Scaling Your Business with Facebook Ads

[TRANSCRIPT]

0:00:03 - (Jared Erni): This is the For Impact podcast, the destination for impact driven entrepreneurs striving to live life on their terms and create a ripple effect of positive impact in the communities they serve. Where we put your success stories center stage, dissecting the lessons learned, and sharing insights and ideas that will help you amplify your impact. And now, here's your host, Jared Ernie.

0:00:33 - (Jared Erni): All right, welcome, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome Brandon Guthrie, the founder of Dream Design Labs. He runs a digital marketing agency that helps kingdom driven residential contractors scale from to seven eight, nine figure businesses, empowering them with the influence they need to make a positive impact in the communities that they serve. He's the recipient of the two Comma X Club Award from ClickFunnels, an award that's given to those who drive 10 million in revenue from a single marketing funnel.

0:01:00 - (Jared Erni): Additionally, Brandon is the host of the Christian Contractors Podcast, and today, Brandon is joining us to share some of his journey, lessons learned and advice. So it's great to have you on the show, Brandon.

0:01:12 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yes, thank you once again, man. Really appreciate you having me on. I'm blessed and honored to be here. I know you've built a really awesome platform and just pumped to connect with you and your audience. And like I said, bring value and serve and help each other out.

0:01:26 - (Jared Erni): Well, so we had some tech issues earlier and that caused us to go into having to retell this story, but I think this is a really interesting story that you shared. Can you tell us a little bit about that story that you shared with us earlier? What got you into this journey of being an entrepreneur and how did you really get started?

0:01:46 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, man, for sure. So I was born in Huntington Beach, California, and I grew up racing motocross. And I thought that was going to be my life. I was going to be a professional athlete, and I also was raised as a Christian kingdom, god fearing man, kingdom driven man. And I believe that that was going to be my platform to be able to glorify God's name is through being a professional athlete. And I was definitely getting up through the ranks and really up to just scratching the surface of next step, being televised professional races.

0:02:21 - (Brandon Guthrie): And then the worst happened. And, of course, I was racing the world famous Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, California. And I crashed. I got knocked out. I was unresponsive. I had to actually had to get helicoptered out of the track. They flew me. They rushed me to the hospital. They induced me into a coma. I was in a coma for five days, and I was in the hospital for two months with physical therapy, learning how to walk and talk and just do basic functions again.

0:02:51 - (Brandon Guthrie): So I went from these high aspirations of being a professional athlete to hitting rock bottom and just being lucky if I would be able to be a normal person again. I was really self conscious because I had short term memory loss. And I remember the physical therapist had me try to throw a little kitty ball into a basketball hoop, and I couldn't do it. It was like my body wasn't speaking to itself properly, and it was crazy. And I was in hospital for two months, house arrest after that for a month because I had a high likelihood of having seizures, and the doctor said I couldn't ride for a year, minimum.

0:03:28 - (Brandon Guthrie): Okay? So what I did was naturally, one thing I did learn through athletics was perseverance and dedication. So I definitely was not down in the dumps mentally. I was there for a minute, but I picked myself back up and I persevered. And what I did on my downtime when I was not on the bike is I picked up a video camera and went to the track anyways, but this time without a bike, and interviewed the professional racers. I learned HTML and CSS.

0:03:55 - (Brandon Guthrie): I built a website. I put the interviews on the website, and I put Google AdSense because I knew you could get paid from the visits, and then people would watch the interviews. And I actually got paid from Google for traffic. And then someone saw my they saw my website, and they were like, hey, could you build me a website? I was like, yeah, sure. I was like, yeah, I could do that. And they're like, Cool, I got $300. Is that good? I was like, yeah, that's a lot of money. Let's go.

0:04:23 - (Brandon Guthrie): And so my 1st $300 website client I had was right there. And then and then really from there, fast forward to today. Obviously, we landed the two Common Club Award in 2022, common X Club Award in 2021, and now this year, excited to be applying and submitting for the $25 million award, which is very exciting. But it wasn't easy going through the journey. At first, I made it all about myself and all the cool things that I could do for myself about making money and the Lamborghinis and the mansions and the lifestyle.

0:05:00 - (Brandon Guthrie): And that's how I started off my entrepreneurial journey, thinking I was going to be able to make all this money and do all these cool things, serve myself. And basically, I fell flat on my face. I was evicted from my then apartment, had to move back into my parents spare bedroom. It was humiliating, embarrassing. It seared into my soul, burned my soul. I love my parents, and I'm very thankful. But as a man, I was like, I was dying on the inside that I had to move back in with my parents.

0:05:30 - (Brandon Guthrie): And it was because I was making all about myself. And that's when at rock bottom, I learned two things. One, I needed to market myself out of this hole, and two, I needed to get my life right with God. And start serving others instead of making it all about myself. And I flipped the script and once I turned it and made it all about serving others, first and foremost, that's when everything started to work.

0:05:50 - (Brandon Guthrie): And obviously there's a lot of details in the middle that made it all work and moving forward into the future. For us, the movement is that we just want to create abundance to serve ourselves, our families, but also the world around us. So we're very passionate about being the hands and feet of Jesus throughout the world and doing missionary work that's funded through the revenue that we generate. So actually, in two weeks from today, we're going to Latin America to build our first home for the homeless as a company.

0:06:21 - (Brandon Guthrie): So that's going to be really we're the whole team, some of the key players from the team are going out there and we're going to build homes for the homeless. And I know the scripture that talks about don't show the left hand what the right hand is doing. And we definitely have our things that we do in private. But there's also a scripture that talks about don't put a light under a basket. You want to put on a lampstand where it can light the room.

0:06:46 - (Brandon Guthrie): So for us, that's our light in our lampstand. We want to show what can happen when we put God first. We're able to create millions of dollars, but not for ourselves, but to actually fill up our cup so that we're able to overflow and bless others. So.

0:07:02 - (Jared Erni): Yeah, I love that. Now, I don't know if you can see my shirt. My mic is in the way. I love this whole this means so much to me, and I know it does for you, too. For impact. Impacting our families, our immediate circles and the communities that we serve. I'm curious because it sounds like a lot of your success in this space has happened right in the Pandemic when so much was going wrong for people with business.

0:07:31 - (Jared Erni): Tell me a little bit about how you were able to serve people so impactfully during this time in the Pandemic and where they were struggling and needed so much help.

0:07:41 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, funny enough, that is when everything started to click. It kind of ties back to my background of riding dirt bikes. And every other car at the track was a roofer, a landscaper, an HVAC technician. And little did I finally put the dots together. I was like, well, maybe residential contractors. We should be getting connected. So something really happened right before the Pandemic hit. We got connected with residential contractors and we started doing what we do. And then the pandemic hit.

0:08:17 - (Brandon Guthrie): Then the worst happened and everyone shut down and everyone was running away from the fire. And I was just like, really? I felt like I had to talk people off a ledge and was like, Dude, run towards the fire. Look for the opportunity. Whenever the world is being shook up, there is opportunity snapping off the rock. And you just got to look for that opportunity. And funny story was actually one of the residential contractors we were working with was a landscaping category. And we were like, oh, we got to shut everything down. Shut everything down or shut everything down. And I remember I was driving on the freeway. I was on my phone, don't turn me in, citizens Rest. I was on my phone driving and I was like, have you even checked if you are an essential category or not?

0:09:13 - (Brandon Guthrie): Oh, I didn't think about that.

0:09:16 - (Jared Erni): Really?

0:09:17 - (Brandon Guthrie): You didn't think about that yet? So we checked and landscaping, sure enough, was an essential category. So we were able to amongst many others, and we were able to continue and actually capitalize in that time. That's just really the overall advice and wisdom is whenever there's a shake up, there's opportunity that's there for the taking. When everyone's running away from the fire, we want to be running towards the fire. For sure.

0:09:47 - (Jared Erni): Very cool. Tell us a little bit about your specialty and how you help residential contractors today.

0:09:55 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, for sure, man. Primarily, social media advertising is a bread and butter. And yeah, like you were saying, a lot of people don't think that social media advertising can work for a residential contractor. 3% of the actual traffic online that are your prospects are actually searching for what you offer right now. So there's a huge majority of people that are going to become potential customers that are not looking for what you're offering right now.

0:10:27 - (Brandon Guthrie): And I love what you said about their solution aware. Eugene Schwartz Breakthrough Advertising I don't know if you read it, definitely check it out if you haven't, but there's multiple stages of awareness. There's unaware, problem aware, solution aware, aware of your solution aware, and then most aware, which is completely saturated. And then they're price shopping at that point. So when we go on Angie and other platforms like that, we're already talking to people that are price shopping and searching. But if we're able to actually intrigue people and use interruption marketing to create the desire, then we can actually be the only one fighting for that price.

0:11:09 - (Brandon Guthrie): And one of our great case studies, we actually took somebody from one to 10 million and they were and actually together, definitely not just us. So this is a great example. So Trevor gosar. Obviously. What's up, Trevor? He was the one that introduced us and super blessed for that. US working together, we were able to take them. They went from essentially one to 10 million. And the cool thing about them, they were originally door knockers.

0:11:40 - (Brandon Guthrie): So that's like, dude, that's the best place to cut your teeth on sales right there. Because you knock on a door and you talk to someone, didn't think they were going to be buying exterior lighting today, and you convince them to make a commitment on some exterior lighting or whatever that is. So that is a superpower. If you can do that, you have unlimited potential. Correct? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong there.

0:12:06 - (Jared Erni): No, that makes complete sense. I hadn't thought about it like that.

0:12:09 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, exactly. So basically we went from knocking on a door and we call it went to knocking on a screen. So we're still trying to find people that did not think that they were going to buy something today and change them into a buyer today. The idea that's the best posture to approach it, because then your scale is limitless. And here's the caveat, is Facebook. They have a lot of data points. I can't even imagine how much money for data from other companies.

0:12:47 - (Brandon Guthrie): I'm sure they're on Google's payroll or vice versa and et cetera, right. When people search for a solution, facebook knows your behavior. So there's AI, behavioral targeting. So based on your searches, your habits, they say they don't listen to your voice, but come. So there is behavior targeting within Facebook. So if you're making actions and talking about and mentioning and looking up and doing research for roofing, landscaping, outdoor living, whatever it is, it's going to know you're doing that and it's able to actually place it when you're in that searching phase.

0:13:24 - (Brandon Guthrie): So that's primarily what we help people with. And social media advertising. It's not just the ad itself. We know so much happens after the click. So it's the ad, it's the funnel, it's the automated process and the call strategy that actually gives us those pre qualified appointments that we're looking that's I.

0:13:41 - (Jared Erni): Was just going to ask you about that maybe you could give us. You don't have to go super deep in here, but some of those things that make this work, because I've talked to, literally this week, I've talked to several people who are, know, I've tried Facebook ads and the leads were just, you know, I get that a lot. And my response is usually, well, yeah, Facebook is an entertainment platform first. People aren't actually looking for you there. So you do get a lower quality lead, but you know some ways of how to make this work and what are some of those things that you need in place, not just the ad itself for the click, but what happens after the click that makes this all work.

0:14:18 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, 100%. So what we always say is it's not a lower quality lead, it's a different intent is what we like to say. Their intent is a little bit different. They're still humans, right. They're still prospects. Their money spends the same as everyone else's, right. But it's their intent and it's really being able to be in tune with what that intent level is. And that's where being a marketer comes in, right. And for residential contractors, I feel like that's a huge task to tell you that you need to become a marketer. And that's why the best thing to do is to delegate, as we know as business owners, to gain that freedom and liberty we're after. We want to delegate property properly.

0:14:57 - (Brandon Guthrie): We want to give ownership to the right person to know these things. Essentially, we get the different level intent click right? And then what happens after that is they go through a funnel sifting process in that funnel. It's pretty straightforward, right? None of this is rocket science. It's just are we doing it? We got to audit ourselves. It's basically a three page landing page sequence, and we're sifting it like a gold pan. So we get rid of the dirt, and we're left with the gold, right? So we're basically on this first page, we are qualifying them and asking questions that we know make a good lead.

0:15:37 - (Brandon Guthrie): We can ask all of those questions before they ever become a lead. So every single lead that you get has already been sifted through what's their timeline, what's their budget, what project are they looking to do, et cetera, et cetera. Whatever else. You know, as a business owner of residential contractors, you know what questions that you can ask that will give you I if they could answer these questions, yeah, they'd be a great lead.

0:16:01 - (Brandon Guthrie): You can ask that. So we ask those questions. Then we take them to a second page, where then this is the claim to fame of the sales funnel. The sales funnel that Russell Brunson has boosted up. Shout out to Russell Brunson is the claim to fame is there a salesperson that works 365 days a year, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and they collect zero commission. So that's a sales funnel. So the idea is we really want to do a lot of selling on that next page.

0:16:28 - (Brandon Guthrie): So we got them from a curiosity standpoint, because that's how we run our ads, is we want them to come in on a curiosity base on a basis, and then we call it the slippery slide of the commitment. Consistency, bias, slippery slide. Once they've already started, it's a human fallacy that you want to finish what you started. So you get them to go through this really easy, non high friction quiz, and then they go to this next page where we have a beautiful presentation.

0:16:58 - (Brandon Guthrie): This is where we really want to sell, we want to impress. So we got them there, and we want it to be a one time, limited time offer. So this is one thing I love, is we don't want to offer free estimates to everybody. It takes gas. It takes time. It takes money. It takes resources. You got to pay for your employees. It takes all of these resources. We don't want to give out free estimates like candy.

0:17:21 - (Brandon Guthrie): So the only people that actually get access to the free estimates are the ones that are qualified. So Land on the second page says one time limit time offer. You are currently qualified for a free estimate. And then on that page there's a calendar. We hit on problem copy, solution copy, who this is for, who this is not for. Features, benefits, feature, pacing, testimonials, scarcity, urgency, all that good, all that sales copy, science, art and science.

0:17:51 - (Brandon Guthrie): And then even frequently asked questions for objection handling, even on that sales page. And then, so we get them to book to request an appointment slot on the second page. And on the third page is where a lot of people fall short. They don't use the real estate properly. It's a thank you page. So just saying, oh, we'll be in touch with you in 24 hours. That's cool, but we can do better. Basically on that page, we want to use that real estate where we have a video that's going to build human connection, human rapport with the owner, thanking them for booking appointment, what to expect for next steps.

0:18:24 - (Brandon Guthrie): And what makes you guys really different, because we know our companies are run better than majority of residential contractors. Because you're here if you're here on listening to this, I already know you're the top 5% of residential contractors. So we want to talk about why we're different and we want to warm them up because we know there's an opportunity for cancellations and no shows. But by maximizing that real estate, we're able to make sure that those cancellations and no shows go way down and through this entire process.

0:18:56 - (Brandon Guthrie): It is warming up the lead, taking them from someone that potentially wasn't even thinking about this. And usually what it is, is they've thought about it, but it's swept under a rug. We want to bring it out from under the rug and be like, hey, remember, you have this problem. If you keep waiting, it's going to just get worse. Right? And so you warm that lead up. So by the time they've gone through the funnel process, they know you, they know the company, they know what makes you different.

0:19:23 - (Brandon Guthrie): That way the lead is red hot and ready for the salesperson to do their thing.

0:19:30 - (Jared Erni): That is awesome, man. Thank you for diving into that. And I love how you've laid that out. Some of your analogies, like using the Sifting for Gold too, makes complete sense. I'm curious. You brought up pattern. Interrupts. What are some of the either most memorable or successful or just cool? Pattern Interrupts or ads that you've used to have great success with? Facebook?

0:19:53 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah. Pattern interrupts 100%. Just ads that we've run that's been successful. So some secret sauce definitely. Right now is it's probably the algorithm. It's probably human nature, but having a spokesperson in your ad, it crushes. So just 99% of our competition has the same ad before and after image with maybe a 20% discount free estimate and licensed body insured, family owned and operated for the last 20 years. Free estimates. Right.

0:20:26 - (Brandon Guthrie): It's okay, if that's what your ad looks like, it's got you here, but it's not going to take you there. So what's kind of crushing right now? Is it's just a spokesperson that human face, human nature is to look for a human face, right? And then I'm sure there's some algorithm to that as well, boosts up the reach just naturally and just being able to have a clear message and articulate what makes you guys different and what's interesting.

0:20:52 - (Brandon Guthrie): And then as far as like a pattern interrupt, we're just always experimenting all the time that's the key is just consistent split testing. So, hey, it's someone jumping out from behind an HVAC unit, or hey, someone jumping out from a bush or someone or maybe it's just the way that the transition happens, or it's the copy on the thumbnail. And that's where the art and science of the media buyer should come in and there should be some bandwidth to be able to produce all these different variations and interesting things. And the crazy thing is you come up with something interesting and it usually works, but then there's just ad fatigue. So you got to keep up and stay in front of it and consistently produce. So you just need a machine and an engine that can keep up with it. So it's exactly what you think it probably is. As far as what a good pattern interrupt is, it's exactly what you think.

0:21:43 - (Brandon Guthrie): It's just are we doing it and are we doing on a consistent enough basis? Just like I said, jumping out from a unit or just having some really cool transitions on text or that type of thing? And then the spokesperson, those ads, honestly, that's a little bit of secret sauce. If you went out there and ran ads just based on that, you're already going to see better results for sure. Love it.

0:22:08 - (Jared Erni): So one of the things I wanted to ask too, is how do you help a client who you suggest, and I totally agree with this, the Human Connection video, most powerful way to make a connection with people online. So how do you make them feel more comfortable to create a good message in video?

0:22:29 - (Brandon Guthrie): That is a tough one. That is a tough one because I know a lot of residential contractors listening right now are probably like, man, I don't know if I could do that. So I have partners that are really good in front of the camera and then partners that they will never get in front of a camera. And that's okay. Where there's a will, there's a way, right? So for the ones that we got it in us, obviously anything can be learned. So join a video challenge. Peng Jun did a really cool one back in the day. I'm sure there's plenty of other ones out there. Video challenges, literally repetition.

0:23:06 - (Brandon Guthrie): Take videos on your camera. You don't need to show anyone. It'll be in your photo gallery, no one's going to see it practice, so it can be learned. But for those that just don't have the time or desire to learn honestly, you can get someone on your team or you can hire a spokesperson to be that person that's going to be on camera. But if you're able to be that person, I think it's the most impactful way to do it because you are the owner and no one can say it like you can.

0:23:38 - (Brandon Guthrie): So the answer is really just you don't have to if you don't feel like it's for you, there's options and opportunities out there to figure it out otherwise, but if you can, it's definitely worth it. So good.

0:23:51 - (Jared Erni): I love it. Kind of segueing now a little bit. What advice would you maybe give yourself if you were to go back in time and start again? What are some of the biggest lessons that you would want to make sure that you shared with your younger self?

0:24:08 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, the biggest one that comes to mind is just don't make it about serving yourself. Make it about serving everyone else is the way is my biggest lesson, for sure. I learned a lot of humility through that through my accident as well. I was like this crazy red belliest kid and then I got an accident and I learned humility there and then also through just kind of hitting rock bottom during business.

0:24:40 - (Brandon Guthrie): Once again, more humility and more. Just like, dude, I'm just going to give it up. So that's my biggest lesson is if you're making all about yourself and just more and more, more and man, that's a hamster wheel I don't know if I want to be on and you might feel like you're on that. So if you make it a posture shift from more and more to how can I serve more, then everything gets a lot easier and everything starts to work better for you.

0:25:12 - (Brandon Guthrie): That would be my number one perspective shift for my younger self. And then just other than that, I would say I love what Dan Sullivan is talking about in the Gap, in the Gain right now. I'm all about that. I don't know if you've checked that one out yet, but it's talking about the gap is the never ending horizon that always keeps moving of your striving. And the Gain is looking back at the progress that you've made and being proud of it and that by living that way, you not only enjoy life more, but you actually get better results because of how you end up carrying yourself. And your snap decisions are different because you're in a different state of mind.

0:25:57 - (Brandon Guthrie): So for speaking to my younger self, those would be the biggest two for sure.

0:26:03 - (Jared Erni): Love it. It reminds me, I'm sure you've been to funnel hacking Live several times now. I was at one and you may remember if you were in that room with Tony Robbins and one of the things that always stuck with me was his definition of success is achievement and contribution. And I can sense that from you. You've shared a little bit about how you do that for creating real impact and contribution in the community. But I got a sense from you that that's really how you've become super fulfilled with what you do too.

0:26:37 - (Jared Erni): It's about creating impact, but also or the achievements that you've been able to create, but also the impact that you've created too, and the contribution. With that said, looking forward, what are your future goals and plans in terms of both?

0:26:54 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, man, future goals, for sure. Remember, you also hit on the why and this kind of ties in with future goals as well. What I always say is just you got to make your purpose bigger than your circumstances. When your purpose is this big and your circumstances are down here, it makes it a lot easier for us to deal with the turbulence because everybody wants to grow, but nobody wants the turbulence that comes with it.

0:27:19 - (Brandon Guthrie): So for us to be able to persevere through when the going gets tough because it's not when it's if it's going to get challenging, right? No, I'm sorry, it's not if it's when it's going to be challenging, but yeah, man. I mean, future goals for us is just to really the vision that's been put on my heart is, and I prayed about this a lot, what's my purpose? What's my purpose? What's my purpose day in and day out, right. He's gaining clarity on that. And it really came down to just doing missionary work, boots on the ground throughout the world by banding together with other residential contractors, helping them grow, create that abundance for their families and like you said, their circles and the communities around them. But not only that, this is not for everybody because everyone has a different calling on their heart. So not everyone's going to want to hop on this bandwagon. But if you're this person definitely hit me up, which is I want a band together with residential contractors that will have the same idea of impact in mind of doing missionary work throughout the world and what a beautiful thing it would be to scale our businesses, be a light in the world through how we operate in a business. But not only that, we actually get together and we execute on boots on the ground missions throughout the I'm.

0:28:45 - (Brandon Guthrie): We're actually in two weeks, going to Latin America to build our first home for the homeless together as a company. And that's just us showing like, hey, we're not just talking to talk, we're walking the walk and we're getting it started, we're jump starting it. We're going to do it ourselves. And my goal is I don't want to have a conference where we meet every year. I want to have a missionary project where we meet every year instead of a. Conference, we get together, and what we're doing is we're getting together to serve.

0:29:14 - (Brandon Guthrie): So that's the big mission. And really it comes down to creating almost like a conglomerate style entity together, where we're able to create billions of dollars in impact together, because we all know we can do way more together than we can separate. So that's the big vision that's been put on my heart. We purchased contractoracquisitiongroup.com and contractoracquisition.com. So I'm just going to drop plant that seed right now, watch this video in ten years awesome.

0:29:50 - (Brandon Guthrie): Of basically wanting to band together with other residential contractors and form entities. Band together and whether it's equity, ownership, sharing, acquisition, mergers and acquisitions, all that good stuff, and be able to create a force of light that's going to be reckoned with in the world, is really the vision that's on our heart. And it all starts here with marketing and growing and then moving into really just business consulting and helping residential contractors grow. Whether it's just the social media aspect or there's so many other aspects of the business that need that attention.

0:30:28 - (Brandon Guthrie): And it'll go from one stage to the next, which feels like the marketing aspect. Then moves to the consulting aspect, then moves to the acquisition aspect. Mergers and acquisitions and exits. It all feels pretty natural, like a natural path that we could go down. So that seems to be what the future is holding, and I definitely prayed about that and looking forward to seeing how that unfolds.

0:30:50 - (Jared Erni): That's awesome. You mentioned a couple of books, and so one of my last questions, then we'll open it up to question answer as well. But what are maybe some of the books that you would immediately just recommend? Maybe they were the ones you mentioned too. But just real quick, what top books would you recommend and why?

0:31:08 - (Brandon Guthrie): Good one. Yeah, so definitely I'm big into is it Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan right now? They're doing some great things right now. So definitely I would recommend the gap in the gain. I'd recommend who, not how. And then ten X is easier than two X. The trilogy, as they call it. Those are some really good ones, for sure.

0:31:40 - (Jared Erni): Very cool. Well, thank you so much. Let's open this up to some question answers. So those who are joining, if you have some questions you want to ask Brandon as well, go ahead. Feel free to unmute your mics and let's let Brandon give you some advice on your situation. I think we got Dave unmuted.

0:32:12 - (Brandon Guthrie): Brandon, you mentioned some really great ideas. What was one of the ads or the videos you did that kind of surprised you by how much attention you got from it? Was there anything like you just tried as a test and you were surprised by the amount of reaction, the amount of reception you got from that? What was that like? Yes, that's a great question. So let's see here. Which one was a big surprise. I don't know that I would call it a surprise per se because of just our methodology. So it's kind of predictable for us. Obviously, we've been doing this for a bit. Now, let's see.

0:33:03 - (Brandon Guthrie): I'm actually thinking about a situation that just happened yesterday. So this is actually I am very surprised by this. Yesterday we booked six appointments for a contractor in Pennsylvania. And that brings them to about a $50 cost per appointment of pre qualified, high qualified, $50 cost per appointment. That blew my mind. We're actually all scratching our head like, holy smokes, this is crazy. So that's a really good opportunity.

0:33:37 - (Brandon Guthrie): And the way that we were able to do that was kind of taking it back to that spokesperson ad. So that was surprising. And it came down to it's a spokesperson ad. And what we're doing, what we do in that ad specifically because I didn't really talk about that a lot, is what we do is we talk about them seeing if they qualify to work with us. So we turn the tables from us selling them, to them selling us to see if they qualify for us. Because we don't serve everybody. We don't serve every territory, we don't serve every single situation, et cetera, et cetera. So that actual angle that I just told you has generated multimillions of dollars. So if you just take that and run with that of turning the table on how you're pitching that ad, that'll be huge for you. And in that ad, what we do is we like to get extra. We have fun with it.

0:34:35 - (Brandon Guthrie): We'll even add humor in at the beginning and a little humor at the end to boost the engagement, boost the reach, and also increase the ad recall. And that's what we did in this situation. We did see if you qualify to work with us because we don't work with everybody. We have spokesperson ad. They filled out the form, they did the lead process, the funnel. And then here's another key. Is it's the call strategy.

0:35:02 - (Brandon Guthrie): So I can't tell you how many times we've gotten the right CPO, but our call strategy was off and that changed the game. So, for instance, someone is scratching their head right now, kind of the same lead flow for two companies and one's scratching their head with what's going on and the other one's getting $50 appointments. What's the difference? It's their call strategy. It's the person that they have calling those appointments and just our expectations of dials and calling and how we do the qualification on actual call. We ask a lot of questions, we uncover pain points, desires, make sure both decision makers are going to be there, time for the appointment, et cetera, et cetera.

0:35:48 - (Brandon Guthrie): That would be a whole other segment I could hit on if you want me to dive into it. But all of that matters so much. All those little details make everything work properly. If you don't have any one of those details in place, you don't get the results you're looking for. So it comes down to that ad flip, turn the tables, make it about you. Qualifying them would be the biggest one for me, man.

0:36:13 - (Jared Erni): Love that. I don't know if you have any follow up, Dave.

0:36:17 - (Brandon Guthrie): No, that's great.

0:36:18 - (D): Thank you.

0:36:19 - (Jared Erni): I love that. I think it's all about the pre frame, too, and that's immediately, I think, going to make you stand out from competition. You immediately look different when you reverse that. So I love that advice. Great job. Anyone else? Any other questions for Brandon?

0:36:38 - (E): Can you hear me?

0:36:39 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yep.

0:36:39 - (D): We got you.

0:36:40 - (E): I wasn't sure trying to get back to my audios and such. I just wanted to comment. I loved what you said about.

0:36:49 - (Brandon Guthrie): Depending.

0:36:50 - (E): On your state of mind, what solutions or even problems that you'll run into, and the idea of having that higher level of what you're working towards to make the circumstances, that's the one thing versus the other. Like you've got something bigger to do. And that's what really gives you the drive and does give you that frame of mind to kind of push through those challenging times to be able to figure out solutions. So I just want to say I really appreciate that. That was great.

0:37:15 - (Brandon Guthrie): Thank you. Yeah, 100%. You got to have that big vision that drives you that's much greater than your circumstances. And like you were saying, it puts you in that mindset where you make different snap decisions because that's what it all comes down to. All of our achievements or non achievements, all comes out. A lot of snap decisions. Right. And a lot of people talk about where your subconscious is and controls your decision making and all that good stuff. So, 100%, thank you for that.

0:37:48 - (Jared Erni): It's awesome. Do we have any other questions for Brandon?

0:37:55 - (D): I think I've said this to Jared before, but when it comes to making video content, I've got a little bit of, I don't know, phobia is maybe the word. Just a nervousness around, like, oh, man, I want to put all this effort into something and it not know. And Dave kind of asked about video and Dave works with me, he's my GM and this is something that's definitely on our mind. So any tips on just, like, how to get started, how to get some good content, something that could be like a framework for an easy starting ad, something like that?

0:38:35 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah. So first and foremost, I would say, yeah, you just kind of want to get in there and commit and be consistent and know that it's all going to add up to you being able to produce at the end of the day. So if you have the phobia, like I said, you can record the videos on your phone. You don't ever need to share it with anybody. It can be a secret between you and your phone. And as far as a formula goes, obviously we've heard of the Hook Story Offer formula. So hook them in with you could say something, a result that they're really looking for, and snap into talking about what your solution is and then your offer, which is click the link below to see if you qualify for this unique offer.

0:39:29 - (Brandon Guthrie): I know that's pretty straightforward and it's not rocket science, but a lot of times that's what Russell Brunson talks about. He says, hey, the stuff I teach in the book, the stuff I teach in the $150,000 Mastermind is hey, Hook Story Offer. And I would say that majority of the challenge is going to be with getting comfortable, just doing it. And obviously the best thing I would say for you is right now it's Q Four. So I love this. I actually just shot a video of this.

0:40:06 - (Brandon Guthrie): I saw a lead came in from three years ago, just booked an appointment today, and they're going to turn into a client. Everyone doesn't believe in long term follow. I'm like, I'm going to record this. So the point is that for you, what I would say is just get on camera and bring up the result that they're looking for. Give them the features, benefits, and just do a call to action. It doesn't need to be rocket science.

0:40:41 - (Brandon Guthrie): And at the end of the day, if you can get a little bit of editing, we like doing broll, showing some of your beautiful jobs that you've had on that video, edit and just give them call to action. It's like really majority of the effort, it happens after the click. So having that right process, having that right call strategy. But as far as the video goes, what I could do is if you reach out to me, I'll definitely give you some additional pointers.

0:41:11 - (Brandon Guthrie): But yeah, man, I would say just kind of go for it and really turn the tables. That's another angle that you could really focus on, which is, hey, we don't work with everybody. If you want to see if you qualify for us to offer this unique program, which is another book, you could read 100 Million Dollar Offers. Create an offer in that video that's actually really interesting and appealing and almost like, whoa, that sounds too good to be true.

0:41:36 - (Brandon Guthrie): And then see if you qualify for this interesting offer. And I think you'll get what you're looking for.

0:41:44 - (D): Like that. I think there's a lot of good advice in there. You said hook story offer. Is that what it's called again?

0:41:50 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, that's right. Hook story offer. So the hook is just something I.

0:41:56 - (D): Actually have seen this I don't know if I heard you talk about your commitment to serve other people and be a missionary. I don't know if Jared's ever told you, but he and I teach an early morning religion class to high school students. So we're in the new Testament right now. It's awesome. But yeah, he had them make videos last week. And I think I told him after class because he had him do the hook story offer method. And I was like, this is totally something I would not want to do as like a grown adult who again, I mentioned I've done door to door sales. I did door to door sales for years and I will go knock a door before make a video.

0:42:31 - (D): And it's because all the other pressure and again, I think there's some skill gaps that just fears, right. Things I could learn. But anyway, so I've seen the Hook Story offer, but I'm going to write it down. I'm going to have to get Jared's script.

0:42:44 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah. So I don't know. This is still in existence. I took a Peng June video. It's like a 21 day video challenge. It might still exist. I recommend it. If you Google it and you find it, do it, I think it's probably like $100 or something. And it's like accountability for shooting videos every single day. And you do it in a certain format, it's pretty much hook story offer, those type of things that force you to just get reps in.

0:43:13 - (Brandon Guthrie): Those are the best things. So I'd recommend something like that.

0:43:18 - (D): Could you say the name?

0:43:20 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, it's Peng Jun. So P-E-N-G-J-O-O-N peng jun. And just this video challenge, I thought.

0:43:30 - (E): That sounds super fun because actually I had said for years, because I teach yoga, and I said I want to one day be able to do videos. And then guess what? COVID happened? I immediately started teaching online and I started doing it on Zoom so that my people would be able to have access to it. And at first I was like, oh my God, I don't know how I look on camera and everything else, but by being on that, it's just like when Sam, if you go to the door and you know, just pretend that video camera is that door and you're knocking at it.

0:43:59 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, that's right.

0:44:01 - (D): Being on camera doesn't scare me. It's the editing, it's the writing, the script. And again, there's just so much going on right now in my business where it's like, all right, I'm going to carve these hours out and what if it sucks? But that's something I just need to get over.

0:44:16 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah. And on that one, like your comment.

0:44:18 - (D): About get the reps in too big believer in that. The more you do it, the more you're like, all right. I liked how I 60% of what I said last time. Let's try it again. I like 70% of that take. I'm going to switch this language up ad lib, maybe this part, see if I can get something better. So I like to get the reps an idea. It's a great idea.

0:44:37 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah. As far as bandwidth goes, that's one of the big things I love about what we bring to the table for residential contractors is like, dude, no one has time. And we have copywriters on our team that they'll crank out a script for you, and we have one of our partners that's dude, I don't have time to think about it. I got to sit down and I can do it, but I have to sit down and really crank out some serious brain power to really get this right.

0:45:03 - (Brandon Guthrie): So it's like, well, let us just do that for you. So you just show up, look pretty and just say the words. That helps a lot. So having bandwidth, having a copywriter on your team that understands your brand voice and tone and understands all your features and benefits, what makes you different, have them seasoned so that no matter what you send them, they're always going to pump something out that's going to be right.

0:45:24 - (Brandon Guthrie): That way you just show up, you say it, and then you have an editor patching the broll and advice like putting on the consultant hats to business owner hat to try to free up your time, you should have a who for that how, for sure. So you don't have to think about it. You have somebody that does it for you.

0:45:46 - (Jared Erni): Great advice. One of the things that I've also learned is to try to show up authentic. Like number one, you do not have to be super what's the word? It doesn't have to be super produced. Like it does not need to look, you can do it with your phone camera and it's going to work really well, too. Is that your experience as well?

0:46:09 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah, showball authentic, it doesn't have to be. Oh, 100%. I've seen some crazy results from people just being raw and you got to be yourself and just talk to that phone camera and you're good to go. Yeah, man, I've seen it time and time again for sure. It's about the message they always talk about. So the message converts and then you can call it the production and the pizzazz expands reach so the words actually converts and then the way you do it, if it's fancy or not fancy, that will expand reach, potentially, but it's a message that does most of the damage, for sure.

0:46:49 - (Jared Erni): Cool. Thanks for that advice. Any other questions for Brandon? Well, this has been so good. Brandon, thank you so much for joining us. I've got so much great tips that I've written down and so I'd love to circle back with you and connect, see how we can reciprocate and serve you in some ways. But anyway, everyone, thank you so much for joining too. And being live, we're going to go ahead and publish this in the replay as well. So it if you want to come back to this.

0:47:19 - (Jared Erni): And for those who are live, I've actually created the link to Peng Jun's challenge. It looks like he may not be doing it anymore, but it's still online, so you might be able to get access to it. And I've done it, too. I can speak to what Brandon's saying with it. It's a great.

0:47:34 - (Brandon Guthrie): Yeah.

0:47:35 - (E): Thank you so much.

0:47:36 - (Brandon Guthrie): Really appreciate it.

0:47:38 - (E): Thanks.

0:47:39 - (Jared Erni): Thanks, Brandon.

0:47:43 - (Jared Erni): Thank you for tuning into the For Impact podcast, where we're all about driving positive change through entrepreneurship. Remember, your impact matters and your journey matters. If you found inspiration in today's episode, please subscribe rate and leave a review. Your feedback fuels our mission to empower impact driven entrepreneurs like you. You can stay connected with us on social media and go to forimpactpodcast.com

0:48:15 - (Jared Erni): to take our Impact Marketing challenge. Keep pursuing your dreams, making an impact, and living life on your terms.