#333: From Guessing to Investing- How AV Dealers Can Build a Winning Marketing Budget

Welcome to the Automation Unplugged Podcast, the podcast for technology professionals featuring leading industry personalities. I'm your host, Ron Cowles. Hiring the right people shouldn't feel like a full-time job, but too often it does. Hiring through applications, screening candidates, and hoping for a great fit takes time you don't have. That's where Amplify people come in. We specialize in hiring for the custom integration industry, finding candidates who not only have the right skills, but also fit your company's culture and vision. From sourcing to screening, we handle it all, so you can focus on running your business. To build your dream team, visit antpeaple.com, that's AMPPEAPLE.com. This is Automation Unplugged and I'm Ron Cowles. Our guest today on this marketing expert's episode is Taylor Whipple, chief financial officer here at One Firefly. Taylor has spent more than 12 years helping guide One Firefly's growth through strategic data-driven decision-making. In this episode, he combines financial insights with operational strategy to help integrators turn their marketing budgets into powerful tools for stability and growth. This conversation is hosted by Cat Wheeler and together they explore how AV integrators can smooth out Easter famine sales cycles. While starting with revenue goals is the smartest way to set your marketing spend, and how to measure ROI so every dollar works harder for your business, whether you're aiming for steady revenue or aggressive growth, this episode offers practical, proven steps to transform your marketing budget from a guess into a strategic investment. Let's dive in, here's Automation Unplugged with Cat Wheeler and Taylor Whipple. Hi everyone and welcome back. It's another episode of Automation Unplugged Marketing Experts. I'm your host, Catherine Wheeler and today we are talking about something that's both exciting and a little bit intimidating, your marketing budget. If you've ever found yourself picking a marketing spend number out of thin air or wondering what you're, if you're getting the most out of your investment, you're in the right place. My guess today is somebody who knows exactly how to bring clarity to these questions, Taylor Whipple. Our chief financial officer here at One Firefly, Taylor. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Cat. Great to be here. This is going to be fun. We're going to have a good time today. Have a talk in the party. Can't wait. But before we jump in, I want you to introduce yourself to the audience a little bit. Can you share a little bit about your background and where you come from? For sure, yeah, so I've actually just celebrated my 12th year yesterday, as a matter of fact, with One Firefly. It's been a heck of a ride, a lot of growth, personally, professionally during that time. I'm really grateful and happy to be here. But in my role, so as a CFO of this organization, in some of my prior roles as well, I like to kind of consider myself an operationally and strategically focused CFO. So I try to bring that financial and the data side of things and try to help utilize that and convert it to actionable strategies that can produce results. So I can see, I've seen firsthand, for example, how unclear budgets, I don't talk about market budgets, how unclear budgets can waste money versus, let's say, taking a more disciplined approach, discipline/data-driven approach, and how that can really help you achieve goals you're trying to achieve. So I decided to have these, oh, it's conversation. I am too. I think this is really interesting how people, when they're not focused on their finances, things can get really out of hand really quickly, we see it with a lot of small things. Well, happy 12 years, One Firefly. Thank you. That is an accomplishment. It is. We're very grateful to be here during this time, I'm very proud of what we've built, grown a lot during that time and learned a lot as well, and just excited for the future as well. Just as excited for the next 12 years, I'll say. I can't wait to see what happens in the next 12 years, I'm thrilled. Okay. So let's zoom out a little bit before we dive into specifically marketing budget. Let's look at marketing kind of holistically. Sure. Do you think it's such a, it should be such an important piece of the puzzle for AV integrators out there? For sure. I think, you know, we hear feedback from many of our customers that, and I think it's just sort of the nature of the industry that we're in, that it's oftentimes can be a ceased or famine sales cycle. So we hear from sometimes that, you know, interviews are so busy, they're so busy, it can get enough people. And then, you know, they might hit a valley where they're not having enough work, right? And so I think we're marketing place in is that it can help smooth that sort of peaks and valleys of the ups and downs and helps you have more constistency through the good, through the bad, so that, you know, when things do inevitably take, let's say a downturn or slow down, you've, you're in a position to capitalize and you still have lead flow. And, you know, again, try to achieve your goals. I love that. That's a, that's a really good perspective sort of that not putting all your eggs in one basket yield adage. Absolutely. Okay. Well, that's, that's a good place to start. And as we kind of dive into this conversation and get a little more into it, you know, I like the game. I like games too. Let's do this. All right. Uh, we're going to play a game called cash or stash. I like a iteration as well. And the goal of this dealers, I'm going to pose some different scenarios for you, for a, for marketing opportunities for our fund customers, and you're going to say either cash or stash. So spend that cash or stash that money. Sounds great. Let's do it. Oh, here we go. Uh, first one up, paying for a booth at a local home show or design expo, but without a plan to follow up on those leads. So I'm going to say stash on this one, and it's specifically what you just said on the, a ladder part, which is not having a plan to follow up on those leads without that, without a way to kind of capture and then measure that lead quality and the lead flow. It's just brand awareness without a measurable R Y. So definitely stash. I say on that same main. Okay. Um, here's the next one, upgrading your website to show better photos, videos, clear CTAs or call action to help you convert your visitors into leads. This is like, is there something higher than cash? Like this is going to be like the highest for me. I'd say, you know, I like to say that your website is your sort of 24/7 sales person. So it's out there. It's representing you, your brand, you know, what it is you do. And also it's, by the way, helping you filter out what you don't want as well. So if you're trying to target a specific type of project or specific type of client so you can position your imagery, your copy, again, to everything to try to sell and, you know, present to those specific consumers. I love it. Yeah, I think self selection is maybe something people don't think about when they think about a website. That's how you present yourself really does tell your visitor if they're your customer or not before they even get to you. Absolutely. Hmm. Good call. Okay. Running paid social media ads with precise targeting aimed at homeowners in your service area. I'll be to say cash on this one, but again, only if it's it's tracked properly. And also then here, commonly talked about the first question paired with a follow-up strategy as well. So you want to make sure you're getting those high quality leads and that you're then having strategy in place to follow up to look at those close rates to know, you know, are they converting? The right type of customer, the right type of projects that are coming in. I'm sensing a theme here with your Taylor and what I sense this seem to be is what I like to call finishing the drill. Yes. And it's not just doing activities to do activities, but to do activities to get to that end goal. Absolutely. I think, you know, having that end goal in mind is super important. And, you know, a lot of this that we're talking about in terms of marketing strategy is great, and only if it can be paired with, you know, the actions, the subsequent actions that need to follow, right? So that's the following up for the leads. It's the measuring of the lead quality, looking at your close rates. For example, if you're, you know, sales team or attempting to close those leads, like at what stage are they, you know, either proceeding or not proceeding, are they pushing back on price? Is it the right type of target on me could go on and on, but that kind of gives you a glimpse of how to get there and what's possible? Okay. All right. Here's our next one. Sponsoring community events purely for name recognition. And I feel this is like our, our like small town companies, maybe, you know, sponsoring that baseball team, getting their name on the back of the logo, being in the outfield in a band or something like that. You know, look, I mean, so all of us, I would say stash, but maybe with little asterix here, like if it's a nominal amount, right, and you're willing to give back to the community, it can be awareness. You're not expecting much from it. Cool. Like maybe it's a cash and that's, that's the end point. But if you're, you know, putting your name out there on the outfield wall, expecting that you're going to get a flow of leads, like I would say that that's risky without be having a way to kind of measure that impact, I wouldn't, wouldn't recommend it in that scenario. All right. Yeah. Agreed. Okay. All right. Looking backwards from your annual revenue goals to determine your marketing spend and what tactics to fund. Now you're speaking my language. Absolutely. I love starting and I recommend this to, we do the practices here one far fly out, I recommend it to all our customers. Well, start with that angle in mind, like, what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to grow? Are you trying to stay the same? Like, and then work backwards from there. And that can obviously, you know, influence everything from cash to, you know, what you want to put the sales team and your marketing spend and everything you're going to need to try to hit those goals in place. So this is definitely a cash. You said something really interesting there and, you know, working back from our goals, we talked to customers a lot. I just, I think this bear is mentioning is that there's no wrong answer, right? Yes. You have to want to grow all the time. A hundred percent. That's right. Yeah. There's zero judges. We have customers who are like, they're happy. They've got a business. They're at a size that works for them, you know, growing just for the sake of growing is, I would say, not recommended. It's not for everybody. There's a lot of stress that comes with growth. Okay. We're now at Inc. A six-time Inc. 5000 company. We've had our fair share of growing pains and challenges, right? And so it's not for everybody and, like you said, there's no judgments. But knowing what that target is, it certainly helps you put a strategy together to try to achieve that. And no, are you on track or off track based on what you're trying to achieve? Yeah. And I think, I mean, again, we could go down this rabbit hole for hours, but even knowing that your goal maybe this year is to stay the same, well, you build up a stronger foundation so that when you do go to grow, some of those growing pains don't hit you as hard and you budgeted for the right things at the right time and have that foundation in place. Absolutely. I think, you know, as long as you have a strategy in place, you know, that strategy, you can allow for some flexibility, you know, if things don't go, you know, right, the whole time. By the way, they only don't, right? We saw that, for example, in the first quarter of this year when everybody was hit with Terrace, well, guess what happened to our strategy that we had, you know, all put together in Q4 last year, like went out the window, right? So, but it at least still gives you a framework in which to kind of, you know, position yourself from a strategy standpoint. And you know, you can again, remain nimble agile to try to pivot where, where, where and when needed. Okay. All right. Again, we won't, we won't belabor it. We could, we could rabbit hole this one all day. But our final game question today is social media. So boosting social media posts just because they got more likes than usual. I would say that's a stash in my mind. So they would not recommend, you know, vanity metrics don't make the bills. It might look great. Oh, I've got a million likes. Awesome. How many leaves did you get? How many, are you, you know, how are you doing in terms of sales and your ability to, you know, achieve those goals? So I would say stash in this one. Okay. Circle back on that because I don't know if vanity metrics is a term that everybody knows. Can you kind of let our, let our audience understand what a vanity metric is? Yeah. So that metric is essentially something that sounds really good on paper. So that might be that example I gave of, you know, I have a million likes. I, you know, I'm number one for this very specific search shirt. Well, that's great. By the way, but only if it also is accompanied with that lead flow that you need and the sales that you need to try to achieve those goals. If it's just great for the sake of being great, well, then it's potentially money that could be, you know, reallocated somewhere to, again, help you have a more, uh, or a better outcome, I'll say from sales standpoint. Okay. Yeah. Makes sense. Okay. I lied to you, Taylor. That was on our last question. I did want to hit on one more. Yeah. Specifically around specifiers because that is, you know, obviously a good resource for all of our customers out there and working with specifiers. So is partnering with interior designers, co-branded brochures or video showing, you know, technology with design as they like to see it. Is that cash or such? That's a cash ring for sure. I mean, we know this, this industry, our industry, um, we live on referrals, customers live on referrals and have a referral pipeline and having partners who can help feed you with those referrals. That's going to be invaluable. So I'm, I'm willing for that. I love it. Thank you. Well, this was fantastic. I appreciate you playing along and playing a little game with me. Um, and I think we kind of touched on a lot of scenarios and real life things that happen to our dealers out there or things they think about. So it's a good place. Good place for us to start our conversation today. Love it. All right. So start with it. We'll go back into the big picture and we talked about why marketing matters. So why is a marketing budget, a crucial part of a strategy for AV integrators, especially those, you know, focused on residential customers? Yeah. You know, I think we talked about it towards the earlier part of the conversation and we know that, you know, many integrators have, um, revenues that can often be lovely. They did a lot of it, what they're doing with this project base, there's some seasonality to that as well, right? And so you are often, not always, but often in these sort of feast or famine cycles where, you know, you might be too busy all of a sudden and then, you know, some months later you're trying to find those projects, you know, everyone that you have on staff billable as billable as possible. So what, what that marketing budget essentially does is gives you a framework to help, um, with consistency. Consistency at least consistency of project flow. So that's the sort of the name of the game again, going back to helping you achieve your goals. Right. Those growth goals are good. Good. Maybe it's just saying the same, whatever it is, your goal is your goal. The marketing budget, it's, it's can help you get there. I love it. Yeah. I appreciate that. Because I think you're right. You know, we have weird sales cycles and weird project cycles depending upon the specific project. So trying to make sure your business is stable, you know, over time, we're not retail, right? It's all cost. Exactly. So do you, and I know people here, the word budget, like I hear budget as a, as a, just a person, not as a business owner. And I hear you can't spend any money cat, but do you see budgets as like restrictions like guardrails out there or more like a roadmap that gives you freedom to actually spend more and spend smarter? I think it's the latter, honestly, I think it, you know, there's a framework in place that allows you to allocate funds, uh, where and as needed. And you may find, for example, that some things that you did last year, for example, that worked really well for marketing, and you want to spend that this year, well, it may not necessarily produce that same results as it did last year, right? So ideally speaking within that budget, you want to have some degree of flexibility to reallocate funds if something is not working or is not being as effective as you'd like or was last year, for example, we could reallocate those funds to try something different. It would be amazing if we could all just like know exactly like we're going to spend this money where you get this return is going to happen every single time, but that's just not the reality of the world we live in. It's the ever changing of technology, you know, you know, so you know, you constantly have to kind of test and measure and you do want to see and find out like what works and what doesn't work. Um, but at least having a budget in place knowing how much to spend and when, I mean, the very basics, that's going to help you again, go back to achieving all your goals and being successful and be able to make more, make decisions, right? Exactly. Because you know what you're working with. It's not, well, if I do this, is it too much? Is it too little? Is it? It goes back to kind of, you know, pairing the, you know, we all have sort of the premonitions and the feelings of that, I feel like the, the phones not radius as much. I feel like this is a work as well. That's great. But like, let's, let's just pair that with some data and some, you know, actionable, more objective based metrics. And when you pair those two together, you're going to have a, a more, a strategy that's going to be more, a couple of you more. So I think that's super smart. I know we talked to, I talked to dealers a lot, turns out, uh, and I, you know, was talking to somebody about closing the other day on their different business channels and they thought, you know, one was more successful than the other and then we went and actually really looked at what closing, uh, what wasn't and they were completely wrong. Yes. You know, I think, I think you're right, if having a feeling is much different than having actionable data that you can test, measure and, you know, act upon. Absolutely. Okay. Well, let's, let's do something to help our guys out there. Let's walk these integrators through the process. So if somebody has never built a formal marketing budget, plus your heart, uh, how and where should they start? Uh, so for me, uh, I think it starts with going to what is your goal and I would start with revenue, right? So like, let's look at next year's revenue, for example, uh, where do you want to be? Are you trying to see it? Same. And then we can kind of work backwards from there. Oftentimes we can look at something as simple as a percentage of revenue. Yeah. We're going to allocate if I'm trying to hit three million, I'm going to allocate, let's say, five to eight percent. And that's going to be my marketing budget. That's going to help support the sales that I need in order to realize that those revenue goals, um, from there though, you also have to look at like what's your average budget size? What's your close rate, we talked about again, accompanying the strategy and the actions that follow the marketing, uh, specifically on the sales side, this is going to be necessary to kind of help close the loop and, you know, help you cheat these goals, um, to knowing that, so knowing your cost per lead also is super helpful. You know, if someone's calling in, for example, um, and is interested, ask them how did they hear about you guys? You know, like it, it sounds very simple and basic, but it's in reality, it's not something that we do or our customers do, um, consistently. And if they did, they'd be, you know, certainly in a position to be more successful. And then again, kind of going back to focusing on what works again with the, the, the knowledge that what you did last year from a marketing standpoint, may not necessarily be what's going to work this year or, you know, what Ron always says at our CEO, he says what, you know, has gotten you here will not necessarily get you there, right? And so the same principle applies as it likes to marketing and budgeting as well. I think you said some stuff that's really interesting in that that I think a lot of our dealers maybe either don't pay attention to or don't pay enough attention to, which is, you know, thinking about the types of projects they're doing, you know, what their resources allow them to do. Yeah. If you only have so many guys, you can only do so many jobs a year. Right. And if those, your excise, are we marketing for more of those jobs? Are we trying to get little jobs to fill them in? Like, what are we doing? And how does that affect that revenue? 100%. Yeah. I mean, I think it all goes back to, you know, we, so we talked about like defining, you know, the revenue targets that you, you want. It's certainly you could go beyond that and say, well, of that for three or four million or whatever I'm trying to achieve, how do I want that to be comprised? Do I want a million, you know, little jobs, and I'm doing, you know, maps of TVs and these things that I'm sure do, I want to do the more higher end stuff and do fewer of that. And just knowing what you want to achieve, you can work backwards to get there. But if your goal is to, yeah, I only want high end projects, great. We can start looking at, how can we market to those type of consumers who are looking for those type of projects and not the people who are, you know, need help hang no TV, mounting the TV, etc. Yeah. And again, no judgment, whatever we, there's zero right or wrong, there's something for everybody out there for sure. And there's a tactic for everything out there, right? And there's a, there's a place to get those people. Okay. And that's really great advice, because I don't think that's something people think about enough. Maybe. And I'm guessing this all ties back into, you know, knowing your numbers as we've kind of talked about, but average customer value, maybe something interesting that our customers don't think about either. Absolutely. You know, it's something we've tried to practice more and more here on Firefly, right? And looking at, you know, especially if you're offering any sort of service plan or you have any recurring revenue coming in, knowing how long your customers are staying with you, you know, what are they paying you over the lifetime, right? Whether that's project, by the way, or recurring, it doesn't really matter knowing what to expect, that can help you work backwards to see like from an ROI perspective and the cost-per-lead to try to help you again, make those decisions that you're going to meet to achieve those goals. And, I mean, in a similar vein, you're those existing customers, you want to boost that lifetime value. They're your easiest people to sell more stuff to you. Absolutely. It's far more expensive to go out and get a new, acquire a new customer that it is to sell to an existing customer. So, yeah, if you track it and you measuring it, you can change it, right? So, here we go. We're Clotaylor. It's like Steven Flow right now under the low caption. Yeah. But that's something that's a principle, by the way, that we practice here as a leadership team. That would far fly. If we start seeing something that we want to improve, then we track and measure that over, you know, whatever period, weekly, monthly, quarterly. And we can then take the actions and the tactics necessary to try to make those better. So, in that case, if it's improving our average spend per customer or customer lifetime value, we can track it over time and see, hey, how are we doing? Is what we're doing working to try to move those numbers up? Well, I love that because I think it leans into the message that marketing isn't only for new customers. It's also for your existing customers and it's something people forget and we're a referral based industry. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially with the rate, I think the technology is changing as well and you might not think about the customer that you saw, you know, three or four years ago, but they may be in a position where they're ready to upgrade and that could be pretty sizeable and that could be potentially very lucrative. Well, and there are also people that move a lot, these are, these, these are second home people and people upgrade their homes and they'll, and so, yeah, those relationships are just as valuable as new ones or if not more so. Definitely. Okay. So, we know why, we know how, we know what we need to measure. We've got some steps now. Do you recommend when you're putting together a budget, a certain percentage of your revenue, we talked about, you know, building it backwards. Does that revenue, does that percentage shift, you know, if you want to grow, if you want to just maintain, like, what's a benchmark there? Yeah. For sure. So, I think if you're wanting to grow, you know, anywhere from eight to 12 percent, again, we could say to what degree do you want to grow? I want to grow one percent. Okay. Well, you know, that might differ than I want to double my business, right? So, it's a sliding scale. Yeah. It's just saying growth in general, it'll say anywhere between eight percent and 12 percent of your total revenue should be spent on marketing related up to these not all in one thing, right? That could be many different things that encompass that many different strategies and tactics that would encompass that marketing spend. But if you're just wanting to, let's say, stay state and state, anywhere from five to eight percent, I mean, we have, you know, some customers are folks that we spoke of spoken with have actively spending less than one percent. So, I think a good next step is like, come what are you spending? Just like, what is that current number right now? And then you kind of work backwards from your goal of what you're trying to achieve and see what might be effective. Well, I think you mentioned something interesting there too, is that there are things that are in your marketing budget as a business that you might not consider. Like, your branded shirts, your vehicle, yes, that's like all of that is in part of that marketing spend. Right. We're not just about websites and digital markets. Not just ads, bands, not just social media, and you like that, right? And, you know, another differentiating factor is to like, are you trying to, you know, we talk about growth in terms of revenue growth. But if you're trying to break into, let's say, a new type of market or a new category, like if you've been doing smaller jobs, you really want to just get that sort of upper echelon that higher to your, you might have to spend more regardless of whether, you know, your revenue is going to grow, it may take more budget in order to try to reach that different type of consumer. No, that's, that's actually really interesting. I thought about that way. I've learned something today, although we've also got a very nice clip. So I'm pleased. That too. Okay. So, okay. So we're, we've gotten all the places. We built the budget. We've got our steps. We've, we're working backwards. We've got our goals. Now, how do we make sure it's actually working? I know we've said test and measure a lot. Yeah. Should these integrators look for it when they're tracking to know that they're getting a return on their investment? Well, I think one of the, the major is just to have a, an infrastructure place to be able to track and measure that data. Yeah. Right? So do you want to, again, whether you're doing it yourself, whether you're working with an agency, you know, try to see what's, what's working from a lead standpoint, what's your cost, really, again, looking at your, your close rates, things of that nature. By the way, if you don't have a CRM, you know, and I know I realize that not all customers do, you can track it in other ways. I mean, there was a day of time where one firefly in our early days did not have a surround. We're using, you know, Excel and Google Sheets and things like that. I look at the job done, right, to a certain degree, the point is is that you want to have something in place to help you track that because they're kind of going back to our earlier part of conversation. If you measure it and track it, you can change it. So just, just make sure that you have that infrastructure place to be able to change it. So that way that when we do allocate those funds, we can start looking at the aforementioned metrics to see if it's working, you know, that's, that's the challenge. Marketing is always changing, the world is changing, technology is changing. So again, what worked last year is not necessarily going to work this year. So we want to be able to track it so that we can put more funds with what is working and is effective and less words, not. What I'm hearing, Taylor, is data not vibes. Oh, that's, I think you talk about quotes. There we go. Trick-wo-for-ever. Yes. Because I think you hit on something really, really powerful earlier when you said, people, I feel like the phone's not re, I feel like we're too busy. Or if we're too busy, does that mean we're not making money? Or are we making money? I don't know. And if we are making money, are we reinvesting that or are we, what are we doing as a business to, to level up or, you know, reinvest or not or will, like, how do you know? I totally agree. And look, I can also recognize that it may, you know, there may be some people listening out there who might be sort of like, "Oh, that sounds great." And that sounds like such a lift to be able to put everything in place to track this. And the reality is, in some cases, it can be a little bit harder at first before it gets easier. But I can promise you, once even some of the basics are set up, life is going to get so much easier in terms of being able to make those decisions that again are going to have a better impact for you and your business. Okay. And we've talked a little bit today about, you know, testing, measuring, tracking, things don't work sometimes like they did before and the world changes, et cetera. So if something is underperforming, how do you decide whether to tweak it or just scrap it? Yeah. I mean, I think it probably depends on the degree of, of which it's underperforming, right? You know, certainly, I would recommend not going back to the data, not making rash decisions. Like, if I'm getting less leads than I was through a specific channel last year, for example, I'm not going to just be like, "Oh, cancel it." You know, it's done. I'm going to say, "Well, what could we change about it? Is it the copy? Is it the creative? Is it the imagery? What was, you know, something was working? It's not working. What could be changed or tweaks?" That would be great. And tweak those things and get those results to be more sustainable than that's great. But if not, if it's purely not working, we're trying something, it's just not happening, then absolutely, and the data is also validating that, then cut it and reallocate those funds. I guess that'd be one of my major takeaways. Like, don't just try something and say, you don't get results and say, all right, well, then I'm not going to just do marketing, or I'll cut my marketing budget, right? No, it just means that that component or that aspect of marketing that you were trying, you know, wasn't as effective. So there's a million other different strategies and ways and tactics that could be deployed that might be too much better outcomes. And so a lot of this, you mentioned that, it's about testing and measuring. If all new, like the one strategy that was going to work for everybody, I think we all will be, you know, we don't have beaches and, yeah, I mean, yachts right now. But if only there was that magic, magic, we found that, somebody let me know. Okay, well, you said something interesting in there, and I think as we come towards the end of our conversation, you mentioned one takeaway, but if you could, give me some like rapid fire takeaways for our listeners out there. Practical things that these integrators can do right now, this quarter, to make their marketing budgets more effective. Yeah. For sure. So I'd say, you know, start with your goal in mind. I think it's never, it's not too early to start thinking about next year. I mean, it's crazy to think it's already mid August. What? It's nuts. So next year is going to be here before we know it. And so it's, it's not too early to start planning next year and then putting those targets on the board and then working back Chris from that. Alright, if I want to do X number next year, what should I be spending and, you know, looking at those different strategies, start to look at your framework. Do you have a, are you in a position to, to be able to measure whether these things are effective or not, the strategies are effective. You know, what's your cost per lead? What's your, your close rate for sales, you know, some of these metrics are going to help you make better decisions. And then, you know, make sure your CRM is optimized if you don't have a CRM, have something in place that can at least track things in a way that can help you make these decisions. And then, you know, finally, I mean, I kind of mentioned it. I think I got our cash or stash question, but, you know, I mentioned the website. I love the idea of having something that's representing you and your brand out there in a very polished way. That's your website, hopefully it is, but, you know, there are other opportunities to do that to be able to, you know, that could be a case study, let's say, with the design partner or, you know, for sure, something that is conveying the type of experience that you're bringing and the value that you're bringing to, to your clients. I love that because I think we all know as human beings, short attention spans, perception as reality, what people see is what they believe and what they remember. So yeah, having a high value asset out there that represents you really well is, is important. Also. Well, this has been incredibly valuable, especially for me, you know, I'm not a business owner, but I talk to dealers a lot and I know they struggle with how their, what their business structure is and if they're doing it right, if they're doing it wrong, how do we know it just, I think, hearing a little bit from you and your experience is going to be really, really good for them. So thank you so much for sharing your expertise today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I loved it. So okay, before we go though, I do want you to do one more thing before I, for I let you get back to your life. What is the single best piece of advice that you would give an integrator? Okay. Only pay one home and what I would probably say that I would not treat marketing as an expense to minimize, but rather looking at it as an investment, right? So if you're looking at your piano, you don't want to say like, well, if I keep cutting marketing in half, I'd have even more profit, right? Like, that's not a recommended strategy, I would say. This is something that is going to help fuel you and fuel and sustain and ideally if you're trying to achieve that, grow your business over time, help you avoid those peaks and valleys that we talked about and just have to be more successful and also about treat it as an investment, not an expense. I, yeah, couldn't agree more. Okay. Well, thank you, Taylor. I will let you get on back to your day. And thank you, audience, for listening to us again here at Automation Unplugged. If you enjoy today's episode, don't forget to like, subscribe, and join us for our next conversation. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Automation Unplugged. For a full transcript of this show and all previous shows, head over to our website at OneFirefly.com forward slash, A U. 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