Marketing Tactics to Implement on Your Next Job (ft. Sean Holleran)

Logan Shinholser
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Contractor Growth network podcast. I’m Logan Shinholser, and today I’m joined by Sean Holleran, who does all of our social media here at CGN and our clients social media as well. We’re talking all things about what should you be doing at your next job site from a marketing standpoint, to take that one job and promote it so you get more jobs down the line. So without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into the episode. Sean, why are you excited to talk about this?

Sean Holleran
Well, like you said, it’s my whole job, so it’s what I do all day. I love social media in general and creating content for that. So it’s really important to do a lot of this stuff from job to get your next job, essentially.

Logan Shinholser
And one of the things, the whole reason why we’re doing this topic, we really segmented out what topics for podcasts do we want to do in what order? Right now at the time of this recording, we are in like the thick of the season. It’s near the end of July. It’s hot. All of the excitement from the beginning of the year, which is I wanna have a killer year. I’m gonna do all the things I set out to do all the time, very consistently. It’s starting to slowly fade away as it gets consistently hot. And all those little marketing things that we told ourselves at the beginning of the year that were gonna do all the time, it’s starting to slip. So unfortunately, what always happens is wintertime comes and people go, hey, I got all this time now I should really gear up.

Logan Shinholser
But unfortunately, especially in the more aesthetically pleasing design, build, remodeling, landscaping, even exterior remodeling side of things. Like you need footage and content and all these things from your projects to then use to create print, mail, ads, better websites, all that stuff. And right now is the time to be capturing all that. But because we get busy in our day to day of like, you know, producing the job, dealing with everything, it’s hard to stop, take a second and go, all right, this extra five minutes a day can really set me up for the remainder of this year and next. So this is a good, like, this is a very timely thing.

Logan Shinholser
It’s focusing on the time that you probably don’t want to be doing all this stuff, but you absolutely need to be doing it, because in six months from now, if you’re not doing this stuff, you’re going to be kicking yourself, going, damn, that was a really cool project. That we did. I wish I had taken the time to go back and do it.

Sean Holleran
Yeah, I know it’s the busy season for a lot of our clients and contractors. A lot of people want to get their homes remodeled or their landscaping done in the summer when it’s nice weather. So it’s hard to get that stuff. But like you said, it is crucial to get it done now because not only is it like, oh, I finished the job, and I should have gotten stuff with that, but I. Now you’re talking. It’s November. It’s December. Some places you’re covered in snow. It doesn’t look as appealing. And you can’t use that in the following season to advertise for. Because what you want to do is you want to have a. You want your potential client to see this and imagine what they want their homes to look like when they’re on breaks, which is summer.

Sean Holleran
You know, summer is the natural time for people to be outside enjoying their family time and, you know, summer vacation, you know, so you want to have that show up in your advertisement. So in the summer, during this time, you have to get that footage done. Now, I remember when I was doing.

Logan Shinholser
All this for Premier Pond, which is the pond company that my dad did, you know, had and has now sold it. But one of the issues was I was doing all the marketing from afar, and they would produce this awesome pond, and it looked super cool. The team was really happy with it. And what they would do is they would take photos when they were done with the project. Well, in the pond world, it takes really, you know, three to five days for a pond to be consistently running for all of the dirt, even if they clean it out correctly, to finally settle and have clear water.

Logan Shinholser
Well, what would happen is they would get busy and then they would really just take a photo at the end or a video of the end and then go, here you go, Logan, do what you can. And what was happening was I was now getting all this footage of all these awesome ponds with brown water. And it was really hard for me to like, okay, do I post this and then create, like, an asterisk that says, like, hey, trust me, in five days, this is gonna look awesome. And eventually they hired an in house person, and now mark does all that stuff. He goes back out and, like, all the photos and videos look great because it’s like, let mother nature do its thing.

Logan Shinholser
But it’s the same thing as what you’re bringing up of, like, if you’re remodeling somebody’s home, I mean, it’s small, but, like, even like, on the inside where you may not think weather is that I impactful. Like, people like to look tan and if you’re pale and, you know, it sounds weird, but, like, you put on, like, your winter weight. Like, there’s a thing with that as well. So hitting it while it’s the right time is huge.

Sean Holleran
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we have a client, bulletproof ponds, and they do one acre ponds. And sometimes those ponds, because they have to fill naturally. They could take a year, two years to fill out. They still go back. So, like, that’s important because it’s a big difference to show that pond empty versus a pond full that someone can use. That is a huge difference to the marketing and how to sell that pond. So it’s the same thing. You have to set that up. You have to be dedicated to set that up because it’s about how you look. Right? So if your ponds look like they’re covered in dirt and they’re, you know, the water is dirty, I mean, how it’s gonna be much more harder for your salesperson to sell that.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. And the last thing before I actually start to go through the tactics of how to do it, we had a, one of our clients came to us and said, look, I’m sure you guys work with a ton of different companies, anywhere from their newer to the really well established. Like, what makes the people that are in my situation, what makes it a really good scenario from a marketing perspective for them versus those that maybe they’re not doing things the right way and the marketing doesn’t work as well. And I remember I was thinking about this. I was like, that’s a really good question. It really comes down to the more that you are your own biggest advocate and you are promoting your own stuff, the better off you’re going to be.

Logan Shinholser
From a marketing perspective, you’ve got the types of companies and owners that are like, it’s like too bashful or reserved and they don’t want to show off their own stuff. And what ends up happening is they don’t look very confident and nobody really knows what they do. And it’s almost like going into a job interview and having a resume that’s very, just conservative and humble. And they’re like, well, why would we hire you? And you’re like, I don’t know. Versus you standing proud and saying, this is what I do. This is how I do it. This is why I want to do this thing. The more that you’re your own biggest advocate and there’s an emotional aspect of this. Once you start to promote yourself on social media and online, at first it’s hard.

Logan Shinholser
Cause you’re afraid of what are people gonna think about me? But eventually you realize that nobody’s actually judging you off of that. And we all agree that the people that are judging you off of that, you don’t really care about what they think. So once you kind of, I don’t know, at first, Domino Falls, at least that I have found all my stuff. I used to be very hesitant to post about what I was doing on social. It wasn’t that I was not confident in what I was doing. But nobody wants to be seen small. It’s kind of like when you’re losing weight. Like, nobody wants to put the before photos and say, hey, I’m about to do all this stuff. They want to wait until they lost the weight and then say, hey, by the way, I already did this.

Logan Shinholser
But when it comes to the business side, you need to be posting along the journey.

Sean Holleran
Yeah, I’d say that’s, like, one of the number one killers of people who are trying to promote themselves on social is that they’re afraid, like, they won’t invite their friends or their family to their pages. And, I mean, that is just free advertising. And those are free people who are going to love your brand unconditionally, almost. So that’s, like, the first thing that I generally recommend to any of our clients is that you have to put yourself out there to your friends and family, and don’t be afraid to post, because, like you said, people are not going to. They’re not sitting there thinking like, oh, look at this guy. Look at his work. It’s terrible. They’re not thinking that. And if they are, it’s just that they’re jealous.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah.

Sean Holleran
So you have to get over that.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So let’s do this. Let’s. We have a whole thing on social. Let’s start off with, like, the offline stuff. And the whole premise here is what you brought up, which is when you go to a job, you want the neighborhood to know and everybody else in the community to know that, hey, this is what we’re doing at this house. And it creates this, like, neighborly effect of, like, I mean, you know, like, the painting company that we ended up going with at my house. Like, they were just painting one of our neighbors houses, and I was like, oh, like, they’re already up the road. Let me just call them. Cause I saw the yard sign, and then I started getting all their ads. So, like, it’s like that neighborly effect of like, well, they’re already here. They know the neighborhood. It’s easy.

Logan Shinholser
So let me just, like, do first crack at that. So that’s the whole goal here, is to show up to the neighborhood and everybody knows your company is now potentially the painting company, the remodeling company, the home building, or the landscaping company for that neighborhood. So the first tactic, if you will, that when you show up to a the next job site, make sure you’re putting out a yard sign very first thing in the yard. That is like the biggest, easiest thing, the yard sign. It doesn’t have to be super complicated, really. It’s just meant to be a brand piece because, like, you’re going to have two different types of yard signs, if you will. You’ve got those that are like, you know, are you in? This is gonna get a little bit complicated.

Logan Shinholser
But, like, some people like to put a yard sign with tons of information on it. You know, these are the 14 services we do. This is our license. This is all of our stuff. And that not only does it look overdone if people are driving by, how much of that are you gonna see?

Sean Holleran
So, yeah, it needs to be rememberable.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So it’s really more of a branding play on the yard sign side. So it’s really just when you show up, get the yard sign out there. And if you’re one of these people that’s like, well, we operate off of subs and are, you know, it’s so hard to get our subs to do it well, like, you can make that part of it. Or if it’s, you know, that important, which it really is, get your butt out there to do it or have the project manager do it or somebody needs to do it. And if you need to. Cause we’ve dealt with this with clients before as well. We’re like, oh, well, they don’t do it. It’s like, we’ll make it part of their job, but then also incentivize them.

Logan Shinholser
If, hey, if you put this yard sign out there, which you have to do anyway because it literally takes 5 seconds and you’re on the clock anyway, put that out there. And if somebody in the neighborhood calls us because of it, I will give you x amount of money from that project to, you know, so now it’s like a win of the company gets more work in the door, but it’s also that project manager or whoever’s owning this thing is actually doing it. So it’s like super easy, but you just got to do it. You just got to put it out there, make it easy, make it a big branding play. And the yard sign, like, you’re going to have different levels depending on what type of business you’re in.

Logan Shinholser
If it’s like very, like I tell people, like, if it’s just like, if you’re in and out of a project within like a week, you can have more of those like corrugated cardboard yard signs. But if you’re like a remodeler or a home builder that’s going to be there for months, like, those things that those cardboard ones are going to look like crap after a couple weeks. They also, you know, they’re on the cheaper side, which is fine if it’s a cheaper product. And I’m not trying to like, diminish somebody’s product, but, like, you know, there’s a level of like, how long you’re there is also dictates kind of like the price points of stuff. So, like, if you’re a remodeler, like have a nice, like, wood sign that has like a light on it potentially that at nighttime people can see it.

Logan Shinholser
So, like, the way that your yard sign looks is like, yes, we want to be doing this at the very next jobs site, but we also want to make sure that it’s going to like, give off the right, I don’t know, vibe or message or positioning of that company where it’s not, hey, we do really expensive high end stuff, but check out our really cheap temporary yard sign as a whole.

Sean Holleran
And you also have to think about if you’re building an entire home, you’re there for possibly months. And if you just go with those corrugated foam boards, you’re going to be replacing that frequently. And those aren’t exactly cheap, but they’re nothing expensive. But if you’re going through one every couple days or a week, it’s just not, it’s not as beneficial as just, you know, spending a little extra on a sign that you can put in, pull out, move to the next job. I mean, that lasts longer, super easy.

Logan Shinholser
And the next piece on that is once you have the yard sign out there, which is like, get that done just the very first thing because everybody is like, all right, we’ll get set up at the house, then we’ll do it. And then that becomes like it’s day three and then you, it’s like that awkward, like you haven’t done it so far and now it feels weird to put it out there. So just get it done. The very 1st, 2nd when you get there, the next piece is door hangers. So when it comes to door hangers, what we’re going for here is less of a, hey, buy our stuff. So when we door hangers, we want to put them up at the neighbor’s houses, not on the, you know, the house that we’re actually working on, but it’s the neighbor’s houses.

Logan Shinholser
And it’s really more of a pardon my dust type deal. It’s a, hey, we’re gonna be at your neighbor’s house. If we’re in the way, here’s our website or our phone number. Just give us a call and let us know, and we’ll move our vehicles out of the way. And I’m thinking about this, like, at my house. Like, I live in a community where it’s. It’s tight between that. I mean, you’ve seen my house.

Sean Holleran
It’s not very small. There’s not a great parking spot.

Logan Shinholser
No, there’s not a great parking spot. So it’s like when they were, I mean, we just finished. I mean, my brother just did a whole, like, water feature and walkway and everything. And, like, and he has machines in there and the subs are so it’s a lot of stuff. So it’s like, you know, I’m watching our neighbors, like, have to squeeze through these two trucks, like, on either side of the road and having just a yard, a door hanger that just says, like, hey, if we’re in the way, just like, let me know. Like, that’s just such a good customer service move that. Yes, they will. You know, people will hold onto these things if they’re even remotely interested in whatever the service is.

Logan Shinholser
I remember my neighbor, one of my neighbors, when my brother first did something at my house, like, two years ago, a year later, they just held onto that door hanger, and were over there playing games at their house, and they were like, oh, hold on. And they went and got the door hanger and showed us that they held onto it, and it’s in that kitchen junk drawer of theirs. And you keep looking at it, so there’s no reason not to put these things out. And if you’re putting it out in a way that it’s like, hey, if we’re in the way, please let us know it’s not this, you know? Yeah. Every so often, you’re going to have one person that’s like, hey, that was solicitation. Why’d you do it?

Logan Shinholser
And you’re like, no, this is like a customer service thing, and then all they do is they call you. But that is worth it to get your brand out there in the rest of the neighborhood a lot more. Plus, if you really want to take this thing up to the next notch, just attach a gift card to it for, like, Starbucks. Like, just have a coffee on us. Make it $10. And this is, like, I’m a big gifting person, and if you’re gonna give them a Starbucks thing, you can’t really get much for five. So if you’re gonna pass them out, I would say gesture, though. Yeah, I remember I did this one time just on a side note, like, I got. Actually, it was my dad’s company back years ago. I got them, like, hockey tickets to the Caps game.

Logan Shinholser
And I remember I was gonna get them tickets in the last minute. I was like, hold on. These are, like, nosebleeds. You don’t want to get them a gift where it’s almost like, hey, I appreciate that, but this was just such a check the box gift. Which is why it sounds odd. That’s why I don’t want a $5 gift card at Starbucks, because you can get a coffee, then you have to spend a little bit more, and it’s just like, hey, I’m giving you this gift, but you still got to spend your own money. It’s a halfway thing. So I would make it $10, get the five closest houses to it, attach it, and then now the homeowner that you’re actually working at, their neighbors.

Logan Shinholser
I mean, first off, their neighbors will never experience somebody else giving them money to say, hey, if we’re in the way, please let us know. That’s gonna make your client look really smart for hiring the right type of company. But it’s also just a good gesture where they’re gonna remember that. I remember for my dad’s company, we actually had their logos printed on the Starbucks gift cards, so you could actually attach it that had, like, their logo on the card itself. And it came, like, in a little mini envelope that just had. Again, hey, if we’re in the way, please let us know that they attached to that door hanger. And it was, like, beautiful.

Sean Holleran
Yeah, yeah. I remember I had a tree that had to have an arborist come out. And about a year later, my neighbor asked me who came out, and I recommended them. They sent me a mug, coffee mug. And I had no idea they’re gonna do this, but I use that mug every time. And anytime I’m thinking about trees, they’re the first ones I think about.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah.

Sean Holleran
Like, every time I see that mug, I mean, they’re the only people I’d call about trees now.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah.

Sean Holleran
And then they’re in South Carolina, so they’re not. That they’re not close.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah.

Sean Holleran
You know, it’s huge. It’s huge, right? Yes. Smallest gesture was just a coffee mug. I love coffee. And all I did was recommended somebody to them. So, yeah, small gestures like that go a long way.

Logan Shinholser
All right, last just offline marketing tactic is going to be, if you have your truck and it’s wrapped, make sure that, you know, if you’re parking it all the way up the driveway. Cause it’s, I don’t know, like, if it’s convenient, that makes sense. But, like, if you’re gonna park it on the road, like, just make sure that it’s parked in a place that people can actually see the actual truck wrap as well. Like, you don’t want to keep that thing hidden from everybody. So if you’re able to park it on the road in a way that it’s off to the side that people are not gonna, like, I don’t know, get frustrated by it, just do it. It’s another just branding piece as well.

Logan Shinholser
Plus, if they see the truck at the house and then if that happens to be an area that you do a lot of work in, people are gonna be consistently seeing your truck all over town. And kind of like that mug example, it’s, oh, I’ve seen that truck. They did something at my neighbor’s house and now they’re just seeing it all over town and it just kinda continues to build that brand recognition. So super easy. So between yard, sign, door hanger and that truck, super quick things just to do at the very next job that you’re working on now, flipping over. Let’s talk about on the online stuff. So, Sean, this is more of your realm. So let’s talk through when it comes to, like, maybe capturing media at the next project, like, walk us through what that looks like.

Sean Holleran
Yeah. So this is also equally as huge.

Logan Shinholser
So probably more would be my guess.

Sean Holleran
Yeah, I think you can argue both sides, but, yeah, definitely me being who I am, I’m going to say it is with marketing, organic marketing, being free, and there’s so many voices out there. It has to be good, it has to be consistent. So a big thing is, like, before and after photos and videos, they’re huge, especially on Instagram, like, reels. People love just watching, like, the transformation of things. So you definitely want to make sure that you’re grabbing the four photos, and. And I’m not talking, like, I see a lot of contractors are getting, like, current. I want to see what it looked like before. Grab the current, and then grab the after as well. So those. Those are huge. And then you want to get things like client testimonials on video.

Sean Holleran
Now, this could be, in an ideal world, you have a videographer that’s coming in and doing all this stuff, but, not everyone’s always there, so, if you’re not a videographer, you can do it yourself. Everyone’s got a phone in their pocket. You can get microphones that plug directly into your phone that gives you good audio quality. And that’s huge, too, because people are going to swipe away very quickly if your audio is not great. So you want to make sure that invest just a little bit in a microphone and plug that into your phone. But you can be walking through your projects, giving updates weekly, maybe, or daily, depending on the job, and posting those to your instagrams, your Facebook TikTok, wherever you want to build your following.

Logan Shinholser
So let’s go back to the before and after photos. Cause I think that’s, like, especially in, like, the remodeling landscape design. Build anything that’s, like, aesthetically pleasing. Like, that, to me, is, like, bare minimum. Because if that’s. If you were a fitness trainer and you’re trying to sell this fitness program, hey, come. You know, come work with body by Logan, and I’ll get you squared away. And then if Sean, like, what’s like, you’re gonna wanna know, hey, have you ever done this before? And I go, yeah, trust me, I can show you the during of one person working out. But you don’t know. Were they obese beforehand? Were they morbidly obese?

Sean Holleran
Right.

Logan Shinholser
You know? Or was it, like, in reality, they were skinny. And now, when, after they worked out with me, now they’re jacked, because depending on if you’re trying to lose weight or gain weight, that’s gonna make a big difference. Going back to, like, the before, the during, and the aftershot, what kind of shots do you want to be taking that would show the transformation or, like, the actual, like, project itself?

Sean Holleran
So I think it depends a lot on the project, but we try to get, you know, the whole room. Like, you want to get a wide shot, then you want to get some close ups. So essentially, you want the wide shot so you can see the overall of the scope of the project.

Logan Shinholser
And we say wide shot is that what they do, real estate photography, where it’s just stand in the corner and just take the whole rail.

Sean Holleran
Generally, everyone’s phone, if you have an iPhone, even pixel or Android, you have that feature that’s a 0.5 or six that really widens the camera. So you want to do something like that because a lot of rooms, like bathrooms, could be really small, and they’re tough to get into. If you do have a professional videographer or somebody coming in, you want to make sure that they have a lens that can capture that, because especially on social media, you have to fit it into a portrait landscape or a portrait mode.

Logan Shinholser
Is that vertical?

Sean Holleran
Vertical, yeah. So it’s vertical. And when you do that in something that’s not able to capture wide angle, you lose a lot of details. You’re actually punched in a lot. You’re zoomed in a lot. So you want to try to get as wide as possible. If you need to be in the corner, get in the corner. You can do a lot of top down. So you’re looking from the top pointed down, and it gets a lot more surface area. But it all depends on the job itself. But you want to begin in the corner getting wide, and then you want to get some close ups of, like, the faucets. That’s a huge one. People are always looking at, you know, faucets and sinks and, bathtubs.

Sean Holleran
So they want to see essentially, what did it look like before, and then what did you do to make it better? Because, like you were saying, when you have a, bodybuilder, did they actually make it worse afterwards? You need to know what that. You need that reference point. So, close ups of the, you know, the faucets, the. The handles on your cabinets are great. And make sure that you’re staging it, too. It’s okay to see, like, an empty bathroom. Like, it’s just done. But what really sells it is people, like, we’re talking about with the, like, getting the photos and the videos in the summertime. People want to think of themselves using that space. So no one’s going to have a bathroom that was just moved into that has nothing there.

Sean Holleran
They’re going to, their bathroom is going to have, like, a washcloth on it. It’s going to have some soap dispensers and make it look nice, maybe some greenery in there. All of that, like, staging is very important to sell the shot and really just bring that extra aesthetic.

Logan Shinholser
So when you’re doing these shots, like, the befores and afters, and then we’ll get to the durings. But the befores and afters, how important is having the same shot of the before and the after to show, like. Cause I’ve seen it sometimes where people will have, like, you know, they’re standing in one corner. Take the before, and then the after is taken from a completely different angle. Like, is that an important thing?

Sean Holleran
I think it is. I don’t think, like, if you end up knocking it that way, it’s not the end of the world. But I know when I’m given footage like that, I’ve never been in the space. It’s tough for me to edit a piece, like, because especially some of our remodelers, they move walls, they readjust things. So, like, I don’t know that space. And it’s tough to visualize that change if you’re in a different angle. So my recommendation is try to get like, match those shots as best you can. Because sometimes, like I said, if you move walls and stuff, maybe you can’t get that shot, but get it as close as you can. Like a professional videographer, he would probably mark that and write down notes like, this is where I was. These are the settings I had.

Sean Holleran
Try to match it as best as possible.

Logan Shinholser
So with that then, should you get a professional for before photos, or is it really more for the after?

Sean Holleran
Like, it can’t hurt to have both. I know a lot of people like their clients. They struggle with, I don’t want a professor, I don’t want a photographer coming in on my before. I’m hiring you for a reason. I’m not proud of this space. But if you can get professional before.

Logan Shinholser
Professional after, and then what about durings? How important are during shots for everything?

Sean Holleran
They’re not as important as the before and after. They help, though, especially if you want to make your content last longer for the same project. I know some of our clients, they may do five, six projects in a year, especially like a home builder, they may not do a whole lot. And that becomes tough when you are trying to fill an entire year’s worth of content. So it helps to lengthen how long you have on that content.

Logan Shinholser
So why not just have standalone durings? Because that’s what most companies do, is they don’t have the befores, the afters, or a lot of times, unless they hire a professional to go back out there. The afters are typically going to be like 90% of the way there. But like, none of the fixtures are in or you get it pretty close, but there’s, you know, paint cans in the corner, like, on the countertops and stuff. So it just. It looks like it’s still a construction zone. Why are durings not the shot to just only get?

Sean Holleran
I think it goes back to what we’ve been. This whole theme, really is that people want to picture themselves in this space. And the during is great to be like, oh, I can kind of see your process. It’s a little engaging. I know you can do the job, but I don’t know what it looks like. I don’t know what. Also, like you were saying with the bodybuilder, I don’t know what that, like, what the after is. I don’t know what you actually did for him. So the during is good to see that, you know, proof of work, but I really want to be able to picture myself in the end, and I really want to know what your finish looks like.

Sean Holleran
Cause that’s really important, you know, you can be doing the job, and then at the end, it actually doesn’t look great, you know?

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So, okay, so we want before and after photos, hopefully with the same angle. Best case scenario, hire professional who knows how to get the right lighting, the right, you know, staging is a big part of it. I know. I talked to clients about the difference of, like, a real estate photographer versus one that’s more interior design or architectural design focus, where one is just wide angles to show you the space, and one is going to be more close ups on the finishes, the features really like that one. The interior design photographer is more about, like, the craftsmanship. And they like, because, I mean, we’ll have, like, the clients that we work with that either we go out and do the photos and videos for, or they have somebody who’s really good. You can.

Logan Shinholser
We can tell what type of photographer they used or if they just went out there themselves with a, you know, what they deem to be a nice camera because you can tell with the lighting. Like, I remember I was showing Audrey a remodeler here in Charlotte, like, their website, when were, like, looking at who we wanted to do for our project. And she was like, why are all the photos so dark? And I was like, well, this is shot with a professional camera. Like, you can tell that. But the shadowing was a big deal, and it just made the space look dark and gloomy. They did a good job with. They had staging there. You could see the vacuum lines on the floor, on the carpet floor. Like, the rest of it was good, but just the lighting of it.

Logan Shinholser
It just didn’t look like an inviting room to be in. And what ended up happening was after seeing enough of those, that type of photos, she was just not super excited about the project anymore. So it became a thing where I was like, no, no. I think it’s just bad photos. I think they’re trying to make it look good, but just trust that they just didn’t know what they were doing on the shadowing, which I guess if you always have, like, a marketing person as, like, the other person coaching the homeowner of, like, hey, trust me, this looks a lot brighter in person. You’re golden. But nobody just has, like, that devil and angel where, like, the angel is, like, the. The marketing person on your shoulder going, trust me, it looks way better in person.

Sean Holleran
So, yeah, it’s massive. I mean, especially this is a visual industry. Yeah, I mean, it’s. I mean, there’s an entire channel built on this stuff, right? Like, massive. And it goes both ways. Like, I remember when I was looking for homes in 2019 to buy, there were a lot. I mean, you look at photos, real estate photos, and there are a lot that I was like, oh, this one looks great. I’m gonna go look at that one. And it’d be like three in a day. I go to, I’m like, this is nothing, what the photos showed. And it’s because the photography was so good. It made it look way better than it actually was. Now, I’m not saying make your job look way better, you know, don’t. Don’t do a subpar job, but I’m just saying it’s very important, like, how those photos look.

Sean Holleran
So if those photos are not professional, they look bad. Your great work may not look great.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, yeah. And it tells a whole story about everything. So let’s go back to the video side of things. So I know you brought up testimonials from clients. Walk me through, like. Cause I know we kind of go on a journey here at CGN of, like, we used to only do client testimonials that was, like, very story brand esque, which for those of you that don’t know story brand, it’s a. It’s a book by Donald Miller. Building a story brand. Highly recommended. It essentially tells you how to tell the story of how you help consumers by really not, I mean, he talks about cutting through the noise, but instead of you going, hey, I’m the best role modeler out there. Hire me. It’s really more of like, hey, this is how I can help you.

Logan Shinholser
And we used to go very storytelling esque, and now we’ve kind of re, you know, flipped it where you and, you know, Aaron, one of the projects just said, sat down and just scripted out how HGTV does it. So now it’s different. So, you know, this would best case scenario to hire somebody to do this. But can you give me, like, the journey of, I guess, how it went from only client testimonials? Cause I’ve seen them where we have, you know, clients of ours that are like, hey, I’ll just do the testimonial. And it’s just like, it looks, aw, they’re trying, but it’s the homeowner sitting down, the contractor standing up, holding and sticking their phone in the person’s face, trying to ask them these questions.

Logan Shinholser
And it never comes out the way that you want it to because it seems like a hostage video. So can you walk through, I guess, what a good project walkthrough is in video form?

Sean Holleran
Yeah. So essentially what we do now is we call them featured projects, videos that go on the featured project pages that we do. And like you said, it’s all based on kind of the idea of what HGTV will do. We used to do just testimonials, and we used to do just projects walkthroughs, and they were great.

Logan Shinholser
And what’s the difference between those?

Sean Holleran
Yeah, yeah. So the testimonial, essentially, we’d sit down the client of the contractor, and they would tell their story about how they found them, what jobs they got done, and just what they loved about it and everything. And we’d show, like, b roll videos of, like, what was done, maybe some before photos as well, if they had them. And then a project walkthrough, is the contractor actually going through the space and walking through the project of what was done and the challenges they went over, and essentially, just the overall scope of the work. So, essentially what we found out is that separately, these are only entertaining to a certain extent.

Sean Holleran
They’re both very important to have because the testimonial is important to have because now you got proof of a client that is happy, and everyone knows how important reviews on Google and Amazon, how important they are. So you need that. And the project walkthrough shows, like, your competence, like, you did this job. And here is the deeper level of what was done than what the client can say. So essentially, we took these and kind of smashed them together and made a story out of it. And now what this does is it gives enough engaging information so that somebody wants to stick around for a 1 minute or three minute to four minute video, which our attention spans are super short these days, so you got to capture them in that amount of time, even less so with social media.

Sean Holleran
So that’s essentially where we’ve gone down that journey of finding that story, of being able to have a client lead us through their story, with the contractor also telling their story about the job and the problems that they overcame for their clients.

Logan Shinholser
So all of this is like, best case scenario, you can hire a company to come out and record all this, because there’s just like, with, you know, if you’re a remodeler, like, a homeowner could technically, I guess, remodel their own kitchen, but the way that you’re going to do, it’s going to better and, you know, more execution. But maybe not every company is at a place where they can afford a professional videographer. Cause there, and there is a difference between, like, a lot of photographers will not do videography and vice versa, because it is very different skill sets.

Sean Holleran
I have so many people who ask me, can you do photography? No, no. There’s a difference.

Logan Shinholser
There is a major difference. Now, I will say we will do like, we do photography as well. So we had to learn that side. But everybody like you, Dane, Aaron, all came in videography first. And then when we introduced the idea of photography, that was like a whole new learned thing of, like, I mean, y’all went over to, I have a friend that’s a really, well, like, run real estate company, but taught us staging and, like, what’s important and, like, you know, all that stuff. So, like, we had to learn it, and now it’s great. But, you know, it’s not the same thing of, like, oh, you can. You can play basketball, which is, like, you can technically run on a court. Are you also good at running a marathon? It’s like, well, these are completely different, so same idea here.

Sean Holleran
Right?

Logan Shinholser
All right, so now let’s just say that you don’t have this huge budget, right? And you have a phone, that microphone that you talked about that I know we use for a lot of stuff, and you just have one person that’s just walking around with your phone potentially recording you or something else. Like, how do you do a project walkthrough or a testimonial in a way that still looks good and it’s not going to hurt your street cred or reputation, but you don’t have to hire a full production company to come out and do it?

Sean Holleran
Yeah, it’s tough getting started. Once you get started and get into the rhythm of it’s a lot easier than people think. And you just get in front of the camera alone is really tough. But once you get over all that, you’re golden. It’s important you can get things like a gimbal. DJI makes really good gimbals. We love DJI here. And you can get them for your phone. They’re not expensive, but this allows you to get a smooth movement as someone’s walking, because if they’re just holding your phone, you’re getting a lot of bouncing up and downs for every step that you take. And it can be distracting. So essentially, you want to get a gimbal, use your phone, and then use your microphones that plug directly into your phone as well, because that audio is very important.

Logan Shinholser
So, and just so gimbal is like a stabilizer that you can use it for massive cameras. You can also use it for your phone.

Sean Holleran
Right.

Logan Shinholser
But it just smooths it out. So when you’re walking, it’s not bouncing.

Sean Holleran
That’s right.

Logan Shinholser
All the cameras that mean my iPhone now has, like, the action mode that, like, is meant to be a smoother video.

Sean Holleran
The problem with the action mode, though, is some depending on which action mode you go in. I’m not sure if it’s the same as an iPhone because I’m not an iPhone user. But on my phone, when you get into that super smooth movement, it doesn’t record audio, and it also records at a different frame rate, so your audio may not match up. So that is one issue with it. But there are some that smooths out a little bit that does record audio.

Logan Shinholser
If you had a gimbal, not action mode, normal video, you’d be good?

Sean Holleran
Oh, you’d be, yeah, 100%.

Logan Shinholser
And then on the microphone side, how important is the audio if you’re trying to talk into the camera?

Sean Holleran
I would say it’s. I mean, if we’re gonna do video and audio, I mean, they are equally as important, not one more than the other. Because if you just have really bad audio and like, every time you turn away from that camera, because that cam, that audio or that microphone is on the camera pointed at you and it’s picking up all the sound in the area, so if you turn away from the microphone, your audio becomes muffled, people can’t hear you. And then if there’s background noise going on or you’re not in a gray area, it’s going to pick all that up. It’s going to be distracting, essentially. The video is pointless. So it is. Audio is just as important as video is.

Logan Shinholser
So what do you then? Let’s just say we have video and audio. What are we talking about? If you don’t have the full production team. You’re a remodeler. You just finished the kitchen. What are you walking through?

Sean Holleran
So you generally want to walk through the scope of work that you’ve done, the problems that the client had and how you overcame them, those would be the big things. And then essentially just tell you how, like, show what you did with your work. So what are you proud of? What did you put in? What stuff did you use? But mainly it’s what were the problems that youre client had and how did you overcome that problem?

Logan Shinholser
So how important in this is, like, when you’re explaining it, like, talk about, I guess, like, the energy levels. Cause, like, we have some people on camera that are super boisterous, and we have some people on camera that it’s like, it’s, you can tell they’re very nervous. So, like, their energies are pretty low.

Sean Holleran
Well, I always tell people the same thing as, especially when you’re doing this stuff, it’s about, you know, selling yourself. So you need to be who you are first and foremost, be as truthful to who you are as possible. But sometimes not everybody is great on camera, so you may have to fake it a little bit, but energy levels, you need to be proud of that work. Like, you’re going back and going back in the early, earlier in this episode, you mentioned you need to have confidence because who’s going to love you if you don’t love yourself? So you need to be confident of that work. Your energy level does need to be higher. You can’t be, like, mumbling and like, this is my work. You have to be excited about it, but don’t make it so that it’s not who you are.

Logan Shinholser
So then you get these photos, you get these videos. What do you do with them?

Sean Holleran
Well, first of all, social media, that’s huge. You can also put them on your website as proof of work. Like feed your project pages that we do. Essentially, it’s a case study of everything you’ve done, and it proves that you can do that work. And then finally you can actually send them to prospects who are interested in your work, but they’re maybe not sold yet or even they’ve already been sold and you want to show them, here’s what we’ve done for somebody else, and here’s what you can expect.

Logan Shinholser
And I know, like, with the photos and videos, a lot of times, like, even if you don’t necessarily know what exactly to do with them now, like, it all, like, you’re never gonna do a project that’s cool. And then you capture media for it and then regret that you captured it. It’s always the opposite where it’s like, oh, I wish we had done better photos or done photos at all, or videos of it all on this one project, but we didn’t. And then it’s. Sometimes you feel awkward reaching back out to a customer from three years ago to go, hey, I know it’s been three years since we talked. How’s everything going, by the way? Can we come back out and do, you know, photos and videos in your space? So it’s much easier from just a.

Logan Shinholser
An emotional standpoint, too, just to knock it out right then and there. And even with, like, if you’re going to do the testimonials with clients, like, a lot of times just ask them before the project starts. Hey, if we knock this thing out of the park, like, we love doing video of projects. Like, would you be willing to leave us, you know, a testimonial or a review, which we’ll talk about how to do reviews next, but just a, you know, a video testimonial? And then some clients will say yes. Some clients will say no. But, like, if you do it ahead of time and you position it in, like, a, hey, if we knock it out of the park, would you be willing to do this?

Logan Shinholser
Like, they’re way more likely versus, like, springing it on them at the last minute of, like, hey, you got a couple minutes? Can I put you on camera real fast? And, like, can freak them out?

Sean Holleran
Yeah. I mean, people like to prepare. I mean, they got to know ahead of time also, it’s not just an emotional thing. It’s more. It’s also a aesthetic thing. As were talking about earlier, where we had a client who went out to before, and were doing testimonials for them, and we get halfway through the testimonial interview with their client, and it turned out that they had done the job seven years prior, and they had not spoken since, other than him, to ask, like, if she will do the video. And there are a lot of questions that we ask, like, well, so what was your, you know, what was your experience, like, with this? And she’s like, well, I don’t really know. It was that long ago. So it’s about the information that they can provide.

Sean Holleran
If you wait too long, and the fact that once you get further down the line aesthetically, it’s now used.

Logan Shinholser
Cause, like, design trends go in and out, it’d be like showing like, you know, your phone from seven years ago where I’m like, oh, that looks like an iPhone 13. Like, why they’re using that so. Cause the recency side of things is big for projects. We all want to see like the latest and greatest, which is piggybacking into one of the other things that we want to do on the next job is make sure we get a review. Like a review on your Google Business profile. Like, these are huge. Google wants to see companies that are active and they’re still doing the work. So the more reviews that we can get on a consistent basis, the better off we’re going to be.

Logan Shinholser
Because not only do customers like it, because, like, sean, if you have two restaurants that you’re deciding between one of them and they have the same amount of reviews, but one of them hasn’t gotten a review in a year, which one are you going to go to?

Sean Holleran
I mean, definitely the one that has the most recent reviews.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, because you want to see the latest and greatest and making sure that it’s not like, well, what’s going on that they haven’t had anything in a year. But Google also likes that because they want to see that you’re active.

Sean Holleran
Honestly, when I’m looking at reviews, I do it by latest review.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, you go newest.

Sean Holleran
Yeah, its default is overall. And I’m like, no, no, I don’t want that. Because sometimes things change ownership and I want to see what’s happened in the last three months is usually how long I go last three months.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. So get those reviews in. There’s, you know, there’s softwares, like, we use nice job. We have clients that use nice job. And it’s just a simple software that you just put the clients, you know, information into and it will just gently follow up and say, hey, you know, can you please leave us review? Here’s a link, stuff like that. Yeah, so like on the, like with the reviews, just making sure that we’re getting them, make it easy on people. Use the software if we need to. But even on those reviews, like, I know you’ve brought up like featured project pages. Like, again, even if you’re not doing these right now, those pages, it’s awesome to have like a page on your website dedicated to a project that has the video, the befores, the durings, the afters.

Logan Shinholser
And then at the bottom it shows the review from the actual client. So it’s tying it all together that actually puts, like, a qualitative thing into, was the client happy or not? So reviews are big, and I would say one of the last things, it’s like, this is a cool above and beyond, and it works really well if you’re especially on, like, the remodeling or landscaping side, is have a party for your client.

Sean Holleran
Like, that’s a new trend I’m seeing a lot of. And, man, that sounds. It looks pretty awesome, to be honest with you. I’ve never had one.

Logan Shinholser
But we have clients that, like, they, like, they finish a kitchen, they then throw a party for that for their client, and then their friends come in, and typically, you hang out with other people that are like, you. Like, my neighborhood, it’s probably all similar price points of houses and demographics. I mean, everybody’s pretty much, like, the same age ish. So it’s like, we all value a lot of the same things, and you don’t want your neighbor’s house to be the new hot thing. Like, you want yours to look good, too. So if you’re bringing everybody in for these events, like, that’s huge, because you’ll have people that are, like, now in the space using whatever it is. And same thing with these, just, like, with the yard signs.

Logan Shinholser
Like, you don’t want it to be like, hey, I’m gonna throw you client a party where I’m gonna. I’m gonna come in with my team, and we’re just gonna grill out and do hot dogs. Like, you want it to be nice. So, like, I know my wife. Like, my wife and I did about a year ago, I hired, like, a private chef that comes into our house. She brings all the food. She then does, like, a cooking class for my wife and I. We were asking her. We were like, do you typically just do this for couples? And she’s like, yeah, but usually it’s, like a small dinner party, and, like, everybody gets involved. And when she came into our kitchen, she was like, wow, this is an awesome kitchen. Now, we didn’t just redo the kitchen or anything.

Logan Shinholser
It was the same one that came with the house. But as soon as she said that, I was like, wow. Like, if this lady, who is gregarious, she was fun. It was a good time, was going into a kitchen that had just been remodeled. She’s definitely gonna be like, wow, what a great kitchen. I’m essentially gonna show you how to use this kitchen by cooking this meal with you guys. Like, that is now a story that all the people that are now coming together to do are gonna remember, and they’re gonna remember the kitchen that they did it in. And now it’s just, like, a matter of time before they’re like, okay, by the way, who did this kitchen for you? And it’s your name. So especially on, like, the bigger projects, like, you can do those things.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, the client has to say yes to it. But, like, I don’t think a client should be like, no, we don’t want that at all. Like, do not do that at this house. Like, it’s easy. Hey, we’ll put $1,000 towards it. That’ll pay for if you want to do, like, the cooking class and the food, especially if it’s, like, a couple hundred thousand dollars kitchen like that is well worth. Just, quote, unquote, factoring that into the budget of it. And then now you’re providing an awesome experience for the client and all their friends also, who are in that same demographic are coming over to hang out and be like and admire the thing you just spent a lot of money on, which, I mean, let’s face it, there’s a level of status that’s associated with remodeling. It’s not just functionality. It’s, you worked hard.

Logan Shinholser
You just put a bunch of money into making this thing look amazing. You want to show that thing off. In what better way than having, hey, our remodeling company is paying for this cooking experience for us. Everybody come on over.

Sean Holleran
And then on top of that, not only do you bring a chef in, you bring in a photographer or videographer as well, because now you document it. And this is essentially pr for you. This is content for your social media, content for your website. And also it’s a little piece of, like, you can have a video put together and given to us clients that they remember forever. They post on their social media. Their friends ask, who did this? You know, it is just a snowball.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah. And I would say, truth be told, because a lot of the stuff that we’re saying is, like, in a perfect world, we can do it all. Just start small on all this stuff. Like, work your way into it. If nothing else. Get the yard sign, get the door hangers out there. Make sure you’re capturing the before and after photos of everything. Getting a nice photographer is not super expensive for what that will do for the company as far as being able to show off nice stuff. And you can do it literally, even if you’re on a project right now that you’re, like, shoot, I didn’t have a professional come in and do the befores. You still have befores or most likely the client still has like, there’s zillow photos that are up there from like the MLS that like, they can come in.

Logan Shinholser
Cause at the end of the day, the after is really the most important piece.

Sean Holleran
It is the most important piece. Yes, you need both, but the after is the most important piece.

Logan Shinholser
So big takeaway here is just make sure you’re self promoting. You’re always in this mindset of like, it’s the little things. Like all the stuff that we talked about, none of it by itself takes a very long time. Maybe if you were like, gonna go out and hang out with the group at like the kitchen, you know, when it’s done, that’s a few hours. But, like, realistically, to have a photographer go out like that doesn’t take long.

Sean Holleran
I think getting it set up, like when you first start doing it may, it’s an extra step. Right. But once you get it into like a rhythm of it’s. Then it’s just a natural thing you do and it doesn’t take extra time.

Logan Shinholser
Yeah, so bunch of stuff. There’s a bunch of other things that we could have gone through on, like, you know, taking those photos and now turning it into ads that you run around the neighborhood or like direct mail that shows befores and afters of what they did at their neighbor’s house. But, like, I would say those are all things that are like, phase two, if you will. So do you have anything else to add?

Sean Holleran
I don’t know. I think we, I mean, we’ll have to do a second one, I think.

Logan Shinholser
All right, well, let’s master this first one. First, do the little things offline. Do the little things online with, like you said, the very beginning. Like, a big part of this is consistency. The more consistent that you get with it because I think it’s like the big thing that most people like. They do it one time ago. Well, this didn’t make me a bunch of money. What’s up? When in reality it’s like, right now, it’s just like going on a diet. You’re not going to drop a bunch of weight after day one. But if you do a good, consistent diet and your focus for the first three months is really just consistency. So with you, it’s just the first either three months or three projects that you do. Just focus on just checking the boxes each time.

Logan Shinholser
And little by little, you’ll get better and better. And next thing, you know, it’ll just be this big snowball effect.

Sean Holleran
Yep. Absolutely.

Logan Shinholser
Cool. All right. I’m super excited with that episode. I would say my biggest takeaway is just all the little baby things that when you do them consistently, at first it feels hard. Then you realize that the compound effect is very real. And then once it all really becomes second nature, none of it takes a crazy amount of time. But now you have this beautiful flywheel of taking all this amazing stuff that you’re doing in people’s homes and showing everybody else in the neighborhood and the surrounding areas. This is what I do, and this is what I can do for you as well. My suggestion to you is if you have somebody on your team that should be taking control of yard signs, door hangers, taking photos, go ahead, send this podcast to them so you’re both listening to the same thing.

Logan Shinholser
That way you can game plan together. How do you actually implement these things into the business so you don’t feel like you have to do it all on your own? Thank you so much for joining us this week on the Contractor Growth Network podcast. This episode of the Contractor Growth Network was hosted by Logan Shinholser and produced by Dane Appleyard and Logan Shinholser. Today’s guest was Sean Holleran. We look forward to seeing you next time when we talk about the latest SEO practices in an AI content world with Stuart Hendry.