247 Generating Quality Referral Leads Online - Logan Shinholser Dec 11 2024

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello everybody, and welcome to today's episode of The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.

Greg Bray: And we're excited to have joining us today on the show, Logan Shinholser. Logan is the president of Contractor Growth Network. Welcome, Logan. Thanks for being with us.

Logan Shinholser: Thank you for having me, guys.

Greg Bray: Well, Logan, let's start off and just get to know you a little bit. Give us that quick background and tell us a little bit about yourself.

Logan Shinholser: Sure. So, about 10 years ago at this point, my dad's a contractor, not a home builder, but he's in the, or was in the pond and water feature [00:01:00] space. What was happening was he had a local marketing company. They just weren't really producing results for him. They weren't niched down. It was just a general marketing thing.

I remember I just graduated college, and he said to me, look, Logan, I got this marketing company. It's not working out. If I'm going to waste money on marketing, I might as well waste it on my own son. Do you want to try this marketing thing? And I was like, I got a Facebook page, Dad. And like, I didn't even have an Instagram account at the time. This is like 2014. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'll see what I can do.

I took over his marketing and three years later, after doing that consistently, it was working so well that his other buddies, who are also contractors, reached out to me and said, Hey, I see what you're doing for your dad. I see it's working. Can you do the same thing for me? And my dad's whole thing at the time was Logan, I just want you to make my phone ring with people that actually know what it looks like to work with me.

Because he was twice the price as all of his competitors, but he was paying the guys a lot more money. You know, this is D.C. 10 years ago. Like, guys are making a hundred grand a year. [00:02:00] Like it's pretty good salaries, but everybody was walking up to the homeowner, shaking their hand. It was a great experience. And he was like, we do all this great stuff and people just don't know it. Make sure they know it and call me.

That's really the whole methodology of what we took back then. After the three-year period and people started to reach out to me, that's when I started Contractor Growth Network. For over the past seven years, what's funny is we've tested all these different things, but at the heart of it and what we do now and what still works is really showing what it looks like to work with a client of ours by just really highlighting, through content and doing it in the right way, this is what you're going to get if you hire this person.

So, we do it through strategy, websites, SEO, Google ads, all that stuff. But the whole premise is there's no gimmicks. There's no tricks. There's no hacks. It's really just, we're going to take the best parts about what it looks like to work with you and the transformation you make in somebody's home and put it up online for everybody to see. So, that's in a nutshell, how I got into it and what we do.

Kevin Weitzel: All right, Logan, before we [00:03:00] dive even more into that, we need an interesting factoid about yourself that has nothing to do with the home building industry, nothing to do with work, and nothing to do with family. What do you got?

Logan Shinholser: So, I used to be a high diver at SeaWorld in a dolphin show.

Kevin Weitzel: Oh! On those tiny little stick platforms where there's only like a four-inch little rung to hang on to?

Logan Shinholser: So, that was SeaWorld of 1980. This was SeaWorld of 20...

Greg Bray: OSHA got involved and made it safer.

Logan Shinholser: This was later on. But no, it was like a 7, 8-meter platform that I would jump onto a trampoline. I was a diver in college, actually. So, springboard platform was like my jam and then when I got out of college, did that for a little bit out at SeaWorld San Diego before Blackfish, whatever the, uh, the documentary that talked about like whales in captivity at SeaWorld.

That like took the whole SeaWorld down and I just happened to be there at the time. So, that was actually the first job I ever got laid off from. The park was losing so much money, they started cutting all the shows, and now it's just an aquarium, but yeah, it was a high diver at a dolphin show at [00:04:00] SeaWorld.

Kevin Weitzel: The funny thing is that, of all things to cut, the human contingency is what they should have kept going. Like circuses, they used to have animal acts, and now they've dumped all the animals, now it's just the stupid human tricks. So, you could have had, you know, Logan just diving off a platform.

Logan Shinholser: But the cost for the animals was still there. What was interesting is at this point, it was a dolphin show, so we talked to all the dolphin trainers. They were like, look, everybody's mad at SeaWorld from 30 years ago because they were capturing the whales and bringing them in.

Now they're treated really well, like it's the same as an aquarium but the PR side of everything just was so much that I would go to work and I'm there just to dive and I'm like going past people that are like picketing out front. And I'm like, look, I'm with you. I didn't like SeaWorld back then either, but.

Kevin Weitzel: I have one last question for you. Since you said you dove for school. What school did you go to?

Logan Shinholser: I went to Virginia Tech.

Kevin Weitzel: Virginia Tech. What's the mascot for that school? I don't know that.

Logan Shinholser: It's a Hokie.

Kevin Weitzel: Oh, Hokie. Okay. I did know that actually. I just never knew what a Hokie was. Anyway, so since you were a diver, what is the purpose of that [00:05:00] itty bitty like little micro towel that they carry up to the diving board and then they just toss it indiscriminately off to the side? What the heck is that stupid towel for?

Logan Shinholser: That towel is called a shammy. What a shammy does is when you dive, because you're wet, when you spin and you like grab onto your like legs to tuck and to rotate in the air, it's very slippery and if you slip off of your legs in the dive, you'll then end up smacking. So, what that towel does is it is a super absorbent towel that will dry your legs off very easily.

So, what you'll do is, there's a whole superstition. It's kind of like shooting a free throw or a pitcher where like they kind of have like their way that they approach the mound and have their own like little ticks. Everybody would have their own tick when it came to the shammy of like you knew what your perfect level of like how wet your legs should be to make it like as sticky as possible.

So, everybody had their own little routine, and some people brought their shammy all the way up and then threw it right before they dove and other people just left it on the ground the whole time. So, it's just to keep your legs dry is [00:06:00] really what it was.

Kevin Weitzel: We now know more than we ever thought we'd know, Greg.

Greg Bray: That's true. And our listeners are in awe, Kevin, of your ability to pull out the useful information from our guests that they've all wanted to know.

Kevin Weitzel: Hey, I dabble in a little bit of everything. Mainly just because it's always driven me nuts. Well, because I'm an Olympian. I love watching the Olympics, winter, summer, para, it doesn't really matter what it is. But, uh, it's always driven me nuts that they take that tiny little shammy up there and then they just toss it. Like, I don't need this anymore. Bye bye.

Logan Shinholser: Yeah, the worst is when you would, uh, be up there and you would toss it and it accidentally would go into the pool. Because the goal would obviously not get into the pool, but then you're up there and you're like, oh, shoot, if I jump in, I see it because diving is very visual where you want to like spot the water, that can throw you off. It's like seeing, I don't know, your free throw again. There's somebody over the side of the hoop trying to like distract you. It's the same thing. So, it was kind of an art and a science to throwing your shammy down.

Greg Bray: Well, Logan, let's dive into some marketing conversations.

Logan Shinholser: That's pretty good.

Kevin Weitzel: Let's art and [00:07:00] science the contractor side of this thing.

Logan Shinholser: When you're talking about like the size, what is that tiny little thing? I thought you were going to ask me about Speedos. So, I was ready to answer that one.

Greg Bray: This is a family show. This is a family show, so. Well, Logan, tell us just a little bit more about your agency, Contractor Growth Network, and how you approach a new client with what you offer them today. You mentioned a little bit about it, but just take us a little deeper there.

Logan Shinholser: Sure. So, let's say somebody is, I build really nice custom-built homes. We're design build. Everything's word of mouth or referrals or it's offline. I want to get more leads. Our whole premise is we want to help you create and generate referral-quality leads online. When we talk about the benefit of referrals and why everybody loves them is it's really three things associated with it.

The first one is somebody is in the space. They can actually like look and see the craftsmanship and they get excited by actually being able to like touch the actual material and things like that. So, the first piece of why referrals work is they're in the space and they go, wow, this is beautiful. I would love something like this.

The second piece [00:08:00] is they're talking to somebody that lives in that home that they're good friends with. So, there's a whole trust component of I actually trust that the person that I'm asking these questions about how was it working with them, what was the process like, I actually believe them.

And the last piece is they kind of know ballpark pricing. Like, if you're gonna get a referral from somebody, you're typically gonna say, hey, if you don't mind me asking, what did this cost generally? Because the last thing that you want to do is reach out and say hey, I want to build a home just like this. My budget is 200 grand and your friend forgot to mention it was 2 million.

So, those are the three basic components of what makes a referral such a good lead for everybody. And we'd like to take that and put it online. So, the whole point of what we do is we come out and we will shoot all this media. So, we create these mini testimonial videos that is able to articulate those three things and show the craftsmanship and the beauty of the space that somebody just built.

And we are highlighting the process of what it looked like to get the project done and we're making, it's a testimonial from a homeowner. We're letting them romanticize so the [00:09:00] person who's listening is like, wow, I can feel the passion. Like, I would trust this person and then we make sure that they talk about like some logistics and things like that. And then from there, we build everything around it.

We make sure the website has pages dedicated to that. We build out social content. We run ads around that to the different neighborhoods in the area that they want to get their stuff on display more. So essentially it's a media-first approach of really highlighting this is what it looks like to work with me.

Kevin Weitzel: How often do you have a contractor that wants to get out some of the intangibles? Like you can look at how good a countertop looks. But nobody really knows how plumb a wall is. I mean, how, how often do you have a contractor that builds walls or the frames that says our walls are the plumbiest? How often does that happen?

Logan Shinholser: Every single one wants that. There's such a small market of people that that's the first thing that they want is, Hey, like that was a great house, but the foundation of the house, that's what really stood out to me. That's not what sells initially.

Think about a car commercial. They don't lead off with the mechanics of the car. They lead off with [00:10:00] how attractive it is, and when you're in that car, the status that's associated with it. So, all that stuff is important, but what most people do is they lead with the facts and the things that people don't really care that much about until they're bought into the idea.

It's the same way that most of our clients, they're like, Oh, if people just knew my process, everybody would buy. And I'm like, well, yeah, if they're convinced that they want to spend $150,000 on a new kitchen, then your process makes sense. But you could have the best process in the world, if they're not bought into spending money on a kitchen renovation it doesn't matter how great you are, they're not going to buy from you.

So, we always focus on what the actual consumer is hiring you for, and at the end of the day, that's a transformation of their space. Whether it's a new home, a new kitchen, a new pond. That's the big emphasis, way more than look how sturdy this house is because we use this type of framing material, things like that. So, go for the sexiness first, and then you can back it up with all the logical [00:11:00] pieces of this actually is why this works so well.

Greg Bray: So, Logan, I think you are kind of touching on something that I think is really interesting. When you think about like production home builders that are building communities and they've got model homes and things that they can show, they've got an advantage because there's a tangible thing there that the buyer can go look at. Even if it's online first, they still have the opportunity to show them something.

When you deal with custom builders, remodelers, the folks that are creating unique one-off projects, that don't exist anywhere else, you have to sell them trust first before you can sell them what you're actually going to do. And I think what you've described is trust building. You talked about referrals, right? That's a trust-building activity.

Do you find that the builders and remodelers that you work with and other contractors, do they get that, that they're selling trust, or is that something you have to teach them first to help them understand that before you talk about this, they have to believe you're the person they really want to work with?

Logan Shinholser: Before we sell trust, we have to sell [00:12:00] excitement. Trust comes afterward. But nobody's going to buy unless they're in a very high emotional state. And it's different for different industries. So, home building, remodeling, anything that's not an emergency service, nobody just wakes up and goes, ah, this is just such a bland kitchen. I got 100 grand sitting in the bank. I got to do something with it today, it might as well be the kitchen. It doesn't work like that.

Versus somebody whose pipe burst in their house. The emotion is it's a negative one, but it's so high that they don't care which plumber is the one that can help them. It's whoever can get there first. So, we always highlight, look, you have to first get people excited to actually want to do this project. Whether it's with you or somebody else, the first sale is not a sale of you should hire Logan. The first sale is you should get your kitchen remodeled and everything we do from a content perspective is geared around that first thing. Because it doesn't matter how much you like Logan, if you don't really want to get your kitchen remodeled, it doesn't matter. We have to get you excited.

So, when we build a website or we do video or whatever it is, our goal is not to say, [00:13:00] Hey, this is why you want to hire me to do your kitchen versus somebody up the road. It's this is why you want to spend the money on a new kitchen instead of five trips to Disney World with your family. That's really what we emphasize first.

And from that, then we can go into the trust-building stuff of, Hey, this is how long we've been in business. This is our process. This is what our warranty looks like. This is why we do design build, all that stuff. But none of it matters if they are not excited to actually do whatever the project is in the first place. So, that's the big educational piece that we have to do upfront.

Because people know, trust, yeah, you know, that's how referrals work and online doesn't because the referrals trust me, online doesn't, and it's like, no, no, no. It's because the referral is in the space and they can see how beautiful it is. And that's when you're talking about like Ryan Homes. Like you can go in there and actually see it. So, you know, yes, you get a house that's sturdy, but you're already in there.

So, like the excitement comes from, we could buy this thing and move in next month. That's the excitement because now you're starting to see my [00:14:00] kid's room is there. My other kid's room is there and we can have these amazing Christmas dinners right here in our living room. That's what's actually happening when they're walking through the home is the excitement is building. That's what we want to replicate online.

Greg Bray: No, I love the way you phrase that. That makes a lot of sense. It's all interconnected too, right? It's not like the content only does one thing or the other. There's a lot of mutual working on all that together. When you start with somebody new and you give them some of these ideas, what is it that starts to get in their way? Because everybody goes, Oh, yes, it makes a lot of sense, but then they actually have to execute. What are some of the roadblocks that slow somebody down from maybe creating some of this content?

Logan Shinholser: So, the first off is they want to do it themselves. We advise against it. At the heart of it, like we are known for websites. We've done probably six, 700 of them at this point. And I would say before you get a website, go hire a professional photographer in your area to make your projects look beautiful. It makes the website that much better. Realistically, a lot of people like they'll build great stuff [00:15:00] and it looks awesome. And then, they take a photo where it's 90 percent done, but there's a paint can still there. They haven't put up anything on the walls yet, so it looks bare.

Imagine trying to sell a car that it's all done, except for they haven't painted it yet and it just still looks like a car that's not done yet. And then, you're trying to tell people, Hey, trust me. You're going to like this when it's done. We just haven't taken the time to then go back and get nice photos of it that gets you excited. So, the biggest issue is they just try to do it themselves and don't actually make their projects look good, which will then excite people.

Kevin Weitzel: I love flowing things back to the motorcycle and automobile industry. In a Harley dealership, did you know that all the salespeople walk around with a little microfiber towel and why do they walk around the microfiber towel? Because if they're not selling, they're polishing. In a Harley Davidson shop, there's so much chrome. You just constantly keep the chrome shiny and gleaming. That's, in essence, your paint can. Get the paint can out of there, get the smudges, the fingerprints off of there. [00:16:00] It's all about that final look so you can envision and be emotionally connected to you seeing yourself on that motorcycle. Same thing with that home and that kitchen that gets remodeled.

Logan Shinholser: The automotive industry is great for this because I use a lot of these same analogies as well. It's super helpful. But it's like people like well, they like me for me and all this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but like essentially you're saying you should buy this Lexus because I'm a trustworthy salesperson. But they don't need the Lexus. You need to sell the Lexus first, which will then inadvertently help you out big time. So, I mean you could be a really good-looking person and everybody wants to come buy from you, but at the end of the day they're buying the Harley that looks amazing. That's where the polish comes in. So, that's like the biggest thing we talk to people about.

If we're not going to come out and do video for them, then we'll connect them with like a local person that just does good interior design photography. Because there is a difference between the real estate photographer that's going to show you the wide angle that's like, Hey, this is a room just so you understand this as a room. Versus the interior designer that's going to get the closeup [00:17:00] shots that actually shows the finishes and they have the framing correct and things like that. So, there's a lot of little elements that go into it.

Really, if you want to like see how to make your projects look beautiful. Just go follow on Instagram, Restoration Hardware or a West Elm or these furniture companies where they're selling furniture, but what they're really selling is the entire room that the furniture just happens to be in. They do an amazing job of really showing the beauty behind it. And as a result of that, you end up buying that $5,000 couch. So, I just tell all of our clients, go follow these different accounts. It's all interior design stuff, but that's really what people are buying. They're not buying how structurally sound this kitchen is. They are afterwards, but the first thing they're buying is the excitement piece, which these companies do so well.

Greg Bray: So, Logan, you talked about great photography. You've talked about video. What about the writing and the text content? How does that kind of tie in together in your opinion to tell [00:18:00] the story?

Logan Shinholser: Yeah, so the writing components of all this stuff, it's still super, super important. Like the blogging, all of that still needs to happen because there's different mediums in which everybody's going to learn their stuff. Some people like to scroll on social media. Other people are more old school and they just want to read stuff physically. So, the actual physical writing stuff needs to still happen on websites to actually explain what's going on.

Because let's just say all you have are photos. Well, if you're missing the story component of the photos, the photos look good, but you have no background into who is buying this kitchen. What is their backstory? Because the more that we can write and explain what the story and who the clients are, and the better we can do that, the more that the audience is gonna connect with, oh wow, that sounds just like me. We also have a family of four and we also, you know, have a kitchen that's too small.

Now they're way more likely to get bought in. So, all the writing components still have a place in it. It's now all just becoming because media is so big and especially in [00:19:00] the aesthetically pleasing industries, home building, landscaping, remodeling stuff like that. You need both. You need the photos to show this is what life can look like, but you need the copy in the words to actually explain what's going on. And then, you know, on the flip side, you've got blogs that really help build up all the authority pieces in the eyes of Google. So, you still need all of it. It's not this or that it's collectively all.

Greg Bray: How often do we need to be updating this content, right? Is it a one-time set up and then we've got it or do you feel like gosh you need something new every week, every month? What's kind of your cadence that you recommend?

Logan Shinholser: Yeah, I mean, as much as possible as long as it's quality. From let's say like a media perspective, like photos and videos, you really want your staple projects. Think about like a portfolio book like back old school. You just go out. You just show You know, these are the projects that I can do stuff like that. You wouldn't be updating that every single day, but you know you're gonna have a half a dozen to a dozen really good projects [00:20:00] that can show off your full skill set and you can also you know explain the backstories to it. That's going to be huge.

On the blog side, that's a whole two-hour conversation around like looking and seeing what needs to be updated because sometimes you need to update the whole blog. Sometimes you need to just update a few little elements here or there, you know, based on what going to get us back to the top of Google. So, relevant topical, really timely content is always gonna be better.

We have people that they'll say, oh, I got photos from my website, take 'em. And I'm like, these are from 20 years ago. And they're like, yeah, but they're professionally shot. And I'm like, that's 20 years ago style. Imagine if I had a 20-year-old phone, or the car I was trying to sell you was, you know, I was like, Hey, I got a new Lamborghini, but here's a 20-year-old one. It wouldn't make sense.

So, with certain things, especially if it's trendy, you want the latest and greatest, updating content for blogs and copy and stuff, that's going to be a lot more of a quicker turnaround just because the landscape changes so much. So, it's kind of hard to pinpoint and say, this is how much, but the end of the day, it's however often you can, that it's still [00:21:00] quality stuff versus just updating for the sake of updating.

Kevin Weitzel: Carl, the guy you have in the images that you just provided for me to put on your website. He's wearing bell bottoms. These pictures are old, buddy.

Logan Shinholser: Yeah, it's, it's, um, yeah, what's worse is when they have like the time stamp in the bottom right corner, like on the old school photos and I'm like.

Kevin Weitzel: Orange timestamp from like 2001.

Logan Shinholser: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we get those. We get those and I'm like, are you selling 20-year-old kitchens? It was like, no. And I'm like, well, that's what I'm seeing. And I learned this because like in the pond world, when you finish a pond, there's a lot of dirt and stuff and all the gravel that you put in. So, what ends up happening is you need to run the waterfall. And after about four or five days, all the the dirt will start to get filtered out and you're good.

Well with my dad's company, they were like Logan, we're already on the next job at that point so here's the final photo that we took, and I'm like, yeah, but you took this when you finished the job. It's brown water. I was like, so it looks like we're selling ponds with brown water. So, if you want I can put a disclaimer and say hey, we [00:22:00] know that the water is brown, but we didn't want to get back out there because there's a pain in our butt to take a photo of what you're actually buying. So, take our word for it, in four or five days, this will look great.

I was like, or we can get back out there in four or five days. And that's what they ended up doing was they hired somebody else that would just come back in after them and take the photos and it look beautiful. But otherwise, it's the same thing as getting the project to 90%, taking a photo and putting it up there and saying, just imagine what it could look like if we actually taken the time to come back when it was completed. So, the images are so important.

Kevin Weitzel: So, you're going to stay in there and tell me, Logan, that a plumber or a framer or a landscape installer isn't also a professional photographer?

Logan Shinholser: Typically not.

Kevin Weitzel: Oh, okay. Okay.

Logan Shinholser: Typically not.

Kevin Weitzel: Home builders seem to think that that's the case too.

Logan Shinholser: Think about, let's say, a home service company. Home service, you don't need to show like, look how beautiful this generator looks. They're not hiring you for the aesthetic of it. They're hiring you for the security and the safety of the technician coming out, that the job's going to get done correctly. So, depending on what industry you're [00:23:00] in, if it's more design-build, that's going to be a different marketing approach compared to external remodeling, which is siding, windows, roofing compared to home service. Each of those has a different lead-in.

The home building and remodeling one, that's excitement. The exterior remodeling one, that's all education. Hey, did you know that every, you know, six to eight years, you gotta get your siding repainted, otherwise this is what happens. And then home service is different because Mother Nature kinda does all the heavy lifting for you, where it's four degrees out, your heater went down, you got to get somebody out there now. Who's going to be the most reliable to get out there?

So, there's different entry points for each of the different types of contractors out there. But the more design-build that you are, and the more that you're selling something visually appealing, the more that it has to be visually appealing upfront.

Greg Bray: Logan, I think, though, one of the things I'm hearing you recommend is the fact that thinking about the marketing needs to become part of the production process, and needs to be something that [00:24:00] is on the schedule, right? It's not something that should just be an afterthought or let's hire this photographer once every three years, you know, to come do a couple of photo shoots. But rather, four days after, you know, completion milestone a photographer is assigned to show up and do his thing, right, or at whatever the right time is for the given job so that you have the consistent flow of new content coming through along with each project that you're working on. Is that what I'm hearing?

Logan Shinholser: Yeah. There's a guy named Nick Schiffer who owns NS Builders and they do beautiful stuff up in Massachusetts. I was talking to him and he was like, I actually think through when I'm actually doing a project, how is this going to look on Instagram? And he was giving me this like very specific example of like how the tile on the floor was like be laid.

And he was like, it was going to look weird with how the door was centered on it. So, I had them shift everything a little bit because I knew on Instagram, it would look way better this way. And then as a result, it looks way better in person as well. So, [00:25:00] he took it as a, Hey, if I'm going to do this thing, how is this going to look online and it actually makes a much better product in as well.

And that's kind of like how people like who are big on YouTube, like Mr. Beast and stuff like that, they think through upfront, like, Hey, I need this thumbnail. What are people going to click on, and what are, I actually want to get people to see to want to watch this video and then you build the video off of that. Versus like, Hey, we're going to build this video and then we're going to hope that we can figure out a thumbnail to get people to click on it.

So, there's different ways to approach it. But if you're looking at this as what I'm doing is art and I want to showcase it as art, you will end up building it in a very different way that is not going to take that much more time, but it's going to come out that much better because now you're realizing this thing's going to be kind of put under a microscope with these closeup photographs. Let me build it in a way that looked great.

I don't think you have to come out with a professional photographer at each of the different phases and like, all right, like, the rough and plumbing is done. Get the guy back out here. Like it doesn't have to be that. [00:26:00] The final shots should be professional, but along the way, like if you want to tell the full story of like the beginning and then all like the during and then the end, you just want to get photos of that. But realistically what we talk about is if you're going to take 10 photos total, make sure seven of them are the after shots, two of them in the beginning, and one is a during and that's it. So, everybody really, they don't care about the process as much. They care about the end result. That's what they want.

Greg Bray: When you look back, Logan, you mentioned that you kind of started because your dad said, I might as well waste my money on my son instead of somebody else. Right? Which is real vote of confidence and in a very fatherly kind of way.

But as you got started with that, and we're kind of figuring some of it out, when did you kind of have the aha moment or what kind of triggered and said, okay, this is what's working and where we should start to systematize how we move forward with this? Do you have kind of a moment where you started to go, oh, now I'm seeing how it ties together?

Logan Shinholser: Yeah. So, we've always been really big in like the website and SEO world. Like that was our [00:27:00] bread and butter and tried a bunch of other different activity services and they didn't go as well. What we then ended up doing was we were on a flight coming back from a conference a few years back, and we're going through lifetime value of clients, and what we realized was the clients that had spent the most amount of money with CGN also were the ones that had been the longest with us for SEO also had the best results and also happened to be the clients that we just ala cart flew out and did some video for just cause they asked.

And we realized, wow, this video stuff actually does make a difference from an overall brand perspective. It also helps CGN because when we're out there in their space and we're able to see them, you know, as digital marketing, we're usually behind a curtain. Half the time, we never meet the client. Now we're actually out there. And if they're going to fire us, they're also going to fire their friend, Logan.

So, it kind of get them some personal buy in and then that's when we're like, well, screw it. If we realize that the clients that we've actually flown out and done video for have the best results [00:28:00] and it's because the video stuff really impacts how their SEO goes, let's start to do this with more SEO clients. And then that started to kind of springboard this everybody wants us to come out and do video. And then as a result, that's when we started to have people that are like, Hey, we're doing these videos and these photos and the way that you guys are building these sites, clients are like saying, Hey, I watched every video that we have on your site. I moved forward because of that.

And that's when it all started to really like, be like, okay, I think we're onto something. And the last final straw was when my wife and I remodeled our home about a year and some change ago, I was watching how she was navigating hiring a remodeling company. And what I was seeing was she would go on somebody's website and then it wasn't like she would go, Hmm, this person doesn't look great. Let me go find somebody cheaper.

It got to the point where she kept going, ah, it doesn't look great. Let's go to the next one. I'm not excited. Let's go to the next one. And then eventually she was like, you know what? Let's just push this project off, like, we'll just do it later. No big deal. And that's what I was like, wow, she has to actually be excited around this stuff to like, want to do it because it's [00:29:00] not that she's just going to go, whoa, if I'm going to be bored with my project, at the end of it, I might as well go with the cheaper person.

It was more of like, she's just not going to do it at all and just is going to delay it. So, what we build cannot just be, Hey, we are better than the people around us. Hire us. It has to be, this is why you actually want this thing done in your home. So, it was very helpful for me to watch her navigate that. And then as we started to then reframe what we did to make people more excited, that's when it really started to like pick up of like, wow, we're actually like, this is building some beautiful stuff, and we were able to look at the whole marketing approach very differently because of that.

Greg Bray: Well, Logan, you've covered a lot of ground for us today, and we appreciate that. And as we kind of wrap up, do you have any last thoughts or words of advice you'd like to leave with our listeners today?

Logan Shinholser: Just make your stuff look beautiful. Think about how much time and energy and effort you are putting into building a home, and then just to walk away with a Motorola Razr photo. You just win the Super Bowl, and you walk away with a high five, and like, they just give you like a stick of [00:30:00] gum, and they're like, great job, we'll see you next year. You spent all this time and energy and effort to do it, build it into the budget, for a thousand bucks, to get a photographer out there.

Because like, when we do this stuff for clients on their websites like we'll build a page specific to a project of theirs and, and all this stuff, they'll be like, when you're in the grind, you just kind of get beat down all the time. It was nice to stop and actually look at our work positioned in a way that it makes me proud of what we're doing. So, take the time, make your stuff look beautiful.

My other favorite example analogy-wise is weight loss. If you just lost 300 pounds, go get yourself professionally shot or at least see the before and after in a really nice way because you will be proud of what you just did. So, that would be my biggest thing is just make sure your stuff looks beautiful because you put all this energy into it, the last thing you want to do is walk away to the next project.

Kevin Weitzel: I'm hiring a photographer, and I'm just going to tell them one simple phrase, make me look beautiful.

Logan Shinholser: That's all it is. Don't go out and win the Super Bowl and then put the trophy on this dusty old mantle and make it look great. [00:31:00]

Greg Bray: Oh, Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. I'm not going to touch that one. All right. Well, Logan, if somebody wants to connect with you and reach out, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Logan Shinholser: Yeah. Our website is contractorgrowthnetwork.com. You can go there and learn more about what we do. Check out some case studies and see some of those videos that I'm talking about.

Greg Bray: Well, thanks again, Logan, for spending time with us today and sharing, and thank you everybody for listening to The Home Builder Digital Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you. [00:32:00]