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Episode transcript from the Close It Now podcast with Sam Wakefield.
Well, welcome back to Close It Now. Sam Wakefield here. I am so excited about this guest today. He is somebody that you, you may. You probably already know who he is, and if you don't, you're gonna get a great introduction today.
You may love him, you may hate him, it doesn't matter, because this is someone who has put his flag in the ground and said, this is the hill I'm gonna die on. You know, in fact, he's written two books about it, Version one and version two, which is branded not blanded. And thank you, Dan Antonelli, for the new copy of the book. In fact, I had my. I literally had taken the first book when we met in person in 2023 and I forgot it in my car the entire time.
I was going to get you to sign it and I just totally spaced it because I was just excited about the event and getting to speak and meeting you. So thank you for sending me a signed copy of the book. And for everyone that is listening, this is Dan Antonelli. He is owner of Kick Charge Creative. They are the branding, basically experts.
They've brought branding to the forefront in a way that really hadn't been done in the past to the degree that they do it and has done something so I wouldn't say necessarily unique, but if you've seen his brand, you know, there is they, you know, they're Kick Charge brands, often replicated, never duplicated. So thank you for being on the show today, sir. Thank you, my man. Really appreciate the opportunity to sit down with you today and chat a little bit. I've been a big fan of what you've been doing, which has been amazing to see over the years, your journey and so many of our clients have worked with you and seeing how you've helped them grow and become more profitable and Help.
Help. On the sales side, it's been cool for me to watch as an outsider what, what you're doing, and I think it's, it's awesome. And I think so many companies really could benefit from what you're doing. This isn't, I'm, you know, it's your podcast, but I feel like it's important that I pitch what you do because I, I see firsthand the results and I think it's awesome, you know, what you bring to the table for so many of these guys. I appreciate that.
Thank you so much. Yeah, it's, it's been a fun journey. You know, I'm at, you know, I was doing the timeline and that one of the things that, so along with the book that, that you sent me for everybody that's watching on YouTube, there is also this. Another little brace. I don't know what you would call this.
A brochure slash flashbook that you sent me because it's, you know, promoting the 10 year anniversary of Kick Charge Creative. Yeah. And so I was doing the math and three years ago when you were on the show, you just celebrated your seven year anniversary. Well, I didn't, I guess I didn't do the math at the time. I'm about seven and a half years into the podcast in my company.
So it dawned on me you didn't have the company for a whole long time before at this iteration. I guess if this is the ten year anniversary, you're about two and a half years in when I started my company. So it's been fun to, in the same respect, watch your journey along the way while I've been growing mine as well. And so it's, it's fun to see the changes and those kind of things. So let's get this started with a kind of an interesting question.
What is one of the most boring facts about you? Most boring facts about me? Let's hit somebody with something off the wall. Oh my God. I like the spontaneous questions.
The true sales guy. Boring facts about me. Jesus. I don't know if this is boring. It's just top of mind because I literally just saw them in concert last night.
I am a big fan of Rush, so. Oh, heck yeah. How did Annika do? She was amazing. The entire show was incredible.
So, you know, I never thought I'd see them again in my lifetime and so to see them again. So I don't know. That's a boring fact. But it's weird because you think Rush fans are these very nerdy people and that not too Many people are Rush fans, and then you obviously go to a Rush concert and that's all you see, and then suddenly you don't. Yeah, you don't feel so alone when you're surrounded by other Rush fans.
But it was a really cool experience. We saw them in Madison Square Garden and I took 18, even a cooler viney with me. And she's not a huge Rush fans, but she's obviously heard them in the car her whole life. So we had a great time. It was fun.
I love it. I love it. I've been a musician forever. It's really interesting. I'm super jealous.
I've not seen them and before the Goat passed away or after, yet I do plan on seeing them, especially now that they're touring again. But I've been a musician forever and I was never really a Rush fan until I started learning more about music and into my jazz band days in college. And then later is when I got my eyes open to Holy Moly. And then I recently went back and listened to their whole discography start to finish. Yeah.
Which took some time because they have a lot of albums. And every single album I was like, oh, my God, I hear 30 different bands that took ideas from this one song. And all of these components that you hear, we all hear in our modern music that it all comes from. There's like one of those pinnacle bands, like the Beatles, Rush, those influential bands that almost everybody has tried to emulate over time but will never be as good as. Yeah, absolutely.
So even like Dream Theater. Those kind of things. One of my favorite bands. Yeah. So.
Which is a fun segue, because I mentioned this in. Thanks for sharing that. It's really fun. Which is a cool segue, though, because I mentioned this in the intro. But talk to me a little bit about your journey into.
Because you have such a unique eye and vision for your branding. And I'm curious the backstory of how you got there, because there's so many companies out there. You know, you've got companies can either innovate or they can duplicate and that's it. And you've always been an innovator, not a duplicator. And now there's, of course, plenty of other companies that are trying to do versions of jumping on either the mascot bandwagon or whatever it is, but you can tell that there's a difference.
It's like the TEMU version or the Wish version of your branding. But I'm more curious about the backstory. How did you. And not necessarily your business journey, but like your vision to arrive at the way your brands look are so uniquely different than anyone else. Yeah, it's interesting because when I 41 years or 42 years I've been doing this, and I was probably 15 years old when I started getting really obsessed with pinstriping cars, with paint and lettering cars.
And I really was just fascinated with the idea of lettering and then seeing that lettering on a van or on a truck and then having a drive by. And there's obviously a sense of pride when you see your work out in the wild. And then you also start measuring the impact of that work that it is having on that particular business. And I started really studying billboards. I started studying sign painting and really trying to better understand layout and composition in order to make the advertising more effective.
So definitely early on I was very fascinated with a lot of the billboards that were hand painted and done in the 50s and the 60s. And you learn a lot by looking at some of that old advertising because it was always very effective. But the one thing about most of that advertising, and it's so ironic, especially with the AI slop type of ads that you're seeing all over the place now, is, is that those artists focused on distilling the message into its most simplistic form and making sure that you could communicate it with the fewest amount of words. And so working under a sign painter, when I was, I got a job as a sign painter and literally I was not a sign painter at that point. I was just, hey, look, I'll sweep the floors.
I don't care. You don't even have to pay me. I just want to be around it. And I worked with a guy, his name is Bart Burt Arthur. Like a.
Almost internship. Then. Yeah, yeah. I was like, okay, I just need to be around it. Like, I just want to be there.
And he was a master sign painter and I learned so much about watching him. And we would work on layouts and, you know, when you're in the physicality of hand lettering something, that's the experience that I think most companies that say that they do branding, especially as it relates to truck wraps and fleet branding, you can't replicate that experience of actually literally lettering something on a truck and then stepping back and then judging effectiveness. Like, oh, if I add a shadow, will it make it better or worse or does it need an outline? And then how do I make sure that the priority is assigned properly? How do I make sure that background lives in background and foreground lives in of front foreground?
And that understanding Really, I think I was cemented in that understanding, that foundation at such an early age. And then I went to college because I. I wanted. I wanted to be a sign painter. And my parents were like, listen, you know, you should go to college and, and probably, you know, sign painting may not be a great career.
And. And on one hand, like, sometimes I wish that I hadn't gone that path. But what I did in college was I took my passion for lettering and advertising and then I studied communications and advertising. So I loaded up on as much something that Compliments. Yeah.
So I loaded up on as much advertising class as I could and understood the foundations of effective communications from that perspective, like from an advertising perspective. So it wasn't necessarily about how cool I could make the truck or how much stuff I could add to it. It was more about how do you actually communicate the message quickly, efficiently, and have it live in someone's mind later on. And the irony of I could look back at work that I did for 35 years ago or 40 years ago, even working at that sign shop, and those designs, those layouts would hold value and still work today because they operate under the correct principles of hierarchy, legibility and things like that. So, you know, again, just always, just passionate about composition and communicating effectively.
So when we started doing more in home services, it hadn't really been envisioned that way. And even truck wraps at that point were not very popular. You look at 15 years ago when most trucks were not wrapped. Yeah, no, they were using cut lettering. And there were still some people, you know, hand painting.
Maybe 20 years ago, there's still people. People hand painting. Not as many, but. So I just thought, well, you know, wouldn't it be great if these businesses could have a great brand, a great truck wrap, a great website, a great brochure? And at the time, there really wasn't a place where you could get all those things at once.
You had to go to four different people to get those things. And I always thought, why don't small businesses have access to the same type of tools that a big company would have access to? And anchoring it around the brand is really what started the philosophy. So, you know, 31 years ago, I started the company. It was 1985.
And, you know, it's still wild to me that the foundation on what we believe in and what I believed in back then, I mean, I was working in my basement for many years. I say we, it was just me. You know, we have 60 people now, so it's a little bit different. But the foundation on what we believe in from. From a brand perspective has not radically changed.
You know, some things certainly have evolved over time, but the foundation, I think, is still there. Yeah, I love that. In fact, as you're talking, I grabbed the book and I found the picture in here from when you're hand painting. Was it early, early heating and air? Early, early plumbing and heating?
I think it was, yeah. Based out of Staten island. And. Yeah, you know, that's a layout that. 1888, It says in your.
In your tag there. Yeah. So I was 18 at that point. Love it. Love it.
That's. You know, I think I've always appreciated your. So I think that's why I've always appreciated your branding. Because in the same way that it's not just what it is, you understand the why behind it and you understand the psychological dynamics behind the way font is positioned and the way that the highlighting and shading and all the different components are positioned. And that's why we resonate so well, because that's how so much of, for example, the sales training and the business philosophy that I train is the same thing.
I don't care if somebody learns a script. I want them to understand the why behind the why. Because if I teach a script and somebody says, you know, a homeowner says something off, off script, off target, then we're stuck. But if we understand the dynamics of how, what built this. Right.
Where's it coming from? Then it doesn't matter if you know a script or not. We can still have a desired outcome. And so that's what I've always appreciated so much. Instead of just, oh, well, let's just put something up that looks cool.
Yeah, but why, you know, what's the purpose here? What are we trying to accomplish in the brand? And that's always. That's always really stuck out to me, and I've always appreciated it. Yeah.
So recently you said it was about 20 months ago. So let's bring this forward a little bit because we've got some cool stuff to talk about. One is you're not doing just branding anymore. Fill us in on what's happened. Starting a couple years ago.
Yeah. So about. And why on that theme of why, you know, why are we talking about this? So it was about 20 months ago that we had been wanting to get back into the digital space and digital marketing specifically, mainly because we kept on seeing our brands get designed. We would design these brands and then they would go to another company to get the website done and do some of those other services.
And it was frustrating for us because, again, just being so protective of brands we create and wanting to make sure that they're optimized and used correctly. And on these other channels, I would see these websites get built and designed and it would be off brand. And even the messaging would be off as well. Meaning, like that the brand voice was not being told. The brand story was omitted from the, from the.
So it was almost just like a cool logo. And then the rest of it was either generic and not necessarily unique to them. And I thought, this is, this is just wild to me. Like, I'm seeing all this stuff. I'm like, we should be doing this stuff for people.
Clients were always asking us to do their digital marketing, but it's one of those industries like, as you know, just does not have a great reputation. And I was just like, if I'm going to get into this, I need to make sure that we can do it really well because it's a huge responsibility. Just the same way we look at branding as being a huge responsibility, you know, we often say, you know, we're designing as if brands were at. Lies were at stake, I should say. And it's the same thing when you're dealing with somebody's livelihood.
Like, you really need to understand it and do it well. So I had known Ryan Reading for many years, always respected his work and his team and what they had been doing. And so him and I got to talking and, you know, it just kind of made sense for us to come together. And, you know, it was actually a really perfect scenario because we didn't have overlap in services. And so it just kind of zippered in really nicely, really efficiently.
And, you know, since that time, like, we've, we've doubled that line of business. I think now we, we run the digital marketing for about 60 or 70 home service companies, including social media, email marketing, all those other channels. And I love it because I know no matter where that customer is on the journey, whether they land on a website or they saw the truck or the guy shows up in uniform or he gets handed a brochure, like, every single touch point is saying the right things and communicating the right message and the right strategy. So it's been really cool that now I can. I'm assured that no matter where they are in the journey, like, it's saying the right things.
I love it. It's so powerful. We were talking about this before the show, which for everybody listening, we're going to actually really dive into some things that happen after you brand in the company. And what happens short term, medium term and long term. But I've been trained so many of the companies that you've done.
In fact, in my head, I'm thinking of probably about a half a dozen more since we were listening earlier. And I've seen both sides of this. I've seen the companies that really took what you did and ran with it and it turned out awesome. And you walk in their place and everything from the walls in their offices and the training facilities are like matches. And you can feel it's a tangible thing when you feel a brand that's really adopted and run and it's, that does shift just from a picture into culture.
And on the flip side, I've been on, you know, training on location at a half a dozen companies that they have a cool brand, but they have no idea what to do with it. They don't. They did not do a good job of speaking that brand message into their people. Most of their people don't even know what it is or what it means. And so I've seen the dynamics both sides and it's such a being able to walk in six months, two years, five years later and see a.
It's a very polarizing difference of the ones that adopted it and ran with it and the ones that didn't. Yeah. And the other piece to that is, you know, the performance, it's the culture, it's all of the components that are one or the other. It goes back to. It's not the picture, it's not the actual image itself, it's what happens behind that that makes all the difference.
Yeah. And even what you can communicate about the why behind it is also something that sometimes is not rolled out effectively. And I could think about a brand that we created for a company called RW Garage Doors. And when they came to me, I was like, listen, I have, I have nowhere to go with RW Garage Doors because there's no promise inferred. It's one of the typical challenges with a initial based brand name.
But I said, well, what if the name of the company was Right Way Garage Doors instead? Right. And you think about brand not only just communicating to the people that you are selling to you, but what does it mean for the consumer? So now you have the difference between RW Garage Doors or Right Way Garage Doors. So psychologically in your mind, if I'm getting Right Way Garage Doors, well, you know, they're gonna get it done the right way.
And that became their tagline, get it done the right Way. So you have this powerful brand message that goes along with it. But now you as an employee, you understand because it's communicated as far as the expectations for you as an employee is that we as a company believe in this notion that we will get it done the right way. Not the easy way, not the cheap way, but we're going to get it done the right way. And if you want to be a part of this organization, that's the philosophy that anchors every single decision that we make in this organization.
Forget about how cool the logo is and how cool the truck wrap is and all the other assets that we did for them. Now you have an anchor to put all your messaging around. And I think sometimes people, like you said, they invest in getting sort of the eye candy for the truck and that's all it becomes is the eye candy for truck. And, and listen, you know, that's still helpful on some level, but maximizing what that brand can do and what it should do in terms of a storyline for not only you as, as an owner, but the employees and the people we're selling to, how do we leverage those opportunities and making sure people 100%. Yeah, this is huge because, you know, and I think that in the same way that, you know, you name it, xyz, famous person or politician gets things pulled out of context and then, you know, others will, well, let's use this half of a sentence against them.
I feel like what from what. From my vantage point, what I've seen in the last several years, I feel like to a degree, you and Kick Charge has had that happen a little bit where, you know, because I've heard plenty of other, you know, influencers in the trades say things like, wow, hate to burst Dan's bubble. But branding is not just a picture. It's not just an image. And I know you and we've had this conversation.
So for everybody listening, let's. I want to unpack this a little bit because there is, you know, it's the starting point, but it's more than just the image because, you know, talk to us about what it takes to arrive at an image. You know, you started to get into a little bit the right way versus rw. But I've heard you speak from the stage and I've read, actually read your book and these components. There's so much more to creating a brand than just, oh, well, you happen to live near the ocean, so let's pick some sort of nautical theme.
Right? So what all goes into the brand? And then I think this is going to be a really good segue into what happens later. And how can a company actually use that messaging and all of that and build it into culture? Because culture is not a picture, but it starts a lot of times.
It can start there. Yeah. And I think to your point too, Sam, you think about what you do in your role in helping. There's a lot of psychology behind what you do. And branding at its core is having someone believe something about your company before you get to speak.
Right. So the impressions that they see from the truck, from your website, from your social media post, all those things are actually having someone think something about your company, whether it's good, bad, or neutral. Right. I mean, those are basically where you're going to live in that spectrum. And so when we think about, first of all, who the target audience is, which.
Which is often misunderstood and you know, the chapter in the book talks a lot about women as being the driver of home purchase decisions and making sure that the brands are built for, for her specifically is one of the more important things that I think not enough contractors give consideration to because they're thinking, oh, I want to be cool. I think there was a post on the social media recently, somebody was like, hey, how's my brand look? And it was this like, super aggressive, like YETI or something called mean looking. And you and me both are commenting like, this is terrifying. Did Halloween just show up?
So definitely looking at that from the vantage point of who you sell to. Right. And again, there's so many lessons in advertising about how that changes perception and what people believe. And I think also the idea that if I can lead in with something that makes someone feel favorable about your company, then we have a higher likelihood of booking the job or converting the website traffic to an actual book job. And then of course, on your side, from a sales perspective, we have a higher likelihood of someone believing there's a reason to pay a premium for our service and also obviously affecting your close, your close rates as well.
And then the other component of it is when you think about the notion of trying to do something that becomes five mile famous within the community that you're serving, it also is driven by, from a competitive standpoint, looking at what the market has and deciding where we can do something that would be disruptive. And I think even from that perspective, like the way you say, like, you know, people say, oh, well, like it's, it's. It's more than just a cool truck wrap or whatever. Right. And I understand that, that part of it.
But you could literally make your truck you Know, pink and purple with polka dots. And yes, people would say that they see it right, but you have to understand that like it's more than just being cognizant of a brand in your market. It is what does the brand communicate to you as a potential customer. So that's where some guys get it wrong. And I think you sometimes see people, again, just trying to throw so much at that truck wrap so much at the brand.
There's way too many things going on and people may almost reinforce to that owner that it's working by saying, I see your truck wraps. But visibility is only one, one piece of what we're trying to do. It is affecting what lives in someone's brain about that particular brand. It's like, you know, message. We're trying to.
So just, just being out there and people maybe noting that you do heating and air, great, like big step in the right direction, but what do they think they'll get if they hire you? Is the other important piece that is often missed, especially when you, I mean, honestly, when you look at some of the budget branding stuff that's being done, you know, they, they don't understand the second phase of that particular question. And I think they often, especially some of the stuff that's not executed well, it actually works against that particular brand. Especially when the stuff is done in an amateur way. Like when you look at a lot of the mascot brands that are being done, especially the caricature ones, I mean, honestly, some of them are just done so poorly that if I'm the consumer and I see that my expectation has not been elevated, it's been lowered.
Right. Because I look at it, I'm like, well, this, it looks, it doesn't look right. The facial expressions don't communicate friendliness. How the mascot is rendered doesn't feel welcoming to me. And so now I've just sort of degraded the image instead of elevated the image.
And again, those are sort of sometimes the subtle details that an expert would get, like myself, but maybe the average person or a home service owner that's purchasing it doesn't necessarily understand the nuances. And they're like, oh, it look kind of looks like it could be kick charged. And that's, that's sort of the difference though is understanding the psychology of even just where the eyebrows live on the mascot, right? And how open the eyes are and how wide the smile is. All those things are really studied, so detailed that.
And again, the illustrators that we have on staff, I mean we have nine full time brand strategists on staff and between all these guys has got to be close to 200 years of experience in doing this. And the other thing too that I think is really awesome about. Let's clear this up super quick as a site. Sorry, side question. Clear this up for everybody.
Do you use AI to create your brands? No. Good. No, everything is 100% done by hand, so. Excellent.
But what's really cool is when we collab now. Now imagine you've got nine of these guys and they're all on a slack channel and one guy posts a sketch of something and then the next guy looks at it and says, oh, what about if we change this a little bit and added this? And then by the time 25, 30 minutes have passed, where we started has now been collabed by nine other guys and a girl, I should say too. My daughter is actually one of the other illustrators. Professional.
Yeah. And you know, the evolution of it and the amount of experience that we're bringing to bear on every single brand, like, honestly, it can't be replicated. Like there isn't, there isn't anyone that brings that much experience. But it's been. You watch it in real time and it's just wild because where we start may say, oh, that's, that's pretty awesome.
But then one guy just tweaks it a tiny bit, add something, and now by the time we get to the end, it's like, holy cow. Like, we've got the collaboration that feels. Like a fun reel for your social media. And yeah, it's, it's wild to watch in real time. And, you know, and again, and these guys all really push each other to elevate, you know, we're really trying to make sure that we're not complacent or formulaic.
Obviously there's a finite canvas when it comes to trucks as far as where elements can live, but we're also just really trying to do things different. It's wild to me still, though, that people like, oh my God, Kick Charge only does mascots. And I'm always like, bro, that's such. A fraction of the. Have you actually looked at our website recently?
Because the first 30 illustrations and truck wraps on our website are not actually mascots. So it's still weird to me. You know, at the same time, I would, I would submit to you that it's because they're sticky. I know. And that's, that's the irony of it.
Land in people's brains. So even the people that are, you know, saying, oh, that's all they do, they're complaining about it at the same time. It's literally proving the point. Right? Yeah.
So it is, it is interesting sometimes. It's, it's, it's frustrating because I'm like, we do really nice non mascot brands. And again too, like, I think the important thing to note, even on whether it should be a mascot or not a mascot is those are decisions that are not default. Like it's not like everything has to be one way or has to be the other. Like the market should dictate that, the brand strategy should dictate that and the storyline that you want to craft should dictate that.
So I think by default, some people think, hey, they'll start a conversation with us, hey, I want a mascot. I'm like, let's make sure that that even makes sense before we decide that that's your brand strategy. Yeah, yeah. I think that's beautiful too because if it doesn't align with the target demographic for that particular company and their product and service offering, etc. Then there's this created this conflict.
I want to go back and add a little bit to what you were saying about that. The tiny nuances that make the difference between exceptional and everything else, most people don't. They will glance and not even know. But it's that what's going on in their subconscious that makes the difference. It's the unspoken that a lot of times people don't even know how to articulate it.
But just something feels off is that sentiment. And we cover the same thing in sales training and business coaching and business training as well. And, and it's those most people think. And here's, I think where the big theme here is. Most people think that the big changes are going to get the big results.
But truly it's the combination of all of those tiny things when they start to compound is what gets the biggest results. And most people miss that. They're like, oh, I've got to do this huge restructure and reorganization and we're going to do a rebrand and all these things and surely that's going to be our magic bullet and everything's going to turn around now or we're going to see this huge lift. Well, it's sort of. But there's more than that.
So let's unpack this a little bit because having the experience of training so many companies, and I'm thinking of several more. I've got Apollo in San Antonio and Beltway and you know, up in the Northeast and so many of these Companies I've worked with over the years, and I've seen it done right, and I've seen it done wrong, where they take the brand and they're like, cool. So sometimes when it's done well, that becomes the culture. Yeah. And this is who we are.
In fact, one of my coaching clients, he was at a company, and they got the new shirts in, and so the new shirts that matched everything, and they went home, and his kids go, oh, my God, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. And which was really fun experience. But then the story started to happen. He was telling me, he's like, man. Then I went to the gas station, and three people in the gas station stopped me and said, holy crap, that's a cool shirt.
Oh, my God, I know that air conditioning company. And so then those stories started to stack up and stack up and stack up, up. And then on the flip side, there's another company that I know of that's like, yeah, they took six months to get new uniforms for everybody, and they took another eight months to finally get the brand on all of their vehicles. So they were rolling with one or two was branded and the rest weren't. And then even three years later, not everybody still had uniforms of the new brand, and they were still rolling old brand.
And so I've seen it both ways. So I'd love to get unique your. Your take on this, because I've. I've got some fun data points that we can add into this because. Because I've trained both places, there's some correlations here that I think a lot of people miss if they haven't experienced it.
Yeah. I think it's. First off to your point, bad branding will never fix bad operations. I'm sorry, Good branding will never fix. Let's do that over again.
Great branding will never fix poor operations is what I want to say. Exactly Right. So you think about that. And sometimes people are looking for that magic bullet. Like, oh, if I only do this, then all my problems will go away and it will be solved.
Here, your highlight real of this company rebranded, and now their numbers are here. This company rebranded, now their numbers are here. Okay, I'll do the same thing. Yeah. And so the idea of that, I think, is something that's important for people to know.
Listen, you have to have your operations dialed in, because the only thing the brand will do for poor operations is augment that problem and make that problem even worse than you ever experienced before. To your point, even about no fun scaling chaos. Yeah. And to your point, even about, you know, rolling it out in a proper fashion, you know, and I think when we look at. Even when the example earlier about Right Way Garage, like, they literally had a wrapped van that was covered in a sheet, they sat all the team members down and then they ran through a video explaining the why.
Why are we doing this? What does this mean for us as employees? Why am I investing in branding for this company? And what am I trying to create for a future for you? So, again, rolling it out in a manner that speaks to the benefit that I might get as an employee by going down this path.
Because sometimes they're like, why are we doing this? Why are we investing in this? This doesn't, you know, I'd rather get a raise this year than you rebrand or wrap trucks. And they don't understand. They don't get it until they get it.
Yeah. The vision of why you're doing this, and you're not doing this because, you know, it's all about you or your ego or anything like that. You're doing this because you're trying to create a better future for them. And I think sometimes people miss how to roll this out properly and then they delay things and then, yeah, you know, you got half the trucks looking one way and half looking the other way. And I get it that it's sometimes from a practicality standpoint, you can't always do everything at once.
But the sooner we can rip off that band aid, obviously, the better, because we want everything out there to be matching. We want everything out there to be in sync, as logistically and fiscally responsible as we. As we can. But what I like to say, at. The same time, there's no excuse for a year later.
Yeah. You know, not everybody to have uniforms yet. But, you know, when you look at what the brand can do, it should be this catalyst for very positive change. And I think the other thing too, when you. When you talk about the effects on the KPIs that really matter most.
And what about if we could just by the sake of having better branding and not changing anything, even about our sales process. But what if that resulted in the website converting at 20% more and then. The close to 5, you know, more than half. Yeah. Or the close rate compounding.
Yeah, the close rate improves by 5%. Like, what would that actually mean for you over the course of a year? And. And I'll give you one example, too, of a plumbing company that we rebranded and renamed that was called Economy Plumbing. So imagine a brand name that's based on budget.
And then you're trying to scale and you're trying to raise average tickets. That doesn't fly with the consumer because she believes. I don't understand. You're called economy plumbing. And then this price looks ridiculous.
Right. So we rebranded them as plumbing pals. And they were running 20 calls a day. And after the rebrand, they increased the average tickets by $200 per ticket. So 200 times 20 times, 5 times 52 weeks.
5 million in additional revenue by changing the name. Right. And I think that that's the part to you where the metrics that. Especially in the second edition of the book, that's where I focused on, well, what metrics can we tie back to the rebrand and see, you know, booking rates, conversion rates on the website, all those data points. And if we could move those needles again, even if it was 5%, you move those needles.
Well, what would that actually mean from a revenue perspective, a profitability perspective, like all those other things. Not to mention from a cultural perspective, Recruitment, like all those other. Other things. Certainly being affected by it. Right.
Yeah, that's. That's super powerful. In fact, I'm thinking it reminds me of. There was. It happened to be the most serendipitous timing when I was training a company in Texas here.
They've got two locations, one in Longview, one in Buda. And so shout out to Summit Heating and Air, because I happen to be in Buda when their fleet rolled into the parking lot with the new rafts on it. And it was the first time for their people to see the new brand. Yeah, especially on. Well, they had seen some images, but on the vehicles.
And so we, of course, immediately stopped the training. We go outside, we're looking around all the things, taking pictures. But that was such a fun experience because I got to walk through the. And, you know, it wasn't all brand. It wasn't all my training.
I think it was this cool combination of. And of course, the owner was doing some really great things with operations and making sure everybody's doing the right thing as well. But it was this magical moment in time for this company because I watched their sales guy there go from his average ticket when we started the beginning of the week versus a month later, go from 12 to 18,500. Wow. And in just strictly.
And then, you know, stayed there and then elevated after that. And I watched the service tech's average tickets go from, you know, 250, $300 to 850 in that same Amount of time and so much of the, the tangible energy that the. And this is why it's so. I think it translates to metrics so well, because when we walked back inside, you could literally reach out and feel the energy in the room and the excitement that every single one of those people felt of. I feel like we're somebody representing a company that I'm proud to represent now.
Yeah. That was. Some of the language they were using was, wow, I've always liked this place, but now I'm proud to go out into the public now. Right where. And because they.
They ended up. They got shirts delivered at the same. They were holding the shirts in the office and waiting for the vans to roll so they could drop the shirts at the same time. And the hats and the, and all of the stuff. So the energy hit to such a level because we know sales is the transfer of enthusiasm.
Yeah. And the confidence. So all of that just. Man, it just hit all at once. And it was so cool to see those things happen.
Certainly. Definitely way more confident in your abilities to sell when you feel you have a great brand behind you. Like, do you think, I mean, I hate to say it like this, but do you think a Ferrari salesman is worried about people seeing value in the car that he's trying to sell versus, you know, somebody. I'm not going to bash a Kia because I drive a Kia Stinger as well, but, you know, it's just a different type of thing. Like, you're very confident in what you're, what you're promoting because you know you've got a great company behind you.
And again, the homeowner feels that. And I think that that's the other part too. When people, when you think about sales and you think about how the brand affects the consumer purchase decision making, it's again, why would I pay more for your service? And if, if you can't have a brand that helps demonstrate a perception on why they should pay more, then you're going to have an awful lot of hard time raising your average tickets. Like, it's, it's just, it's just reality.
Like, consumer psychology has not literally changed in like 100 years. Yeah, it's the same thing. And that's what people, I think, just misunderstand when it comes to brand, the psychology behind it. And that's, again, all we're trying to do is just make, make people feel something. It's like, why, why do you think a BMW is a better car?
Like, is it really a better car? Does it break down, like, more Frequently than a Toyota. Like I think statistically maybe it actually does. But I want the BMW. Well, why do you want the BMW?
Well, because it's, it's an amazing brand. Like it's a, it's a great car. But is it really a great car? Well, probably in, in some instances. But I believe it to be a better car.
Right. Like a Rolex level, deeper. It's like what's it give you? What gives you status? It gives you this.
Yeah. Like I could get a Rolex or I could get a Timex. Like they would both tell time with reasonable accuracy. But why, why do I want one versus the other? And creating that, that experience that you deliver makes a consumer feel that there's a, there's a rationale behind it.
And I'm not saying it like we do it in a deceptive way because I don't think that that's really what brand does. But what I like to say is brand actually represents the level of service that our clients provide. We have so many great clients that, oh my God, they kill it. Like terrific installs great customer service, a great team behind them. But if I were to judge them by what rolled up on my driveway, I can't get there.
Maybe afterwards I believe it, but I can't get there initially. And that's what just makes those close rates suffer so much. Because I don't believe that you're going to do a great job. Maybe I'll roll with you. And then afterwards, listen, I love you guys, you guys are the best.
But I had to overcome that negativity and that bias that I had because your brand gave me a negative bias. Most brands either have a neutral or negative associated with them. But if you could lead in with a positive, then you're that much closer to closing that sale. Absolutely. Yeah.
And it's. And for everybody listening, it's not a magic bullet. There's no magic. Yeah. Like we're talking about.
Because on the flip side of the same coin, I'm thinking of one, two, probably three companies that I've worked with that were, that had, you know, some kick charge branding, but also they weren't holding the standard because cult. So brand helps affect culture, but the brand itself is not culture. Yeah. And so culture, as we know, that's how your employees think about going to work on Monday morning, on Sunday night. That's culture.
Yeah. Are they excited for it or are they dreading it? You know, what, what does that look like? It's not just the Friday afternoon pizza party. And so I'VE seen companies, I'm thinking of a couple particularly where, yeah, they had great logo shirts, but there was no expectation for standards.
So half of them were dirty. The. They were untucked, they were wrinkled. So while the brand was cool, there was no standard behind it in the culture to maintain the quality of the brand. And so those companies were the ones that ended up suffering.
In fact, there's one right now that I'm thinking of that sadly, they're in some pretty bad shape because they got the branding to hopefully fix the rest of the chaos. Instead of going to work on the things that, hey, let's just actually consistently show up at people's homes. Let's do the work. Let's start with the work, those types of things. And so I feel like, so for everybody listening, don't just think that this is good.
And I mean, we've talked about this. You'll say the same thing as we don't want to scale chaos, but it's even deeper than that. The culture that if we do this but don't hold the standard, that it can almost be worse than, than if you're like, hey, okay, great, so whatever. Because home. The homeowner's perception of this great brand.
But that's unkempt. Right. Is almost a neck. It's even worse. It's worse.
They just gone with the, you know, their branding before. Yeah. I always like to say, like, I'm going to have you look amazing before the CSR gets a chance to answer the phone or the tech arrives at the door. But I can't fix what happens inside. And if you don't deliver on the promise that the brand communicates, then all that effort was wasted.
Yeah. You know, so like I said, I think our, the, if I look at the category, the, the characteristics, the companies that typically hire us is that they do amazing work. They just don't look like they do amazing work. And I can fix that. Yeah.
You know what I mean? So it's, it's, it is one of those things, like we said earlier, that it will amplify problems from a ops perspective if you don't have those systems dialed in. That's it. That's it. I mean, it can be so like anything, it can be a tool or a weapon.
And so don't use it as lipstick on a pig. You know, fix the, fix the components before we, before we do this. It doesn't necessarily mean before, but obviously usually what happens is, is we don't have the budget for this until we fix some of the other components. And for everybody listening, if you're deciding between fixing systems or investing in branding, fix your if and you only have this one set amount of dollars, fix the system first because again, you don't want to scale chaos and then use that to create the revenue to then invest in branding. So then things go smooth.
So that's, that's one of our, I was telling you earlier, the, the line, the, our tagline for the company that, for everybody listening, the, the new venture that I've got going on with my partner, our tagline is when we're doing business coaching is everything's important, not everything is important right now. And so how do we. Because especially as owners, we're like, oh my God, I've got to do all these things. And, and so we get so lost in the sauce with all of the influencers on social media and all these things and everything seems like it's the magic bullet. But not understanding how a true business is built.
What are the priorities and where's the short term, medium term and long term priorities here and where are we going to get the best return on investment that's going to feed forward into the next thing and the next thing. And so that's, and I, I'm such a believer in branding. If I was started as well. I think, I think what you're saying. Too there, Sam, when I get in my next company that we're looking at and actually getting back on that side of the table, that's good, that's step one because I know how to build a business.
Yeah, I, I think what you're saying too though is important for people to understand. And I, and I think one of the things on some of the one on one interviews that I've been doing is I've been trying to just have people get a sense of reality and not a sense of Instagram and Facebook highlight reels and they want the magic bullet sometimes and they think, oh, if I only got this, if I only got that, like everything would, would be, all my problems would go away. And I think, yeah, I think there's way too many highlight reels that are, that are out there. And you know, I, I just interviewed a company that, you know, 30 years, I think they're about 30 years in and they're at 30 million in revenue and it didn't happen overnight. And I think more of those stories are the reality of what's actually out there.
But we only see the highlights of the guys that scale to 20 million in 24 months or whatever the number is and you try to wrap your head around that and you're just like, I don't know how they did it, but it looks really sexy and it looks really, you know, it makes for good highlight reels. But you know, the bulk of like you said, the incremental improvements that you can make and compounding them over time and not expecting something that just overnight it's going to, to just radically suddenly 10x our, our company in, in right. In six months. So I, I wish there was a little bit more of those stories being, being told than, than sort of the, the highlight reels. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, and you know, and the, the fun part is at the same time, you know, I really feel like the missing. So this, this is what, you know, what I'm solving is so many of us, we were good at fixing the thing and replacing the thing and then we got into business and didn't understand the dynamics of how to business. Right. And so we've had to just crash. We didn't go to, you know, school for it.
We didn't go to business school. So we had to crash course ourselves in how to run a business along the way by the school of hard knocks. And so that's where I'm, you know, can a business grow fast? Absolutely. No.
So I mean, and to put this to rest for everybody that's listening, you know, all, every single one. Because you and I both know behind the scenes in a lot of those, every single one of those stories, there's some missing element that they didn't talk about. There's, there's either there was an investor along the way that was silent that they never mentioned, so they had this endless supply of capital or there was somebody, you know, I'm thinking of one of them had this super fast glow up of, you know, 3, 4, 5 years to 65 million or 100 million, whatever it was. But they got their 10,000 hours in somewhere else. Right.
Already figured out how to business before they started this. Or there's, I mean there's all kinds of situations. There's one where somebody started their business, they never talk about this, but they had like $30,000 worth of stolen equipment they started with. But nobody's ever going to talk about that. I'm never going to name names, but it happens.
And so for everybody that's paying attention, highlight reels aren't always fully true either. Yeah. And so yes. Was it done? Yes.
At the same time, when they take exits, were they making any money or were they bankrupt? And that's why they sold. Right? Right. Also is the case sometimes, but not saying everybody and I'm never again.
I'm never going to point fingers, but I just want to bring some reality in this conversation because we cannot just rely on Facebook and Instagram highlight reels because it does not tell the full story. The full story is 10,000 hours. Have to get in somewhere. Right. And so you're, I mean, you're a 40 year overnight success,.
Basically. And congratulations on the 10 year anniversary of Kickcharge. Since we renamed. I saw you all past the $10 million mark. I saw.
I've seen some really cool milestones for you along the way. And how many days out from the heart attack are you now? I'm coming up on 2000. It'll be 2000 days in, I think two weeks actually. So I'm very blessed and grateful to still be here today.
And again, that's something that I don't take for granted. And I try to keep that mindset always in my head, especially as it relates to things. And Sam, you and I know, like sometimes we have a task that we have to do for any given day and maybe it's not our favorite task. And sometimes you're like, oh, I gotta do this today. And I always remember like when I was getting wheeled into the OR and they were gonna stop my heart and give me some new plumbing, thinking to myself how I would have given anything to be doing anything other than that at that particular moment.
Right. And so I sort of just look at the things that I'm not excited or enthused about doing that we all have to go through on a daily basis and just say, you know what, I'm really blessed that I'm getting to even do this today because I shouldn't be like, I shouldn't even be here to have the opportunity to do this task that I don't want to do. Right. So just trying to remember that. And it's definitely been one of those things where at the time, and you know, we've all experienced these days where it's something that at the time it's a total suck.
And you're just like, you know, why am I going through this? And. But then later on you come to realize what a blessing it truly is. And so I look at that event as something that that was one of the best things that ever happened to me. But at the time, you don't certainly recognize that for what it is.
And that could be anything that happens in business. I mean, you look at some of the biggest challenges I've ever had with running this company at the time you're like, oh my God, this is awful, this sucks. And then I become grateful for it later because I recognize what it taught me and how I came out on the other side of that particular experience. Is there anyone in particular that you can think of that you can unpack for us? Is there anyone, any, any of those struggles in the business along the way where it's really top of mind, what was the big struggle point that you overcame that you can unpack for us?
And some of the things out of. That, I could think early on especially, and this is probably 15 years ago I went through, or 20 years ago I went through an experience where we had built a website for someone and believe it or not, it was a dating website and it didn't function as they thought it should and they basically, you know, essentially sued us and wanted their money back and things like that. And I went through a six month nightmare of legal crap with lawyers and everything like that. And it really, it really, I, I had a lot of trouble processing it and dealing with it and figuring out how to work with it. Like, you know, I couldn't sleep.
Like, I, I just really obsessed about it and what came out of it. Certainly we wind up basically being extorted the money and we paid them off to make it go away and did what we had to do. And at that point I was willing to pay anything because I needed to get my life like back in order. But what came out of it was, hey, you need contracts, you need people to look at contracts like lawyers. And so, you know, yes, it absolutely sucked when we were going through it.
And this is probably this, I think it was 20 years ago, but we came through it stronger and smarter. And then you want to beat yourself up over that experience because you're like, I should have known. And I'm like, sometimes I'm like, well, how the hell should I have known that? Like I didn't go to school to be an entrepreneur. Like, there's no, there's no class that I took that said this is how you run an agency or a branding company.
And so I think sometimes too, even just allowing us the grace to recognize that sometimes we don't know what we're doing and that we're going to learn as we go and we'll be stronger afterwards. But going through it at the time, time was, was awful. But now I look at that event and I'm like, I'm so glad I went through it. Like, because it taught me so much. But sometimes it's hard in the moment to recognize that as an advantage, that something's.
That you can pull some positivity out of it. And I think, you know, listen, you know, Sam, you've been around the block a long time. Like, you know, you know, for some things, there isn't an actual playbook to follow. And we're the hardest on ourselves about that. Especially when we fail or we come short on something, it's always like, oh, man, I should have known this.
I should have done that. And sometimes I think entrepreneurs, we take that stuff to heart and allowing ourselves sort of that grace to say, you know what? I did the best that I could at that moment. The decision wasn't the right decision. But now I know, and now I can learn for it.
Like, we. We want to be perfect because we want to be perfect for the people that count on us. And sometimes we fail. And I think also the thing is, as a leader, if you can't recognize that and even just communicate that to your team when you've made an error or a mistake and own that, I think that that is also a really unhealthy culture that you build to where you can't hold yourself accountable the same way you want to hold your team accountable. Yeah, man, that is a.
I was gonna. So usually I ask with. With all my guests of what's a word of wisdom that you want to leave everybody with? But holy cow, I think you just did, because that's so. This speaks into the culture so much of.
You know, if somebody keeps themselves locked in this glass case and inaccessible and never lets anyone see their. Their mistakes, their failures, it makes me think of. I saw this interview with Ryan Reynolds not too long ago. I mean, guys, a brilliant businessman as well as just, you know, cool actor. Yeah.
Net worth over a billion dollars. Right. So. And that's not from the acting side. That's from his companies that he's grown and sold.
And somebody asked him about. I think that the. I don't remember the exact question, but the nature of it was something about, when did you realize that you haven't had it all figured out? And he says. He said, I just want to.
I want to tell you clearly, everyone, you know, the most successful people, you know, are winging it. But the difference is, of course, the lessons along the way. I 100% agree with that. And. But we're winging it according to our lived experience and our gained wisdom and knowledge along the way.
So your level of winging it and my level of winging it, somebody else's level of winging it to the outside eye. Oh, man, they've got to figure it out. You've got it dialed in. But at the same time, we can look at someone else and go, oh my God, anywhere close to having it together relative to them. So I think a lot of it goes back to our, you know, was the saying that, you know, comparison is the thief of joy.
Yeah. And not compare my chapter 46 to your chapter 85 or whatever it is or somebody else's chapter 12 to. Because we all have these journeys to go through, and I think it's okay. I agree with you. Give.
Give the grace to ourself. We either win or we learn. We don't. You know, as long as we're learning from it, there's not a lot losing moment there. There should be a podcast on the.
Not highlight reels. You know what I mean? Like, I've really been. Wanted to actually do that. That's been top of mind for me lately.
I just feel like the reality. Tell some of my failure stories and get some. Get a panel on and let's tell all of the worst moments. Like, you want the podcast to be inspirational, but at the same time, I think sometimes people just relate to. Oh my God.
Well, he went through that too. Like, okay, I'm. I can relate to that, but I can't relate to the company that scaled to 50 million in 12 months. Like, I can't relate to that. Like, I'm trying to get to 2 million, you know?
Exactly. So sometimes trying to get past the one man show and how do I hire people and keep them. And so I think a little bit more on the realities and the burdens of entrepreneurship and the cost and the toll that it takes is, you know, I've even been putting more of that stuff in my own social media, just trying to keep it real. Like it's, it's. This shit's hard, man.
Like, sometimes I just, I look at my friends that have, you know, they don't really have nine to five jobs, but they're, They're. They work for someone else. And, you know, sometimes I'm envious of that. You know, sometimes I wish I could disconnect and I look at the toll that it has taken and, you know, like, sometimes I wouldn't wish what we have on. On anyone, but maybe that's why not everyone does it, you know, I guess.
I guess you got to be built a certain way to do it. So that's. That's why we're entrepreneurship. I think I saw the statistics one time that just based purely on personality types and those types of wirings, that this was years ago when I was really studying entrepreneurship for the first time. And it said right around 10% of the population is wired to be an entrepreneur.
Really? That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that's a Robert Kiyosaki book or something.
I feel like it's 5%. Yeah. Well, especially the ones that are successful versus not. Yeah. But so much of it's the tenacity.
The tenacity to be able to grit your teeth and go through those moments when you don't know if you're going to make payroll. You don't know. I mean, the number of stories of all of the, quote unquote, highly successful people that I know that have these moments of, yeah, I had to mortgage my house to make payroll that month or I had to XYZ or. I mean, I had to. I mean, personally, I was going through a few years ago, I sold.
Had to sell my 67 chevelle to pay rent for 2 months and pay my bills. But I did because you have a bigger vision than the immediate, and that's what pulls us forward, I think. Yeah. Well, I hope you get a chance to buy it back. So we could do a whole episode on that.
That was actually the car I got when I was 15 and me and my dad restored it together. I was my daily driver through high school and college. And so it was not only it's deeper than just the car, it was all the memories that sold along with it. So it was. Yeah, but we'll see.
The person that bought it was doing a full body off restoration, so we'll see how it turns out. But, man, it's been an honor to have you on the show, man. I always appreciate our conversations and I love, love what you're doing. I love how you've combined both the branding now and given people a vehicle to actually be able to install it in their organization. Soup to nuts.
Start to finish with the marketing side that you've added on within the last couple years. And yeah, man, I would actually. So, yeah, let's do this. If the company is out there or person. When would you tell a company.
So let's get a couple categories here because I feel like there's a different answer potentially if somebody is wanting to start their company, because I know there's several people have actually reached out to me recently, said, hey, I'm thinking about doing my own thing. When would you recommend them investing in branding and how should they do it? And then also part two to this question is when, say you've got an existing company who's, you know, give any, any size, because I'm mentally thinking of a $30 million year company that needs it horribly bad, but an existing company that's been around for a while, when what needs to be in order in line before they invest in branding. Yeah. And so both of both of those scenarios, what would you say?
So what I would say first, if, if you're just starting out today, is before you even file the LLC for your company, please read my book. Like, I don't. I make like $5 on it. So it's not about how much money I make, but it's literally written to help you avoid the most common mistakes that are literally made the day you start your company. Primarily related to naming and how you name your company, which is the number one mistake that contractors make make when they start their company is what they name it.
Right. So I would just say for those guys, read the book. It'll teach you about branding. Even if you can't invest in a company like ours, you will at least go into the process knowing what to look for, how branding should work and how it should function. So the more you can be educated on how it works, the psychology behind it, who your audience is, how to do competitive analysis, like, it'll give you a great, great roadmap to follow if you don't have the budget to have someone help you with it.
And then as far as existing companies, I always like to say, look at your branding, look at your truck, and if you can look at those assets, your website, all those assets that contain your branding, and you could honestly look at it and say, this represents who we are today and where we want to go in the future, then keep it and don't change it. But if it represents the company that you were five years ago and no longer represents the level of service that you provide and the amount of care and craftsmanship that you put into your work and also where you think you want to head, then I think that that's time to give a serious look at the brand and say, you know what, this was good when we started or for, you know, or years ago, but this isn't who we are today. And more importantly, it's not where we want to go later on. It's like you look at Tommy Melo who had us rebrand his company at 30 million in revenue and most guys at 30 million in revenue aren't saying, oh, my brand sucks and my brand's not going to take me to where we want to go. But that's what he understood.
And he knew that his brand had ceased from representing what they were actually providing on a daily basis. And so we rebranded him at 30 million and I think five or six years later, he's pushing 300 million. Right. You know, and we fixed the fundamental flaws that were in the actual brand as far as what it was communicating to the people he was trying to sell. Once we did that, then, you know, recruitment got easier.
Average tickets went up. Like all the KPIs that he's always so focused on, on were impacted by, by that. So that's, to me, I think, the best advice. I think that's sometimes a hard thing to look at yourself objectively as an owner, because I like to say that existing brands are like a warm blanket to the owner. They're like, oh, well, this got me here.
Why would I ever want to change it? And I'm like, it got you here. Which is amazing because sometimes I look at these brands that are awful and I say, oh, my God, you got to this with that. Like, that's amazing. Like, that tells me that you have operations that styled in.
That tells me that you're running a great company. But imagine where you could have been if you had the foundation better. Imagine how much less you need to spend on marketing, how more effective the marketing would be, those types of things. So give yourself, give it an honest look. Like, we actually have a thing on our website if anyone wants to check it out.
It's. It's actually. Yeah. Give everybody all of your contact info and details. It's an interactive thing.
Get hold of you, et cetera. com, you can literally take an interactive questionnaire on your own brand. There's 10 criteria, there's a video that explains each criteria, and then you rate yourself and then it'll give you a score at the end. And it's kind of like a self assessment if you wanted to do that. But I think that's the hardest thing for an owner is to look at their brand and to say it no longer represents us.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. What got you here won't get you there. Yeah. So I'm going to add to this because it's something I actually learned from you when I read your book is. And for everybody out there, also, give yourself the, the supply house test.
Park your van at the Dock at the supply house and, but don't just go in, walk out into the parking lot and look across all the vans and then ask yourself, does mine stand out? Yeah. Or does it look like all the rest? Absolutely. And that, that's also a great in the moment real time test of is this the purple cow or is it white van syndrome?
And it's clear as day the second that we pull our jaded glasses off and look at it for what it really is and slap ourselves in the face with reality. So love it, love it, love it. That's a valuable tool. So that was one more time with that site. Spark Test.
com Perfect. I'll make sure for everybody listening, those are, I'm going to have that link in the show notes. So make sure to go, go click that link. And for anybody that's listening, that wants to connect to kick charge to have a conversation about branding and what that might look well. So actually let's do this two different ways about branding and or digital marketing.
Because it sounds like you'll do that side of things even if they haven't branded as well. Correct? Yes. Okay. So I want to make sure there's not, it's not gatekeeping kept to just strictly companies that you have done branding for.
So unpack that for us super quick too. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, if we've done your branding, we know that the digital marketing will be more effective, but you may have a great brand already and we're happy to work with you either way. So if we can do one or the other, we're happy with either. Okay, perfect.
So, and how do they get in touch? com and, and request a code or they can reach out to me on Facebook and send me a message. I'm happy to help there. And even if you have people that just, hey, you know what? I've got this truck wrap or I've got this brand, like what do you think of it?
Is there anything I could improve upon it? Not everyone can be a kickcharge client and that's okay. But if I can help someone like with their truck or I can just give them some feedback and say, hey, next time with the next truck, maybe move this over here or make this bigger. Delete this off of the. Or just give some quick feedback for them to make the truck more effective or their logo more effective.
I'm happy to do that too. Love it. That's one thing I've always appreciate about you is you've given value, give value, give value. And that resonates and it speaks volumes to who you are as your character. Thank you, man.
Thanks for being on the show. This has been fun and for everybody listening, I hope you got some value today. And if you have, I would love for you to go leave me a five star review on Google Search. Close it now on Google. It'll come right up.
And also Apple podcasts. The more and better reviews that the show gets, the better guests that we can have on the show. Because I don't know if you knew this, but a lot of times when I'm in conversations with authors and speakers and different things, one of the things that people look at is how does this show rate so the higher it rates, the better guests we can get. As well as if you leave a review and I read it on the show and you hear it, you will have earned yourself a free one hour coaching session. And no one has left one of those that has not had a massive breakthrough and immediately gone out and increased their numbers.
So that is my offer for everybody. That leaves me a five star review and I read it. All right, man, well, thanks for being on. We're going to land this plane and we will talk soon, my friend. For everybody listening, you go be someone worth buying from.
You've been listening to the Close it now podcast. Our passion is to dive headfirst into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of HVAC and home improvement and at the same time covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you did, make sure to like rate and review. net find us on Instagram @thereal closeitnow and on Facebook closeitnow.
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