Home remodeling podcast transcript | Roof Tiger x Uplevel Digital Services

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an interview between Ben Morrow of Roof Tiger and Brandon Miller of Uplevel Digital Marketing. You can read the interview below or watch the podcast on YouTube.

Ben Morrow: Brandon Miller, welcome to the podcast.

Brandon Miller: Well, thank you for having me, Ben.

Ben Morrow: Uplevel Digital. Do you have a tagline?

Brandon Miller: We sure do.

Ben Morrow: What's the tagline?

Brandon Miller: So our tagline is, "We are a lead generation and lead management firm for the home remodeling industry."

Ben Morrow: Bam. Leads for the home services. Brandon Miller, we've known each other for 20 years?

Brandon Miller: Oh, at least, yeah.

Ben Morrow: Close to it?

Brandon Miller: Close to it.

Ben Morrow: We've worked together in a couple different ways, but just want to kind of open up, it's Christmas. So you're back in town.

Brandon Miller: Snowing outside right now. Yeah.

Ben Morrow: Yeah, snowing. You're back in town for a couple days. It's got to feel good.

Brandon Miller: Oh, absolutely, it feels good. Right after this, we're going to be heading to Johnny's Steakhouse having a gift exchange. It should be a fun time.

Ben Morrow: Yeah, I'm pumped for that.

Brandon Miller: Yeah, it'd be a good time. Are you going to pick my gift or?

Ben Morrow: I hope you brought something good.

Brandon Miller: Oh, I'm sorry.

Ben Morrow: I was going to wrap... I think Monica's going to pick a couple of things up before, but-

Brandon Miller: Nice.

Ben Morrow: I was going to wrap a couple of pickleball paddles to get you guys more in the-

Brandon Miller: Well, you got to tell me your wrapping paper then, so I know which one to pick.

Ben Morrow: So, dude, welcome.

Brandon Miller: Thank you.

Ben Morrow: You are our chosen provider for all digital services. You manage our website, our Google profiles, our lead generation digitally and it's been a joy having you so far, man.

Brandon Miller: Well, I appreciate it. You've been a great customer.

Ben Morrow: Thank you. We've been working together since, what is it, April?

Brandon Miller: April, yeah, you signed on. We started working on your website. Then we were able to get that live by June 1st.

Ben Morrow: Yes. What's one of the things, Brandon, that you, been in the industry for so long now, you've been in here for over a decade. Tell me the one thing that people from local services and local businesses can learn from quick hitter, the one thing they can learn from you having so much experience?

Brandon Miller: Oh, goodness. Well, I think that's a tough question to boil down in just a one finite detail. But I would say the one thing that our company is very focused on is not just leads. Because we can send a company all the leads in the world, but if those leads are not turning into appointments, more importantly, if they're not turning into sales, it's really all for nought. So our company is different compared to a lot of different agencies out there that remodel companies work with, where we're focused on post-lead generation. We're really concerned about your cost per appointment. And so obviously it's kind of outside of our control, but when we sit down and analyze the performance at the end of the month, we're not just saying, "Hey Ben, hey ROOF TIGER, SOLAR PANTHER, we sent you a hundred leads." Fantastic, right? We're letting you know exactly-

Ben Morrow: What happened after that.

Brandon Miller: ... what happened after it. We want to know the counts of each of the core funnel subs. So a home remodeling funnel breaks down into a handful of steps, so leads in, how many set appointments come through, how many demos happened and then how many gross sales, how many net sales and so your retention rate. And then finally we want to know what your cost of marketing is, but on top of that, we want to know it by individual channels. So all of those metrics broken down, how many came from Google? Google being paid search or Google organic search or Google My Business, that's going to be your primary driver. But Facebook, YouTube, all these other channels, anything that's online can be 100% tracked and attributed back to that initial touch point.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: So we want to know exactly what is happening, so that way, you can better deploy your marketing funds.

Ben Morrow: It's all based on data, right?

Brandon Miller: It's all based on data.

Ben Morrow: And I think one of the things that I knew from a long time ago working with you at a previous company is that you are a man in the details. And so it's super helpful to know, hey, if I spend $10,000 in a given period of time, what's the return on investment for that? Specifically down to what channel, like you were just talking about. I think oftentimes as a business owner, once the business minutiae starts happening and you're dealing with the whole company, that is a detail that gets lost in the weeds.

Brandon Miller: Yep.

Ben Morrow: So I'm really counting on you to tell me, "Hey Brandon, where should we invest more money into?" I'm a simple man. I know a lot of you guys are too. If you're watching this and you are a home services contractor, most of us are simple people. We know a trade, we know a skill, we know how to sell things, we know how to give a customer a good experience. So I rely on Brandon to give me the short and skinny, what do I invest my money into?

Brandon Miller: Yeah, exactly. And so reaching the end of 2022, you're putting together your plans for 2023. So any remodeling company is going to say, "All right, this upcoming year, I want to hit X in terms of sales, whether that be 5 million, 10 million, 15 million. Now how do I go get that?" That's the next question. How do I go chase that, and what am I willing to spend to go chase that? And so having all of those funnel metrics fully ironed out, we know that different marketing channels... So your close rates are going to be pretty constant no matter what the marketing source is going to be. But your set rates are going to be different across the marketing channel, right?

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: So we know that a homeowner who's going directly to Google to say, "Hey, I'm looking for a roofing company, or I'm looking for a roof replacement."

Ben Morrow: Huge.

Brandon Miller: You're going to set that lead at a much higher rate compared to other channels like a Facebook where you can advertise and have some really good success on the Facebook platform, but no one's going to Facebook to say, "I'm looking for a roofing company," right?

Ben Morrow: No.

Brandon Miller: They're going on there to see what their friends are up to, or so-and-so is up to and just scrolling through their newsfeed. But you're able to still capture them if you are able to stop their thumb, show them an enticing offer, a really good piece of content to make them engage with you and say, "Oh, maybe I do need my roof replaced." And I'm getting a little bit off tangent here. But going back to the point I'm trying to make, which is, leads from different channels set at different rates, and we account for that within our projections.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: Because we want to let our customers know and give them that peace of mind when they're saying, "Hey, I'm trying to get this sales goal and I have this marketing spend." They want to account for the number of set appointments. So that's why we're not really looking at the total lead count, we're looking at the set appointment count. And so when a client comes to us, whether it's for a month or a quarter or whether it's for the year, we can put together a detailed forecast for them to know exactly their ROI for that campaign, and we can go out and iron out the details and put that together for them.

Ben Morrow: So basically you spend 10,000, we're looking to get this many leads based on this marketing channel.

Brandon Miller: That's exactly it.

Ben Morrow: Period. So like, "Hey, I thought that we actually had a better lead rate from Google Ads. It turns out it's much lower than I thought."

Brandon Miller: Google local services, right?

Ben Morrow: Local services versus GMB, which is much higher.

Brandon Miller: Exactly.

Ben Morrow: Right?

Brandon Miller: Yep.

Ben Morrow: Because they're going to your GMB profile specifically and clicking on your name versus the ad which is an advertisement. People are just less likely to sit with you and buy from you if they're served an ad.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. From time to time. I mean-

Ben Morrow: Yes. Versus an organic lead.

Brandon Miller: Yes, exactly. Organic, that can be blended into a couple different things. Organic is someone going to Google and searching for a term, right?

Ben Morrow: Specific business.

Brandon Miller: Specific business. More than likely, what they're going to be searching for is your direct brand.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: So someone go onto Google, type in for ROOF TIGER. That's how they're going to find your Google My Business profile, and they know who you are. They're ready to take action. So that's why they're given you a call today. So you're going to set that higher, and you're going to close it higher. Paid search is a little bit different because people are getting into the market. They don't know exactly which company to select, but that comes down to having a really quality landing page put into place to educate that homeowner. So when they do sign up, it's more likely that they're going to be converting into a set appointment, and make the sales team's member's job a little bit easier around the home because they've already learned a lot throughout their research process.

Ben Morrow: Yes, that's it. And we're done. It's a complex industry for a lot of us, now let me just speak as a business owner. It's much like having your car worked on, which when I take my car in, I don't know what a carburetor is.

Brandon Miller: I have no idea. I have no idea.

Ben Morrow: Yeah. I wasn't from the generation that worked on cars. I don't know about cars. And to be quite frank, I don't really care. But I do just blindly trust my mechanic that he's not ripping me off when he fixes it. I feel like it's the same thing in digital services where I don't know how SEO works, I know what it means, but I don't know how it all functions. I don't know what search terms people are looking for. I know general stuff, but I don't know how to actually execute these things. So I would assume that's your primary target of your homeowner. Or not your homeowners, but your primary people you work with is people like myself.

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: Yeah.

Brandon Miller: So the first thing I will say here, Ben, is you do know how to run a successful roofing company, right?

Ben Morrow: Mm-hmm.

Brandon Miller: You know how to connect with homeowners, how to sell your services. But the digital piece is something you need to go find someone to actually to work out for you.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: Now, we talked about this before, and I can't say the stat confidently, but based on everything I have heard over the last decade being in this industry. If a remodeling company's been in business now for probably three to five years or maybe a little bit more. It is very likely that they have been burned by a digital agency.

Ben Morrow: Yep.

Brandon Miller: Because a digital agency will say whatever to get you to come sign up.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: "We'll get you to page 1 on Google. We're going to give you so many sales." And they're really not doing their due diligence to confirm that. And let me take a side note here. If anyone ever tells you they can get to page 1 or get your website to page 1 on Google, hang up the phone, run away. Because that is so far from the truth, you can't control that. And if you look at Google's terms and what they say about that. Google even comes out and says, if an agency tells you that, don't trust them because you cannot confidently state that.

Now there are things you can do from an SEO perspective. And SEO, I'll use that term from here on out, but that's search engine optimization that's getting your website to rank organically on Google, so the kind of free placement, right? The higher up you are, the more likely you're going to be able to get someone to click on your listing past page 2. No one really goes past page 2, right?

Ben Morrow: Exactly.

Brandon Miller: So that's why it is so-

Ben Morrow: It's a cemetery past page 2.

Brandon Miller: It really, really is. And it's so important to get your business onto page 1. Now, going back to an SEO perspective, there are certain things you can do to increase your likelihood of being able to show up on page 1, right? There are solutions you can put into place, but you can follow the entire process that you know to be through, and it's never a guarantee. And that's why it's important to be taking up as much real estate on page 1 as you possibly can, which ROOF TIGER does a super great job of, right?

A couple of years ago, Google introduced local services, which is now the pay per lead program that's at the very top of the search engine results page. Right below that, you have your pay per click where you're actually paying to get one user to your website. In the roofing industry, that can cost anywhere between 20, $40. I've seen it as high as 80, $100 in select markets, mainly being Denver because that is the most competitive roofing market in the entire United States.

Ben Morrow: Wow, I didn't know that.

Brandon Miller: Incredibly competitive.

Ben Morrow: I would assume Texas, somewhere in Texas would be the highest, like Dallas or Houston or-

Brandon Miller: Texas is right up there, but Denver-

Ben Morrow: Denver, Colorado.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. And because so many roofers migrated out there because there's been so much hail, right?

Ben Morrow: Hail damage, yeah.

Brandon Miller: And they just stayed there. But the last couple of years, if you look at Denver, there's been no hail. So what do these guys do? I should say there's been very minimal hail. And so they're trying to figure out how do we pivot, how do we get more into retail? And they're trying to maximize their opportunity by getting onto paid search. So going back to what I was talking about on the search engine results page, you have local services, you have paid search and then you have your local listings. And now we're talking about three spots before we even get to organic, right? And going back to local listings, I mean, ROOF TIGER does such a great job of showing up here within the pure market because you guys do a great job with reviews. Let's take a side note here. How are you guys going about getting reviews? Because what? You guys have like a 4.9 rating over 150 reviews.

Ben Morrow: We have two reviews that I think are less than five stars out of 154 now, or a 153, one of the two. So let's talk about macro stuff and marketing. I love stuff, Brandon, that can live forever. I pay for it once and it lives forever. Truck wraps, I'm very committed to truck wraps because you pay for it one time. And if you look at a marketing cost per engagement, car wraps have the lowest cost per engagement over time than anything. Because you pay for it one time, it'll last for five to 10 years.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. Think about how many impressions you're getting.

Ben Morrow: So many impressions.

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: Yes. They've done studies about this. And car wraps have the number one ROI in marketing because you're driving everywhere. I drive to the grocery store, and I'm getting marketing, right?

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: Tonight, I'm driving my car. I'll drive there, somebody will see it and say, "Hey, it's ROOF TIGER."

Brandon Miller: Yep.

Ben Morrow: So that's my number one. So local engagement is super important for me, and free engagement. Google, if you get one review, that review lives forever. So yeah, I love that. You can pay for it one time... Not even pay for it, you just ask somebody how to get it. This is my step to do this, if you want a quick lesson. I ask people... Let's just pretend you're the customer, Brandon.

Brandon Miller: All right.

Ben Morrow: This is a text message exchange. I say, "Hey Brandon, can you do me a huge favor?"

Brandon Miller: All right, then what's your huge favor?

Ben Morrow: Yeah, most people are like, "What's he going to ask me?"

Brandon Miller: Can you buy another roof for me?

Ben Morrow: Can I get $10,000? When I frame it like that, they're assuming I'm going to ask for something huge. This is important. So Brandon says, "Maybe. What is it?" And I say, "Google reviews are really important for future business. If I sent you a link, would you fill it out for me? It takes about 30 seconds."

Brandon Miller: Well, I don't know. I'm kind of busy, Ben.

Ben Morrow: Most people say, "Sounds great. I've had an exceptional experience." I say, "Excellent." I copy and paste the share profile from the Google page and send it to them and say, "It takes about 30 seconds. Thanks so much." So basically you ask them for a huge favor. You say, "Hey, this is really important to our business. Would you mind if I do this?" They commit twice, yes to the favor, yes to the Google review. And then I send it. If you flip that and just send them a Google review and say, "Can you fill this out?" They didn't commit to that.

Brandon Miller: No.

Ben Morrow: But they committed to me twice before I send it now. Now they feel obligated. They're like, "Okay, I'm going to do this." Makes sense?

Brandon Miller: That does make sense.

Ben Morrow: Super high engagement percentage. Most people [inaudible 00:14:57] change, they're like, "Oh, absolutely, no problem." And they fill it out right then and there.

Brandon Miller: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And a couple of things to add to that. And reviews obviously are so important, right? Because we just talked about that is one of the ranking factors that Google's puts into play for not only local listings, but also Google local services as well too.

Ben Morrow: I see.

Brandon Miller: The more reviews you have on there, the more likely that they're going to show your business-

Ben Morrow: Recommend.

Brandon Miller: Yeah, to the users on Google.

Ben Morrow: Let's go back to Google's primary thing. Correct me here, Brandon, or shed some light on this. But Google's in the business of solving people's problems.

Brandon Miller: Exactly. Question-

Ben Morrow: Somebody's searching for something, they're given an answer that's a good answer. Not just an answer that somebody paid for, but an answer that actually will solve their problem.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. So if you went to Google and you were typing in a question to go find whatever you're looking for, right?

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: And Google started returning you poor results. Are you going to go to Google?

Ben Morrow: The product is not that good anymore.

Brandon Miller: Maybe you go over to Bing.

Ben Morrow: Yeah.

Brandon Miller: Maybe AltaVista comes back around.

Ben Morrow: ChatGPT.

Brandon Miller: [inaudible 00:15:54].

Ben Morrow: Out of something.

Brandon Miller: Who knows? Yeah. So Google is all about being able to provide a good user experience, which is why they're the most dominant search engine out there, right?

Ben Morrow: You got it.

Brandon Miller: So going back to reviews, and this is something that we bring up with a lot of our customers, which is potentially a missed opportunity for a lot of remodel companies. People think that the only time you could ask for a review is if it's an actual customer, right? After the job is complete. You can ask for reviews whenever you want, as long as they've interacted with your business.

Ben Morrow: True.

Brandon Miller: So you go out to a home, you do your full demonstration, but maybe the homeowner's not ready to buy just yet, right?

Ben Morrow: Yeah.

Brandon Miller: Maybe it's going to be in the future, but they had a really great experience. You were out there, maybe Adam was out there, one of your other team members-

Ben Morrow: You took some of your time out of your schedule to do it.

Brandon Miller: Exactly. And they still feel like they got a really good value from that conversation. You can ask for a review right then and there while you're in the home with them, even if they don't buy it today. Now, you're not just reliant upon your customers, which remodeling companies, maybe they have a hundred, 200 throughout the year. I mean, you want to keep growing that as much as you possibly can.

Ben Morrow: You do. You do. Yeah, and it lives forever, guys, forever. So again, going back to cost of marketing spend, I like to do things one time, take my time to do one thing and then it lives five years from now, the review I got from day one in my company will still be there.

Brandon Miller: It still will be there.

Ben Morrow: That's beautiful. So I just keep building on that rock. And guess what? If I have a customer who goes off the rails and if it's a bad experience. It's bound to happen sometime, you guys have been in construction long enough to know that things are not always perfect. If I have a one star rating from somebody, guess what? My 150 other reviews are going to cut into that. So the ratio of me dropping my points is much, much lower.

Brandon Miller: And what are you going to do if someone leaves you a one star review? I've seen you do this before.

Ben Morrow: Call her.

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: I do. Right away, I'm like, "Yo, this is not what I expected, we're a good company. How can I help alleviate this pain, this problem?" Because obviously, I did not do my end of the bargain. "It's not, "I can't believe you did this." No, no, no. Take it on yourself. Somebody in your company messed up, and try to rectify the issue.

Brandon Miller: Yeah, you can't leave that hanging there.

Ben Morrow: Can't leave it hanging.

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: And then I can reply to that review and say, "Hey, I tried my best, but this is what happened." And hopefully somebody who's reading that can be like, "That makes sense. He actually tried to actually fix the problem. That's honorable."

Brandon Miller: Yeah. People looking at your profile can see that engagement or maybe you're able to solve it to the point where that homeowner is going to pull down that review.

Ben Morrow: Change the review. Changes the review and says, "Hey, actually this guy's not bad."

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: Yeah. I think this is a common theme between our business at ROOF TIGER and your business at Uplevel, is that both of our industries are kind of shrouded in mystery and in distrust. Nobody really knows how to do what we do. Nobody knows how to put on ridge vent onto a roof. Very few.

Brandon Miller: I'd like to learn how, if you take me out one day.

Ben Morrow: Yeah, yeah. Ventilation systems in a roof. And not many people know how to do SEO. So there's a mystery around that. But there's also distrust because there's a lot of shady people in these arenas. Because there's money to be made in both. So the main reason why I picked Uplevel is because I can trust him. I know that this guy is going to have my back during a downtime. I know that if there's something wrong with my website, he's going to tell me the truth. And I know he's not going to charge me an arm and a leg to do something that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

Brandon Miller: Exactly. Fair price.

Ben Morrow: Fair price for a excellent product. And I can trust him. And I think that's one of the reasons we're partnered so strongly is that. You take care of the two main issues, which is the mystery is now gone, because you're showing me so much data along with what my spend is. And the second thing is, I can trust you. I feel like I can trust you and I know I can trust you.

Brandon Miller: Have I told you about our no BS guarantee?

Ben Morrow: Please.

Brandon Miller: So that's such a big piece, the full transparency, and that's what we provide to all of our customers. And talking about, I've been in this industry now for 10 years and I've worked at former agencies before. And man, I got to tell you, I can spend the data any way I need to into my favor, and I had to do that at my former agency. And it kind of starts to wear on you. And granted, I was doing that in a way to give us another couple of months of runway in front of us to try to solve the customer's problem or the campaign problem to show that we're trending in the right direction. But hey, look, if it's not working, we're going to be 100% honest about that.

Ben Morrow: There you go.

Brandon Miller: And we're going to show you why it's not working, but more importantly, we're going to say, "Here's what we're going to do to solve it."

Ben Morrow: That's exactly right.

Brandon Miller: You're going to know a couple months down the road, you're going to catch on eventually, right?

Ben Morrow: Yeah.

Brandon Miller: If things are just not trending in the right direction. You're not generating sales, you're not generating appointments, you're going to figure that out. And you're going to say, "I just spent $20,000 and I generated two sales of $20,000, a hundred percent marketing cost. It's like you're going to figure that out. Why are we going to hide that from our customers?

Ben Morrow: Exactly.

Brandon Miller: We want to go straight into it, be completely honest. And if we're unable to turn around, maybe the market is just not what we thought it was going to be. And that's why we go into these projections with an understanding of what we know. But things evolve, things change and we're very flexible about that. And we're talking earlier about the projections we put together. And if you're saying to me, "I have a sales goal of X," if there's a channel that we just don't think is going to yield us a result, we're going to say, "Hey, let's not spend a dime in this right now. Let's go to these other channels, or let's reallocate." Because the most important thing is what is our cost per set? And if we can't get that from a certain channel, going back to Denver, right? Talking about the roofing industry out there, $80 cost per click, $100 cost per click.

If your average sale is $10,000 for a simple math here, and you need to get a cost per lead of around, let's just say 225, 250 to actually have a chance of getting a cost per set of around $500, that means we need to convert a traffic one and two, 50%. Oh, my goodness, we can't do that.

Ben Morrow: It's heavy.

Brandon Miller: That is a very-

Ben Morrow: Super tough.

Brandon Miller: ... very tall order. So we'll say, "Let's not even open this door. Let's test other avenues first, and then maybe we'll try to be very finite with our approach and ease our way into it." But the biggest thing here is we're just not going to do something just to do it so we can make a buck and keep going here. We want to make sure this is working for you guys because when this is working for our customers, it's working for us.

Ben Morrow: There you go. And let's zoom out for a second and just business in general, okay. Let's rewind the clock back to like 1950 before the internet existed and when people... Basically a handshake was the deal.

Brandon Miller: We're talking about yellow books, or like-

Ben Morrow: Not even yellow books. It was not even a thing back in 1950. My grandpa owned a chiropractic business, and how he did business was basically he was the chiropractor for the guy he was at the grocer. He bought groceries from the same guy each week. He bought a car from the same guy. Everybody had this network where everybody trusted each other. Everybody was so woven into the public because you had to be. There was no internet you could go search for a different plumber in a different city. It's like you knew that person and that's your guy. So you're only as good as your last handshake. And so there's this embedded trust in us to do the right thing.

Brandon Miller: Yeah.

Ben Morrow: Fast-forward to 2022, people have taken trust for granted and there's a lot of sheisty, shady things happening in every single industry. So what are you going to do when something breaks down? What are you going to do when business goes sideways? That's the test. Everybody makes money and a deal goes well, that's not the test. That's the easy part. The hard part is what happens when you screw up, when somebody's angry, when somebody comes to you and says, "I'm paying 500 bucks per click, what are you going to do about?" It's like, "Oh my gosh, we need to rethink our strategy. And guess what? I'm going to refund you or I'm going to help you on the next month's bill cycle."

I just had a customer this last week where a deal didn't work out the way I thought it would. Guess what I did? I refunded their money, after the deal was over. I invested a lot of time and money in this job. It went sideways. It's the first one in two and a half years. And I went to the customer, I said, "Hey, I don't think I'm the right one to solve this job. I'm going to give you your money back." And they were happy about that.

Brandon Miller: Because you're honest.

Ben Morrow: Honest. But I also knew that if I kept digging in and saying, "I'm just going to keep the money, I'm going to try to fix the problem," I'm not the right guy for that.

Brandon Miller: And all you prevented there was negative review out there, several talking bad about ROOF TIGER-

Ben Morrow: Yeah, just like-

Brandon Miller: You did the right thing.

Ben Morrow: That's a hundred percent right. I just listened to a video today on YouTube from an author and a speaker. Her name's Brené Brown. I'm not sure if you've heard of her.

Brandon Miller: I haven't.

Ben Morrow: She talks a lot about vulnerability, and basically the value of being vulnerable where people trust you. People can sense trust, they can sense if you're telling the truth. And if you're vulnerable and are sharing even something that's super hard in your life, it builds a connection in the brain. As opposed to sales, skirt, sales, skirt, sales, skirt. If you're always playing that game, you can't ultimately build the thing that's most valuable, which is trust.

I trust this guy to carry it out. And when somebody feels taken care of and they can trust you, guess what they're going to do? Refer you to their friends, family and neighbors anyway they know, right? That is the currency. So if we go back to 1950, that's how they operated. We need to bring that back in 2022 with the internet. And your profile on Google is your trust rating.

Brandon Miller: It really is.

Ben Morrow: Yeah. Really seriously.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. Oh, it's on me now.

Ben Morrow: Yeah, I'm saying we need to bring back 1950, of you're only as good as your last handshake. And if a deal goes sideways, be a man, take it to the chest and do the right thing.

Brandon Miller: I mean, your current customers are your most valuable customers. Being able to take one customer, turn them into multiple customers, right?

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: That all comes down to the referrals. And that's how we do a lot of our business at Uplevel as well too. The customers we have, have such a good experience. I mean, everyone knows everyone within the remodeling industry, home services industry, right? If you own a remodeling company, you probably know at least three other companies out there.

Ben Morrow: Exactly.

Brandon Miller: And so we want to make sure that we're taking care of our customers no different than the way you're taking care of your customers, because those are your future customers as well too.

Ben Morrow: There you go. If I go into a neighborhood and the houses were built around 20 years ago, most of the people are going to get their roofs done in the same timeframe. Because roofs break down roughly the same in the same area. So if I can get one house done, and a neighbor has a really positive experiences and speaks our praise, don't you think I'll be more trusted in the neighborhood?

Brandon Miller: Oh, no question.

Ben Morrow: And if a deal goes sideways and I go into the job and actually fix the problem, again, I can be referred out. So it's all about building trust as the currency. And I think money is the product of being trusted. It's so often now the reverse happens where people are trying to get money and then get trust afterward. Doesn't work that way, pal. Doesn't work that way.

Brandon Miller: And that's very common within the agency world, right? I mean-

Ben Morrow: Crazy.

Brandon Miller: ... you're talking to sales representatives who have never done digital marketing before.

Ben Morrow: Wow.

Brandon Miller: They know how to sell it. They know how to communicate to you the value prop of the business, but they've never executed upon a campaign. Now, I can't say that for every single agency out there, but I know that's very, very common. And so when remodeling companies are talking to us, you're talking to me, we're sitting down and I'm saying, "Here's where you're at currently. Here's where you need to go, and here's how we're going to make it happen because we've done this numerous times, so we've seen these things play out here." And if we're not the right company for you for whatever reason it might be, hey, no problem whatsoever. We are very happy to talk to anyone. We love sitting down. We love talking to a remodeling company, hearing about their goals, what they're trying to accomplish and be able to put together a comprehensive plan for growth.

Ben Morrow: Love it. Speak to your potential customer, Brandon, about let's say a lot of people in my industry I know are skeptical of yours.

Brandon Miller: Sure.

Ben Morrow: Because they don't-

Brandon Miller: I get it.

Ben Morrow: They don't want to be sold a bill of goods. Talk to that person and tell them why Uplevel Digital is different, in a short, digestible, simple way. The thing that they're going to find with you versus somebody that's not you.

Brandon Miller: We care. And I think in a nutshell, we 100% care about helping our clients grow.

Ben Morrow: That's good.

Brandon Miller: And we're going to give you the foresight and understanding, and boil it down into simple terms.

Ben Morrow: Simple.

Brandon Miller: Ben, have I ever talked to you about... I know we're talking about cost per clicks. Am I talking to you about conversion rates, and am I talking to you about pages per session? All these other metrics that, who really cares about that, right? You're not really talking to me about-

Ben Morrow: I know you care.

Brandon Miller: I care.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: I care about those metrics, but our customers know-

Ben Morrow: But me, eh.

Brandon Miller: So I'm not going to throw a lot of fancy buzzwords or jargon at you that you may or may not understand, for me trying to win this argument or win this conversation so things go over your head. And we just move on and then miss the crux of what is the root issue.

Ben Morrow: Yes.

Brandon Miller: We're going to talk in simple terms, we're going to talk in terminology that you understand, and I keep going back to the funnel. Because that is everything right there. We want to know exactly what's happening post-lead generation, and we're talking about that every single month with our customers here. And then understanding, "Hey, what are some pain points? What are you guys trying to accomplish? Here's how digital can fit into at play, [inaudible 00:29:10] into that play. Here are other solutions that maybe you haven't even thought of that we've seen other customers do previously to help fit in to solve for whatever you're working on."

Ben Morrow: Big time. And then networking with other people. And then let's say you have a guy that you think I could learn from.

Brandon Miller: Mm-hmm.

Ben Morrow: How about you pairing me with that person and saying, "Yo, you just need to get on a conversation for a half hour."

Brandon Miller: Oh, yeah.

Ben Morrow: "I think your industry's very similar," or vice versa. Us in the industry, especially if we're not in competing markets, I'm happy to talk to other people and gain insight. So having somebody in that space, they can connect multiple contractors, super valuable. It's not just the data, it's not just the conversions. It's really the, what do you call it, Brandon? The consulting.

Brandon Miller: Mm-hmm.

Ben Morrow: The consulting piece, it's really valuable to us.

Brandon Miller: Yeah. And I really don't even like using the terminology digital marketing agency. I think it's just such a dirty word now within this space, because I mentioned this earlier, everyone's been burned by a digital marketing agency. And I try to stay away from that because we're just so much more. We're not just your get you onto Google company, right? We go much further than that, and we give you the recipe to be successful and help grow your company.

Ben Morrow: Big time. That's good stuff.