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-: Welcome to "The Sharpest Tool Podcast."
Where we take the sting, out of marketing.
Here's your host, Josh Smith.
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All right, all right.
Welcome back to "The Sharpest Tool,"
where we take the sting out of marketing.
With everything that we're gonna bring to the table here,
my name's Josh,
I am your host for the show
and I'm real excited about today
because we have Jamie Adams,
our Chief Revenue Officer here at Scorpion joining us today.
Jamie, welcome!
-: Thank you for having me Josh,
It's good seeing you man.
-: Yeah, good to see you too man.
Hey, why don't you give our audience a little bit of insight
into what you do for Scorpion,
a little bit about your background?
-: Sure, so I've been at Scorpion
for about four and a half years.
Previous to that, I've been in digital marketing
for the previous eight years.
So almost twelve and a half years here in digital marketing.
My job here at Scorpion is to lead
the Sales and Business Development team.
So we're out looking for new customers
to come take part in what we're trying to do for Scorpion,
help them attract more clients, more jobs,
to their business through marketing and advertising,
primarily through digital channels, obviously.
I spend a lot on my time kinda focusing in
on a handful of verticals.
Home services being one.
-: Sure.
-: Most of my experience
in home services was actually kinda brought on
by working with large franchising organizations.
So, company's like the Dwire Group,
who own Mr. Rooter Plumbing,
and Air Serve,
-: Sure.
-: heating and air.
So, I've got a lot of experience in home services.
Got some experience in automotive.
Clearly, here at Scorpion
we do a lot in legal and healthcare.
So, rounded that out the last couple of years.
But, honestly, I'm just really passionate
about local businesses.
So helping businesses,
who are really dependent on consumers in their markets.
So not your E-Commerce people,
who can sell anything to anybody,
but people that are really reliant
on attracting people in their markets
and getting them to do business with their company.
-: Absolutely, so, you've been around the game
for quite a bit?
-: Yeah, I mean, if you think about it, you know,
in internet years, it's, I'm ancient.
(laughing)
I'm ancient.
-: You're an old dog
-: That's right!
-: Well what have you seen?
what are the biggest shifts,
that you've seen,
being in the game for so long?
what are some of the biggest shifts,
you've seen in the online marketing atmosphere?
-: Yeah, I mean I think that,
clearly the biggest shift in terms of just,
how local businesses think about marketing advertising
happened when things started moving away from Yellow Pages,
as being kinda the primary,
on demand advertising machine.
The place that you go
when you need a local business was the Yellow pages
and when that shifted to become more, search engines
and now obviously primarily Google,
with some Bing, Yahoo mixed in.
That was a big shift,
but I think over the last couple of years,
really honestly in the last 18 months,
I can speak to this, honestly,
from a consumer prospective,
because I am a homeowner.
When you think about home services
and all the things that come with being a homeowner
as it relates to making sure
that you've got your appliances in tact,
you've got your HVAC systems that work.
In my case, I've had to replace three
in the last three years.
-: Holy cow!
-: Yeah, so over the course of participating
in those things as a consumer of services,
I've seen some drastic changes,
as to the things
that I think consumers are starting
to think about now in 2018,
when they thing about hiring a contractor,
that they weren't probably even thinking about,
didn't put as much emphases in or on, five years ago.
And we can talk a little bit about those things.
-: Yeah definitely and you know
that kinda starts pointing us down the thrust
of really what we want to get into today,
and that's this idea of micro-moments.
I think to really kinda understand exactly
what a micro-moment is,
let's kinda take a look
at what the consumer journey looks like.
From your experience,
I know it's changed a bit,
how is how people consume media online
evolved over the years?
And what changes have we seen
in that consumer behavior?
How they're interacting?
Yeah,
I mean I think that, if you're just talking about
media consumption as a whole,
I think that the biggest impact to that
is clearly been mobile devices.
-: Yeah.
-: Right, I mean even when the Internet
became a place that people search,
when Google became a place that people went
to find products or to find services,
for a long time or for several years
at least from the early 2000's
until, really around until the I-Phone came out.
-: Sure.
-: 2007-8 I guess, yeah, people went to Google,
but they had to go to a computer
and you had to go sit down and get behind a machine.
Whereas now, everything that you want from a media
prospective is in your back pocket.
So I can tell you that speaking from experience
that I'm in media consumption mode
almost all day throughout the day.
It's walking from a meeting and looking at Facebook
or looking though Instagram.
It's checking new sites
that I look at every single day,
multiple times a day,
and I've got bookmarked on safari on my iPhone.
So were in this constant motion of consuming media
as consumers today.
It's not just getting home from work,
sitting down in front of a TV,
and watching a couple of hours and that's it.
It is everyday
throughout the day, at some point,
at least several times an hour I would venture to say
most people are consuming some sort of media
primarily through their mobile device.
-: Sure and the evolution of the technology
itself kinda predicates that, right?
Having your social platforms and your phone book,
and your news sites and everything all in one device,
you don't have to go jump around.
It's right there.
-: That's right, that's right.
So, that's incredible.
So the consumer journey has kind of evolved a bit
in terms of how people are engaging with businesses.
I think we look at the state of the past fifty years.
Fifty years ago we were exposed to so much less.
Now were exposed to so much more,
and so the businesses that are winning today,
are the ones that understand that pattern
and how to really cut through the noise.
How do people, kinda, go about the steps
to get to the point where they're ready
to pick up a phone call,
a phone and call a business.
What's that look like today verses ten years ago?
-: Yeah, I think today, at least in the point of need,
where I'll give you an example.
So, a couple of years ago,
I'd bought a house
about three and a half years ago in Dallas.
And about two years ago,
I came in from work one day,
I opened the front door
and my house is kinda built on a hill,
so there's multiple levels of the house,
and there's three different HVAC machines, or units.
So I walk in and I literally,
you know what Dallas summers are like.
-: Oh yeah.
-: I walk in and it is just torturously hot inside my house.
I walk in, immediately sweating,
I walk over to the thermostat.
The thermostat's off.
And I know nothing about HVAC systems, right?
So, immediately, I reached in my back pocket.
I pulled out my phone.
I typed in HVAC repair near me on my phone.
As I'm standing there sweating.
(laughing)
And the things I'm most concerned about
at that moment in time,
where my HVAC broke,
I need something.
I want something quick,
'cause it's really really hot and uncomfortable,
and I'm going into the weekend, by the way.
So, what I'm thinking about at that moment,
is I want somebody quick to come over and fix my problem.
And I wanna make sure that they provide good service.
So I'm thinking about proximity right?
I'm thinking about what's their schedule like
and I'm thinking about can I find validation quickly,
that these guys are good at what they do?
So in our world that would be kinda transcribed
as reputation, online reputation.
In that moment, those are the things I'm looking for.
So when I do a Google search, on my phone,
am I finding people that are close to me?
And do they have good star ratings?
That's what I'm looking at, in that moment.
Where I think a lot of HVAC's and plumbers
and appliance repairs and electricians
somewhere missed the boat along the way,
is they become very reliant on that moment.
And they're not doing enough,
up the funnel in marketing to really make consumers aware
of the fact that they are a business
that may be able to provide a service to them
when they need it and doing things like that through
social, Facebook, Instagram.
Putting out, producing unique content that would,
when I had that need, if I needed an HVAC,
instead of just doing a generic search for an HVAC,
what would influence me to search for a specific provider?
And I think they're missing the boat on that a little bit.
We can dig into that a bit more,
but in terms of just fulfilling that immediate need,
if you don't know anybody that you wanna call,
you're not familiar with that business,
you don't have to time to go to your social network
and say "Hey everybody, can someone recommend an HVAC guy?
" 'cause, I need someone right now!"
I think that's the impact these micromoments have
because everything is so readily available right
in your back pocket with your phone.
-: Totally, let's talk about moments
that I know you mentioned a lot of great examples.
Just define for me,
what would you say a micromoment is
when it comes to the buying funnel?
-: Yeah, I mean, I think it's just the exact moment
in time where it hits a potential consumer
that the may have a need to buy a product or service.
And again, because we're in constant media consumption
because we are conditioned as humans today
to have everything at the tips of our fingers, literally.
I mean think about,
you're an Amazon Prime guy.
-: Yeah, I'm an Amazon Prime guy.
-: Yeah so, you know I mean.
-: Two day shipping. (laughing)
-: Yeah, and you're living in a society
where just five, six, seven years ago,
you wanted toilet paper,
you got up and got in your car
and went to the store and ordered toilet paper.
Today, I pull out my phone and I got toilet paper sitting
on my front door in two hours.
You know micromoments are, like I said,
these, these moments that exist where,
all of a sudden you're hit with,
as a consumer, the idea that I need something.
And I go take advantage of that through in my case,
through, primarily digital channels
and get what I need in that moment.
-: Absolutely,
How does that change?
How do these micro moments change
or should they change
how businesses look at their customers?
I think they have to change.
I mean, if you look at businesses or at least,
we can speak to this.
The businesses that we work with
that are taking advantage of micromoments
by being present through marketing and advertising,
in their target customers micromoment,
the people, the businesses that are doing that,
are the businesses that are consistently growing
month after month, year after year.
The ones that are not,
are leaving their business at chance a little bit.
They're completely reliant on word of mouth.
They're completely reliant on a memory
of someone having maybe having seen a billboard.
(laughing)
So yeah, I think it's critical in,
where we see that manifest itself,
at least for most home service companies today is,
I always tell businesses,
when you think about a marketing funnel,
the traditional marketing funnel,
starting at the top, very broad, is awareness.
So making people aware of your business and your brand,
progressing down to the funnel to consideration, right?
I'm thinking about a product or service,
so I wanna make sure that when people are thinking about it,
that I'm in front of them
and through marketing and advertising in that stage
and then finally purchase.
I'm ready to buy now.
And you know, that's where,
when they're ready to pull the trigger,
you want to be in the mix of the businesses
that they're thinking of pulling the trigger with
for whatever your product or service is.
I always tell businesses,
especially in the services space,
you gotta think about the funnel moving
from the bottom to the top.
So, deal with those micro moments,
those purchase points of someone like I had,
where I walked in my house,
I wasn't thinking about an HVAC system
that morning when I left to go to work.
But when I walked in my house,
I had a moment.
(fingers snapping)
I had a need.
And the businesses
that were at the top of a Google search result,
that also had good reviews,
Were getting the phone call
and did get the phone call,
and one of them got my business.
And you know it lead to an initial diagnostic call,
someone came out.
Told me what was going on,
fixed the problem temporarily.
I think it was a coil issue or something.
And signed me up for their advantage plan.
Right, so they're getting in my house
twice a year now,
I get some discounts based on the things,
the work that they do for me.
And then eventually, got me to buy a new unit from them.
So, all of that happened in the span
of under thirty to sixty seconds.
-: Definitely.
-: And that is the quintessential micromoment experience
as it relates to services.
Had a similar experience with appliance repair.
My washer, my washing machine went out.
Same thing.
Called Mr Appliance.
Really cool about that actually is I was actually able
to schedule through their website,
was able to pick a time,
got a notification, got a text message
with a picture of the tech coming out.
It was a great experience.
And most recently had a leaky roof.
So, I've had damage restoration people come out.
I've had roofers come out.
And a little social experiment with that process,
actually used Google assistant and voice
for the entire transaction.
-: Holy moly.
-: So, never looked at a website, which is interesting.
-: That's incredible.
That brings up a whole new conversation.
-: Yeah exactly.
-: So you mentioned, you were at the bottom of the funnel,
in that decision making point,
where you're like,
"I need somebody out now today.
"I'm ready to place a phone call."
-: Yeah.
-: And I think we can look at that as like,
one example of one micromoment
and we mentioned that there's a bunch of different places
that those moments happen throughout the funnel.
What are some other personas, if you will,
of customers at those different stages who might be,
and what types of micromoments are they experiencing?
-: Yeah, I mean I think look,
it's tricky for home service businesses, right?
Because, you know I always refer to home service companies
as primarily they're reaching customers
in a state of panic and uncertainty.
Right because they're not selling a service
that anyone thinks about until they need it.
I'm not sitting around thinking about an HVAC system
like I'm thinking about
I wanna go buy the newest Apple watch.
So, I think that the trick becomes is
at what frequency does it make sense
for a home service business to expose their brand
and their service to consumers,
who they want to make sure that in a micromoment,
where that consumer has a need for what they sell,
for their service,
that they're the business that's remembered.
And I think that the way to influence consumers
in that way is have a presence in the places
where consumers are having micromoments throughout the day.
So, that's on social media on Instagram, on Facebook,
potentially on Twitter, on YouTube.
You know, so making sure that you have a plan
and a mechanism to expose your brand,
expose your business to people in those moments.
So that when they do have that micromoment, "I need a,"
they think of you and they look for you,
not just look for a service provider generically.
-: Definitely.
-: And, you know, if you wanna talk about ideas
on how to go about that
-: Sure, yeah.
-: And I think one of my favorite examples is a company.
They're one of our clients, interestingly enough,
but S and D Plumbing.
So S and D Plumbing,
plumbing company located about thirty miles east,
north-east of Austin, Texas.
So really, really small town,
but they've got amazing barbecue there.
(laughing)
Really, really small town,
so for a company of their size,
you kinda look at it and like,
"How do these guys stay in business"
because they're running,
I wanna say ten or twenty techs
and they're in a town of maybe a couple thousand people.
So they're really reliant on penetrating that Austin market,
where the larger population lives.
And one of the things that they've done is they've really
taken their brand and they've broadened it
to be more than just a plumbing company
in the minds of their target consumers.
So, they're out, they're putting out great video content,
not just about plumbing,
but also they're trying to expose the personalities
of their technicians, of their owners,
of their inside staff.
The people that are taking calls
and dealing with customer issues in the office.
They're exposing the personalities
of those people and they're exposing their story
to the population through social media and through video.
So I don't know if you caught wind of this,
but last February, they did this Valentine's Day give-a-way.
(laughs)
And you know it was, Dan Dowdy,
who I think is the owner slash general manager
of the business.
And one of his technicians,
they were giving away a day spa thing,
to anybody that would share the video on Facebook.
And some other stuff.
A night out at a restaurant.
But the whole expose was the technician
was kinda giving Dan Dowdy a fake massage
on like a workman's table and they did this whole speil,
but again they're not talking about plumbing,
but they are exposing their brand, to an audience,
in and around Austin and it's a unique thing.
Not many people are looking at a plumbing company and going,
"Oh wow, that's like
"every other plumbing company that I know."
You know doing things like that,
gives your plumbing, your HVAC, your appliance repair,
your roofing business, pest control business,
doing content like that
and exposing your brand to people,
before they need you,
is going to give you an advantage when that need happens.
And, that could be the difference
from someone in Austin going to Google,
when they have a plumbing issue,
and searching for "plumber near me"
to them going to Google and searching
for S and D Plumbing.
-: Absolutely.
-: And that's a big competitive advantage
for S and D Plumbing,
in my opinion, in their market.
-: Absolutely, well Jamie, this has been awesome.
I think we have a lot of great nuggets.
Unfortunately, we're running short on time.
(laughs)
It goes by fast doesn't it?
-: It's too quick!
Why don't we keep talking?
Kidding (laughs)
No, this has been great.
I think our goal here is, as you know,
is to, like I said, to help plumbing and HVAC companies,
help home service contractors
reach more of their ideal customers in their local markets.
And this has been fun man.
I appreciate you doing this.
-: Hey, I appreciate you coming on
and for everybody listening,
if you found this valuable
definitely give a little love tap to that subscribe button,
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so you can get more of this awesome content.
And from all of us here at "The Sharpest Tool,"
we'll catch you next time, thanks.
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-: Thanks for listening to "The Sharpest Tool."
Brought to you by Scorpion Internet marketing.
Stay tuned for more episodes
on how to help your business succeed.
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