You may have heard of Morgan Miller Plumbing. If you’re plugged into the social media scene in Kansas City, I would pretty much bet on it. This local business has leveraged Facebook in a way that most businesses owners only dream of.
They won KCSourceLink’s Battle of the Brands in 2013.
Facebook invited them to join its inaugural 12-member Small and Medium Business Council.
It’s not a stretch to say that in local business circles, they are considered social media rock stars.
I was lucky enough to sit down with Jeff Morgan and Tosha Everhart who allowed me to interview them for an episode of Internet Marketing Insights. I’ve included a link to that podcast, as well as a complete transcript (coming Friday) below. Take the time to listen to this wonderful interview for insight into why they believe so strongly in social media, what they do that makes them successful and most importantly, how they generate over $2000 a week in sales that they can directly attribute to their presence on Facebook.
Note: I realize that listening to an hour long presentation will require a significant time commitment and I considered providing “Cliff’s Notes” on some of the best parts of the podcast. But seriously, this is some of the best advice available on using Facebook for local business and it’s worth the hour.
For more Internet Marketing Insights podcasts, visit davidmcbee.com/imi
Thanks for listening.
David
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
[00:32]
DAVID: Welcome to internet marketing insights. Each week on our program, we choose a theme related to internet marketing, bring you different guests to speak about and help you understand those. This week on our show, Tosha Everhart and Jeff Morgan of Morgan Miller Plumbing located in Grandview, Missouri, which is right outside of Kansas City. Welcome, guys.
TOSHA: Hi.
JEFF: Thank you.
DAVID: And I’m your host David McBee of DavidMcBee.com. I’ve been helping business owners with their internet marketing for several years and I write the blog, “Let’s Translate: Making Sense Out of Internet Gobbledygook” where I do my best to simplify complex internet concepts for anyone to understand very much like what we do here on IMI. So, let’s get started. I’m super excited about today’s guests. I just want you to know who we’re about to listen to for a little bit. Morgan Miller Plumbing is a local Kansas City based plumbing company and they caught my attention because they won Battle of the Brands.
JEFF: Yes. We did.
TOSHA: Woo!
DAVID: And that was kind of a surprise to me to see a plumbing company winning a brand competition and so I dug in a little bit. I found some folks who knew them and introduced us and we got to talking and I was very impressed with their social media skills and that’s why I invited you guys here to talk today.
TOSHA: Well, thank you.
J: Yeah. Thank you.
T: We’re honored.
D: Tell us just a little bit about the size of your business. Just like…
J: Well, we’re 17 years old. There’s 22 of us and we have a lot of fun and we also plumb.
T: Oh, yeah. We are a plumbing company, too, by the way, but we’ve got about 8 service trucks, about to be 9 service trucks about out there. Go all over. Fifty mile radius all around the entire metro area. Located right here in the little southern part of Kansas City.
D: And what kind of plumbing is it that you do? Is it just like local residential repair or commercial or both?
T: It’s a…we’re a full service plumbing company, residential and commercial services.
D: Okay. And you like it?
T: I love it, would be a better word. Love it.
J: I love this place.
T: It’s a very unglamorous world, but we make it glamorous and fun.
J: Yeah.
T: Did we mention fun?
D: And what are your roles?
J: I’m the president.
D: You’re the bomb.
J: Yeah, baby.
T: He’s…
(laughter)
T: He is…we just gave him a fancy title, really.
J: I’m the CFO.
D: Okay.
T: Okay.
J: Chief Facebook Officer.
T: Oh, you thief.
(laughter)
T: You thief. He’s a thief. I’m the marketing director, kind of social media manager as well.
J: That’s true.
T: Yeah. I’m the real CFO.
J: You are.
D: So, we’re getting the picture here that you have the name and she does the work.
J: Tosha was hired 2 and a half years ago. She was almost…She was a junior at a local college here with a degree…a major in communications and the minute she came aboard, our place changed.
D: Alright, so let’s talk about that specifically because I do have older business owners ask me, “Is this something I should turn over to someone who’s young in my audience?” Or, not my audience, but in my office.
J: Maybe young and hip like she is, but also someone that knows what they’re doing.
D: So, you don’t think it’s a matter of age, do you?
J: No.
D: She just happens to know her stuff.
J: Well, she keeps us young and…and…at heart and she’s got the energy of three of us. That helps a lot because it keeps everybody else’s energy up, so that just happened naturally. We were already on Facebook and…and LinkedIn a little bit for two and a half years before she got here, but she took it to a whole new level. So, yeah. I…I would…I would think that every company needs some sort of marketing. Social media marketing department.
D: Okay. No matter the size of the company?
J: Yeah. Yeah.
T: I would agree and I would say it has nothing really to do about age. A lot of people that I talk to just assume I got my job because I was young, but really, just because I’m young doesn’t mean I know social media, just I knew how to do it the right way and a lot of other companies need to know it’s not about just because you’ve got an 18 year old fresh out of high school who knows how to get on Facebook, that’s just a big misconception with social media. You can be any age, you just need to know how to do it correctly.
[04:56]
D: So, now you’ve been doing Facebook for several years. Do you feel like Jeff, at his age, is pretty good at it?
T: Absolutely. Yes. There’s things he’ll teach me and vice versa. We keep each other very informed on the Facebook world.
J: Well, I knew within 5 minutes of getting on it, now over 5 years ago, that this is a very powerful tool. That a lot of people my age, 53…
(laughter)
J: …weren’t using it at that time, but the kids from 20-30 were and I said to myself, I said, “If I can plug into these kids that are on here every day all the time, by the time that they’re somebody, 30-40 and owning the world, they’ll think of Morgan Miller as top mind. And, that’s who I was trying to capture in the last 5 years. Everything’s kind of changed. A lot of people my age are on now and so, we’re already in. We’re already running with this thing and now everybody’s coming aboard. It’s…it’s pretty exciting.
D: So, what was it about it? When you looked at Facebook, you saw an opportunity. Other business owners see an obligation. Why do you think that is?
J: I just…It…The kids today and…and we say this and I guess it happened when we were kids, they know what they want and they’re the ones that are going to own the world before we know it and…and I was just trying to figure out a way to keep in tune to today’s new market trends. And, I knew this was going to be it. And now, you know, most people look at Facebook before they look at our website.
T: Well, and a lot of company’s look at it as an obligation because they think it’s very time consuming and it’s going to wrap up a huge budget of theirs, but they…that’s…that’s why they clearly haven’t jumped in because it takes no time at all. The little tricks and the tools that you can use on there save you time and it’s affordable. So, they have that…They’re scared. It’s really just another excuse because they’re scared to kind of jump in and see that this could just blow their business up if they do it correctly.
J: And, we talked about that a lot. We used to.
T: Mmm hmm.
J: I got on. I started pressing buttons because I knew it wouldn’t break, to see what it would do and that’s how you learn it and so I already had a background in it when Tosha was hired and so her and I have been able to meld together and put a pretty good program together.
T: Decent.
J: She keeps me behaved.
D: You make a really good point, though. I think a lot of people are afraid to do stuff because they’re afraid they’re going to do it wrong.
T: Mmm hmm.
D: And, for you to say, “I knew I couldn’t break it.” That’s kind of a big deal.
T: Right.
D: I think that’s a big message everybody should take away from this, is that you just got to go in there and do it wrong for a little bit and you’ll figure out how to do it right.
T: Exactly. We…we posted this and it didn’t work and then we started posting that and it started to work and then got boring. It’s just we tried different things and we weren’t scared if we flopped. It was…It doesn’t mean we’re unsuccessful.
J: We know intuitively not to get mixed up in a lot of things that people like to post about politics or religion or who they’re favorite basketball team is; football team on a college level in this town.
D: Yeah.
J: Because that’s just going to alienate half of our client base or future client base, so we keep it light and that was another key ingredient. Nobody wants to be sold. David, you don’t want to be sold every minute you’re looking at Facebook and every second. So, we don’t put a lot in there about how great we are because nobody wants to hear it.
T: That’s a given. Nah, I’m just kidding.
(laughter)
D: You know, right now before we go any further, what is your Facebook address or what’s the best way they can find you that as they’re listening to this, they can be looking there.
T: Yes. www.facebook.com/morganmillerkc and that’s really all of our handles on social media.
D: morganmillerkc?
T: Yep.
D: Alright. What other social media channels are you aggressively pursuing?
T: Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn I’d say are pretty heavy. Google Plus is there, just not as heavy. We talked about this in the future…in the past, so it’s becoming a goal of mine to set that up more, but it’s there.
D: Okay. Let’s not talk about Google Plus just yet.
T: No, let’s not.
D: Tell me a little bit about the Battle of the Bands. Tell me why you guys decided to get in like Battle of the Bands. I said bands.
T: We’re also a band as well. No…
(laughter)
D: Battle of the Brands. Why you got involved and kind of how you…how it came about that you won it?
[09:33]
T: Well, I actually think you…Jeff was on vacation and he…We stumbled upon KCsourcelink which just happened and they were doing this fun battle, or about to be, and it…I read about it and said it looked a little bit of fun brand recognition, so I nominated us. I just did it out of a whim and thought, “Oh, this will be fun for the heck of it.” And then from there, it just started to web if that…if that makes sense of how it started internally with all of us getting exciting every week because we made it to, what was it? 64th. The sixty four that actually made the bracket. We were thinking, “Yeah, right.” We saw some of those names and we definitely were…We were dreaming big, but we weren’t going to get ahead of ourselves.
D: Who else was in the competition?
T: Other brands. The Roastery, Gail’s Harley Davidson, Boulevard Brewery, which was huge, and all of which we played against and those were like…We played against some of the biggest brands in Kansas City, but it worked because our social media was like killing it.
D: What do you mean you played against them?
T: We went up against them. So, versus. It was like Morgan Miller versus The Roastery. I think that was one of our final rounds.
J: That was the final round.
T: That was the final?
J: That was like the final…Or, the…the…
T: NCAA.
J: NCAA tournament. There were 64 companies, 4 different brackets. After one round, there’d be 32 companies; after two 16; after 3, eight, so on, and you got votes. You had to ask people that you knew to get online and go to KCSourcelink and vote for you. KCSourcelink made it real easy. You didn’t have to sign up for anything or give them your email address, which was real smart on their part because it made it easy for people to go in and vote and get off and they didn’t have to worry about giving up their…
T: Yeah. That was big. That was big.
J: So, yeah, the first week was fairly easy. The second week was Gail’s Harley Davidson and she’s a marketing monster in this town.
D: They do awesome stuff.
T: Yeah.
J: So, we all laughed and said, “Well, it was fun.”
T: It was a fun ride.
J: But, all of a sudden…Well, we personal messaged hundreds of people on our Facebook page. We didn’t just put it out there on the feed, “Vote for us because we think we’re cool.” We actually took the time and went in and wrote a personal message to hundreds of people.
D: Wow.
T: Mmm hmm.
J: It was easy.
D: Okay, but, again, there’s going to be people listening to this going…Why would you think to do that? I mean, it’s…you just started doing it…
J: It’s social.
T: Yeah, well, it’s social and we were starting to realize, like, wait a minute. This is a way to make people know our name without really trying. We didn’t even realize we were doing it before…
J: We didn’t spend a dime.
T: Yeah, we didn’t realize how big it was going to be until, of course, now even a year later, we’re still talking about it which is fabulous, but we started after the first couple rounds, we realized, people are really getting into this. People are just excited. So, it taught us to not only bark about ourselves because, believe it or not, he keeps joking about cool we are, but we’re…we’re very humbled….a very humble company. We usually are like, “What? You know us? How?” Like, and we kind of geek out for a minute.
J: Uh huh.
T: And, it’s cool. But, he…it taught us to bark about ourselves in a way of like, “Hey, we need your help because we can’t do this alone.” So, everyone became part of the Morgan Miller Plumbing team, not just the people who actually work here. Everyone who we touched and asked, every week they were like, “Hey, vote for my friends, please.” They became part of this little army we created of social media monsters and they just blew it up, so we started…that was when the messaging kind of really went heavy and we just…People got into it. Really into it like they do the NCAA tournament, so, it was social media madness versus March madness.
J: Well, and…and part of that, the reason was that the personal messages, the fact that they were already watching us. They…because we don’t sell them, you know, we just play along. We’re telling a story.
D: Well, let’s talk about that. What do you do on Facebook that’s so fantastic?
J: We don’t try to sell people. All I’m concerned about…and all I was from the very beginning was people seeing our logo on the top left corner of that Facebook post.
T: At least 365 days a year. More is fine, but I want you to see that logo once a day.
J: Once a day. Once a day. Once a day. So, then I started sampling hundreds of other pages…What are they doing? What are they doing? What are they doing? And I noticed right away what I didn’t want to do and that was to tell you, “Hey, I’ve got a special. Hey, we saved this. Hey, we’ve got this. Do this…” You know, and give all these tips and all this stuff because plumbing—nobody even likes us.
T: No. We’re like the most “unwanted to call” people.
J: Yeah. Nobody wants to call us.
T: Which is really bad on my self-esteem.
J: Like you’re wanting to call a carpet company to come and get new carpet, or, “Oh, I’m going to remodel my kitchen. I’m so excited.”
T: Yeah. No, like my toilet’s clogged. Like, “Oh. Call us.”
[14:35]
J: But, so, instead of going with the “here’s a coupon” and “here’s how great we are”, we just started posting pictures of puppy dogs.
D: Puppy dogs?
T: Yeah.
J: Puppy dogs.
D: Okay.
J: Mainly, they were our puppy dogs.
D: Which are here with us now?
J: They are.
T: Yeah. I’m surprised they haven’t made a couple of vocal announcements for us lately.
J: Puppy dogs and things like that. We do a lot of water photos, so we did a lot of funky plumbing photos and people started watching us because that we’re telling a story. We’re not just trying to sell people. And, you get about what? 1.8 seconds of time as people are scrolling up and down their wall, to make people smile and remember you. And, if they see it every day, you’ve become top of mind.
T: And, our goal–well, I know Jeff and I—our, biggest goal is, we’re a service company, so we want people to feel comfortable and as like they’re just part of our family on Facebook and the best way to do that is never sell. Don’t sell, sell, sell, show them who we are, what we like to do, the fun pictures we stumble across and share with you. It’s about making them feel comfortable because we have to send people into their homes most of the time. Most of the time, it’s a homeowner that we’re talking to on Facebook. We have a lot of businesses that follow us as well, but the point is, is to make them just feel like another friend of ours, or a family member. It’s just…We’re…The biggest misconception…We don’t…We don’t want to sell. It doesn’t hurt us, but we just want you to feel comfortable. Call us. We ought to come into your home. You practically already know us, so it’s a good way for people…We get employees off of it as well because they’ll come there, they’ll get to know us and they’ll be like, “You know what? This seems like a really genuine, family-based place.” That’s what we’ve gotten, what? The last three employees from Facebook.
D: Wow.
T: So.
D: Did you do something with unicorns?
T: Oh, we’re huge with unicorns. It’s actually…I don’t…
D: What’s with that?
T: I don’t know. It’s…How did it even start? Who knows…
J: I think it was the first one we posted, we put up there, that blew up. That…that really got a lot of attraction.
T: We’ve become known as like the unicorn plumbing company. Which is…
J: Unicorns are awesome.
T: …super awesome. If I couldn’t be…If I could be anything else, it would probably be a unicorn. Which we all have that philosophy with…
J: Unicorns are awesome. You’re awesome. So, you must be a unicorn.
T: Therefore, I am a unicorn. But, yes, it’s another…It started with puppy dogs and now we’re on to unicorns.
D: This is the sense of humor that comes through on your Facebook.
(laughter)
T: Yeah.
D: It does.
T: It…that’s why we…That’s why you can always usually tell..
J: It’s social.
T: It’s…Yeah. We’re supposed to laugh.
J: It’s all of this stuff is…and then, the cool think about it is that you can do it in the comfort of your business or home and have a good time with it and make people smile. (inaudible) You can do it with thousands of people at once.
D: So, back up. Before social media….
T: Uh huh.
D: I’m assuming you were social in real life?
T: Well…
J: And, that’s a good question.
T: We’re kind of shy, if you haven’t noticed. We’re probably the two shyest people in this office.
J: That’s a good point, though, David. That’s a good point. If a guy or a gal isn’t too social, then how do they become social on social media?
T: Mmm hmm.
D: They hire a Tosha, maybe?
T: Yeah. Well.
D: Yeah. I mean, really.
T: Absolutely.
D: But, what did you do? Like, did you do chamber meetings and networking and lunches and golf and all that good stuff?
T: Yeah.
J: And, that’s kind of when we found out it was working. We’re involved in 16 different organizations and each key member of this company goes to different meetings and we strategically did that because it gets them out of the office for a few hours every week or every other week and they get to go market the company and they have a good time doing it and we…So, we’d start going to these meetings and somebody’d say, “Hey, I saw that unicorn post. That was funny.” And you go, “Wow. They’re watching.”
T: Yeah.
J: They might not ever liked the post or made a comment on the post, but this person’s watching…
T: They’ve seen it.
J: …and so now you go back to your office or wherever you go to brainstorm saying, “Man. Things are taking off here. People are watching. We’ve got to be right.” Then, you start looking at your company a little bit differently. How are we perceived? How are we doing things and if this is the way they see it, can we do better? And, all of a sudden, you start thinking better and you start thinking smarter and you make better decisions about your business.
D: Wow.
T: But, I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t ever not…I…We’re big on the face to face marketing or networking as well. We don’t give that up. I think that just helps our social media because we still go out and shake hands and say “hi” to people. We, again, we go out. People are like, “Oh, I saw this,” or, “Hey, I’ve used your company.” It helps to hit…So, online and like the face to face. We’ve seen it just skyrocket in our line of business because we’ve got…we get to know you here and you get to know us here. So…
D: But, you also said, “comfort of your own home”. I mean, I’d imagine there are times when you’re sitting down doing posts on a Sunday and you’re, you know, in your bathrobe or whatever.
T: Yeah.
[19:46]
D: I mean, tell me about how you manage your time and how you find time to do all this.
T: We are…we actually don’t schedule that many posts. We don’t recommend scheduling a whole month because you’re not in real time. You’re losing what’s really going on in the world and it’s cool to interact with what’s going on. Most of the time, it’s kind of a…We’ll have an idea of what we’d like to post on this day and on this day and on that day, but stuff comes up so, like today was opening day and I happen to have a picture of Slugger that I forgot all about. So, he’s sitting at our dispatch desk. So, it’s…it’s…I didn’t even think about it, until I came in this morning, realized it, it’s…it’s very whim, on a whim at times, but there are…We do schedule, I’d say, three…
J: Yeah, but he’s asking how do you make the time to do it.
T: I don’t know, I just…I set it up like a meeting, almost. Like, I know I’m going to have to post on social media, so I set almost two hours worth of time and I figure out where I’m going to post, what I’m going to post.
D: Two hours a day?
T: Yeah.
D: Yeah, you actually spend that much time on it?
T: Probably.
J: On all the platforms.
T: On all them combined, not just Facebook. Yeah, because when I’m on Facebook, I’m also interacting with other companies, so I go in and I’m liking their stuff. I’m commenting on their stuff. I’m commenting on peoples’ comments, so if I had to average it, I’d say about 2 hours a day, which it flies by because that’s just…
J: Wow. We’ve got to talk.
T: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk about your time on social media.
D: Well, we’re going to get to return on investment…
T: Yes.
D: …for that time in just a minute, but before we do, let’s go more into what you’re talking about. Yes, you’re posting stuff and that’s fantastic. You have this great presence, but I…and I always talk to business owners about how that’s a little bit like going to the networking meeting and just handing out business cards.
T: Or, leaving a flyer on the table.
D: Here’s my flyer. Here’s…even free cookies. Whatever you’re giving, giving, giving, but if you’re not listening and interacting, then you’re failing.
J: That’s a great point.
D: So, tell me more about how you listen to what other companies are doing and what kind of impact you think that has.
T: I go in and it’s just like listening. If they have a post up that they’re doing something neat. I’ll comment, “Neat”, “Cool”, or I’ll share it if I need to, but I do a lot of “liking”, a lot of commenting and then, from there, it brings them back to my page and they interact with me so then, eventually, there’s always a Tosha or a Jeff at that company at…They’re going to be “Who’s Morgan Miller?” and they always comment and like our stuff. We have a couple people that go to networking events and they’re always like, “You’re all over. You’re always commenting on my stuff. Thank you for that. It’s very social. You’re interacting with me.” Even though I’m not to your face, eventually when someone meets me, they’re like, “Oh, my gosh. I’ve met your company online.” It’s the same concept as face to face. It’s just you need to go in and spend time with these companies, get to know them, like them, share them.
J: It’s important to them.
T: Retweet them. I mean, it’s everywhere.
J: Just like when we get a lot of response. It’s important to us. It makes us feel good.
T: Yeah.
J: So, when we go in and we like something that the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce posts, it might get four likes, but we’re the fifth and now, they love us, because we’re always commenting on their stuff. There might be a…There might be, oh, I don’t know, a non-profit company that’s having a fundraiser that they’ll post that they’re having a fundraiser Thursday night, please come by and we’ll show up.
D: Okay.
J: Ohhhh.
T: And, we’ll Tweet about it and share it like they want it because…
D: So, let’s say the non-profit has 1,000 followers.
J: Mmm hmm.
D: And, you share it. How many followers do you guys have?
T: Over 2,000.
D: Okay, so now, they’re message just tripled.
T: Yeah. Yeah. And we…we feel as if we do it, they’re going to reciprocate and that’s just how it all…How business works. You help each other grow.
J: It’s not about closing the deal right now.
T: No. No.
J: It’s about 6 months from now. This is a true story. I think this will tie everything up in a nice bow. We do all this liking and all this stuff. This lady called a couple weeks ago, it’s been about a month now, the dispatcher comes into my office and she says, “Jeff, this lady called and I asked her where she heard of us as I always do, and she said that she’d heard of us on the internet.” Well, we don’t go in and say which part of the internet, because that’s too…
T: Tell us specifically what page you were on.
J: Yeah. Do it now. We left it at that, but the lady started giggling according to the dispatcher. The dispatcher asked her, she said, “Well, what’s so funny? What’s going on?” She said, “Well, I found you on Facebook. I don’t know when I started following you and I don’t even know why, but now I need you.”
D: That’s awesome.
J: That’s it.
D: Wait, let’s repeat that for emphasis. “I don’t know when I started following”…
J: And I don’t know why, but now I need you.
T: And, it works. That’s exactly…
J: Beautiful.
T: That’s the message that we always try to help other businesses when we’re trying to tell our story. That’s what we mean by that. This lady has no clue how she stumbled upon us. When, how, whatever. We’ve made her laugh; maybe we made her cry, who knows? It’s just now she remembers us because her faucet was leaking and it’s driving her crazy and we posted a picture of a unicorn and she was like, “I’m just going to call. Forget about it.”
J: Mmm hmm.
T: That’s all it is.
J: She didn’t even think of anybody else.
T: No.
J: She didn’t take the time to Google anybody else.
T: Yeah. We were the top of mind. Point in case.
[25:11]
(laughter)
J: Yeah.
D: No. Branding works?
T: I know. It’s so wild. It’s not something just written about in books. It works.
(laughter)
T: It really works.
D: Alright. Let’s talk about how good it works. Because you do…You do ask every customer, “How did you hear about us?” and you’ve told me that even if you don’t nail that down in the beginning, you guys have a follow up call, right? After the service is taken care of, you call them up and say, “How was everything?” and you ask them again, “How did you hear about us?”
T: Mmm hmm.
D: And, at that point, especially if they’re in a good mood, you drill in a little bit more?
T: Absolutely. I’ll kind of…I’ll, if I can, it’s hard to catch people. They’re very…People are busy but there’s the times when I’ve gotten in depth with people. They’ll say they started just by Googling; then they read reviews and they stumbled on our Facebook. So, it’s hard to actually grasp that when they first call. We get a majority of people who say, “Internet”, so we never know specifically, but we also are able to dive in and we know the six degrees, usually. Say, we do have…Say, David calls, but we know, eventually, he found us through Facebook even if he says, “Oh, I know Jeff and Tosha.” So, it may go down as a “Jeff and Tosha” mark, but we also know that came through Facebook. But, that’s how I…We’re able to dig in a little more in the follow up process. Not always, but eventually it’ll come out through Facebook.
D: Alright. This is the part I’m most excited about.
T: Ohhh.
D: Here we go. Drum roll. How much of your business comes from Facebook?
J: We are, right now, tracing $2,000 bucks a week on service calls.
D: That you can directly tie back to Facebook.
J: Yeah. And, that could be just one big job or it could be several small service calls.
D: $2,000 a week.
J: Easy. Now, three years ago? Zero. Two years ago, I remember being in that working meetings and letting people know, “I think this is a hundred, maybe couple hundred bucks a week, and I’m pretty excited about that.” At that time, there wasn’t even anything called an “ad”.
D: Right.
T: Yeah.
J: On Facebook.
T: Right.
J: And now, it’s growing. We expect it to double again over the next 12 months.
T: Well, I would almost say it already is more because there’s the people that slip through that just say “internet” and we can’t get in depth because we’re not going to bother them, but I would say it’s actually more sometimes. It’s just hard…that’s only…Two thousand’s what we can definitely account for.
J: It’s changed everything about our company and for small business owners, you know, it’s the great equalizer. You hear that a lot, too. You can play as big as the biggest on Facebook and social media.
D: So, the two hours a day that she’s spending on it, you feel like that’s a good ROI?
J: Oh, my goodness gracious great balls of fire. Ah, we’re spending her two hours, maybe my hour. I just looked up the other day. I don’t know if I can say this, but I’m saying it anyway. Our total spend on Facebook over the last two years is $1800 bucks.
D: That’s spend of ads?
J: Yeah.
D: Oh, so you don’t really do the paid ads very much, do you?
J: Not much. $5 a day sometimes when we feel like it.
D: And, what do you do with that? Just promote a post? Or, do you do an actual paid click ad?
T: It depends the reach that we’re getting on a post. So, say I put a post up and I’m already reaching a good amount of people and I haven’t touched it. I just put it out there for a post of the day and I’m already reaching, I’m already say, at like 400 reach. I’ll boost that post because the goal is reach, not necessary likes. I want to reach as many people. I want so many people to see that name and logo. So, that then, just varies. So, say that we’re at a lull in page activity. We may boost a page. There’s no…there’s no reason to our madness sometimes.
J: It’s just…the cool thing is, and we discussed this last week. It’s not paper ads. It never goes away. It’s not like you’re in the newspaper or a flyer or mailer where they crumple it up and throw it away.
T: Right.
J: It’s there forever. You can come back to it. You can bring it back. You can keep projecting it out there for the thousands to see. It’s a lot more effective than it used to be. Is it time for me to say my famous line?
D: Sure.
J: We can put it anywhere in this you want.
T: What is that?
D: Yeah, what’s your…
T: I’m actually nervous.
J: It has never…
T: No.
J: …been easier for a customer to find you or for you to find a customer in the history of humankind.
D: Oh, that is good.
T: Boom. My mind is blown.
J: …for us to clean the wall. It is a mess.
T: I just…I’m going to have to clean the wall.
J: Clean the wall. It’s a mess.
T: It’s just crazy.
J: And, that’s the truth. My goodness. We’re 17 years old. If it would have been this easy when we first started, you and I wouldn’t be talking today because I’d be way somewhere else by now.
T: He’d be on a beach selling t-shirts.
J: Baby, yeah. You know what I mean, though? Back in the day, through the Yellow Pages ad in and let’s hope the phone rings.
[30:11]
D: Yeah. I sold those Yellow Pages ads.
(laughter)
J: You did?
D: Yeah.
J: Were you the guy I fired? I think you might be!
T: Oh, my gosh.
D: No, no, no. I bailed about the time I started using the internet. I really wanted to go that route.
T: Jump on the internet.
D: This isn’t about me. No, no.
T: Oh, yeah. How did it turn all of a sudden to all about David?
(laughter)
J: It’s always about David.
T: It’s always about David. David knows search.
(laughter)
D: Oh, my gosh. That is so getting cut.
T: Oh, no, we’re leaving this in.
D: Alright. It’s…So, you’re thought is, that any business can go in and do what you’ve done?
J: Absolutely. Any business. Even the restricted business: the lawyers, the insurance companies. That have got to be careful because of bi-state or out of state different jurisdictions and rules and regulations. They can.
D: But, you’re advice to them is: Don’t sell.
J: Yeah.
D: Just go on and have fun.
J: You can do it on your personal page. Look, if I’m a lawyer and everybody I know knows I’m a lawyer and I’m on my personal page and I make funny comments on my personal page every day and I’ve got a great following, then when somebody needs a lawyer, they’re going to think of me because I’m…I’m the guy that they’re always following.
D: It’s so simple.
T: It is so simple.
J: It’s…
D: Why are we even bothering to do a podcast about this?
T: I know.
D: I’m just going to write that one line in, Tweet it out and the whole world’s going to know.
T: Tweet it live
J: Do it now, while it’s free, David.
(laughter)
T: Oh, before long, Jeff Morgan’s going to start charging.
J: No! But you know what I mean. It’s just a…It’s a game. It’s just a big-time board game. There’s no winners, there’s no losers. You just get in there and play and they change the rules every day.
T: Every day.
J: And so you…
D: Do you think you’ve influenced other business owners to take this more seriously?
J: We know we have.
T: Mmm hmm.
J: Yeah, we’re coaching probably a dozen different companies right now.
D: That’s cool.
T: It is. It’s fun and it is…because it’s the least we can do to help because it’s easy.
J: You do know that we’ve been to Facebook headquarters.
D: Oh, I didn’t know that, but tell me more about that.
J: We just got back. We left…It was at the beginning of March. March 6 is when we went out there. Two years ago, we were doing a brainstorming session and Tosha says, “Jeff, I want you to read. I want you to read blogs. I want you to read customer service if that’s what you want. Social media. Plumbing, if you like it. Just read something. Put my name on it. Put your name on it. We’ll be tied to that blog forever and that’ll help our SEO.” Cool.
D: Okay.
J: So, I got the boring part. I got to read and she does the creative. One day I wrote a comment on a blog that was written by the vice president of…
T: It was written about…
J: About?
T: About the vice president of small business for Facebook. Dan.
J: Yeah. Dan. Dan (inaudible).
T: Levy.
J: Levy. Sorry, Dan. Dan Levy and the next day, he calls. Because I was the only one that wrote positive comments about what Facebook did to our company. Everybody else was complaining about what Facebook wasn’t doing right.
D: Okay.
J: And, I did not know this until we went out there, that he was on a quest to find a plumber that was using Facebook in a positive manner and there is my comment shows up and he calls the next day. We started conversing. We started having conference calls about every 3rd week or so. Every time they’d call I’d just laugh and jokingly say, “Hey, you know, if you just invited us out to Palo Alto, it would make this a lot easier. We could get a lot more done.” Well, in February, when we finished our conference call, they said, “Oh, by the way, we put a small and medium business castle together and you’re one of 12 companies we’ve invited to Facebookland.” I call it Facebookland.
T: It’s Facebookland. It’s definitely Facebookland.
J: And, we’d like you to come. And, after I peeled Tosha off the ceiling…
T: I’m still on the ceiling. Let’s be real.
D: That’s exciting. That’s pretty cool.
J: We did a happy dance around the conference table during the conference call. That was fun.
T: And, my bag was…Were packed the next day, so…
J: We learned a lot there and we learned that Facebook doesn’t consider themselves even close to being done.
T: They’re only like 1% done.
D: So, they say.
J: Yeah. That’s what they teach all the kids there. That they are a blank canvas 1% done.
D: Okay.
J: So, there’s a lot to be had.
D: They were…They invited you there though to kind of suck your brain?
T: Uh huh. Oh, absolutely. We were dead.
D: What you do, how it works.
T: They wanted to…They wanted to actually get Facebook feedback from people who use it actively for their businesses and personal. The page designs, the way they post ads. Every bit of the way Facebook works, they wanted to pick their brains about.
[35:04]
D: You were their focus group?
T: Oh, yeah. We were. I’m still tired. I mean, that day…It was a 12-hour day that we spent, pretty much. And we were busy from ding to dong and we were never…never not talking about Facebook and how it works and what they can do better. What they can change.
J: But, see how one thing went to another. Five years ago, we start on Facebook and now we’re going to their headquarters?
T: It’s the domino effect.
J: Just, one thing leads to another and that’s back to, it’s not going to break.
T: Yeah.
J: Push a button. See what’s going to happen. Is it too late?
J: No.
T: No.
J: No. No. No. Just get on and enjoy it. Is it going to be here next year? I don’t know. Our meeting tells me, “Yes, absolutely it’s going to be here.” They haven’t even started. They want to make it better for us. They know that they’re behind. They know that they don’t know what they’re doing. You know why? Because they’ve never built Facebook.
D: That’s a good point.
T: Yeah. When they said that like that, it was kind of like, “What? That’s such a good point.” Facebook has never been built.
J: It’s not like building a car.
D: Do you think that you have any super secrets? Stuff you can tell us?
J: No, we don’t.
T: Not unless…and then we’d have to kill ya. So. That’d be weird. That’d be a weird end to the podcast.
(laughter)
D: That would be terrible.
T: No. Just…It’s just..their goal is to completely keep the world together all based on a social network. They want to make it easy for people to communicate, stay together, reach each other. Every bit. Bring people together.
J: And share information.
T: Share. Share. Share. That’s really, I mean…That’s Facebook’s goal.
D: Cool. I want to back up again.
T: Okay.
D: You mentioned earlier that the goal was not likes. You said the goal was reach. Tell me more about that concept. A lot of folks will say, I want more likes, more likes, more likes, more likes and you feel like it’s a different goal.
T: I would say, “yes”, my goal has changed after we got back from Facebookland because it’s not about how many people like your photo. Not necessarily. You want the amount of people to see that post because, as we talked about before, a lot of people will bring up posts to us, that they never liked, I never had any proof that they saw that, but they were in my target…they were in my reach. That’s the goal that you want. You want as many people to see that one post or your page. You want the organic reach to be there. What I mean by that also is, don’t necessarily steal a picture from somebody and post it for yourself. You know, you can give the credit. Share it. They’re wanting people to share more because the reach grows. The reach grows organically for the original poster and for the people who share it. It’s a win/win in my world for reach. The more people see that logo…
J: You see, you’ve got to have people following you first to a degree.
T: To a degree.
D: But, their algorithm flat out says the more likes and comments that a post has, the more people see it. People are always complaining, there’s all this garbage out there that says only 10% of your followers will even see your posts. So, do you do something specific to try and get more comments and likes and shares or just great stuff.
T: Just great stuff. But, no…But we try…we try to do things we know are going to spark a conversation, but I never…
D: Like what?
T: Like, we just ran our first 5K on Saturday. I knew posting a collage about it, people were going to comment and interact. They were going to be “Oh, this old guy just ran a 5K? Who’s that young babe?” And, it’s like, “Oh, it’s me.” But, it’s like…
(laughter)
T: I knew…You know, you know when you’re going to get an interaction…You can hope for an interaction.
J: But, you’re telling a story.
T: You’re telling a story, yeah.
J: You won’t get any interaction at all if you’re not telling a story.
T: Yeah.
J: If you’re just putting out there, “Come buy 12 donuts, you know, we’ll give you 13”…
T: A thirteen free.
J: Yeah. That’s not telling a story. So, to reach people, you’ve got to tell a story so that they interact so that their friends see it and that their friends see it and their friends see it and I do agree with you, David. The algorithm of Facebook has changed to a degree. How could you see all of the information that’s being traded?
T: Yeah.
D: You can. It’s called Twitter.
T: Absolutely.
J: Yeah. You just couldn’t. Yeah, they do monitor it and they do throttle it, but if you’re out there working it every day, a percentage of your people are going to see it eventually. Now, if you’re going to post every other week? Forget about it.
T: Yeah. No one’s going to see it.
J: They’re going to forget about you and I see that mistake happening all over the place and that’s one of the first things in our coachings that we stop people from doing. You can’t post one month and then post the next month and then post 2 weeks later and then say, “Facebook doesn’t work.”
T: Facebook is horrible. Nobody likes my stuff. Well, yeah, because you’re on no one’s news feeds.
J: You’re not interacting with other peoples’ posts. You’re not putting it out there every day so people can see it so they remember who you are and all you’re doing is asking me to come get a free donut.
T: Yeah.
J: I don’t want a free donut. I want a smile. I want to laugh and I want to zoom on. I don’t care about you.
T: Yeah.
J: And face it, they don’t. I mean, we don’t have time. They just want a smile. That’s how I see it.
T: Yeah, like you post every Monday. Like, about, isn’t it a Monday song? So, some Mondays I’m like, what song? I’m so bored. You know, like, what song did you post today? Something like that. People get to know the story and get to know things and they want to follow along and then when you just stop all of a sudden, it’s kind like, “Help. Where did you go?”
D: Where’s my song?
T: “Where’s my song Where have you been?” It’s…It’s…Believe it or not, people watch and they want to be part of it and follow the story. The story’s the most important part.
[41:15]
J: I can tell you that I did ask Facebook about my personal page.
D: What’d you ask them?
J: I asked them, I said, “You know, my personal page is becoming engrained as my business page and my business page is my personal page and people really don’t know the difference.” Backing up a second, you’ve got to be careful about what you post on your personal page, too, with this matter because people will see our business page and go right to our personal page to see who we really are.
D: Are your personal pages public?
T: Mine’s not. His is probably.
J: Mine is. Yeah, it probably is.
T: Probably. Which is scary.
J: I behave.
T: Yes.
J: It’s all about the party. Always has been, always will be, so I’ve got an image to keep.
T: Uphold. Absolutely.
J: But, I asked them when we were there, I said, “Can I ever boost my personal page?”
D: Hmmm. And…?
J: Well, she’s shaking her head, so I can’t answer that. That…Yes. It’s coming.
T: Facebook’s constantly changing.
J: Right. Right. And they’re doing all kinds of testing.
T: Did you know only 8 people run Instagram? Eight.
D: What?
T: Only eight people run Instagram.
D: Oh, that is…
T: That big ol’ platform—only eight little people run that.
D: They’re little people?
T: Well, they’re not little people. That’s actually super offensive. I did not mean it that way. Oh, my goodness. Cut that. Cut that part. There’s only 8 people. Size is unknown.
(laughter)
T: Size is unknown. Oh, this is weird. Only eight.
D: Alright. I’ll be wondering (inaudible). How about this? Besides Facebook, you mentioned some of the other platforms that you’re using and Instagram, of course, is owned by Facebook, but it’s a totally different platform.
T: Absolutely.
D: In fact, I think, you know, I have a 13 year old son who wouldn’t go on Facebook to save his life, but he lives on Instagram and a lot of that age group does. You mentioned getting to the kids. Kids to you can mean something different from what kids to someone else means, but you’re playing in Instagram space?
T: Mmm hmm.
D: Obviously, it doesn’t work just like Facebook.
T: Nope.
D: But, what are you finding in some of these other social media platforms?
T: I learned…I’ve learned that actually to start out—to actually build the little bit that you would need to have some interactions, –I’ve learned to lean on other companies. I’ve started interacting really heavily with other companies and that, then, helps me build people versus a company. How do I explain that a little better?
D: Is that in Instagram or…?
T: My Instagram and my Twitter. I noticed it’s easier for me to start interacting with companies because then, through there, I can meet the people and I start to interact with the people once we get, say a certain hashtag, going, something on those lines. I’ve learned to kind of hold on to business which they were really…They work so well with me.
J: Then, you meet the people that are running this.
T: Then, it stems then to their person and then, from their personal, I can interact with some of those people. I can’t just go in and start following random people on Instagram because that’s kind of weird because that’s like personal photos. So, I started with just some people I knew and a couple businesses that I was close with and started following other businesses and started growing my business presence up and then, through there, I’m started to slowly get people who will see my comment or my retweet or my just comment on a hashtag that everyone’s on, I’ve learned that other businesses are so great to help and vice versa. I mean, it’s weird. I didn’t know how to start a…because…
D: In those environments, do you feel like there’s more business activity going on than personal?
T: Mmm hmm. Mmm hmm. Yeah. At least for Twitter, it’s a newsfeed. It’s a constant newsfeed. So, yes.
J: But, isn’t it…and back to the social and I don’t mean to be the interview guy, David, but…
[45:25]
D: Go ahead.
T: No, please, take over.
D: I can’t think of anything else to ask you.
J: But what I’m seeing, the trend…the thing of it here is, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a business or if it’s personal…
D: There’s always people.
J: Right and it’s the story that that person or that business is telling.
D: I was going there. I was seeing…I was going to get there.
T: Oh, sure. Sure. Just sure of it. Just sure of it.
J: I just nipped right there and it’s kind of fascinating.
T: Yeah.
J: Because after a while, people don’t care which it is, if they like your story. It’s like Peyton Place. I don’t know, just all grown up and all morphed out into billons of people.
D: So, what…what social medial platforms would you recommend that a person, you know, take seriously if they have a limited amount of time?
T: Facebook. Take Facebook very seriously and take LinkedIn. How many times did I have to say that?
J: Well, because it’s my baby.
T: Yeah, LinkedIn is his. Those are two very good outlets. You can get really referrals and a good startup all on Linked in and you can do more of the…
J: You know this, Dave. LinkedIn is the business and Facebook is the party.
D: I always call LinkedIn Facebook for grownups.
T: Yes, it totally is. It’s…a very…
J: It’s actually loosening up a little bit from at least the people that I’m interacting with…
T: Oh, gosh. Makes me nervous.
(laughter)
T: I’m going to have to go on there and check his work.
D: Well, it’s changed. It’s become more like Facebook. You can post a status update with a picture. You can…they don’t call it liking…
T: Oh. Recommend? Or something like that? I don’t know.
D: Yeah. It basically works the same way, except they have groups. Are you part of any group?
T: He’s part of some groups.
D: What’s that like?
J: That’s fun. That’s where you get to really meet people and people get to know who you are.
D: So, did you just join the groups and then post a question or join the groups and answer questions?
J: I joined groups and then I answer questions that they’ve put up there, you know? Or, ask a question on top of the question. Or, I’ll just say, “Hey, that’s a really cool article.” Or, “That’s a good comment.” Or, “You’re right on.”
D: You’re just being social.
T: Yeah.
D: God, it’s so difficult.
T: I know. And just think, they call it social media. Hmmm, that’s…
J: I wonder why.
T: I don’t know.
J: I don’t get it.
T: I don’t either.
J: I quit this.
(laughter)
T: It’s not working. I’m out of here.
J: I’m going to go call my Yellow Pages rep.
D: Ow…
T: Oh, ouch. Burn.
J: I didn’t mean David.
T: Well, he quit doing that, okay?
J: I know.
D: Alright.
(laughter)
T: Sorry. Tangent. Next. Shhh.
J: My one chamber meeting next month.
D: Let’s talk about SEO just real briefly. I don’t want to take of on too much of a tangent here, but SEO of course, means search engine optimization. Do you feel like the things that you’re doing in social are having a positive impact on how you’re ranked on Google, Bing and Yahoo!?
T: Yeah, I would say so because we’re…We keep it interlocked with all of our websites, you know? So, our Twitter can take you to our Facebook, so we keep all of those links together with it also being on our website and you can…I would say, yeah, ever since we’ve really started begin active on it, I feel like Google’s hitting us a little more. That brings in why I need to be on Google Plus more, I know…but, yeah, I would say it’s helped. It’s helped. That’s not what I rely on, because that’s not necessarily what it is, but I would say it’s absolutely helped.
J: We don’t make moves just to hope our SEO goes up, though.
T: Our Google ranking.
J: Right. We don’t say, “Oh, my goodness. How can I get on the front page?” I don’t understand how… however many plumbing companies there are in Kansas City, Missouri, how, let’s say there’s 100…That we could all be on the front page of 12 companies.
T: Right.
J: I don’t get that. I don’t see how that could happen. Why even worry about it? Get out there and make yourself valid by interacting and being social on the different platforms that are available to you and most of it is free.
T: Right.
D: That explains why you put Google Plus on the back burner.
T: I know. I don’t mean to. Sorry, Google Plus.
D: No, but the Google Plus, there’s not a lot of true activity there.
T: And, it’s the majority of businesses—another place.
D: Doing it?
T: Yes.
D: For SEO?
T: Absolutely. You know, here I just want to be social and nobody wants to talk to me on there. So, I have a problem with that. I’m not okay with not talking to people. You know, so I do, it’s just very business. It’s very business on Google Plus. It’s getting better. I’ve noticed more people are adding us and that’s great. It just shows that Google Plus is going…I just read an article that Google Plus is doing its thing. It’s starting to get a little more popular.
D: We’ll see.
T: Slowly. Well, I’ll have to read the source on that, but, that was just the article.
D: Alright. Last topic: customer reviews. (A) how do you feel about them; (B) how do you get more of them; and (C) do you think they’re even important?
T: You’ll have to go through all of those again, but (A) was how do we feel about them.
J: Love them.
T: We love them. Absolutely love them.
J: Good, bad and indifferent.
T: Yes, because we’re human on the bad ones, we’re rock stars on the good ones and that the mediocre ones—it’s still another review. We want all organic. We don’t ask people to write reviews.
D: Not at all?
T: Nope.
J: Never have.
T: Never have. Never will. No. Probably not ever because for us, I’m not looking for someone to take time to write about some plumbing company who…I want somebody who just had the best experience of their life, or worst, hey everyone’s different, to share that because I’m…I’m standing behind a company that I know does great work, but everyone’s like, “Your biased.” Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You’re probably right but go read those reviews because not one of those people have any insight to what I do. They think the same thing.” So, it’s very, very organic.
J: Two things:
T: What was A and B?
J: Well, two things: Our website. Lots of websites used to be pretty much just a billboard. I mean, go on anybody’s website and you’ll have a review section or “About Us” or comments that customers have made. Well, who knows if those are real? Every time I’ve ever looked at one, I go, “Yeah, okay. I could have done that, too.”
[51:50]
T: Sure. Sure. Mike Smith wrote that.
J: Yeah. Uh huh. “M Smith.”
D: And, you go click on Mike Smith and he has like no friends, no picture.
T: Yeah, it’s like, “okay.” Exactly. We have no clue if it’s real.
D: Yeah.
J: And so, we don’t ask for it and then you get the ones that take the time to do it, then that’s when it really means something. Now, there’s a lot of sites out there and one of her jobs is to be looking at those sites to make sure that we’ve got everything cleaned up and they’re out there. It was astonishing to use when we first started jumping into this. We hadn’t even heard of most of these sites and one of the biggest ones today is Yelp.
D: Yeah.
T: Love Yelp.
J: We love Yelp because it’s all organic and we’ve got some great reviews on there and they’re all organic and we don’t ask people to go on to Yelp give us a review, but the Yelp reviewer—the Yelp customer—is different.
T: You know when a Yelp person’s calling, if that makes any sense. They just…they just go about business. They’re, “Hey, here’s where we found you. This is what we need. This is my address, when I’m available. See you then.”
D: They’ve already made…
T: Yeah. You’re like, “I love you. Thank you. Have a great day. We’ll see you Thursday.” You know? They’re very…They have…They’ve spent their time reviewing a company. They’ve looked at you on all those platforms that we’ve talked about and they’ve made their decision. And them calling, they’re just, “Done. Over.”
J: How easy is that?
T: Yeah.
J: And Yelp, for the most part, is free too. If you want it to be.
T: The bad reviews, like I said, keep us human. We’re not perfect and we know that. I am…
D: Do you reply to those?
T: Yeah. Yes, we will.
J: We’ve got a strategy. We personally…Recently…We publically reply to the bad review and we…
T: Private message.
J: Private message the good reviews.
D: And, when you…Let’s talk about the bad ones. You throw yourself on the sword?
T: Yeah.
D: And say…
T: Absolutely. Because…
D: Even if you’re right?
T: Because it’s not about making the customer feel wrong and stupid for…Number one, they took time to help us better ourselves as a company. Thank you. That’s our biggest thing that we’ll say is “thank you”. That’s all…We wish more people would help us…critique us when we’re doing something wrong because we don’t want to continue to do that.
D: Most people don’t want to hear that.
T: Well, you know, nobody wants to hear the negative sides of what they’re doing, but…
J: We do. That’s the same thing as what we talked about earlier about making your company better. You start looking at it, “Oh, my goodness. This is how people perceive us. We’ve got to do better.”
T: Yeah. We’re able to…We’re able to be an outsider with…
J: What can we do better to get there?
T: Mmm hmm.
J: Alright. So, you’re automatically (inaudible)
T: Yeah, we don’t ever say, “Oh, you were the wrongest customer in the whole world.”
J: Now, we had some disgruntled employees.
T: Now…Yes.
J: And that takes a little detective work and it’s fun to nail them.
T: Because there is…There are people who are just…Oh, they’ll be out for our blood and number one, we will flag it immediately because it’s unfair. You’re just mad and weren’t worth… We understand that. We’re going to let you be mad and sit in a corner elsewhere. Don’t rain on our parade. But we…We don’t usually comment back to those, or, and if we do, we will do it in a very witty way that is like, “Oh, hmmm. Well, be sure to call us because we would just…We just need to make this right.” When we know the whole story’s a lie because we looked it all up and…Luckily, Yelp is very proactive when that kind of stuff happens. They want to know. They want you to flag it. They want everything. They want that person off of their site. Because if they’re doing it here, they’re probably doing it over there, too…
[55:32]
J: They threw one guy completely off their site forever.
T: Yeah. They’re good with that which is really good. Certain people who are just out for negative.
J: So, if other businesses are looking for advice, all you have to do is just Google, Bing, your company name and see what’s out there. That’s how we started looking at everything. Back, forth, up, down. All around.
T: All around.
J: In the winter time, it’s a little easier on a Sunday afternoon to just Google your name and…and see what people are saying. See how many pages of stuff you’ve got about yourself.
D: Part B of the question you already answered. It was, “How do you get more reviews?” And honestly, I’m surprised you don’t ask for them.
T: Really?
D: Yeah, because I…I know some really good businesses that do great work and they don’t get any reviews, but I guess what I’ve learned here is that you’re so social in all of these other environments that you inspire that kind of activity. That’s what I think is happening. You’re inspiring very…
T: That’s a good way…
D: …organic reviews. I think, personally, I think it’s okay to ask. You know, if I go to a speaking event or meet with somebody and I did good things for them, I’ll ask them, “Hey, would you, you know, leave a comment on my page?”
T: Yeah.
D: But, I…Also I want them to be authentic.
T: I’m not saying I don’t…I don’t recommend people ask. I…I do…
D: But, you don’t. You don’t have to.
T: Yeah. There are some businesses that people…Yeah. You want…You want some credibility. Yes, please review. Tell them all about your experience here at the Plumbing Shop or something. Absolutely. Just, for us, it’s…I…We just…We don’t ask. I mean, we do our job and we hope that they just share it with their friends and family.
J: Well, it’s kind of like this. And, I’ve been to places where they say, “Can you fill out my survey so that I can get 5 stars because it would mean a lot to me.” And, I’m thinking, “I gotta be polite here.” I’m thinking to myself inside my brain, “There’s no way that I would ever fill this out for you. How dare you even ask?”
T: Mmm hmm.
D: Because they didn’t earn five stars?
J: Right.
D: Ah.
J: Or, even close to it. But, they’re just doing it because it’s the end of the sale and it’s in their agenda to do this.
T: Yeah.
J: And, that upsets me.
D: Yeah. So, let me throw a caveat. When I ask, I already know they like me.
T: Well, see. Yes.
J: Right. Right. But, you know the companies that I’m talking about that do that.
D: Yeah. You know.
J: So, we’ve consciously said, “No, we’re just not going to be part of that game,” that if people want to take the time to do it, then…
T: We appreciate it.
J: Either way it goes.
T: Whether it be good or bad, we appreciate all of them. We do. Because it takes time out of peoples’ lives even to write a bad one. And, we appreciate it.
J: And nobody likes a plumber.
D: Nobody likes a plumber?
T: Nobody likes us.
D: That’s not true. My dad was a plumber.
T: Well, that…
J: I like your dad.
T: Yeah.
D: Everybody wanted his help, you know?
T: I know, but, nobody likes us.
D: You’re like a super hero with the lame power. That’s kind of what you are.
T: Yeah. We…
D: We need that superhero to be part of the…
T: No. Oh, we’ve got to get the plumber because we’ve got to have that one poor super hero.
J: I don’t see it on the back of (inaudible).
T: Yeah.
D: I’ve offended so many plumbers just now.
T: Yeah. His name’s David. He said it, not us.
J: David knows plumbers.
T: David knows plumbers.
D: Not. Just you guys and my dad. Alright. Well, is there anything else that you guys want to talk about? Because we’re over an hour, so.
T: Yeah. Wow. No.
D: It flew by.
J: I’m way past my bedtime.
T: Just keep out there. Keep doing it. Keep clicking away.
J: Post on, baby. Yeah. Post on.
T: Just leave it at that.
J: Don’t be afraid.
D: That’s good. Post on. I like that. It could be a shirt.
T: Post on.
D: He raises his hand.
J: I’ve got something for you.
D: Wait. Wait. Wait.
J: No. I’ve got a present for you.
D: What? Okay. Alright. What have you got?
J: I wasn’t going to do anything nasty.
T: Oh, no. Is this…Is this going to hurt?
D: What is he doing?
T: I don’t know. Is this going to hurt? I don’t know. Oh, okay.
D: What is this?
T: Oh. It’s a magnet.
D: It’s a little Facebook thumbs up magnet. Or, thumbs down, I guess.
T: Oh, yeah. You could do it both ways and when you’re out in public and someone says something cool, just hold it up. Yeah, no. Let’s…You did good.
J: You can only buy those…
D: God forbid you’d use your own thumb.
T: No. No. You have to use the Facebook like. People associate that, like, “Oh, that’s good.” Like, like, like, like.
D: This is cool. Thank you.
J: You’re welcome.
D: I really like this.
J: I’ve been waiting to give you that all month. You can only buy that at Facebookland.
D: You were lying. You have a whole bag of them up there.
J: No, I’ve got 10. I bought 10 of those.
T: He actually did. That’s a true statement.
J: I bought 10 key chains and you were specifically mentioned to get one when we were in Facebookland.
D: Well, thank you.
J: You can’t get that anywhere. You’re one of 4 people in this metropolitan area…
D: Actually, you can get it on EBay in about an hour.
T: Oh. Oh. So, that’s what you’re going to do with Jeff’s gift. Okay. I’m just kidding.
J: Oh. EBay.
T: EBay.
D: Thank you guys so much.
T: Thank you.
J: It is our honor. Thank you for thinking of us.
D: I’m going to wrap this up with the small talk, so…
[1:00:45]
Internet marketing insights is distributed by AMDG Radio. Check out some of the other shows they broadcast including the Culture of Comics where they discuss Marvel DC and Comic Book Universe. Also, Swords and Spades where they talk about everything from Game of Drones to Star Trek. You can find out more at BlogTalkRadio.com/AMDG. Music for our podcast is provided by Scottie McBee as the guitarist for the Troubadour Retrievers. You can download his music on iTunes. For more information, visit TroubadourRetrievers.com. I know what you’re thinking: Where was the music, right? I’m going to add that later.
T: Oh, you didn’t hear me sing that?
D: No. No. That would be added later.
T: Okay.
D: And, you can visit DavidMcBee.com/IMI where you’ll be able to replay or share this episode, get a recap and links to relevant articles and maybe even some visual aids. I’ll have to post a picture of my cool magnet.
T: Oh, yes.
D: And…and my guests.
J: Give me your magnet. I’m taking that back.
D: No. We’ll have your contact information there as well, so people can get a hold of you. Until next show, thanks for listening. Now, go do something awesome.
[END OF RECORDING]
