What Stops Marketing In It's Tracks For Plumbers

Today is a solocast with Tyler Williams about the top four things he see's that stops Plumbers just like you from marketing their business and succeeding in the long term.

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Transcript

So today's episode, we're gonna do something a little bit different. We're going to do a solo episode. It's just me talking about what I've got on my mind. And the topic of the day are some things that stop marketing in its tracks. These episodes with just me are largely because I've been talking to some people in the industry and I see either, um, common mistakes or common breakthroughs that I wanna share with you guys.

So let's hop right.

Welcome to the mammoth plumbers podcast, where we talk and learn about the plumbing industry and what is moving other businesses forward. I'm your host, Tyler Williams. Let's get the conversation started. So what stops marketing and its tracks for plumbing companies? Well, there's a, there's a number of things really.

And as I'm talking to people, cause I, I talk to people in lots of different industries. But, you know, some of this is exclusive to plumbing and some it's not, um, realistically people will think that their marketing's not working way before they should ever evaluate it. And so there there's things that, that happen that keep their marketing from really shining.

And I wanted to go over at least four of those quickly. So that way you had something to think about as you go into the rest of your. So the first thing that I commonly see for people who are saying that my marketing's not working, or my marketing's just the costs are out of control. Usually what that is a symptom of, uh, from my perspective, as a marketer, somebody who's worked with a bunch of businesses.

Somebody who's seen businesses grow through the efforts that I do, and some businesses who seem to get stuck, even with the help that I offer most of the time. If they're stuck, if they're, if they're not really thinking that they're, they're moving the needle, a lot of times it comes down to their business model.

You see? Um, usually if you're a younger business, if you're a newer business, you're a little scared to push forward in some areas that really move the needle when it comes to the entire business. And marketing is a part of it. And a good example of this is one of my clients who we started, um, when he was a one man band and he kept coming back to us every time that he was trying to get out of the one man band show.

So he would, he would start up be a man in a truck and a man and van. And then he'd, he'd he'd.  and he would say, I, I can't figure this out. It's just too much, like it's not working. So then he'd quit. He'd go back to, you know, working for the union. And then he would get frustrated with the union. Cause that's the kind of guy that he was and then he'd start up again and then he would try it, try it and try it in a little bit different way.

And then he'd double back, went back to the union, but then he did something that I thought was really smart. And I, I tell everyone to do, he called me up one day and he was like, I wanna do this again, I'm in the middle of this, but I think, I think I'm gonna hire this guy who can help me. He says he can help me.

And he costs money each month and it's a kind of a big nut to crack for me. But do you think I should do it? And I said, you know what? I don't know. But given that it's a monthly commitment, you might as well try. Right? I'm a big fan of experiments. So, uh, he took it on and it was a business coach and that business coach was the million dollar plumber.

His name's Richard, you could find him all over YouTube. Um, but what ended up happening is that coach gave him the business model that he really needed in order for the business to actually work. And that's, that's one of the biggest. It doesn't matter what else you have in play when it comes to marketing and advertising and getting leads and being a good company.

If you don't have a model behind you that has been tested by other companies that, uh, provides you with the resources to be able to grow through some very specific barriers, you're gonna get stuck. And then you're, you're gonna, and the, usually the reason why you get stuck is a lack of. Right. You, you can't pay people and market and provide good service.

So you end up getting stuck in this sort of like whirlwind of it's just not working. And a lot of people don't know how to, how to break through that. And I'm not really the guy qualified to say, this is how you break through it, but I can definitely tell you that with the companies that I've helped the ones with coaches, the ones who are actively poking at their own business model to say, let's do this instead of this, let's try that.

Instead of this, those are the ones who end up succeed. Don't get too comfortable in your own business model because over time you're gonna need a little bit more. Um, there's I love this quote and this applies to my business too, which is what got you to here. Isn't what's gonna get you further.

Eventually you cap out. If you keep producing the same action over and over again, and your business has to grow, which means your decision making has to grow as well. And there, there in every business's journey, um, there are, there are thresholds by which you start to realize that you've gotta do something different and there's scary.

But when you, when you take the leap and you go through and they work out, they're wonderful and 99% of the time. If it's, if it doesn't work out, you're still farther ahead and you learn something and it's never the end of the world, the small, you know, experiment or small leap that you make today. Even if it doesn't work out.

Makes you more resilient towards other small leaps as you go. So some, some leaps are small and some are big, but, um, so if you are, if you're running into a problem where you're like, I can't make this work, I, I can't make this business work. I can't spend my money on marketing. I can't, I don't, I don't see how people are doing it.

Well, it means you probably have something in the core element of your business model that needs some attention. So go ahead and look at that and find help with. Like find a coach, find somebody who's been there. Talk to other companies. The, the cool thing about a plumbing company is there's a billion of you out there.

So go talk to more and see what they did to get through the same barrier that you're facing. Cuz I'll guarantee you, there are people who got stuck in the same exact place. So now let's move on to number two, which is directly related to number one.  but, uh, so, uh, the second one is lack of. Which means that people are just trying to do marketing without ever putting money behind it.

And what I counsel people to do over and over and over again is to make sure that your, um, marketing budget is part of your operations. Don't loop it into your profit. Don't don't look at it as a profit center. It's not supposed to be, that's not what it's meant to be. Just like an employee is supposed to make you money.

Your marketing's supposed to make you money. It is an investment and it, but it's the, the trickier part is it's harder to see how that investment pays off. And the sure. There are ways to do that. There are ways to track. But it is, especially if you're, if you're new or you, you haven't really invested a lot in marketing spends it can be a little, a little daunting.

So what I tell people to do is take a percentage of your income, every dollar that comes into your business and put that towards marketing. And to give you an idea anywhere from two to 10%, Is sort of the, the, the metric by which I've seen people use. It varies from region business, how aggressive you wanna be and a few other metrics, but pick something you're comfortable with.

Because I, I do think that if you start looking at your marketing spend and budgets in this way, Then you get used to it being part of the business. And you'll find that you have money to spend on marketing and a little bit is always better than nothing. And more often than not people do nothing because they are afraid of robbing profit, or they're afraid of doing something wrong, which we'll get to in just a second.

But when you have. This, this little bucket of money that turns into your marketing spend, it really enables you to go, okay, I have marketing, what am I gonna do? How, where am I gonna spend this money? What's where do I get my meat and potatoes? And then you start talking about your priorities. Like where should you be first with your marketing?

And you know, for a lot of you, if you're starting out, it's gonna be search. If you've been around for a little while, that might be something more in a brand awareness play, it's gonna vary a little. Um, but. But it gives you options. Suddenly you have the ability to push your name, your service, your technicians, your business brand out in front of people who you have, never, who have never seen you before.

And that's really important. The top of mind awareness, you know, you can't get there without spending. And there's a reason why businesses spend money on marketing and your business cannot be different. Um, a lot of people go, you know what? My word of mouth is good. And that's also a fallacy. Your word of mouth is fine.

Your word of mouth is great, but you are only gonna grow within that word of mouth network. And you're never gonna extend your business outside of it. And if that's what your goal is, you're gonna have to push your name out there. And that comes from a marketing spend that comes from. So keep that in mind.

Uh, you don't wanna be stingy on your, on your marketing efforts. Um, but before you really drop a ton of money into it, just find a, find a way that it's, that it gets you used to dealing with that element of business. You need to make sure that if you're bringing in money so much goes into marketing, and I'm not just talking ads, I'm talking sponsorships, community events, I'm talking business cards and mailers.

You know, all sorts of things that go into your marketing bottom line, those need to come out of this budget. So keep that in mind. So when it comes to your marketing, what else stops marketing in its tracks? Well, a lack of experimenting. So I I've dealt with this a lot as well, where people get into where their business is going well, they've got their things that they do, and they just, it becomes rinse.

And then over time, their rinse repeat, just kind of dries up and then they go, well, I guess marketing's not working anymore. And, and then they start cutting all these things back saying, well, I guess we don't need this. And I guess we don't need this. Cause they're not performing the way that they used to, but then they don't reallocate.

And by relocating, I mean, they're not running other experiments within the marketing space. So. If you have a steady budget and you know what that budget is, and you find that you don't want to use a certain avenue for marketing anymore. The goal is to reallocate those funds, to try and find a similar subset of eyeballs that you had before, not stop spending that money, because the minute you stop spending the, that is the minute that you are saying, I don't need these people over here to know who I am today.

And. That that's bad.  I mean, really when you, when you boil it all down, what it, what you need to be doing is you need to be going like, okay, well, that thing doesn't work anymore. So what am I gonna try? How am I gonna take this money? Am I gonna sprinkle it around some other things that I know work? Am I gonna try something new?

And am I going to, and if I try something new, how long am I gonna try it for? How am I gonna measure it? How am I gonna double back and make sure that it's doing what I want it to do? Because in the grand scheme of things with marketing, the, the, the, the landscape is always shifting. We've seen that in the digital space, especially, but also with, um, just in general because the, the digital space is taken off.

Now, your traditional spaces are, are, you know, some would say they're decaying. I think they're just shifting. Um, and it all comes down to, well, how much does it cost to get the eyeballs here or there or over here? And so what you wanna do is experiment market. Is trying to predict human behavior and trying to motivate people to do certain things.

And that is always a grand experiment. Every business, every region, every tactic is gonna work differently from business to business and person to person. So what do you do? You research? You try things and you, you do it again. I have implemented the. Tactics across businesses and found that, oh, well, apparently for these guys, it doesn't work.

But for these guys, it does work. So don't think one size fits all, which means you have to experiment. You have to be trying new and different things all the time. And that's okay. That's part of marketing. Um, but it's the person who doesn't do that. They go. And then the world forgets that they exist. And that is a dangerous place for a business because you need sales and marketing in order to succeed as a business.

I don't care what industry you're in and word of mouth will only take you so far. You'll eventually plateau out. So with all that in mind, the lack of a business model, lack of spend, lack of experimentation within your tactics of marketing, then what do we end up running?  well, we end up with people who give up before they've really tried and you know, so here for my business, we're a month to month service.

But because of that, we do have some people who jump in and they give it a month and we're, we're barely three steps into the game before they go. Like, yeah, it's not. And most, most marketing efforts, you've gotta give three months minimum. And I would say it really should be six months minimum. Um, but give it a year.

You, you don't build relationships with people quickly. And that's what good marketing is. It's building a relationship. And so a lot of times you put yourself out there, some things are just not gonna work, but don't give up. That is, that is the worst thing you can do is to. Right. The only way to learn the only way to go forward.

And I, and I mean, this not just like personally or in business, but with marketing, um, is by doing it. Doing it, trying it experimenting, moving the needle, um, talking to people, figuring out what worked for them, absorbing their knowledge and keep on trucking. Uh, a lot of people I've seen say, oh man, well, I turned this faucet on of marketing, you know, three weeks ago.

And I, and I don't see anything coming out of it. I, I can't judge it. I can't, I, I just don't think it's working and then they stop. They just, they just cut off all their marketing. Those are the business. That I've worked with over the years. They're usually smaller. We don't really take 'em on as clients anymore if you're, if you're too small.

Um, but the reason why I bring this up is because there is this critical moment in psychology where people give up instead of pressing forward when it comes to everything. But in marketing, especially if they, they don't see results from their AdWords, they think AdWords just doesn't work and they never try it.

And there are a billion ways to skin an AdWord's cat. So you, you're not going to likely nail it the first. Especially if you're doing it yourself, especially if you don't have any prior knowledge of it, but even if you are doing this alone, if you're marketing alone, if you're trying to figure out your own sales and marketing, don't give up, just keep going and realize that failure in a, a campaign or a tactic means you get to say I learned something and then you get to apply that moving forward.

And so keep that in mind. Like giving up means you'll never get ahead. But once you crack some of these like steps and codes of what it takes to build a successful business, marketing included, you will start seeing progress in a way that you never thought possible, but it means that you can't give up.

It means you gotta constantly keep moving and learning and growing. And I I'll tell you as your business grows, you'll grow as a. It that's I've, I've seen it happen so many times to so many people. If you are truly focused on growing your business, it's gonna change, not just your life from like a monetary lifestyle point of view.

It will change you as a person and as a human. And honestly, for the most part, all I see are people getting better. So those are four things, Louis with some extra ramblings, just for the heck of it. What can stop marketing in its tracks. These are things that I see all the time, because I do these consults.

I see these new companies and I, I love talking to them because they're at a new place and I just want them to know what to expect as they move forward. They're not at a place where we can help them as a business, but I want them to get to the point where they can hire us. So, uh, these consults are fun for me, but these are some mistakes that I keep.

Anywho. I hope this was useful. If you wanna find out more about me, you can subscribe to this number one. Number two. Um, if you wanna find out more about my team, go to mammoth for plumbers.com. We are not a coaching business. Uh, I highly recommend you all have a coaching, a coach. Um, and so go seek one out.

Find find your path forward, but, uh, if you need marketing help, that's where we come in. So, but that's another, another discussion for another time. This is really to help you understand what can stop marketing in its tracks, because if your marketing stops in its tracks, usually your business will too.

So that's it. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this information useful, by all means, go to mammoth for plumbers.com, where you can learn more about how other businesses are pushing their business forward. And we hope that this made a mammoth difference for you in your business today. Thanks.