Create a simple & effective social media presence (for builders who are scared of social media) | With a strategy, you can learn from other people's mistakes and get there in half the time - Marti

Welcome to the Builder's Ladder with Marty Amos and Owen Chambers to show for residential building companies owners and general contractors wanting to make more money and buy back your time and build a budget to square-foning. We share what's working right now for the top five center residential building companies owners and general contractors so you can implement it into your business. We're back, we're live, we're rocking and rolling. Marty, what's up brother, how you doing? Good man, just enjoying the nine degree Auckland winter. How about you? Yeah, single-digit saint for me, more of a 30 degree plus kind of guy in the heat in the warmth. Yeah, that's what I'm about. I do like skiing though. I was talking to a man before yesterday. He's on holiday this week skiing in Kadrona down in Queenstown and I think weather's pretty good for him as well so I can nice down. Oh nice, yeah I'm going to be there in three weeks time. Fantastic. You skier or snowboarder or boxlider? I'm too old to be a snowboarder. Yeah, fair enough. Leave that to your folk. No, I like skiing as well. I've done snowboarding a few times but it seems like a recipe put disaster catching an edge and going us over to it and you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way that I was taught how to ski though was I was taking the top of the mountain by my wife and told to get down. So I was I was I don't skiing, baptism by fire and the deep end. Wow. Fortunately, we're still together. I got I got down. I learned we're here. I didn't break anything. Happy days. Didn't kill anybody either. It's quite quite often usually people's approach to a new team member at their onboarding. Here you go, have had it. Yeah, true that. Doesn't always work. Yeah. Fortunately, she was very pretty though. So we've hung out and stayed together. Happy guys. Yeah. So today we've talked in social media. Does it even work? Should I as a building company owner be using it? Sure answer is maybe kind of you be the judge. We're going to walk you through today the key things that you should consider. The real areas and pitfalls that most people fall into and how it really should be used in construction and in building, which is actually not what you will typically hear from others. So let's set the scene. Let's get into it where you want to kick off this. Yes. Yeah. In the infamous words of one of our members in Sydney, he's like, my main but my clients aren't really on social media. I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? They don't use answer. They're not on Facebook. They're not on anything else. Like and there's some Uber successful like the Greia brothers, probably some of the the guns in Australia at social media and they've got a phenomenally successful business and Jew or accelerated by their prevalence on social media. Yeah. 100%. So there is a place for the ins and snaps in the Facebook's but within the scope of a broader marketing strategy. So let's start. It's one of the biggest things that people that they don't start with a strategy. They just check out photos randomly, put a shitter. There's no content matrix. There's no calendar of content. There's no structure. There's no strategy. And so they get frustrated or give up too soon when you're picking and you see that guy that's mining and mining and mining and he gives up and he's this close to the goal. Yeah. With the strategy, you can learn off other people's mistakes, get there in half the time and make sure that you're testing and measuring what you're doing. Yeah. 100%. So what we normally recommend is that we dial that we use a three strike three strike marketing strategy. What the heck does that mean? Well, furtherly simple. We should apply most of our efforts onto three main marketing strategies. We shouldn't be doing 12 or 15 things. We typically don't need to do multiple things poorly. We should be doing a couple of things really well. And the three that we normally get most of our members to rally behind and use is offline. So referral program site signage, vehicle signage. Make sure the guys are looking great and we're asking for referrals, three streets wide through strategic alliances and we are embedded into the community. It's then our website and it's not just a pretty brochure, but an actual online 24/7, 365 sales machine that's able to address the big concerns and the main questions that people have. And we've got some excellent examples of that, but we're not talking about our website today. We're talking about the third strategy, which is your social. Now, if you would have just used one of these strategies, it's kind of like a stool with one leg. There's not a lot of stability there and you're probably going to end up on your ass. Well, on your ass. Exactly. We want to use all three well. And social has a place that's really important. But if we would adjust exclusive to rely on it, we would probably not look like a full leads board of two and a half times target turnover, which remember, anytime we're doing marketing, we would never turn marketing off nor would we want to reduce it too much until we have a leads board up in the office that has two and a half times target turnover in the pipeline. So, if I tell you to even even then to provide a counter argument to that once you get to that level, I would just look at what is the next constraint that is holding us back that we need to fix. So do we need to hire another crew? Could we outsource and get some fixed price labor crews tendering for projects? Should we just increase the margin? So if we want to jobs at 22, should we price the next couple at 25? So if we want them happy days. Exactly. And that's why it's to, you know, so for example, about target turnover is five mill, we shouldn't even reduce marketing until we've got 12 and a half million dollars on the leads board because exactly that Marty's saying, we live in it, we operate and as you were, there are labor shortages, price rises, material delays, interest rates, COVID delays, you name it, we got it. So, projects going on hold and even if you are doing big 500K million, $5 million projects, get some of those smaller ones at a higher margin that are 100, 200, 300K, at a higher margin that you can use to tide you guys over or train you younger form and all, if any of those bigger jobs falls over. So, another answer to keep the marketing rolling. 100%. So, three strategies, dial them in and the goal should be two and a half times target turnover. Okay, so write that one down if you haven't already. But always be marketing and always be hiring. Yes. And by hiring, we mean interviewing everybody so that you can have your pick of the bunch. And that's where social media comes into it. So this is one of the three legs to the stool. And the role that social media plays is it is typically not a conversion piece. So it's unlikely that you will generate perfect leads from your social media, but it is a credibility and a no like and trust piece. It does warm up an audience, educate an audience and provide them with the credibility and the confidence to go with you. They will reference check you by your social platforms. So the goal of your InstaSnap's and your Facebook's needs to be no like trust and education for the biggest investment of people's life. So, and stand out. Put a bit of your personality in there. Yep. Yep. No matter how much of a weirdo you are, you'll get a fight, small tribe that will like your vibe. True that. True that. And if you're not weirdo, and even more people are probably going to like it or yeah. Yeah. I'll just be unique. Reveal your uniqueness. And since we were on that, and not super related, but I think very cool. Docko and a good example of this is if you've seen the Netflix Docko Defiant ones with Johnny Ive and Dr. Drake. Yes. Yes. Yep. So good. And all about not being vanilla is the big marketing takeaway that I got from that documentary. Yes. They basically said, "Now we're going to go and sign all of these artists that nobody else would touch. Everybody was signing safe and vanilla." And they went out and built the biggest label of the time by signing everybody at the fringes. NWA, M&M, Snoop Dogg. I remember there's an interview in there. And he's like, "We signed the white guy, the white rapper." No one was touching him. He was like, "Who's this white rapper?" And he turned out to be M&M. And he was awesome. He just dropped his new album. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Nice. So there you go. You want to not be vanilla. And one of the best ways to demonstrate the reason that people can know Lycan Trust you is through your social media. So let's talk strategy. If the strategy and the outcome from the social needs to be building no Lycan Trust and transfer of credibility and conviction to your audience that they can reference check you, then the best way that you want to look at social media is not exclusively through attracting projects and marketing for projects, but also attracting talent and marketing for people. Because one of the biggest advantages that you can have in your marketing is that for to bring in not just projects and great work, but also great people and talent that you can build into your business? - Absolutely. Always be marketing clients and always be marketing for new team members. The game is one in the draft. - Hmm. - Ooh. - So build a team, build a team of A players, always be recruiting so that you have better options. So if you've got a shit format or you've got someone who's not coming up standard, you're having your one-on-ones with them, you're having your 20s with them, you're comparing them against their scorecard and they're not leveling up. Then you're in a bit of a bind. And, but if you've got options, if you're constantly talking to people and you've built a bench and you can go back to Steve, you can go back to Craig and say, hey guys, look, I've got a spot opening up in the next six weeks, let me, or next week, let me know if you're still interested. So you wanna build that. So you need social media out there showing all the cool stuff that you're doing with your team, social events. And also how we, what it's like to work here at our company. We're just reforming ours. Like we've hired something like, how many people if we hired in six months this year? Must be in the 20s. - Yeah. - 23, 24, something like that. - Yeah, we'll be getting up there. It's quite a few. - So you need a careers page on your website. You can go two hours to have a look at a killer one, www.professionalbuilder.com. On there, it's got a, it has the different positions that are available. It has the job descriptions. It has a video of what it's like to work at our company. So we say what our mission is, what our values are. And then we get each of our team members to do like a 20 second thing I like most about working at a professional builder is this and this. And then we have a funnel of our values, what to expect working here and our mission of what we're setting out to achieve. So I cannot recommend that enough. Build out one of those pages. Our members have got them. They're game changer. Definitely build one out. - Yeah, 100%. So coming back to, let's use the example of like an Instagram for, for the argument set. Most people will look at their social media strategy and think that it needs to be continuous ongoing and like forever. And that is partly true and partly the wrong way to go about this entirely. Most people, most people, what they need to do with their social strategy and to start with is they need to optimize their profile. So the first thing they should do is you have heard us talk about the marketing pillars, the answers to the four questions and the five concerns at NOSM. If you haven't already, then you're either bad at note taking, you're a bit slow or you need to go back and relisten to our previous episodes. Okay. But just to make sure that we've not the same page, it's who are you, who's your team, how can I trust you and how can you help me specifically? Concerns to five key concerns, timeline budget trust within this quality and communication. These marketing pillars and the answers to these questions, these concerns would go onto your website, they would go onto your info pack, but they should also come and be the content at the top of your Insta profile. They should be there. Who are we, who's our team? How can you trust us and how can we help you specifically as these stories at the very top there? They should then showcase the how we work with you, the meet the team, the preferred partners and the trusted suppliers and the case studies in the first three or four lines above the fold and just below the fold of your social account. Okay. These should be pinned and they should stay there all the time. In theory, most people are in a position to optimize their page in that manner and then kind of forget about it because people can then go and check and reference yourself there. The next thing that is really low-hanging fruit is the bio is usually going to be SEO optimized so you would want to put in Darwin Builder, San Diego Builder. Yeah, every keyword that your target market could potentially be searching for. Yeah, specifically in those 180 odd characters that you're allowed to. So custom home builder within San Diego market, specializing in such and such luxury knockdown rebuilds and additions or whatever it might look like. Then what you want to do is you want to have a call to action which says why they should message you or why they should get in touch. Okay. Most people will spend all their time creating content and trying to post regularly organically. Instead, our recommendation for the vast majority of people is to optimize your profile like this and then instead of posting regularly, do paid ads and get your traffic via paid acquisition because with this you can whack up the knob and you can turn down the knob. Okay, with organic, you've got no real ability to whack up the flow of leads or whack down the flow of leads and that is a real problem. And one of the reasons that social doesn't work for a lot of people is because they post organically and they get not many eyeballs and that's why the strategy is rich. It's lacking reached. So you're either going to spend money or you're going to spend time. So if you're just starting out, organic might be a good avenue but I would very quickly branch into paid. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And just be clear, all of the posts that you put there to make sure your profile is optimized, they'll be posted organically, then pinned on there and then the next part comes through the paid. And some of the paid can be those same posts 'cause you want to educate market but we would also do some time of year stuff. So why people should get in because the build schedule for 2025 is filling up and you've got a service that is available for the month of July, for example. I think a big thing that stops, what do you think stops people like? Why aren't more building campaign owners on social? 'Cause they're, I think, 'cause a lot of them don't know how to create the content and don't know how to put themselves on camera or create the content that goes out that actually looks any good. It literally looks pretty average. Yeah, so I think we can address each one of those. So the first one, fear of putting yourself out there. So it's only natural that whenever you do something for the first few times, first 10, 15 times, you're gonna suck and that's perfectly natural. The way to get better, and everyone sucks to begin with 'cause it's the first time. And the way to get better at that is to look at other people who you admire, who don't get great. Graphed, a short script with a few bullet points and then just practice. Get in front of the camera more often. Don't worry about the number of views or the, but keep putting yourself out there consistently. And you will get better and better. And then when you start to put money behind it, you'll now start to get more right eyeballs on it and you'll have better results. And you can then set about strategically improving it. Yeah. So that's one of the best ways I've found to get over fear of putting yourself out there. The second one is what to post. So there's a very simple thing is called a content calendar. And that's to have a look at what are all the topics that are important to our people, our prospects. So you've got lead magnets at the top. So top nine things you need to know about renovating a villa. And then you've got your middle of funnel. So you might have, or you might have a checklist that's lead magnet. You might have how we work with your video. Then you've got all your middle of funnel. So your video testimonials, case studies, guarantee, site visit, technical, quality assurance, checklist, et cetera. And then lastly, you've got your call to action. So we've got checklist for these and a very simple what to post checklist will be an absolute game changer. Because you know what you're going to do, you've got a simple framework to do and then all of the matter of turning on the camera and filming it. Yeah. And then the last part is, how do I actually get this out there? Well, unless you're a social media gun or you're a tech wizard, best thing I can recommend is to have virtual assistant do it. A part timer, but you can hire a student for next to nothing or you could get an agency to do it. Those are the three key things. So number one, feel the fear and do it anyway. You're going to suck. Just practice and get better at it. Two, what to post? So content matrix and content calendar that's going to give you a list of things in the different ways that you can put them out. And lastly, get someone else to do it. So, and you've created the vacuum. So if you've got someone employed for 10 hours a week and you can get a VA for a very good price for 10 hours a week and you can get VA's that special in social specialised in social media production. So those are the three key things that I will do. That will make a big difference. - Yep, yeah. And remember the content just like we're spoken about in all the other episodes, content's not just about pretty pictures and beautiful brochure, the content about educating people on type of people that you work with, the type of people on your team, type of projects that you do, the type of projects that you don't do as well, type of people that you don't work with, okay? Because what we want to make really clear is you want to attract the right kind of people and quite often. We want to the best way to attract people that you do want and the projects you do want is to exclude those that you don't Okay, so there's nothing wrong with saying and marketing about things that you don't want to get because in our game We usually don't need a hundred leads and a hundred inquiries Because most of that will be rubbish. We actually want 15 to 20 of the right kind of projects that want you as the builder Don't get how long after the way to what it's going to cost they want to go look crag I want you as my builder You know, you know when you say jump I say hi, right? How's it work? Can you fit us in exactly. Yeah bang on So step number one, all right go and audit your social profile make sure that it is set up to allow people to get in touch with you It is set up to educate them on the cook key questions and the core concerns Things are pinned to the top and if I were to jump onto your profile to reference check you I would see that straightaway Second thing is to then work out a more strategic strategy moving forward and to not fall into the trap of posting forever and always and getting into the organic side of things Focus more specifically on some paid stuff and working out what the key offer is that you can run to attract good people and good projects from your social platform That is what you will get from this you will get good applications of talented individuals Awesome, thanks for your time mate. See you next week and we'll catch you then All right, take us bang That's it for today's episode, tune in every week if you want insights into what's working right now for the top 5% A residential building coming out is in general country. There's four ways we can help you one join our free Facebook group for tips, processes, best practice Two, go to www.professionalbuilder.com to download some resources with case study, see what's possible for your business Three, schedule one-on-one chat, we'll have 15 minute chat, see what we can do to help take your business to the next level No obligation, give you plenty of tips and lastly get a copy of the new book that's come out to help make your business more profitable Cheers!