refrigerant and talking about, you know, equipment availability and all the things that consumers are like looking for information on. You know what? That takes time and don't underestimate like to write articles and make videos that takes time. So I encourage you to look into your budget and see, do you have a way to either put it into your time, your schedule as an owner? Do you have someone else on your team that has some time? And I would say eight to 10 hours.

Yeah.

hours a week at a minimum that they need to be putting out content for your company. But if you could afford a part-time person, you would get a B from me. But if you're like Crystal, we want to deploy a full-time brand ambassador and their goal is employee recruitment, employee retention, customer retention, marketing, just keeping making sure everything's up to date, our co-op dollars, and just content putting out even if they write it for you.

putting out Facebook posts and videos and just content, articles, blogs, guys, it will, I say that it takes 12 months. I think it takes a year of someone plugging away at those things for you to open your eyes and be like, dang, this is good. We are everywhere. It's not an immediate thing, but if you get the right person in that role, it's killer. So.

Content, that's on the large side of things. But if you're just like, man, what are small baby steps? Crystal, you just took gigantic leaps, but a small baby step was, do you think you could commit to one new video a week about services that you offer? Right now, you can go watch Lemon Seeds content. I have put an intentional effort on Lemon Seed content.

And so I hired a company to help me stay on track with my content because just like everybody else, I deal with employee issues and vendor issues and things like that. So, but just someone that will help, you know, get you a video out. So I committed every single day, I was going to go comment on five other people's posts that are in the industry with me. I was going to go share some posts. I was going to go write some things. And once I made a commitment to myself, I've tried to keep that commitment.

That's good. So I want to add this to one of the things that is a byproduct of what you just talked about as far as the content and having someone out in the community is that will make a significantly positive impact on your recruiting efforts. And I think a lot of times we don't think about that, but that is what happens. know, you know, Crystal helped us and her team with paradise as we were growing and it's amazing. We still have people that come in that are like,

Mmm.

You know, when I just see you guys on social media and I feel like this is a cool place to work. Of course it is, but you know, it's, it's just that whole, being in front of, it's, it gives that different vibe versus the, I'm going to say the butt crack plumber because there's, there's a lot of them that are still out there, but that's, I think that's the big differences. when, when you're making that consistent effort, people see that, even if you're not getting

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

the likes and comments that you want or expect. People are still seeing it.

listen, they're Facebook lurkers. And listen, most of y'all listening are Facebook lurkers. So there's lurkers out there. just, think, so gone are the days that just a good solid technical background is what made great operators of companies. I mean, I was at a service type of event last week and one of the questions was, and I think they really thought they were gonna prove a point and then I kinda like heard their point.

Mm-hmm.

these styles are antiquated. And so same thing here, like when we talk about retaining our employees and recruiting our employees, like sometimes just those good old handshakes and kind of touting a little bit what you do makes people go, I really wish I was in a better environment.

So we should hear that in both ears. Are we taking care of our own environment? But also, are we marketing the good things that we do well for people to consider us as an option? And definitely, like I see this quite, I see that quite often. A lot of times people are under value how important your culture and your brand is. And those things are the same to me. Culture and brand.

are pretty much synonymous with one another. culture, know, McKenna Hartless, she says this all the time, you know, there's a reason the word cult is in culture. Because it becomes like your diehard for it. Like I think about this sometimes like, you know, I'm from Texas. so I deal, am closer to Houston, but you know, diehard Dallas Cowboys. So there are people here like the Dallas Cowboys are getting spanked every week. Like this is a hot mess, but people still roll up wearing.

wearing those jerseys because they're like, I'm not a fair weather fan. I'm going to stick with them. And you know, you're like, it's cause you're our little cult over there, you know, and nobody come for me. I'm proud for the Cowboys. They're going to recover. It's going to be great. No Texans, whatever people need to hear to be excited. But at the end of the day, my point is like, they've built a diehard like fan base and that's what you have to do for your employees is

And again, some of you are just good guys that come from the old school. You don't need coddling. You don't need a new hat. You don't need a handshake in the morning or a doughnut.

But the new generation of technicians and CSRs and salespeople that are coming into our businesses every single day, they are from a time of you aren't worked to death. You value time with your family. And so I just encourage you to look around a little bit to some of those things because content can help write a story both internally and externally.

I think that's such a good point. And especially now, because most companies are Christmas parties and being part of parades and all that kind of stuff. So from a culture standpoint, how many of your team are showing up to that kind of stuff?

Yep.

yeah, yeah, and you know, for sure. you can guys, it's not even that hard.

You know?

Like I was telling somebody the other day, they were like, no, you know, my guys are so negative. said, well, let me tell you what happens. You have to like mow around those people, as I say. So you don't quit mowing the yard because there's, you know, a big rock in the yard. You mow everywhere, but where the big rock is. Right. So I tell everybody eventually people become, they stick out like a sore thumb so much because, but listen, as the, as the owner and as the marketer and as the person that's cheerleading everyone, it does get tiring. Like no one appreciate this and it's not.

true, they do, but everybody's trying to find their place. Like, are you sure you're doing a Christmas party this year, but is that the only thing you're going to do for your people all year long? Or, you you gave us a bonus, but like, this because you're about to launch some crazy expectations on us? You know, so build some trust with your employees and then they will become raving fans for you. People will refer them like, you know, Brandon over at McWilliams, that's who you should call. You know, and there's, there's lots of power in building those raving fans.

So as we kind of put a bow on all this, I want to point this out. So all the things that you talked about really starting to do in this next year, none of them were spend more with Google. None of them were a lot of these were boots on the ground, guerrilla marketing style things, which, in turn ends up being some of the least expensive ways to market with the highest level of return.

the things you're talking about, have the highest ROI potentially have done correctly. But I love that. love that Google probably doesn't appreciate it. So they're probably going to shut this podcast down, but.

Well, you know, to be, well, to be fair, I want to say something. You know, I want to say something about that. Like most of you need to start with a budget first. So you have to remove the emotion. So if you want to do $2 million next year and you want to grow from a million to 2 million, I'm going to tell you, you need to be somewhere between eight to 10%. So what are we going to do with that $175, $200,000? 50 % of it probably needs to go towards your online presence. The other 50 % is where we have some room to build out some cool things. So.

Mm-hmm.

know, Limitsy has a three bucket approach. So when you take every tactic that you deploy right now, every advertising piece of thing that you do, it's got to fall into one to three buckets. Is it a branding bucket? Like, are you specifically doing it just to build your brand? So that's things like radio, mass media, social media. That's just to build your brand. Second would be a call to action bucket. No, this tactic I'm deploying is specifically designed to generate calls.

So that is the PPC, the GLSA, Facebook ads, direct mail. Those are things that go into that bucket. And then that third bucket is, is what you're doing designed to cultivate.

leads that you already have in your system, existing customers. So that's where email marketing and things like that can come into play. And some of those can fall into other buckets as well, but start there. Like take every contract that you have and put it into one of those buckets. Odds are you're going to identify that you're missing a whole bucket or you're very heavy on one bucket. A lot of you are super heavy on call to action.

right in the midst of that and you've not done anything to build your brand or some of you are very heavy, like you have beat to death your internal list of clients. Like you don't need to go back to them one more time, but you haven't told anybody else about new stuff. I've talked to clients that are very successful with PPC and I've talked to clients that are very successful that have never done PPC. So those are where those good relationships with your vendor partners come into play. And so I hate to say like, you know, don't do this. Every marketing plan is customized. If someone is coming,

and saying you can do exactly what I did, they're lying to you, you're setting yourself up for failure because every market, every company, every brand, every logo, every CSR, all of those things really alter the performance. And so you really gotta build something out that's right for you, your company, your market, your brand. I just think we're false.

We're living with unrealistic expectations to think we can duplicate someone's exact model for success on marketing. Yep.

A business is like a fingerprint. It's they're all unique. Even though you do the same thing. I think a lot of times we get, we forget that we don't all have the same avatar, right? And just like to your point of the yellow pages, there's a different avatar, right? So your teenagers are not teenagers, but your, your 30 year olds are not going to be hanging out in the phone book, but you're a little bit older clientele. That's just what they're used to. So they might be hanging out there, but yes, to your point, every business, like a fingerprint.

that's yes.

They're all just a little bit different. So that's awesome. So, Crystal, as we wrap up, two questions. One, what is the best way for someone to get in touch with Lemon Seed to find out how you guys can help them have a solid plan for this coming year and in the future? And then whatever closing thoughts you have for us.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, just so everyone gets a little clarification on what Lemon Seed is, and I'm working really hard for this. We are branding experts and marketing coaches. And so we can help you with everything from rebranding your company, refreshing it to creating a new brand, to implementing community action, those things, along with strategizing to help you know what vendors to work with at what spend. So we love to talk all things marketing, branding and community involvement. And so you can visit our website at www.lemonseed.com.

or you can send me an email hello at lemon seed marketing com crystal at lemon seed marketing com we're checking all those channels but I will say this Justin coming up at the end of January here in Lefkin is our fifth annual lemon seed conference and so I would love we are we make it super affordable to come it's 399 bucks for you to come

to our conference. You just have to get yourself here. It is in East Texas and so you do have to fly into Houston and you do have to rent a car. So it's that's why I make it affordable. But it is two and a half days of just talking marketing and operations along with an on-site visit to McWilliams.

I have a great group of industry professionals along with my team that's here because we just want to talk branding and marketing and strategizing for how you can build your company. So I'd love to extend that offer to anyone that's listening today. Again, all that information is on my website and I'd love to visit about those things. But my closing thoughts would be, I want to reiterate on that. I love the fingerprint analogy. Guys, those of you that are still listening, you guys are so special. Each of your companies are special.

That's fantastic. And all of the information as far as how to get in touch with Crystal and her team and her event. Every bit of that stuff will be in the show notes. So yeah, so I hope to see everybody there. Crystal, thank you so much for coming and hanging out. And I bet we're going to get you back on here soon.

well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. And I look forward to it. I hope to see some of you guys at the conference. Uh-huh. Thanks so much.

All right, thank you.