Finding your online audience with Tim Brown of Hook Agency

Show Notes

Joining Paul on this episode of โ€œThe Building Codeโ€ is returning podcast guest, Tim Brown, co-owner and lead strategist at Hook Agency in Minneapolis. Hook Agency is a digital marketing agency that serves small businesses and a large majority of their business comes from companies in the construction industry.

Tune in to the full episode to hear more from Tim about how to find your online audience and connect with potential clients to land more leads.

What tips do you have for marketing in construction?

  • You need to cover the bases on the physical aspects such as yard signs on job sites and truck wraps
  • Referrals are the most important, so anything you can do to ensure referrals from clients
  • Keep your job site clean and use company branding
  • Try to get clients to leave a review
  • Promote your business on social media and work on growing your following

What is content marketing and how can you use it?

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content for a targeted audience online. For example, creating a blog for your construction website will provide your potential clients with a hub of information and bring in more traffic.

You can try topics such as:

  • Home projects and your location
  • Answering common questions
  • Statistics
  • Hidden rooms and mudrooms
  • Custom homes vs. modular

Check out Hook Agency on their website and follow them on social.

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Transcript

Paul Wurth:

Welcome everybody to another episode of โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ my name is Paul Wurth, I am your host. And, in addition to that, if you haven’t yet and you’re an avid listener of โ€œThe Building Codeโ€ go follow social media channels for Buildertrend, you can find us @Buildertrend on Instagram and all your favorite social media spots. We will post pictures of our team, features, functionality, just interesting things that you guys will enjoy. So, make sure you do that right now while you have a few minutes.

In this episode we have a recurring guest, not many people have that honor, Tim Brown from Hook Agency in Minnesota. Tim, welcome again.

Tim Brown:

Hey, thanks so much for having me.

Paul Wurth:

How are things in Minnesota?

Tim Brown:

Things are doing alright, man, we’ve got the normal coldness.

Paul Wurth:

We’re getting there.

Tim Brown:

… and then you got the anxiety from all the COVID-19 stuff. It’s good, from what I can tell, a lot of our construction businesses are doing still very well and a lot of people are upgrading or making changes with their home because they’re spending so much time there. So, I like that, and we’re rooting for them, a lot of our businesses that we work with are in construction, so.

Paul Wurth:

We, obviously, Buildertrend and the Hook Agency, we share a common thread, which is that we service the same industry, we love this industry of construction. I know you do because of all the great social media content you put out, so let’s just take a pause there, where can people follow you and your company in social media?

Tim Brown:

Hook Agency, all over social, so Facebook, Instagram and then, we’re also very active on LinkedIn.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, that’s right. I’ve seen you on there, what kind of stuff do you like to put out there?

Tim Brown:

We put a lot of video out with different people around the industry, some software, some people that are in sales, just a lot of different tech construction-focused people. So, we’re always interviewing people and also, we’re going out and taking adventures when we can, to just be out on job sites with clients.

I don’t have a background in construction, so for me it’s all very fascinating when I show up at a job site and take a peek at what’s going on. I’m one of those people that no matter what it is I find … when you look closely at anything, it becomes really interesting. So, we have cabinetmaker clients and roofers and remodelers and high-end home builders and all that, so when I go to these houses, or I look at these cabinets, or I’m top of a roof or whatever, I actually find this stuff super fascinating.

I love digging in and learning about it, and I’ve got this outsider viewpoint that’s just like … it’s good for marketing because a lot of construction companies, they actually don’t find what they do that interesting anymore in certain ways. They get a little bored of it because they’ve been doing it for 20, 30 years or whatever and they don’t know what would be interesting to the homeowner, or what’s as interesting.

Except, I mean you learn stuff in sales, but there is a certain amount of like, if you’re passionate about something and frankly, if you’re a little bit fascinated by the process, that’s exciting for homeowners to be involved with. Your excitement, your energy, you translate that to the people that you’re talking to, so if you’re bored when you’re talking about what you do, they’re going to feel that, right?

And I think a lot of the best construction companies are created by passionate people that actually get excited when they’re talking to you about your project, so I think that’s something to think about in the sales process. Keeping that fascination, keeping that interest.

Paul Wurth:

Right, because it’s new for your prospect, even though it’s your 105th time. You know we had another Minnesotian on, is that a word?

Tim Brown:

Yeah, sure Minnesotan, but yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Missy Scherber, you can check her out on Instagram, she’s got a huge following. I know you actually, maybe follow her and know her, but she talked a lot about what you just said. Which is oftentimes in every industry, but especially in construction. We don’t look at it from the client’s point of view. Your clients are construction companies, right? So, you go out on job sites, I saw your video where you were doing a roof and there’s some touchy moments there with you even though I think you were hooked in.

But you know it’s important for you, I can only assume, to get into the nitty gritty of what do your clients deal with every day because they may not be able to articulate to you the things that you need to know to help them with marketing, just because they may not have that marketing mindset or that business mindset to help you get the things out of the business that you’re going to use in marketing. So, you get yourself on the job site to find and discover that stuff first, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah. A little bit, yes. I mean, sometimes we’ve already been on the job site with somebody like them, so sometimes you know the industry enough to be able to say, all your competitors are saying that. So, one of the things in marketing is, what’s the differentiating feature, right? What is the differentiating feature? And so many businesses say the exact same thing as everyone else and so, that’s a challenge in marketing.

And just exactly what you’re saying, when you get in that room with somebody for a business, and we’re asking them about, what do you tell your marketing company? If you’re a construction company, what do you tell your marketing company? What is important to tell your marketing company? It’s not necessarily what you think it is, so it’s not every last detail about how you get the stuff done in your proprietary system and it’s not all the โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Oh, I see what you’re saying, yeah.

Tim Brown:

So, what you need to tell them is, so the last three really satisfied clients that we had, all said this, they said, we like it that you make it minimal the amount of effort that we have to do on the front end with design. We like it that you cleaned up every last thing after you were done. We like it that you work quick, when you said it was going to be three weeks, it was three weeks. When you really identify what prospects are really saying, that’s what matters. You don’t have to tell them every last detail about your framing and certain things.

So, it’s hard to know, I think that, that’s a challenge for a lot of people but what it comes down to, you’ve got to try to give them real prospect and client feedback. I’ve got a number of questions here that I think are really good to share.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, weโ€™ll pull those up, but one thing that I’ve always noticed because I’ve been with Buildertrend since the beginning, it’s 14 years talking to contractors and when you ask them that question about their business oftentimes they talk about their competition and what the competition โ€ฆ

Tim Brown:

Yeah, fairly obsessed, yeah.

Paul Wurth:

They’re super obsessed with competition, and what the competition’s doing and how they’re not doing that, or they’re doing it better but to your point, they’re not really looking at it from the client or the prospect’s point of view, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah. No, exactly, because they don’t care โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

And that’s a shift.

Tim Brown:

They don’t care about your competition, man, those homeowners don’t care. And frankly, no offense, but we’re in a somewhat commoditized industry with construction. Like yes, there are ways to change … There’s brand, you have brand, you can build brand. What is brand? It’s the logo, it’s the reviews, it’s the referrals that somebody has given you, that’s brand, your reputation. Brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, right?

Paul Wurth:

Mm-hmm.

Tim Brown:

And there’s also this function of marketing that plays into that, those sales conversations, like if they come in, and they are just looking for price, then you have to get them out of that mode. You have to talk to them about what you do differently, and yeah, I think that there’s a lot of construction companies that are getting stuck thinking about competitors, and they don’t need to because the prospects don’t care your competitors.

Paul Wurth:

Right, so what do they care about? And again knowing that, and I just talked to Missy about this a couple of episodes ago, is that we’re sort of in a different world. Not only because of the internet and social media, and that’s been progressing the last five years, in a lot of ways we’re in a post-COVID-19 world, and that has its own new rules, and we’re not going back.

So, when you think about how, you’re in marketing obviously, it’s in the name of your company, so there’s always been this idea about a funnel when it comes to sales, right?

Tim Brown:

Mm-hmm.

Paul Wurth:

Where leads come in, and you inform the lead about what you do, and they get information from you as the business about you, right?

Tim Brown:

Mm-hmm.

Paul Wurth:

And then they make a decision based on price, the relationship with you guys and all that kind of stuff and then there’s sales.

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

That doesn’t exist anymore, they have information available to them at all times about the industry, about the product, about you as a business, and I think maybe what you’re say, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, is that you’d better be the one leading that charge about what they’re going to go find out about you. Right?

Like you can’t control the conversation. Only when they come to you and sit in your office and say, tell me about you, mr. builder.

Tim Brown:

Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

You’ve got to find out how to control that conversation out there somewhere else.

Tim Brown:

Yeah, exactly. And there’s easy ways to do that right now, right, get more reviews.

Paul Wurth:

Sure.

Tim Brown:

Get more reviews. How do you do that? You ask, and you ask in a way that’s kind and empathetic, but you say, it matters for us as a small business, could you take three minutes and leave a review? I know that we had a great experience, or whatever. Another thing is, I think getting your people excited about your company is important because if your secretary, and your carpenter and both really excited about what you do, and I’m not saying they have to be stoked all the time, this is not a Tony Robbins retreat, but it is something where it’s like if there is clarity around why you guys are doing what you’re doing.

Which is just basically, we care very much about homeowners, and it’s kind of a mission-driven thing, it can be simple but it’s like, we want to give them a great experience and that matters for us, and we see a lot of construction companies ripping off homeowners, and we’re going to stand in opposition to that. We’re going to be the ones that provide clarity and that provide honesty throughout the process, while making customer service a really central thing.

If you have some simple statements that kind of define what the mission of the company is, it doesn’t have to be crazy, this is not like โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, you don’t have to go offsite for three days and have a retreat with your employees, just simply state why you’re different in the industry and what matters to you as a business owner. But oftentimes, too, many companies don’t have that yet, they don’t have a mission statement or word brand, but that’s part of brand that maybe that โ€ฆ

Tim Brown:

That is part of brand, you have control over that.

Paul Wurth:

… we didn’t talk about, that’s the important of that right there.

Tim Brown:

Yeah. Exactly, and that is how reputations are made, right? The reputations are made through every employee interaction and frankly, your employees might be being brats out there to homeowners right now.

Paul Wurth:

For sure.

Tim Brown:

And you know they are because you’ve had those conversations with the homeowners, and they’re like, yeah, this person dropped off materials and they’re an asshole. You have to find ways to … And basically it’s creating a motivating environment for your employees, like you can’t pay them shit, it’s like you have to find ways to make them feel like they have a purpose within the organization.

Yes, it is a functional thing, to have a mission statement, it’s very functional. And then third, what is the result that we want? We want more reviews and just so you know, every interaction that you have with a customer leads to referrals. So, we need this business to survive, it’s really important and when you’re nice to them, we get referrals.

So, letting your employees in on the secret of, this is very functional to be nice, even on those little interactions, that matters.

Paul Wurth:

For sure.

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

I think there’s just so much time that I think we could spend on employees and how they’re an extension of your brand, how everybody’s a salesperson in your company, how to get them engaged, keep them engaged, keep them excited. You should probably be doing some sort of profit sharing, a small percentage, so that they’re financially invested but also you need to be doing quarterly reviews and really let your employees know you care. You’ll get that back tenfold. That’s super important, and I think you could do that because I think you could speak about that as a business owner, you started your business.

Tim Brown:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Paul Wurth:

How long ago did you start Hook Agency?

Tim Brown:

About four years ago, I went out on my own full-time, so yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, and so, you’ve been through the journey of identifying who you are as a brand, bringing on employees, maybe having to let some go because they didn’t share the vision, that’s something you’ve been through recently, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah, exactly. And I’ve found three core values useful.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, let’s hear it.

Tim Brown:

Ours are scrappy, humble and results driven.

Paul Wurth:

Simple, so, you can repeat them, put them on the wall, that kind of stuff.

Tim Brown:

Exactly, you don’t want to have 50 core values where no one can remember any of them. So, we started out with 11, we went down to nine, then we went down to five, now we’re at three, and they kind of comprise the other ones. Like results-driven swallowed up hungry, we had hungry, we had some other ones in there, but those all kind of go together and it all feels a little soft, to be honest. Especially when you’re a one-person, two-person, three-person business and none of this stuff matters at all but as you start to grow, you’re a ten-person business, if you don’t have core value,s and you don’t have clarity on goals, and you don’t have accountability … Basically you’re supposed to hire and fire based on core values, right?

Paul Wurth:

Mm-hmm.

Tim Brown:

And I have had people that were not scrappy, and by scrappy, I mean resourceful. Right, resourceful gets stuff done โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Awesome.

Tim Brown:

You don’t know how to do it, you Google it, you look up the YouTube video, whatever, you figure it out. You figure it out, is the real thing, it’s like, I say scrappy but what I mean is, you figure it out.

And we just found having stuff like that very, very useful because now we do see people in the hiring process look different when you say scrappy. Right? That sounds kind of silly, especially if you came from a corporate environment because we’re not very good with people that came from a bigger agency, we have to find people that are scrappy.

Paul Wurth:

Scrappy, yeah.

Tim Brown:

You’ve got to know that stuff about your company, if your company doesn’t provide a crazy ton of structure, you need to know that you can’t get somebody from a big company that has had a ton of structure their whole career, you know?

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, because they’re going to come in your office and go, well, what’s the system… Where do I do this? Who do I call to order this? And you’re like, no, no, you do all that yourself. Go figure it out.

Tim Brown:

Yeah, yeah. Go figure โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there you go.

Tim Brown:

Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

So, we spend a lot of time as a business because again, both our companies Buildertrend and Hook Agency, we love the construction industry and one of the things I think we have all identified is that, there’s an opportunity or a wide space for a company to really set themselves apart by just leveling up some of the business processes they have, business acumen because so many people in this industry came from it, from being a trade themselves, and they love just doing the work.

And maybe they don’t love as much of hiring, firing, marketing, financial stuff, HR stuff, all the things that we talk about, and that’s not to say that they’re wrong for not loving that stuff but if you invest in those things … We’ve been in business for 14 years, if you invest in something like Buildertrend, an operating system, where this is how we hold each other accountable, this is how we communicate.

If you invest in marketing, you’re going to get return on that, that’s just Business 101. You and I talked offline before we got on here, I was curious about how you’re doing as a business, and you said, good, it can always be better. But we started going down this road of, why don’t construction companies as a whole, some very much do, why don’t they understand that having a marketing budget, setting aside that investment, hiring a marketing team if you’re not going to do it internally, is so crucial to the industry.

Why have we not hit that as, everybody does this now?

Tim Brown:

I think it’s because we get complacent and comfortable.  If we don’t have prospects, like let’s say if there was urgency around it, if there’s urgency around it, everyone does it. There’s some industries that you just need constant leads, right now remodeling and home building isn’t one of those, where people don’t feel that urgency as much, in my experience. It feels like a lot of them have not had that experience.

So, it always becomes that major pain point, what’s inflamed at this moment? And from my point of view, you’ve got to get out of that … I mean, and obviously, I sell marketing services, so, I think it’s with a grain of salt.

Paul Wurth:

Asterisks.

Tim Brown:

Yeah, exactly. You have to get out of this mindset of just the whack-a-mole situation, where you’re just adding marketing in a couple of years when the housing market takes a downturn, then it’s going to be inflamed, but it’s sometimes one of those things where it’s hard … I’m not even trying to put fear in your mind, the point is, literally your company can die if you don’t have systems around marketing in certain markets, and in certain situations.

And that’s the same with like if I don’t know money, if I’m not an accountant, and I don’t get help before everything’s broken then I will get down the line, three or four years, and I will not have learned about making sure there’s profit built into every job. And a lot of home builders and remodelers struggle with that as well. They don’t understand that there has to be profit built into every job, or you’re never going to grow, first of all.

I mean for a lot of guys, they’re cool with that, they’re cool with not growing.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Right, growing in terms of number of employees or number of jobs you do or total revenue, that’s not the end goal. I mean, I’m sure when you speak to somebody, you probably ask them as one of your first questions, what is your goal?

Tim Brown:

Yeah, and I guess that’s what I would say, is like a lot of our companies that we’re talking to do want to grow, so that’s the truth, so, I guess that’s who I normally speak to, is people that are trying to grow. And yes, part of that growth is sometimes more towards profitability and not towards head count, in the end yeah.

Paul Wurth:

But even in that, right, because I think sometimes you do, asking for a marketing budget from a construction company may be putting the cart before the horse because if they don’t know if they’re profitable or where their next influx of capital’s going to be, then it’s hard for them to set a budget. So, maybe the first step is making sure you’re making money on each job.

But in that I think, my question about marketing is maybe my question about a business owner in general in construction, which is, it’s okay to ask for help, there’s so many resources now. At Buildertrend we partner with a company called, Monthend, which is exclusively about getting your cost code set up, getting your budget set up right, making sure that you make your money on every job.

Tim Brown:

Exactly. What is that company name again?

Paul Wurth:

Monthend, Minnesota. There you go. No, no we will have some sort of Minnesota thing going.

Tim Brown:

People will like to hear that if they hadn’t heard that from you before.

Paul Wurth:

Absolutely, you can find that in our marketplace. I think the idea about asking for help is important, because it’s not a sign of weakness, and it’s just not that much money in the grand scheme of things to say, I need help here to get me to where I want to go, or, make my life easier, or go take a two-week vacation, so when it comes to marketing for construction companies, what do you find companies that come to you need the most help in? What area, or where are some tips for that?

Tim Brown:

Yeah, I’ll just say real quick, I think you do need to cover the bases on, I think you want yard signs on job sites. I think you want truck wraps. I think you want all the low hanging fruit on the physical side, I still believe physical and especially things that you have direct control of like job sites and referrals are your best … anything supporting those things.

Paul Wurth:

Especially in this industry.

Tim Brown:

Yes, because โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

I mean, you’re in a neighborhood typically when you’re doing a remodel, right. You might as well keep your job site clean, you might as well put some great branding out there, you might as well look good because who knows who’s walking by, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah. Exactly, and those neighborhoods, right, you get in those neighborhoods, it’s so much more impactful when your neighbor says they had a good experience.

Paul Wurth:

Absolutely.

Tim Brown:

Then you go to reviews, so let’s say from the very baseline, yard sign, truck wrap, anything to do with referrals, so referral agreements or anything where you can increase those. That’s the hard one though because it’s very hard to figure out a very specific thing to increase referrals. But then it’s reviews, now we’re getting a little bit online. I think reviews are a big one. A lot of times people will stop there, right, they stop there. They might do a little bit of social and to me, social is in support of referrals, don’t just think of social media as direct sales, think of it as supporting all of the referrals you’re going to get, from them seeing it and share it.

Paul Wurth:

And your brand, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

If you have a good brand and a good strategy around there, that incudes things like logo and your mission statement then social media is going to accelerate that, right? Get that out to the masses, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah. People get stuck there though, a little bit, because they don’t do growth on their accounts.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. What’s that mean?

Tim Brown:

They post.

Paul Wurth:

Okay.

Tim Brown:

They post twice a week because Gary Vaynerchuk told them to or whatever, and then they don’t try to get more people to follow them. So, first of all go into your page and invite all your friends to like it. Second of all, do some ads, even if it’s just a little bit of ads towards promoting that account, you have to do growth on the account. This is a recurring theme for me, but you can’t just expect to build it and they will come.

That’s not how it works here, it’s not how it works on social media, it’s not how it works on SCO and content. But, social is a part where you can do it yourself, and I think a lot of these companies, that the person should do it themselves or if they’re 10, 20 they should have a younger employee do it because they’re maybe a little bit more savvy on it, right?

Paul Wurth:

Mm-hmm.

Tim Brown:

And then just kind of getting into the other stuff we’ve got. I believe content marketing is really powerful. Content, in video โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

What’s that?

Tim Brown:

You could do either one first, but to me that’s the next level and it is, you should be doing that.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, what is that?

Tim Brown:

I think anyone over 10 employees should be doing that.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. What is that, then? So, talk to people about what is content marketing specifically. Give me some examples, not only what it is but how they could be doing it and then how is that the same level as videoing? What does that mean?

Tim Brown:

At the bare minimum it means, let’s say you get a question in the sales process about mud rooms. A question like, do I need to change the exterior of my home to add a mud room? Or something. I don’t know what the question is for you, but something where there’s a very specific question. That can be, let’s say you’re writing out that answer in an email, and you get about 300 words in and you go, I’ve had this question five times this year.

Paul Wurth:

Why don’t these people know this already? You’re thinking to yourself, why don’t they know this already? Oh, boom. Maybe โ€ฆ

Tim Brown:

Because they Googled it, and they couldn’t find it. Now, it’s your turn to throw that out on a blog post, and on your website. You could direct your prospect to that blog post now, whenever you get that same question. And I probably gave a bad example because โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

No. I think people get it. Yeah, people get it.

Tim Brown:

Yeah. Now, you have that to send them again. So, it’s almost like a template, and you send that to the prospect, I’ve already got a blog post for that. But you also now get people coming to your website off of Google and the more questions your website answers about construction, about that process, about questions that people really have, the more Google starts to trust your website as an authority.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, that’s a really good point.

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

So, you talk about this idea of empty auditorium blogging, OK.

Tim Brown:

Yes.

Paul Wurth:

And essentially … We’re going to get into that.

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Even though we’re in 2020 I go, well man, what’s the point of a blog. It’s hard for me to define that, right? And so, I think if we narrow it here, for everybody who’s listening, who wants to build organic traffic to their website, to drive legion, but just to grow their brand. One vehicle is a blog, right?

Tim Brown:

Yes.

Paul Wurth:

That you can put on your website, but what you put in that vehicle, a really good strategy is, think about the top 10 questions over the last 10 years you’ve been in business, that you get during the sales process or just something unique that maybe somebody’s surprised by during the construction process or just anything like that, that’s unique, and then write about it. Publish it to your blog.

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Those are basically the three steps. Get a blog part of your website, come up with 10 ideas, write about them. You’re an expert. That’s the stuff that in construction they already know this stuff, that’s one thing that they have nailed. Every business owner in construction is not just a general manager, for the most part they have been an expert at carpentry, or framing, or dry wall, they know how to do this stuff down to the T. So, I guess maybe use that, right?

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Use that and write about it.

Tim Brown:

Yeah. And I want to go through some brief bullet points on this because I’m going to say something that feels demotivating but then I’m going to motivate you.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, I’m with it. Let’s do it.

Tim Brown:

Demotivating, 90.63% of blog posts on the internet, have zero traffic. Ouch.

Paul Wurth:

Okay, that stinks. It’s a tough beat.

Tim Brown:

Does that mean I don’t blog?

Paul Wurth:

No.

Tim Brown:

No, it doesn’t mean that, but let me tell you what kind of content gets traffic and what kind of content doesn’t. One, your recipes often have zero traffic, like I see remodelers, I love these guys, man.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, I see. I didn’t know this trend, so.

Tim Brown:

That’s a thing. That’s a thing.

Paul Wurth:

Okay.

Tim Brown:

Self-promotion blogs have zero traffic. Announcement blogs have zero traffic. So, all the stuff like, we just finished a rambler in East side, or whatever, stuff where it’s like โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Would you go for a floor plan in the neighborhood of that, with that example?

Tim Brown:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. Yeah, or we opened a new show room, blah, blah, blah.

Tim Brown:

Just think about self-promotion, doesn’t work, so just stop, on the blog. It works on social media a little bit, it’s fine. That’s what social media’s for, but it’s not the point of the blog.

Paul Wurth:

Blog’s content, information. Got it.

Tim Brown:

Now, let me make one slight caveat to that, if you said, custom home built in Minnetonka, and you did a blog post that was a little bit of like a synopsis of the problems you solved and all that, that actually might get traffic because you’ve got a service plus a location.

Paul Wurth:

Okay.

Tim Brown:

And service plus location does very well, particularly in our area. There’s those neighborhoods in every state, right? Where you know those neighborhoods, those cities, that really have a high-end clientele. If you do a house there, write about it. Mention the service plus the location in the title, and/or have a case study area on your website.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. I like that.

Tim Brown:

You have to serve them, and I use all caps and say, you, the ideal customer, as in you. So, speak in terms of you, the ideal customer. Serve them and then the way that you crack the door open, we talked about those real questions that people have. That’s always good, especially honestly the more niche is good. So, I talked about mud room, because that seemed really specific.

Another one that I’ve seen do well, we have a good chunk of construction companies, like I mentioned, and I’m looking at what’s doing well on their blogs all the time. So, we’ve got 18 construction-related companies, and I’m looking at all these posts that are doing well, like little things like secret door, or secret room, like the mud room stuff, like lake home construction, build on your lot. Stuff that’s really specific, and really kind of niche, that stuff does better.

Paul Wurth:

If you have a Roomba, and can I get a little cut-out for where my Roomba โ€ฆ

Tim Brown:

Ooh, exactly.

Paul Wurth:

… sits in the kitchen, or something like that. Because I know one of our guests had mentioned that, something that they’re hearing in requests. So, keep your ear out for requests that are unique to where we live today, like Zoom rooms, I’m sure, right? Because we’re spending more time in our houses.

Tim Brown:

Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

Be current. Right?

Tim Brown:

And you can do inspiration posts, and it’s still good for your website because it gets your website to breathe. Meaning there’s people from around the country looking at it, maybe they’re not your ideal customer, but you want this website to be a hub of information. That’s the ideal scenario.

Paul Wurth:

Wait, hold on. What do you mean by inspirational? What’s that mean?

Tim Brown:

So, you said like Roomba, it’s a hobby or something, right? Like a Roomba cubby inspiration. Those are probably cute, I’m guessing.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, I see.

Tim Brown:

Or you can do like, here’s seven examples of Roomba cubbies. And not only that, that’s so good for social media, too, because it’s always the details, in my opinion, that sell jobs, right?

Paul Wurth:

Don’t be vague.

Tim Brown:

It’s that one thing, they fall in love with that entry way, or they fall in love with the idea of that custom deck, or whatever it happens to be. It’s always those details and so, you’d be surprised that, that Roomba cubby might sell your next project, weirdly?

Paul Wurth:

Okay, yeah. That makes sense.

Tim Brown:

And other types of posts that are doing really well versus some posts.

Paul Wurth:

What’s that?

Tim Brown:

This versus that, let’s say I’m trying to get a dining room versus office.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, sure.

Tim Brown:

A second office, or custom home versus prefab, right? Those types of posts, versus posts, people search that way. Pros and cons, does really well.

Paul Wurth:

Same concept, yeah.

Tim Brown:

Pros and cons of prefab or whatever. I’m sorry, I don’t think prefab is the best example. But statistics posts do well, how to, posts do well and like I said, the most niche, niche does well. So, if you’ve had the conversation twice in the sales process, but it’s kind of specific, that’s good. That’s really good.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. That’s a good little nugget. So, a good rule of thumb, let’s just say, if you’ve had the same question twice, or the same unique conversation twice, it’s unique it’s not just about like spacing of your two by four behind your dry walls and things like that then note that and have yourself or somebody in your company write it.

As a business owner, if you are the subject matter expert, you could literally just write down bullet points, send it to a service and have them smooth it out.

Tim Brown:

Exactly. Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

Those websites like fiber.com or something like that, where there are freelance writers out there that, just give them the bullets points, and they’ll come back and have something that’s polished.

Tim Brown:

Exactly, and to be honest we do write for people, we’re an SCO company, a content marketing company and a website design company, but that being said, there are a lot of writers out there right now, that need work.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, there you go.

Tim Brown:

I’m saying, as a business owner, I’ve got that brain in me, too, right, there’s a lot of people that need work right now. You could probably find a writer in your network of people you know, you could put a post out on Facebook and say I’m looking for a writer that’s been around home services, that’s been around construction a little bit. You can find those people, and โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Or on Facebook you just send your friends and like, do you have an 18-year-old who just dropped out of liberal arts college or just graduated college with a writing degree that they can’t do anything with? Send them here.

Tim Brown:

And yes, I mean the truth is the better your notes, the better the post will be.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Yeah.

Tim Brown:

If you spend a little bit of time on that, if you spend 10 minutes instead of five minutes on that, you could get a really good post out of them.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tim Brown:

We’ve got things that we do internally like, what is the point of this? What are we trying to do with this blog? So, a little synopsis on what are you trying to do with this blog post.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, what’s it all about?

Tim Brown:

Give them the title, another way to get bullet points or just at least to flush out the post, is Google it, and there’s that people also ask, box. And that’s another way to flush out the post where it’s like they’re giving you the questions that people are asking, which is really cool.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Got it. Okay, so that’s some really great blog tips. Typically it’s easier to blog on your website, right, most people listening have their own website, there’s easy ways to get blogs on there, if you don’t know how you can ask your website administrator. If you don’t have any of those things, you can obviously reach out to the Hook Agency, they’re available, we’ll actually end with you giving some ways to contact you guys.

But just in general, when you talk about empty auditorium blogging, is that what you’re talking about, like don’t just blog for the point of blogging, follow these tips, and you’ll still get some traction.

Tim Brown:

Yeah, don’t do it just because you’re checking a box.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tim Brown:

Don’t do it because you’re checking a box, make sure if you got somebody blogging for you on your team, have them research keyword strategy. If you have them dig into that, or you give them a course. Hey, we make everyone on our team take a course every quarter, right, have them level up. Keyword strategy is a great next step for that person on your team, or if you’re a scrappy small business owner, that’s going from one to five people, you dig in the content strategy, that’s okay.

The point is to think about this stuff as a craft, just like you think of construction as a craft. Finance is a craft, I don’t understand it, but finance is a craft, marketing is a craft. And even just starting down that road of learning that craft will help you hire a marketing agency later, so at least trying your hand. You know what I’m saying? Every time you start a craft, to delegate it, you do a better job at delegating later, because you have more โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Because you know more. Yeah, you intensely know about it, you know the details of what you need and who you delegate it to.

So, we’re circling all the way back. We talk about you’re in construction, you want to level up the business side of your business, for a reason. That reason is to either grow or to be more comfortable every year, where you’re not grinding out trying to find the next job, and grinding referrals. So, let’s talk about the cost of that, in that investment.

What could a business owner sort of start diving into, maybe it’s not even the Hook Agency, maybe it’s something they could do a la carte, but maybe it is the Hook Agency, an agency like yours, what kind of investment is that, monthly or annually?

Tim Brown:

Yeah, that’s a really good way to phrase up this question because I refer a lot of business to other marketing agencies that are cheaper than us, just to be honest.

Paul Wurth:

Well, that’s good.

Tim Brown:

And I’m open to giving those referrals anytime, so say what’s up, Hook Agency, all over social, hookagency.com, and I’m Tim Brown. I feel like that’s hard to Google, so Google the brand name plus my name.

Paul Wurth:

Hook Agency, yeah.

Tim Brown:

Yeah. I think of places where you can start and not just get total trash, like there’s websites that will make โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

That’s a good point, Tim, because there’s a ton of marketing agencies out there, how do you know what’s good and what’s bad?

Tim Brown:

Yes, that’s a hard one. I’ll say I think even just okay stuff, starts around like 5k for a website and like 1k for a recurring marketing service. We’re much more expensive than this but I’m anchoring, I guess very low, accidentally. But the point is, that’s a spot to start. I think 5% is a good rule of thumb for how much … 5% of revenue is a pretty well-known amount for marketing especially in โ€ฆ

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, you’re a business owner, we’re through October, we’re into now almost the end of the fourth quarter, we’re in the middle of fourth quarter quite literally right now, so think about what your revenue was in 2020, and a rule of thumb would be start making a budget for 5%. Maybe next year it’s two or 3%, whatever it is.

Tim Brown:

Yeah, maybe you move it up, maybe it’s 3% and then you move it up to four the next year if you can. I mean, the point is we’re trying to even out those big dips and valleys with your business, and marketing helps that, and it also allows you to not take bad jobs. We all take bad jobs when we get desperate.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Well, that’s a good point. That’s a good point, so if you do a better job of marketing your company to the world, the world’s going to bring you better fits for your company. Is that safe to say.

Tim Brown:

Yeah. And you have to be able to turn down bad fits. That’s the thing, it’s like, the more leads you have the more likely you are to turn down bad fits.

Paul Wurth:

Okay. There you go.

Tim Brown:

So, that is something to just start, it’s scary to do but once you feel like you have a little bit more business it’s really good to say no. It’s really good to start saying no to that stuff that you know their expectations are off or you’re going to try to do a $50,000 job on a $40,000 budget, or whatever.

Paul Wurth:

Well, that’s the thing, okay, so let’s tease because I’m going to bring you back on, alright?

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Because I think marketing’s really important for construction companies.

Tim Brown:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

So, the other thing we talked about right before we jumped live, is that your job as Hook Agency, the main focus is bringing construction companies leads, but not a lot of construction companies have plans on how to efficiently treat those leads when they get them in the door. Meaning, what is my cadence of calling them? What is my message when I call them? What’s my call to action? Am I trying to sell over the phone or do I want to just set a meeting up, so I can get in front of them and give a presentation to them? What’s our email marketing strategy? What’s our drip strategy?

If they say no to us this month, what’s our cadence on following up with them every quarter? What is our filter process? Not everybody’s going to be a fit for you. They may not have the right budget, they might not have the right temperament for you, they might not be the right type of job you try to attract in the future. So, next time we come on, let’s just talk about all that because I think that’s a really good.

Tim Brown:

I love it.

Paul Wurth:

Tangible, I think we like to give tangible stuff on this podcast, not just high-level ideas.

Tim Brown:

Exactly.

Paul Wurth:

So, we’ll bring ideas and examples in.

Tim Brown:

I love that. Let’s do it, I’m super excited about it.

Paul Wurth:

Alright, man, good stuff here. Again, you can find Tim Brown, Hook Agency, and take some of that wisdom we had for you today, some of the tips. I think they really will drive some more traffic for you. So, appreciate you all listening. Tim, thanks for being on again.

Tim Brown:

Thanks so much for having me.

Paul Wurth:

Alright, everyone, thanks again for listening to this episode of โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ remember to rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Help us grow this community of listeners, tell your friends, tell your family, we do appreciate it. And if you heard anything that you want to learn more about on today’s episode, head out to the show notes website, buildertrend.com/podcast. As always, we appreciate you.

Tim Brown

Tim Brown | Hook Agency


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