Google Review Fraud Is On The Rise

Dennis Ayotte  0:12  

All right, here we go. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Talk of the trades. We've been out for a minute. We've both been traveling and just doing all sorts of stuff. Busy, networking, network. We had a big networking event yesterday. We sponsored the taca golf tournament, the Texas

Aaron Watters  0:36  

Air Conditioning Contractors Association. Yes, let's

Dennis Ayotte  0:39  

go. Yeah. So that was a great event. Got to go out there with a couple folks from the distributing side. ENSCO was out there, additionally John other folks like Johnstone as well. So shout out to our guy, Darrell, our guy gifted Terrence as well. Since a good time. We were with some of our clients as well. So that was, that was fun to kind of get together. And then we met some other folks in the in the market as well. So it was a good time. But I think, you know, the main thing here is just, what's the importance of networking, you know, in this space, not only from our lens, but, you know, from a contractor space, and how can that, you know, potentially impact their business?

Aaron Watters  1:24  

Yeah, I think it's it's so much fun, like I had a lot of fun out there yesterday, and you and I play a bit of golf. And we've talked about this on the podcast before, when we hired Dennis and hey, we're not going to play golf every Friday, but at the same time, we got a lot of work done talking about about the business, but I think, you know, if you're, if you're an owner, great opportunity, you're in the driver's seat, you know, especially at a golf thing, and you've got a new sponsor every hole. If you've got employees going out there, and, you know, they like to drink, that gives me a little, a little pause, but, but just getting to talk shop, you know, the first five minutes of a conversation is posturing. After that, you kind of can get underneath and understand, like, what really is motivating somebody. And so, you know, we had, I think, some pretty vulnerable conversations with some contractors, about the market, about marketing, about my golf swing. It was a no, it was a fun day.

Speaker 1  2:23  

Overall, dude, your driver is coming along. So working on it, nice, working on it.

Aaron Watters  2:27  

I had a dream about my irons life.

Dennis Ayotte  2:29  

Okay, yeah, you know me, I'm huge on networking. I think just networking and having that face to face time is the number one trust builder you can have, I think, with clients, but also, like other industry partners. Yesterday was, you know, a really great example of it. And I love it because you're out of the business, setting everybody's guard is kind of down, and you're able to talk like a little more open and candidly. The other thing that I just love is, like the experience share aspect and understanding and like, you know, we don't own, you know, trade companies ourselves, but hearing these guys talk about the market and like that, you know, I won't say his name, but he talked about how plumbers are divas. And, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting to get those insights, because I think it helps us as a marketing agency to understand, like some of the other, you know, challenges that contractors face. We always talk about, we're born in the trades, because, you know, Ben founded our company, you know, along with you. And, you know, we really try to understand all facets, as opposed to just, you know, the one side of it. So as much as we can understand the operation side, I think it makes us more successful, too. So that's what I loved about it. Where did we end up ranking? Like, how did, where do we finish?

Aaron Watters  3:47  

We were, I believe, seventh. We were in first through nine. And we started, you know, you never should look at the scoreboard. We started feeling ourselves. But, yeah, we didn't hit any putts on, like, the last six holes.

Dennis Ayotte  3:59  

That was, that was rough, man, but the course was beautiful. It was a good time. Taka put together a really great event. It was awesome because, you know, I've honestly, I'll be fully transparent, like I didn't really know about ACCA or taca before. And, you know, I think for us, being able to get involved in like an organization like that is not only going to help us from a thought leadership standpoint, but also like new business, right? And I think for contractors out there, that's one of the big goals that you have, is to grow your business and get new business. And so what do you think like are the networking events that contractors can be a part of or associations within the community that would allow them to maybe kind of build relationships in a way that they might not think, yeah, that would impact their business.

Aaron Watters  4:52  

Yeah. I mean specifically looking at, and we are members of ACA, but looking at your the people on your leadership team, and find. What they're passionate about to where it doesn't feel like work. You know how a lot of those thought leaders say, if you if your job is fun or whatever, you never work a day in your life. Love your job, you'll never work a day in your life. Yeah, Bs, but, but, like in reality, Chamber of Commerce is great. You got to, like the people in the chamber, to be able to be active in it. And you may have, if you're an HVAC company, you may have a technician or a comfort advisor that lives in like we're in San Antonio, the Hill Country spring branch Bulverde is about 20 miles north of here. Really good homes in that area. Find a guy that wants to get visibility in that community. Keep that comfort advisor running calls out there. But also make that comfort advisor, the chair that member of the Chamber of Commerce, because they're naturally going to be there. Your general manager or your owner may not want to go to a chamber and have to do small talk for an hour. Yeah, I think that's good. I think also, you know, pickleball groups now are really popular. So finding things that you're really excited about, and then faith driven, I know, like Ben and Jim, some some partners and friends that we have here, they've got some faith driven groups that they do Bible studies together. So just find a way to make it not feel like work.

Dennis Ayotte  6:16  

Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I think all those are great. What are your thoughts on, like, different trade organizations, you know, like, you know, I think taca is a perfect one, but, you know, I'm sure there's others out there for the different spaces.

Aaron Watters  6:30  

I mean service nation. I mean, if you want to count those, I mean finding, again, the ones that that's going to provide value. I know next star, they've got a pretty big startup fee. But you know, we've run into next star a lot as far as they get discounts to their clients, and even, like at home advisor and Angie, I know that they have 25% off as a next star dealer. So there's just a lot out there, but that's also the good and the bad. Like there's so many out there now, and especially even Facebook groups, like finding groups that you align with, yeah, I think it's super important. But the local connections, finding groups that are that are not just about your industry, so that you can share leads back and forth. Yeah, B and eyes. I would never sign up again for BNI personally, but if you've got a hungry sales rep, put them in the BNI. Yeah, I was getting all about their personality.

Dennis Ayotte  7:22  

Yeah, we've had some clients, I know, like, you know, that's how they started their businesses, and were able to grow clientele that way, and the B and eyes, but yeah, you make a good point about, you know, Facebook specifically, and the local groups that are available for these, you know, like the little suburbs in your area. So, like, for instance, we have a, you know, area over here called, like stone oak, and there's so many like stone oak groups of these folks, just like community. And, you know, it's, it's similar to, kind of like the next door vibe, but, you know, on on Facebook, same thing with Bernie, almost Park. Like, there's all these different areas. And so if you have, you know, a large city like that. You know, you know what your top zip codes are trying to find groups there and get engaged. I think would be a huge differentiator for some folks.

Aaron Watters  8:10  

Yeah, me and my wife's a member of the wives of Hollywood Park Facebook group. Live in Hollywood Park. You're adjacent? Yeah, she's she's always commenting in there. Her old boss at Waterbury used to live in there. He lives in there.

Dennis Ayotte  8:23  

So nice. And speaking of your wife, shout out to Ali, congratulations. You know, we're talking about networking and groups and organizations. She just got selected to be in LSA 50. So that's huge, big. Yeah. She's very excited, yeah. And so that's the other side of it, you know, leadership groups like that as well. To really position you as like a great corporate citizen, you know, and Ally is going to be a great representative of her company. But you know, things like that as well, I think are super valuable

Aaron Watters  8:54  

too, yeah, and I would, you know, be failing if I didn't say, like, Entrepreneurs Organization. It's an international group. I've been in it since 2017 and I think what's great there is, is you're not supposed to sell to people, so it's really just about building authentic entrepreneurial connections, yeah, and, and then you can sell by being friends with the people in your group. Yeah, I think it's great visibility. But what I also love about eo is it's for the entrepreneur to work on the business, not in the business. And so I've gotten, of course, you involved in, like, another forum as well. So we find, you know, ways to get in and active. But yeah, highly recommend you.

Dennis Ayotte  9:34  

Yeah, we've been coming at this from an angle of, like, you know, new business and that sort of stuff. But the other valuable side is, you know, the fellowship and the you know experience share that you can have in those types of groups, like, I love my you know forum that we have shout out to the elite execs. And you know, we meet every couple months, and it's just. Nice to be able to talk to like minded people who are going through some of the same things you know that you are. So that's been huge. And love it. I texted one of the guys in the group the other day just to see how he was doing, and he appreciated me checking in. And, you know, it's cool, because you always wonder if you're doing things right or like, if our best practices are like, good and, you know, we experience shared, you know, a few months ago on kind of how we handle some of our billing, and they've adopted that, and it seems like it's working well for them. So, so that's been cool to hear as well. So validation, you know, as well, just because, you know, I think they always say, like, what you're either ripping off, like The Rolling Stones or the Beatles and so, you know, I think some people are like, oh, like, I don't want to, like, copy this person or whatever, but I just feel like, if there's a playbook out there, you know, that works, like, you know, might as well

Aaron Watters  10:54  

adopt it. So, or you're ripping off ai 50 Cent, apparently,

Dennis Ayotte  10:58  

dude, yeah, we need to start our future episodes with that for sure. So cool. So, yeah, that's, you know, networking obviously is important, and finding like groups that you can be intentional in, you know, can really have a positive impact on on your business overall. So cool. The next thing that's been a hot topic is the latest fraud and scams advisory from Google, so they put out an article about some of the big scams that are going on right now. And so right now, online job scams are heating up as well. Negative review extortion schemes, which I know you got a good little nugget to share there the AI product impersonation scams, who would have thunk it? Like, hey, here we are malicious VPN apps and extensions, fraud recovery scams. I think I got a phishing email the other day. They were like, Hey, your invoices do. And I was like, spam so, and then seasonal holiday scams, right? Like, those are always huge around this time of year, because we're getting close to Thanksgiving and Christmas. So, but specifically, I think one that's like, you know, very close to contractors out there is kind of the negative review extortion hoops. So give us the download on the

Aaron Watters  12:19  

story. Yeah, we get to see it like in a very, very short window here, and Google had three policy updates or three updates in one week about this fraud. So it's happening more and more. This happened even three years ago down in Corpus Christi, somebody was doing this to all the AC repair companies, and they were just flooding it with one star reviews using professional athletes names, and then had like a tax on taxonomy of the numbers leaving a one star review. And then they'd message the business, hey, if you've gotten a lot of one star reviews lately, I'm really good at getting them removed. One of my friends owns a roofing company here locally, American elite roofing my old workout partner, and he called me the other day, and he said, Hey, bro, I've been getting all these one star reviews. I don't, I don't do Google. What's going on? He has 155 stars, okay? And I went and looked at it, and, yeah, it's he got like, 31 star reviews in a two hour window. And then the last one said, you know, check my profile photo to get these removed. And so I gave him the advice that we give clients for this, and it's, it's very specific, and it works. It's respond, tell the person, hey, I don't see in our customer database. We'd love to help you out. Call us at this number and we'll and we'll get this taken care of. Yeah. And that does two things, one that projects to anybody that is viewing that one star review that might want to do service with you, they're able to see, oh, they're responsive. And this one star review might not actually be a real one and two, what it does is, if you have a manual review from Google, whenever you flag them, showing that you responded in that manner, helps validate that it is not valid. And so it does both of those things. So I told him, Hey, gave gave them a script they, you know, pasted it on all the reviews, flagged them and told them it was spam. And in three business days they they all got removed. And so I called him, because, of course, he didn't call me to tell me that they got removed. I was just thinking about him, and I was going to my protein shake place. And so he said it was three business days. But of course, Him, being him and being a roofer, what do you know? Yeah, he messaged the dude on WhatsApp, and he sent him a bunch of Bible verses about God destroying his enemies and all these, like, basically just coming at the guy. So they ended up talking on WhatsApp and went back and forth. And the guy said, Well, just give me 150 and I'll remove them. And he said, No, I'm not giving you anything. Well, give me 50. No, I'm not not giving you anything. And then the guy started giving him sob stories about how he was ripped off and all that said, my buddy. Knows, don't pay a scammer because, yeah, it's not going to help. But,

Dennis Ayotte  15:03  

yeah, yeah, that's wild. So there's these companies out there or guys that are just they'll spam you with a bunch of one star reviews, and then they'll be like, hey, like, I can take these down for you, because they wrote them, and they just go in and delete their own reviews. Holy smokes. That is that's fascinating, yeah.

Aaron Watters  15:21  

And what you can typically see is the taxonomy of the name, like, the users are going to be the same, right? Because they're trying to create a bunch of Gmail accounts in bulk, yeah? And so, like the one from a few years ago, it was like David dot Robinson, 1001, and then it was like Tim dot Duncan, 1002, and you could tell there's, like, a structure to it, yeah. And then if you click on their bios, you could see what other review sites they've left reviews on, and typically it's three or less reviews that they've left on other businesses gotcha, but definitely insane. But I think, you know, as entrepreneurs, we want to move fast. I'm kind of counter that as unfortunately, you know, I like to move slow, but there's a methodical approach to something like this. And if you act too fast on something like this, you can really hurt your business. And so it's just stay simple and stay consistent.

Dennis Ayotte  16:12  

Yeah, yeah. The other big thing they're seeing is stuff around jobs. And I think it's you know, important, if you know you have any job listings out there to be careful around some of that stuff as well. The other stuff is, you know, the holiday stuff you know, which is interesting on how that might you know, apply to the trades, because it seems like this is more centered around like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But do you see any potential risk for, you know, contractors with, with anything like regarding the holidays? Have you ever seen

Aaron Watters  16:50  

any? I mean, not necessarily, I'm sure. I'm sure there are. I think, really, what that's probably trying to get at is the consumer. Here's a special offer. Click here kind of a situation that that's typically what we see with those kind of scams. There was another one though that I wanted to mention that that we've seen here. Oh, I know that we had a client in Austin at one point that they were getting ads on Tik Tok where somebody was using their phone number and just blowing them up. So it was like a competitor that was mad at them that just like, started blowing their phone up on Tiktok and offering free something.

Dennis Ayotte  17:28  

Yeah, it was crazy. I remember that one. And so what these people were doing was they were running ads on Tiktok, and then they were sending people to a page that was full of, like, p max ads. Basically, that's what it was. And so all your p max ads were showing up on this page. And people were thinking because, and they were in Spanish, so the person was like, you know, job click here to apply. Then they would go to this site, and then it would be, like, all these ads for contractors, basically. And then they would, boom, they'd click on the P max ad and they would like be submitting or calling in. And the way we figured it out was we told our clients, like, hey, next time get that person to like, send you a screenshot or link of it. So we ended up getting like a link to it, and we're able to check it out and kind of figure it out. But I think that stuff is still kind of going on out there. I think we've been seeing an influx of spam from different countries and a ton of like irrelevant form fills, you know, because on the other side of that, from a technical standpoint, once we start receiving so much spam, I think there's a vulnerability that some of the forms that aren't spam will then start getting marked. Because I think we've been in situations like that where our spam filters just kick into high gear and then you're like missing out. So, you know, from a kind of data hygiene perspective, you know, if you start seeing an influx of just spam, make sure you're checking through all those forms that might be getting flagged and not getting to you to see if there's legitimate leads in there, because we had a major issue with one of our clients on that one time. And it was, it was not pretty, but, you know, we had to be open and honest about it and just say, hey, you know, we try to do our due diligence, and I think that's the struggle with, like, relying on the technology. Because I always, you know, want, like, it's hard to, you know, I'd be lying say, like, we monitor every single form, and we watch, like, everything that comes in. But like, when you reach a scale we're at, we're at, you know, 7500 clients, it's hard, right? So we got to rely on that. And I think that's where the partnership with our clients comes in, to be able to flag it and understand, like, I had a client reach out this week and we're like, Hey, I haven't been getting forms. Luckily, it was something on their end, but we were able to, like, troubleshoot it, go through and ensure that it wasn't, like, a bigger issue. So. So, but all that to say, I think communication on both sides, because you know us as marketing partners, we do want to do our due diligence. But at the same time, you know, if you're a company, getting, you know, hundreds of forms a month, it's a difficult kind of task to take on

Aaron Watters  20:14  

your own, yeah, and I know it's changed over the years, just like as far as how clients feel. But back when I was doing like client management, I would always tell the client I'm working with you, but I also need somebody as a contact in the call center. Yeah? And now I think there's friction where a lot of clients don't want to give us access to the call center, but you can, you can solve a lot of problems very quickly, yeah, if the call center is able to give you feedback, because it's not all like phone calls, because we have lead pulse where we can get them graded and the AI can can give us feedback quickly, yeah, but there's a lot of stuff that is like in between that maybe the AI isn't going to pick up. I always go back to to one of our clients, they kept getting calls from an energy people asking about the utility company. And immediately the CSR had that number ready to go. And for me, it was, this is a flag, the fact that the CSR had the utility company ready to go. And come to find out Google had a conversion where it was looking at phone calls. Well, people were coming in off of this utility company, so it was just sending that business more leads for the utility company. Yeah, insane. But you don't want to allow it to optimize off of bad leads. And that's exactly what it's going to do if you don't

Dennis Ayotte  21:31  

correct it. Yeah, no doubt. And so, and we've had some weird situations too, where, you know, random, you know, on the subject of spam and just, you know, fraud is like our, you know, tracking numbers will get put on some, you know, bogus site, and then next thing you know, like, our clients are getting calls, and it's difficult because we're attributing that number to a certain source. And if you if we don't take that extra step to figure it out, then you know, we might move too fast and just like, totally abandoned something because, you know, we haven't been able to do it. But I know with one client, it just kept popping up and popping up until we found one of these, like sites that promised, like aI Voice Search. They were, you know, using the number, and it was one of our Google Ads numbers, you know, and they were calling up for the wrong company. So, you know, our client was obviously like, hey, like, why are you advertising for this other company? And so we have figured that one out, but, you know, shout out to our client and their CSR is that, you know, we're number one, like, patient with us, but we're also, like, collaborative and helping us, like, determine, like, why? And that was another one. We said, Hey, next time this happens, ask them where they saw the phone, right? And sure enough, like, we figured it out, and we were able to like contact that that site. And I think our SEO team was able to get that fix so,

Aaron Watters  22:56  

and that's something that's important. I know that for a lot of contractors, especially old school contractors, tracking numbers are a no no. And it sounds odd saying it now, but if I don't own the number, if I don't control the number, I don't want it. But the reality is, the cool thing about tracking numbers is we can turn them off and on. Yeah, so if it does get in one of those spammy circles, because people will do it. We can turn that off, pause it for 10 to 14 days, then turn it back on. And so anyway, there is a lot more of dynamic movement there, and people are not memorizing phone numbers anymore, yeah, unless you got a great one,

Dennis Ayotte  23:36  

yeah, no doubt, vanity numbers are great. But you know, especially tracking numbers, you never know what you're gonna get cool. So be beware of those review scams. Google certainly putting some stuff out. Think we're sending out an email to our clients today just to kind of keep them, you know, aware and to let us know. But we have a great pulse on our reviews, and we have things set up like automations and so just know there's opportunity for you guys to be able to have automated notifications on things like that, so you're not having to, you know, do everything so much from a manual perspective, but cool, next thing on our list here is talking about our move to click up and big organizational change for us. And, you know, I think the overarching kind of theme here is, like, you know, as an organization, when you make a big change from, like, a project management system, or, you know, specific to the trades, when you're moving, like, CRMs, you know, or FSM, like, if you're going from house call Pro to service Titan or vice versa, you know what are? What are some, some tips or things that you think are important when making such a monumental

Aaron Watters  24:53  

shift? Yeah, I mean assigning a project leader, making sure it's not a rule by. Committee, and I think we've done a little bit of both with the clickup transition. But like saying, hey, Maria, you're spearheading get the right people in the right room when we need it, but getting 32 people to all be doing clickup training and have their say, I think would be a really bad move? Yeah, I do think, you know, we did ask the team in their l 10s to give us feedback on our current operations so we can review those notes. And so we are getting intel from the team, but we're really looking at it from the process and efficiency standpoint. I think, don't put a ton of stock in the consultant that's going to help you onboard. You know, we we and also don't trust anybody that blurs their background at zoom. Come on, if you're not confident with where you're sitting, I don't know if I'm confident with your skill set. Yeah, that's questionable. But I think the same thing happens with trades companies. Is okay, you got to have it's easier to start with a select few number of people. Yeah, don't let the whole office in on it, because then all the chatter and all the the friction can happen.

Dennis Ayotte  26:07  

Yeah, I think you nailed it on, like, the feedback, like framework and what we did, we asked our team, what's working, what's not working with our existing system to try to, like, uncover some things and find the pain points, but also like, find the wins and things like that, we can try to move over and continue. You know, the other challenge is, some people are great with change, other people are not great with change. And in what I struggle with is like, the balance of like letting like the team know that this is going to happen, and how much information can you share? Like, off the bat, because there's a lot of unknowns, even when, when we start making transitions, or anybody really right? Because, you know, we do our due diligence, we figure it out. But like, you don't know until you know Right? Like you get in there and you figure out, like, we were very optimistic on a lot of things that click up could do. And then as we start peeling layers back, well, we see, okay, well maybe this wasn't exactly possible in the way we envisioned it. But like, here's like, the other opportunity. So like, setting expectations, I think, is important as well. And you know, like you said, having a project leader, someone's going to spearhead it, and kind of, you know, we always say, like, if everybody owns it, nobody owns it. But also, like, having somebody that's going to be able to have like, some final say and and at least get us to, like a v1 to where we get launched, and get stuff going. Because I think with certain you know things by committee, you just kind of go in a loop over and over, and you never finally, like, get something to where it needs to be. So yeah, it's super important to to make sure you got a leader, have that feedback framework, and then figure out how you message, you know, to your organization to hopefully give them some peace of mind. But it is a struggle because, you know, I think everybody wants a different level of detail. And you know, the thing I struggle with is, like, when folks start creating narratives that aren't even like, true or exist, right? And like, we have these stoic books here, and like the stoics say, like, don't suffer from imagined troubles, right? And, and that's, you know, my challenge, because I'm the ultimate, you know, optimist. But you know, other folks like, I get it. It's like, the unknown. And you just, like, think like, oh my god. Like, it's going to be worse. And I always try to, like, tell people, like, imagine a world if it was better, what does that world look like? You know,

Aaron Watters  28:44  

more attack a golf Yeah, I think, I think a couple takeaways I have that that I think are really important as well, is one, don't let your sales team sit in sales pitches, because they're very they can get excited and believe what a salesperson saying. So put your most skeptical person in the room, which is what I think Maria might, might be tied with me as a critic, but y'all are one and two for sure. So she was involved, and she, she'll do that to read Reddit, like, if you want to know anything negative about anything in your life, go to Reddit, because you'll, you'll read all the negative stuff. Clickup has a ton of threads and subreddits, good and bad, you know, with FSMS, like the big dogs of jobber service, Titan house called Pro, you know what? You know. And so reading Reddit, you're probably just gonna get frustrated. But there are a lot of specific questions there, and everybody wants karma, so ask them, yeah. So I think those were two, I think, really important things, and then the whole 30 day trial thing for me, like, we didn't really do a trial with click up, but a short lived trial allows you to just waste a bunch of time and say, No, yeah, like signing up on what we did, which is a two year commitment, which I don't. Hey, I hate to your commitments. I'm commitment phobic, but, uh, but like doing a two year commitment, it forces us really to move because we made the decision for the right reason. We want to free up our team's time. We want to provide better results for our clients. Get out of our own CRM and we want to consolidate software stack.

Dennis Ayotte  30:18  

Yeah, I think that was huge. The other thing, and you kind of alluded it to it is, you know, making sure, like, you understand, like, the onboarding process that the the organization is going to offer you. Because, like, I'm in all the service time groups, man, and it's like a tale of two stories. Some people either have, like, the best onboarding ever, and they're able to, like, get going off the bat. But I've seen, like other people were, like, service Titan, ruin my business, and I'm having to shut down because of whatever. And so, you know, what I did appreciate about our onboarding was they were pretty specific on kind of, like, what the service agreement was and what they were going to provide. Like, they were pretty detailed on that. And, you know, despite them trying to sell us, you know, additional products and things like, before we were even done, I think, you know, they were pretty solid in in helping us get to where we're at now. And at least I feel like comfortable and confident about it. And I felt like our guy was pretty competent, very competent, I would say, and helping us get to where we're at now. So I feel, I feel good about it overall. But all that to say is, like the onboarding piece, really understanding that setting expectations from the get go on, you know what the future state you want to be, right? And what does like success look like? So they understand it. And I think we did a really good job of, like, outlining that for our person. And so there were a couple key things that I think we got done, you know very well, and also understanding, like, after your onboarding, what are you going to have left to do? Because we still have, you know, considerable amount of work to do on our end to get it like finalized. And you know, part of that is number one, we had to kind of learn and understand all the capabilities of the platform, and now we can figure out, okay, this is how it's going to adapt and apply. And we've started pulling in some some stakeholders to ask them for some feedback and understand it. And we just had a meeting the other day, which was really great because, you know, I tend to kind of over engineer a little bit, and so it's nice to be able to get somebody to say, hey, like, this is probably too much, and we can just start here. So that was, that was good perspective to have as well. So, but yeah, so if you're making those big changes, going from, you know, a house call Pro to the service Titan, or vice versa, or any other platform, you know, really understanding that making sure you assign a project leader, you have a great like framework for feedback from your organization to understand, like, how do you make the rollout the best it can be, making sure you're sharing like, updates and just milestones with folks and knowing what your onboarding process is going to look like, I think, is huge. So cool. The next topic we wanted to talk about, you know, we are in November already, which is insane. And, you know, 2026 everyone's, you know, should be planning, you know, right now, I'm already getting hit with different ads from other agencies with like, planning playbooks. And, you know, so it's interesting, you know, to see, to see some of that. But you know, what do you think some of the best practices are for planning out budgets for trades

Aaron Watters  33:47  

companies? Yeah. I mean, one, let's be realistic. So, you know, always our CPA, Chris Williams, we always talk about have a rolling 13, rolling 13 month report, so you can be realistic with what's going on over the last 13 months, especially if you're you know, if you get the shoulder seasons, take those into account. Be realistic with the budget. Something that we do with our marketing plans is have comments as to when budgets change. So if we set up a budget at the beginning of the year on Google ads, it works well. Doesn't work well, and we change mid flight, or we're booked up in March, making sure that the comments are there so you can go back and look, because when you're reflecting back on a year afterwards, our memories are terrible, you can tell yourself a story and not know what actually happened in March. Yeah, it could be Frankie's fault because he got sick and got covid Twice in March, which I don't know if that's possible, but let's just say, but let's just say, in reality, it might have been the fact that the phones weren't working, and you guys had you guys couldn't pace or couldn't spin, yeah. So be realistic, but also be accurate with with what happened in the past year. I think also doing a GPS report, like the geo profitability score, it's a report. We typically do here to identify like, where are you winning in your zip codes? Where aren't you winning? And then mirroring whatever campaigns and tactics you're going to do in 2026 make sure you dominate that backyard and your best zips, so that your driving billboards are in the same neighborhoods and you get more jobs off of them. I think understanding the difference of the types of tactics right like, top of mind, awareness, the middle and then the bottom of the funnel, and being realistic with what your brand is in the market. Like, we've had really good success with a couple of the window world dealers here lately that the past agencies that were working with them were doing only bottom of the funnel, like, let's only Chase PPC leads. And we turned on some top of the funnel tactics, and it really helped build it. Am I actually saying the opposite? It's the opposite, isn't it?

Dennis Ayotte  35:53  

Well, no, I think you're, you're accurate in both ways, because we've had, you know, we have one window world, which they started with, like from ground zero. And you know, we had a really balanced approach in terms of how we approach like brand awareness with our partners, Alan Thompson media, and then how we approach like lead gen. And they both feed each other. I think, you know, we,

Dennis Ayotte  36:18  

the folks who are managing the lead gen campaigns, they get the benefit of last click attribution because, you know, being honest, it's like there's no really great measurement for, you know, TV or radio or outdoors. Like you can use QR codes, you can use vanity numbers. But the reality is, what you're trying to do is get more reach and frequency with people in your in your top zip codes or whatever you want to dominate so that you have top of mind awareness. Because at the end of the day, we are trying to go for more branded search and less non branded search. We know PE is like dumping tons of money in in search. And you know, AC repair near me. You know, 10 years ago was a $5 cost per click. Now it's like 50 to $70 right? It is bananas. And so one thing I always like, like to ask our clients or people who question, you know, like, why do I need to do brand awareness? And, you know, I will ask them, like, if you needed a, you know, whole home water filtration system for your house today, give me the top three people you would call right now to get quotes, right and you won't. I always ask, like, outside of their niche, because they could probably mention, like, their competitors. If I were to ask, you know, an AC guy, like, Give me three AC companies. So, because if I asked you, like, Hey, if you were gonna go run a marathon tomorrow and you needed running shoes, give me three brands, you'd be like, Nike, New Balance, Adidas, right? Like, why? Because these companies have spent years building brand awareness and not only that, but having a clear message on what their brand stands for, right? Like Nike attracts a certain persona, Adidas attracts a certain persona. I saw like a video or read an article the other day about how Nike is all about individual right? It's just all about the individual athlete. But then Adidas, they're all about like the team and like together and New Balance. Who knows? They're just, they're like the old dad shoe. But from a fashion perspective, there's some, there's some nice new balance out there. So all that to say, like, you know, when you are looking at planning for 2026, what is the balance of, like, top of mind awareness that you're going to start creating, and then the lead generation side, there's no getting around like the fact that you know lead generation tactics are what's going to drive the most revenue, like right away, potentially, but from a long game perspective, and I think the most successful brands that we've worked with, they're balancing that top of mind, or top of funnel advertising, which is, you know, from a digital perspective, is like online video, right? So it's YouTube, any form of stuff on social media, from a video perspective, you know, from a traditional media standpoint, it's Billboards, radio, it's TV, you know, OTV, CTV is, is in that digital bucket as well. So like, what tactics are you going to use? Because you can still build top of mind awareness with all digital, you know, tactics, especially with the age of cord cutters. And one thing we were going to chat about too briefly was just that now you can insert into YouTube TV through Google ads, at least we can through our premier partnership. But you know, I'm sure that's going to be coming even soon. You can buy direct to Hulu and Paramount plus, and all these different, you know, areas.

Dennis Ayotte  39:53  

So when you're looking at 2026, and planning obviously number one, like you said, Be realistic about what your budget is going to be. And have an annual plan so you're not being reactive, and you can be very proactive, and what that's going to look like. The other thing is really understanding, like, the geography you want to target. You know, we always talk about like, you don't want to be everything to everybody, because realistically, most brands don't have that budget. You know, some brands, you know, if you're a Parker and sons or whatever, and like, I can only imagine what their budget looks like, they're probably able to like spread that more. So that would be, you know, another major recommendation is understanding that. And you know, the other thing I would say is really honing in on your attribution. You got to get good data in so you can get good data out. And with the opportunity with the CRMs like house call Pro has come so far, service Titans got it nailed down pretty well. But on that note, from an operational standpoint, you got to have buy in from your organization that attribution is going to be super important for you, so you can understand, okay, what platforms are working for me best, so I can amp up there what platforms aren't working and that we need to, like, cut and so, you know, one thing that Ben has preached to us this year is like, I he wants more predictability, like he wants to understand. And once you get enough data, you know, it's pretty clear. And we know, like, prices are only going up in terms of cost per clicks and CPAs defining, depending on your how you're defining, like your conversion events. So I think those are the big things that I would say, like, just, you know, start there, and we've made a lot of investments on our side, like, as we've grown as a company, and, you know, we were very digital focused, and over the past couple years, we've been doing more outdoor, more radio, and we just hired a traditional media buyer to kind of fill that role. So super excited for that. But, you know, it's important to have balance, and then also, like, patience, right? Because the traditional side or top of funnel stuff is going to be expensive, and you're not going to see like a one to one return immediately. But the goal, again, is to make sure you're like, getting top of mind awareness. So when their AC does break, they're not googling AC repair near me, they're looking for Aaron's AC repair, right? So I think those are some key things to consider when you're looking at 2026

Aaron Watters  42:29  

Yeah, there, there's a I've got one word of caution, then two quick stories, and if, if it breaks up the flow of the podcast, just kill it. But one, the word of caution is, let's also be careful with the AI investments on monthly fees, and what you're going to put money into, as I say that pitching something like the graphite Lab, which Jacob has a really cool tool, and then they're calling it an assembly where you can go in and then change the tracking source based on certain data points automatically. And you don't have to rely on the CSR, like we use the same tracking number on GLS as the GBP sometimes, because it helps with visibility, but it's hard to then say, where did it come from? And so using a tool like that to re attribute is great. The two specific client examples, and I'll try and wrap it up quick. One was a company an exterior remodeler that they were a sponsor of the local NBA team, did a ton of outdoor, did a lot of TV, very little. Bottom of the funnel, we took over, and immediately they've had really good success. And you know us as an agency, we want to pat ourselves on the back and talk about how great we are in reality. Yes, we're good, but also there's just the logic of, they've been doing branding, branding, branding, branding, branding. Now all of a sudden, we're doing bottom of the funnel. Well, we're capitalizing off of that branding they've been doing, right? Yeah, and so I don't want to say anything negative about the past agency, except for they just had a blind spot. In the same way, we've got another really big client that we love working with, but they don't want to do any brand awareness and zero type of funnel, but then they're trying to hold us accountable for click through rates, conversion rates, and booked price per book job. And it does hamstring the agency quite a bit if we're going to throw a ton of money at Google outside of GLS or on meta, and we have no brand awareness, it is like climbing an uphill battle, and so you can't lock into just one of those tactics, but you've got to have a healthy balance, and just understanding where you are in your business, what your closing rates are, and then staying consistent is really what we want to preach to our clients,

Dennis Ayotte  44:41  

yeah, and I would say, you know, to that point, like, without brand awareness, your company will never get out of the dog fight of non branded search. Like it's, it's impossible, right? There's it just, if nobody knows what your company name is, how do they. Know to ever search for you. So one other kind of pro tip I want to throw in there, because earlier I mentioned, you know, traditional media is very hard to measure, right? So some of the things that we like to look at to try to get an idea of the impact, and if we're kind of going in the right direction, is, you know, number one, we typically do try to get a vanity number regardless, right? If we can get something that has high recall, because if somebody sees it over and over and over again and it's easily recallable, they'll remember it, right? So think about repeaters. Think about using your brand name, particularly in the in the phone number like we have a really great one for our client, raptor Reuter and plumbing in Spokane Valley, Washington. We got 509, 600 dyno, right? And people actually call this number. It's cool. And we actually have a billboard out there. All it says is rawr on it. And I was listening to calls the other day, and somebody came in or called in just to say Rahr. And the CSR was like, is that it? And they're like, Yeah, that's it. I think it was some kid, honestly. But nonetheless, like, it shows like, okay, those numbers can work. So vanity numbers are often something to at least explore. The other thing I would say is you can from a search perspective, paid search perspective, you can see like, am I getting an increase in branded search right? Am I seeing more clicks, you know, per month over time, because, like, people are just searching the brand right? From an organic perspective, using Google Search Console, we can see a lot of that as well, you know. And so I think those three things will help you get you know closer to that. Obviously, you know, having your CSRS in the call center asking for secondary sources, because most of the time you know you're going to see it come in. If you have call tracking set up, it's going to be your Google business profile, maybe your Google ads that they're calling you from, right? And it's always nice to just say, Hey, how'd you hear about us? Most of the time it's going to be Google if they just Googled you, whether it was a PPC ad or was your GBP. But what we what we see sometimes people like, Oh, I saw your, you know, spot on TV this morning, right? Or I heard your radio spot on my on my way into work. And, you know, with right home services here in San Antonio, we've been doing a lot of TV, a lot of radio. We have some outdoor and, you know, I've listened to calls where people call in and they say, Hey, I saw your tune up special, and I wanted to, like, learn more about it, you know, or, Hey, I heard your spot on the radio. So I think if you look at those ways, it'll help you get a little bit clearer picture on like, is it working and are you getting lift overall? Yeah.

Aaron Watters  48:02  

And I think, like as much as we, as an agency that started as an SEO company, want to talk about attribution and tracking. If you just think logically about what's happening right now, Google's AI overview, yeah, Siri, now, I think they said they're they're moving to use Gemini as their AI instead of chat GPT, regardless of who they use. If you're chatting with a AI tool, and they're pulling the phone number off of somewhere that they scraped it, what the heck does that attribution look like? Yeah. And so if you're getting an answer through an AI overview, and they never even go to your website, so the JavaScript can't swap and give them the right number. Yeah, it's gonna get a little murky with attribution, and so we have to look at the big picture and and I think it is gonna get worse before it gets better.

Dennis Ayotte  48:57  

Yeah, I agree. I think we're just seeing the impacts of AI and AI overviews, and it's going to create chaos. But I think that's why, again, like it all starts with the call center and getting insights from them, and getting them to ask where they're seeing some of that stuff will be huge. So cool.

Dennis Ayotte  49:18  

Well, what else, man, is that? What else we got? Would you dress up as for Halloween? I dressed

Dennis Ayotte  49:25  

up as myself cute, but I was kind of, I had, like, skater vibes. So I was, like, I would say, like, I wore my bands in a beanie, and then, like, I had my shirt buttoned at the top button. So it was kind of like, like a California skater.

Aaron Watters  49:42  

Boy, did they say, See you later? Boy, no, they saw Admiral a couple weeks

Dennis Ayotte  49:48  

ago. So I saw you had at least one or Yeah or two costumes.

Aaron Watters  49:53  

Yeah, we did the Vikings from the how to train the dragon. So Ally and I dressed up as that. We thought Sid was going to be the dragon. She apparently wanted to be Glinda. Never watched the movie, but she was a beautiful Glinda, I think,

Dennis Ayotte  50:08  

yeah, Linda, Glinda. That was like Ariana Grande,

Aaron Watters  50:11  

nice, uh huh. And then, and then Allie bought me last year the Ricky Bobby outfit. I didn't wear it. Needless to say, it was from Amazon. So I wore that Halloween night for trick or treating. I could not wear the pants. Okay, little tight. Could not wear the pants. Yeah, that was, that was rough, but it was funny. Too many leg days this past year. Yeah, that was, that was what was going it was not great, nice.

Dennis Ayotte  50:43  

Well, that's that's cool. So what are you most looking forward to this holiday season? Thanksgiving, Christmas,

Aaron Watters  50:51  

our golf trip in December, we're doing Boston. My whole family and my in laws are going up to visit my cousin, and we're doing it in Boston. So cool. Have snow,

Dennis Ayotte  51:01  

nice. Yeah, I think we'll be hosting most of the family this year, so it'll be good. But yeah, really looking forward to our golf trip. That's going to be epic. You know, I've been working out trying to get ready for five days of golf in a row, but a first world problems, right? Absolutely. So absolutely. Well, thank you guys again for tuning in to talk of the trades. That is not our taka trophy, no, it's our seventh place trophy. So almost a whole year of talk of the trade. Yeah, we've been doing it for a minute, but like, Man, what a what a crazy year it's been and, you know, looking forward to finishing

Aaron Watters  51:45  

it out strong same Yeah, we're getting our signage in here soon. Yeah,

Dennis Ayotte  51:49  

for sure. All right. Well, thank you

Aaron Watters  51:51  

guys. Have a good one. Bye. Later.

Dennis Ayotte  51:57  

Awesome. We're recording you. Sure, okay.