Creating an Irresistible Marketing Offer for Roofers with Mat Smith

Mission Control Podcast

On today’s episode, Mike has on Mat Smith from the I Drink from Skulls podcast. Mat has taken his life by the horns as he has suffered from addiction, jail time, and has suffered a spinal injury. From there he turned his life around, and has become an expert marketer specializing in Facebook Ads. He shares the importance of optimizing leads, building ads, A B testing, How to speak to your audience, creating an irresistible offer, and building influence, trust and credibility. Mike & Mat talk all things marketing, personal journey, optimizing your business, and avoiding marketing mistakes! Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5 Contact us : [e-mail] Let's Connect! ==== ==== ==== Website: https://bit.ly/3NQXXKK Facebook: https://bit.ly/3xH8VaT Linkedin: https://bit.ly/3RWTSyr

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, man. So I got a question. You have answers. We'll see. What

Mat Smith: Oh,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: did

Mat Smith: we're

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the janitor

Mat Smith: on.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: hold on? Hold on. Wait your turn. What did the janitor say when you jumped out of the closet?

Mat Smith: Well that was a shitty situation.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Supplies. Welcome

Mat Smith: Ah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: back to another episode of the Mission Control Podcast with your boy Mike Stearns, proudly brought to you by Ascend Digital Agency and the team at Roofer. If you need roof measurements, clean and pristine proposals to compel your, your customers or prospective customers to buy, hit up the team at Roofer. We're here today with none other than Matt Smith. Oh, hold on. No, we don't wanna laugh. That's the one. I'm still learning, folks, all right? I'm not the greatest host. I'm not a producer, but we're working at it. And that's all you can ask from me, is that I try my hardest to give you guys the best content possible. And today, Matt's gonna help me actualize that. Thanks for coming on, Matt.

Mat Smith: Oh good, my man, appreciate it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So where should we start? Where are you from?

Mat Smith: I am from a country town called Toowoomba in sunny Australia. So it's actually 5 a.m. here. The future, I'm like a day in front of you. I already know this podcast went well and I feel obligated to say, g'day mate, to all your guests.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: uh... and they appreciate it i'll speak for all of them because i have a new five a m and i this is it's this is that like a sweet spot for us right as i did we

Mat Smith: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: did like five

Mat Smith: you

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: thirty

Mat Smith: did

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: four

Mat Smith: the same.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: uh... yeah when is that one drop

Mat Smith: Another couple of weeks.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: A couple

Mat Smith: Oh no,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: weeks.

Mat Smith: you're out, you're out.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Am I?

Mat Smith: You're out there. I'm gonna get you the link.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Did I get tagged? I promise

Mat Smith: Don't worry,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you'll

Mat Smith: man.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: know

Mat Smith: We

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: when

Mat Smith: got

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: this

Mat Smith: a

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: one

Mat Smith: good

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: gets

Mat Smith: plan

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: dropped.

Mat Smith: for you.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Okay.

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Where

Mat Smith: He he.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: can people check that out if they wanted to see that interview?

Mat Smith: It's called the I drink from skulls podcast. Insert the skull here.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ooh.

Mat Smith: We can get them the

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Well.

Mat Smith: link and listen along. That was a great, it was a good time.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Where did all this skull drinking, where did this start?

Mat Smith: Yeah, good question. So back in 2018, I believe it was, I used to do, I used to have a commercial cleaning building and renovation business here where I roll and I was getting really good at advertising for that business. And, you know, I saw a lot of the online marketers and everyone was talking about how they could help roofers get 20 or 30 new leads or new roof replacements or could they handle possibly any more work. And She's got sick of the bullshit, so... One day, on Facebook, I saw this chalkboard meme that said, You know what's wrong with society today? No one drinks from the skulls of their enemies no more. And in an instant, I was absolutely hooked. And I just got obsessed with it. I started posting about skulls, drinking from skulls. And the deeper meaning to it was, like, Are you sitting on the sideline getting splinters on your arse? Or are you someone that's gonna go all in, play to win, and give it your absolute fucking best? And I was just addicted to it from then and there. Everything I did had a skull type flavor to it. And it started to catch on. I quickly learned that if you post the same thing, if you're consistent with the same message, people will start saying it back to you. I started getting skulls in the mail, ice cubes, skull plants, you name it. People were sending it to us from all around the world. And I'm like, this is fucking crazy. This is cool. I'm onto

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: mmm

Mat Smith: something here. So I just ran with it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: well i like it

Mat Smith: You're

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: trying

Mat Smith: a

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: to

Mat Smith: scout,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: drink

Mat Smith: aren't

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: some

Mat Smith: you? Ha ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: from some skulls did uh...

Mat Smith: ha.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: by the way this is a clean show so we don't swear some have them

Mat Smith: I

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: at

Mat Smith: swear

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it that out just

Mat Smith: I'm

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: fucking

Mat Smith: gonna be in

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: with

Mat Smith: trouble.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you

Mat Smith: Ha ha ha.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: and i would suck and no and i mean no one listens now but really no one would listen if we didn't swear a little bit here and there so

Mat Smith: Gotcha.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: thank you to the audience for tuning in we appreciate you So Facebook you do a lot of Facebook. Yeah

Mat Smith: I'm the Facebook Ads Guy.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: The Facebook ads guy. You got a fuckin' license plate to prove it. So vain. I love it.

Mat Smith: Yeah, ads

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Now,

Mat Smith: man. Actually

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ads man.

Mat Smith: a montage or takeoff to Seinfeld, the ass man. I'm like, well, that was cool. I'll be the ads man. I like.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: go. I like your rendition of it, okay? What would you say to a contractor that, you know, I've tried Facebook ads and it doesn't work? And I, you know, we get tons of leads and none of them fucking answer the phone.

Mat Smith: Yeah, yeah, great question. It's probably the, it'd be the, you know, top three questions and things that I get asked or things that I see. And I would say, you won't be the first to say it, you won't be the last. But what you do need to understand is a little bit more about Facebook. And I just show people my exact process. So the thing about Facebook ads is, think about why people are on Facebook or why they're on social media. They didn't go on and search for how they can get a new roof through their insurance or how they could upgrade to a metal roof. They're on there looking at dog videos, reels, memes, things about family and friends. They're on there to be motivated, inspired. They're on there to connect with family or friends or avoid whatever stuff they got going on in their life. So the intent with social media is different. And one thing I learned after generating hundreds of thousands of these leads, is that if you don't have a great system for getting in contact with your leads, and by great system, if you're not calling, connecting, messaging, emailing your leads within five minutes of them coming in, you have an 80% chance of not being able to ever get in contact with them. It's just that simple. So you have to understand the intent of Facebook and social media. You have to have a great system in behind the leads, and you have to have a consistent system that does the work for you, because most people don't really follow up too much despite what they say. And then, you know, you can't do what everyone else is doing. You have to have a way of really standing out for me specifically, and we show people this, but we have, we come up with some of the greatest offers that have been out on Facebook. I know that sounds a little bit flexy, but if

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Is

Mat Smith: I need

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: this like

Mat Smith: to,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: a revid-illusionary

Mat Smith: if I'm...

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: roofing system?

Mat Smith: Could be,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And there's only

Mat Smith: that

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: 19

Mat Smith: could be

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: spots?

Mat Smith: one of the things.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: He said it completely.

Mat Smith: I can't, that was one of the, that's funny. I came up with that like five years ago and, you know, marketers in basements all around the country sort of copied it from then and there. But yeah, you do have to have a great offer. That one we keep on the sideline, that was kind of a 2019

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: play, I would say.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I,

Mat Smith: for

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you know,

Mat Smith: all those

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it's

Mat Smith: Facebook

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: funny.

Mat Smith: advertisers.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Well, we've

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: got, we've got clients in common and we've had clients in common. And like, I, for me, I don't, like, I never liked that, that flavor, but it fucking works, right? Like, it gets people, it gets people to give you, give, for them to give you what you want, right? Which is their information, generate the interest, now open the door to have that conversation, it fucking works. So yeah, it's, and I do, I still see them to this day.

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: All the time. Yeah. Ha

Mat Smith: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ha

Mat Smith: if you've ever

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ha.

Mat Smith: been annoyed by one of my ads, it's been a, and these are copied like crazy now. I don't really use them anymore. But if you've seen an ad that's like 25 homeowners needed, 19 homeowners needed, 17 home, I came up with those five years ago. They went viral at the time. They were getting leads at like three and five bucks in pretty much every market of the US. 20 bucks in the toughest markets of the US. Now they're copied to death, so that's why. You know, I've moved on. Gotta grow

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Sure.

Mat Smith: up. Gotta do the next thing.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So

Mat Smith: And

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: what

Mat Smith: that's what it's all about.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: will, right, evolving, right? Optimizing, that makes a lot of sense. What's piqued your interest as far as taking that avenue, as far as create the urgency, right? It's exclusive, right? What was it that clicked

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: for you that was like, this is the ad set that we're gonna go with?

Mat Smith: Well,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Way back when.

Mat Smith: it came from a number of things. When I first got started, a dude by the name of Tim Nussbeck hooked me into it. I was, like I mentioned, doing commercial cleaning, building renovation, and he saw I was doing really well with my own ads. My wife and I also had a wedding business, and we'd booked it out for three years, all from Facebook ads. So anyway, Tim hit me up, said if I could run some ads for him. He was sick of marketers, wanted to try something different. And that was one of the ads I came up with. Hadn't really been done back then. It worked super, super well. And what happened next was a lot of Tim's family, friends, people all across America started hitting me up. And I was literally running hundreds of ads every day in every market. And I started to get an insane amount of data to really figure out what worked. I would test everything you could imagine, some things you can't. Like I would test using a different emoji. I would test one different word. I was running that many ads and I built this much data that I finally figured out a real system that worked. And that was one of them. So,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm.

Mat Smith: yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What's your best performing ad these days, Matt?

Mat Smith: Eh, got a few that are just absolute ball terrors.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ha ha ha!

Mat Smith: They, and by ball terrors, like they, I'm running them in 45 states. They work in pretty much every market. They're new. Some of the best stuff I've got are videos that just, they can't be hacked or stolen.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right.

Mat Smith: I've had a singer slash rapper perform this really cool, really catchy song that you hear it so much, you can't stop the singing it. will annoy you after a while, it's great. I love it. And it just, it, what I do different to everyone else is that I figure out how to speak to them, how to give people what they want, not just a free inspection, which most people, when they run an ad, that's what they do. I talk about the value that the, that the roofer can provide. And that's just one thing. We, we have a system that's designed to get leads in quickly through an irresistible offer. That's simply too good to refuse. And then it's what I do next that makes us stand out. I essentially build a wall around a prospect on Facebook where I retarget them consistently over and over and over and over and over again in a way that screams trust us, we're credible, we have more happy homeowners than you could ever imagine. So much so that we just consistently build influence, trust and credibility.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and smart. What's better, Google, Facebook, or door knocking?

Mat Smith: That's a good question. Why not all three? Each have their strengths, each have their weaknesses and not each one is right for each person. So one of the first things I say when someone hits me up about Facebook ads, I do a consult, I figure out what they've been doing, what they've tried, where they're at right now and where they're looking to go. And then I show them our system and then I point out the things that I've seen not work for people for. And by not work, It's not that it's never profitable. They're just not closing enough as what I want and what I need to consider a win. And that's, so for Facebook, it's great for people who have a strong sales system. They understand that if they give a lead to a rep too soon, they're probably not gonna call them. Seen it happen so many times now. But Facebook

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: call

Mat Smith: is

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the

Mat Smith: great

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: damn

Mat Smith: for

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: leads

Mat Smith: getting attention quickly. Call the damn leads right there. Yeah. Facebook is the number one go-to platform to get attention quickly, to get leads quickly. A great Facebook advertiser will get you cheaper leads and you need cheaper leads because you're gonna need more of them in comparison to Google. So it really comes down to the person's situation. It's also great for dominating a local market to compliment strong SEO or strong Google ads. because people are spending on average in between five to six hours on Facebook and Instagram a day. TikTok's putting a little bit of a spanner in that works, but for the most part, people are on there. So if you're not on there, your competition probably is. The thing with door knocking, how can you go past looking some like hitting a door, looking someone in the eye and setting appointment then and there? There's nothing stronger once you actually get the contact, right? That's kind of how I've seen it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Sure.

Mat Smith: So we actually do, we've done a combination of both. I would run Facebook ads, I'll reference a roofer I'm working with in Northern Colorado, running Facebook ads, building influence consistently, staying in people's face. And then when a storm hit, he had a team of four guys go and hit the doors and they did, they set 76 appointments and they closed 68. on contingency 64 ended up getting across the line in one day. And the combination of building influence, trust and credibility coupled with the fact with a team that knew exactly what to do, how to do it and they executed perfectly, like 1.4 in a day, that's insane.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm-hmm.

Mat Smith: But for a team that doesn't wanna hit the doors, isn't going to get essentially a little bit aggressive and get the job done, that's not the right strategy for them. Now. talking about Google Ads, one of the best lead sources you can have, providing you have the budget to do it. I think the biggest problem with Google Ads comes down to two things. Number one, the person running the ad. If they're not an expert and they're not great at what they do, and you're losing 50, 70, $100 a click for roofing keywords, can be that high. Correct me if I'm wrong. You're going to burn through your budget really quick. And then on the backside of that, if you don't have a good sales system, a good process for taking that lead in and setting the appointment, you're gonna burn so much money. It's just, it'll be an absolute disaster. Is that what, when you do consults, is that what you've seen with people that have tried Google Ads in the past?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that's a it's a really good point and one that's you know often overlooked It's like you know Google ads are Google ads are good. That couldn't be further from the truth I mean the platform itself is just a convoluted clusterfuck And they make it very challenging to be successful on that platform And and there's oftentimes things subtle things that Google will change that could cost you thousands and thousands of dollars You know so for instance You know automatically applying recommendations like, hey, click here and apply these recommendations. You're going to assume intuitively that it's going to be in your best interest to apply them. And what they're going to do is they're going to show you a higher optimization score. If you apply those recommendations, guess what? Your optimization score just went from 80 to a 90.2. Congratulations. Well, now

Mat Smith: Hehehe

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: they release a bunch of display ads that eats up your budget. Doesn't get you really return in this situation. And now you've spent an extra thousand, two thousand dollars, whatever the case may be. But they've taken it a step further and they've also done things like, hey, by the way, if you don't opt out of this in 14 days, we're just going to apply these recommendations for you. So they do some sneaky shit. And like, if you don't know what you're doing, if you're not well versed in the platform, it could be problematic. I know somebody who lost like 15 grand over the course of 60 days, just by, you know, like those little subtle things that were changing and he just didn't know. that's all they should hire me he's actually a friend of mine uh... he's a good dude and uh...

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: i i'd felt bad for but it was it was a tough lesson learned and it just kind of sucks oh yeah you know having someone knows what they're doing and are intimately involved in that platform on a consistent basis can make a massive difference as far as what you get out of it

Mat Smith: Yeah. Then I guess, okay, that makes sense, right? I think in comparison, you would need, this is a guess, so we don't do much with Google, but I would say you would need 15 Google leads versus 40, 40-ish Facebook leads to get a similar result or same result. That'd be my

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: guess.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, I would love to test it out and see what that proportion is. There's it's undoubtedly

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: going to be more on Facebook. You're going to spend less time and it's going to be, you know, what is your setup? What is your expectation? If you're working with somebody on Facebook, I feel that sets the right expectation and you're OK with those expectations as far as, hey, like there's going to be you're going to have a much higher. You're going to have a much lower cost per acquired lead, but you're going to have a lower proportion of those people book appointments. So then there's going to be more output from your sales team with less reward, so to speak, with, you know, if you reach out to 20. maybe 14 of them book, maybe 10 of them book, I don't know, but it's not going to be as high as a percentage of Google. That's fine. Like if you if you set that expectation and you know what you're up against, because if you can end up netting up huge on Facebook, like do it. You know, a lot of the times just like things with Google, like there's poor expectations set, people get burnt in their mind by like, I fucking called 10 people and I got three of them on the phone. And it's like, okay, well, I mean, if you expected that, and you could sell two of those like you're, or even one of them, you're probably netting up based on what those 10 leads cost you on Facebook, right? Even if it's

Mat Smith: That's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: 40,

Mat Smith: right.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: 50 bucks a lead, you paid

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: $500 for that. If you sold the job, you did very well. It could be a little bit of a nuisance, but you're probably going to pay twice as much for that on Google.

Mat Smith: Yeah, exactly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So there's always like direct costs and indirect costs associated with what we're doing. But I liked what you said as far as like, why does it have to be this or that? Like I look at, I look at lead sources as cookie jars, man. And it's like, Yeah. If you just off word of mouth, if you never want to grow past whatever you're at, you'd be doing, let's say, one point two million. You want to stay at one point two million and word of mouth get you there and you constantly have 40 jobs on the books. And it's like, whatever, like, don't fucking spend money in advertising. I'm not trying to coerce you into spending money. Don't right. And then like my first thing I would tell you to do is like, hey, like set up Google local services. You know, you don't pay us to do that. You do it. Go do it yourself. Whatever. We can help you with some stuff, but go do that. And then, you know, if you get enough leads to satiate your appetite for growth, and keep your crew busy, like stop there. If you want to go a step further, like let's take a look at your website. What are you doing on Google Ads, SEO, Facebook? Like now you start saying, but like I'm a fat kid at heart. Like a little known fact, like when I was a kid, I played a lot of football. I was always overweight for town, right? So I'm running around with a garbage bag three hours before the game to shoot. Shed those last three, four pounds because

Mat Smith: Hehehehe

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I couldn't eat until I did. Right. Here's Fat Mike in a garbage bag. All right. And Jen, my editor, she better queue up like a dope little gift for that when we clip it. You know, so but like I want my hand in every fucking cookie jar. Right. If I'm trying to grow like I want leads, I want a dynamic strategy that is diversified and is going to bring me opportunities from all across the board. And. And I'm going to make sure that the folks that I'm supplying with these opportunities are fucking working for them. I'm going to make sure that they're doing things other than just taking my leads and calling them once to earn their keep. It's going to be it's going to be a benefit of working for a good company. It's not going to be an entitlement because once it becomes an entitlement, it's very hard for those entitled folks not to be entitled.

Mat Smith: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Do you see that at all?

Mat Smith: 100%, yeah. And that's the thing, like, you know, paid leads and, you know, provided leads should always be treated as a bonus, as the gold, right? It takes work in and around them. If all we did was generate leads and appointments using Facebook and then the reps in the company didn't knock the doors, like I'm the first person to say, you need to be hitting the neighbors, you need to leverage the opportunity online for what you should be naturally doing offline because otherwise we hate money and what are we doing here, right? So you need to, yeah, like the strategy should hit people from every angle. And then leads should be treated like gold. They need to be worked well and you need to make the most out of them because not everyone provides them and they can be taken away too. So.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah. And you know, what I see is oftentimes you get into a place as an owner where you okay, let's say you've got four sales reps and they're driving all your revenue. Okay, fantastic. And 90% of that's coming from leads that you're paying for. Okay. How many times do they call on each lead? How many times after when it goes from, you know, lead to appointment held? or appointment scheduled how many times is a is a conversation being initiated or at least attempted to be initiated after they meet with that homeowner and they don't get the yes and the answer is like fucking zero and if it's not showed it show it to me in your crm um... and it whether it's if it's not documented it didn't happen because you need to

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: have data right you need to be able to say like on average we follow up three times so then you could say okay well it turns out that mike fucking sucks at his job in his lead suck right that's why we're not closing leads it's not because you know john's not following up john's column seven times a piece it's right here in the crm But even for people that do fall they don't document it and most don't follow up and if they follow up they follow up once or twice. You know so you go into a situation where let's say you build like a rehash campaign right and you have some rehash going it's like we just closed you know three deals out of the last 30 days of business it's like yeah you probably would have closed fucking 10 if your sales reps are following up.

Mat Smith: Exactly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So let's not celebrate the fact that we closed three with the rehash. Let's figure out how we can get fucking time next time from people just doing their job, but it requires accountability. It requires you managing your employees. Um, and whether it's you directly, it's a sales manager. I think that that's a often an oversight in folks, um, in the trades. And I think that it's a, it's a very costly oversight.

Mat Smith: Yeah, a hundred percent. One thing I've learned, like our most successful roofer, he closes 90% of his appointments from Facebook. So it's not like it can't be done, but his system for setting the lead, the lead management, the CRM management is insanely good. What I've learned after doing deep dives in CRMs is that A lot of the data in there is BS. You gotta think about it. A lot of employees and a lot of team members, you don't think that they'll fudge some figures and just put in what you wanna see. You need to have an integrity check on your data. You need to be measuring every step of the process to ensure that the data is correct so that you can actually rely on it. At the time and time again, I've seen... The data in CRM's been absolute shambles. It looks good on surface level, but then when I really started to dig, the number of opportunities that hadn't been followed up with the number of proposals and quotes that had gone out without an outcome, the number of appointments that would had been canceled for absolutely no reason.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hmm.

Mat Smith: gone black.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, I mean, what's that?

Mat Smith: I can't see you.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Oh, no. I'm still

Mat Smith: Mine

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: here.

Mat Smith: does that. Okay, cool.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It happens a lot, right?

Mat Smith: Absolutely.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: More than most people would imagine or think.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and I think the only thing that would be worse than not having data in your CRM to make decisions based on data off of is having inaccurate information. So making information based on data that's fucking just wrong. Right. At that point, you might as well guess because you're pissing in the wind. Right.

Mat Smith: Exactly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So it's dangerous. It's it's a threat to your business and you should be vigilant in your approach to fix it. So if you haven't started, now's the time. Today's the day.

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: keep telling yourself we'll start Monday. This fucking 139 Mondays have come and gone. It's not gonna start.

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Do it now.

Mat Smith: You have to, you have to take action at that. I'll give an easy to understand example. That's sort of relative. Like what, are you measuring what's actually being said on the phone? The very first interaction when a lead comes in. All right. So if you're not and you're taking the word for it of maybe it's an office team member that's answering the phone or maybe they're supposed to call the leads, who knows? It depends on your situation. And If you're not recording that transaction, if you're not providing training to educate them on what to say and how to sort of, not coerce, but how to shape the conversation. And then you're relying on the data that, oh yeah, that lead, they didn't answer. That was a shit lead. This, this, and that's what goes into the CRM. Think about that. Whereas it could be as simple as instead of saying hello, that like, instead of just saying like, not getting that first initial impression right. People might be hanging up like crazy just because the phone isn't being answered correctly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, being abrasive as fuck versus, thank you for calling Matt Smith Consulting, how can I make you smile today?

Mat Smith: Exactly. our system,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ha ha

Mat Smith: we record

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ha. No.

Mat Smith: that and it would shock most people what's actually happening in their business.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: That's a really good point. That is a very, very good point. So how do you go about doing that? You just record the calls?

Mat Smith: That's the first thing, recording. The next thing is having appointment setting training, sales training and role playing what needs to be said. And then practicing for being weird and wonderful objections so that they're very well versed in promoting the company, the product and the owners.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So hold on, you expect us to hire someone to take the calls, you expect us to record the calls, you expect us to listen to the calls, right? You expect us to have training on the calls, you want us to role play, I mean that sounds like a lot, Matt.

Mat Smith: Well, if you don't do it, your competitors will. The thing is though, you can do, someone's doing it right now. So maybe you don't have to hire someone. But what I would say is that if, yeah, like if you don't do it, someone else is going to, they're gonna steal your lunch on you. But it needs to be done. You need to learn how to communicate. It's not just gonna be a skillset that serves you when answering the phone. It's gonna serve in all areas of the business. The recording stuff, that's really easy to get some help with. There's lots of softwares and systems that can do that. And you don't have to listen to every call, but maybe just pick out a couple. You dedicate some time, you put it in the calendar once or twice a week, and you invest in the result.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah it i couldn't agree more and i think i like we said about putting in the calendar if you don't put in the calendar snag a fucking happen i'll do it on

Mat Smith: That's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: tuesdays

Mat Smith: right.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: well tuesday comes uh... life gets away you're busy shit running a business right like it's fine but be intentional about it The difference in opportunities being converted in revenue that would be generated as a result of that is fucking real. Just by like, just these simple little nuances, these little tweaks that can be made, such as how, what's being said when it's being, the phone calls being answered, the tone of voice, the delivery, the cadence of speech. It makes a big deal. I mean, I did a real not too long ago, it actually did pretty well. It's like, you know, Don't answer the don't answer the phone like you got off a fucking bender. Right? Because you know, the cold hard truth is like people don't trust contractors, right? So we're trying to create a situation to disarm them and make them trust you right as a marketing company. And when you pick up the phone, oh, I'm fucking hanging up on you. I don't trust you. That's not welcoming. Like, I don't want to I don't want to give you my money, especially not now. Bye. So yeah, there's a big difference, big difference in the potential outcome. and i think there's different there's opportunities along the way from the time that you pick up the phone always a time the contract sign for you guys to close more deals what would you say maybe another opportunity is aside from you know the inception of the call now it's answered

Mat Smith: not believing the sales rep, you know, and so I guess not believing is not the right word, but

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Trust but verify.

Mat Smith: exactly. And what steps can you put in place to ensure that the customer or the potential customer is getting the best experience possible? One thing everyone can do, whether it's yourself, a different team member or a new team member is play that role of quality assurance, customer experience. it gives you another opportunity to go after a deal that didn't close. And you take the frame of mind and you position it sort of like this, like, hey, hey Michael, I'm reaching out to you in an effort to improve our customer experience with XYZ company. My sole job is to see how your experience was with our sales rep, John. And then, you know, just by doing that. the prospect is likely going to tell you what really happened, whether they might not just might not have liked them. They might not have jailed. They might've been having a bad day, but you push back if they try and get you to close on that call, because your sole intention is to improve the experience. But by doing that, it gives you the other, it gives you another opportunity and you get to find out what really happened.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it's another thing to write you don't have to do it on every opportunity that doesn't close right you can do lakes spot monitor the situation say we're gonna do you know for doing a hundred for run a hundred leads a month and is five times. or 10 times. I like

Mat Smith: Absolutely.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: that. How many how many contractors do you know that are actively doing that.

Mat Smith: Um, with like, let's just use me as an example, probably 20%. But we, we actively push for it. We say, here, this is a great thing to do. Um, it's very simple and kind of just help make it someone's role. That, that same person plays the role of following up and trying to get more reviews on Facebook and Google as well. And then it turns into referral opportunities that were missed in the, you know, if the ref rep missed them. essentially trying to rehash as well. But yeah, it's probably the easiest thing someone could implement straight away, providing they've got a decent team structure, is to rehash their current opportunities, take it from that customer experience angle, you'll get a lot more deals out of it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: dropping golden nuggets here, Mr. Smith.

Mat Smith: Skull Bums.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Skull bones. What would you say is the biggest mistake that business owners are making when they're advertising?

Mat Smith: Uh, that's a good question. I would say, is this, is it doing it themselves or hiring someone? Or doesn't really matter.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Let's go both. So for the sake of the ability to reel this, what is the biggest mistake that folks are making when they're advertising their company themselves?

Mat Smith: Yeah, that's a good question. I guess if we're gonna go Facebook specific, it's not understanding the platform in its entirety. There are certain pieces to the puzzle that need to be done in order for it to be highly effective. Number one, you've gotta know who to put the ad in front of. You gotta know where to target it. You gotta know how to target. Number two, you've gotta have a great ad. It's got to stand out, it's got to grab people's attention, it's got to have a great offer. You can't just run a free inspection and think you're going to do well. Everyone's been doing that for 20 years. All right. So you need to figure out how the hell to stand out. You need to have an irresistible offer that's too good to refuse. And the way to do that is by pulling out the value of what you do and turning that into an ad, okay? The third thing is not understanding that Leads need to be contacted quickly. It is about speed to the lead. If you don't do it, it will not work anywhere near as good as it should. And number four, even when you've got a lead in, it's only, that's only the start of the process. Okay, the leads need to be followed up consistently. It's been statistically proven that a sale occurs after the 12th to 25th touch point. Appointment setting is very similar. We need a lot of touch points. Don't give up on your leads too early. turn it into a system where leads get contacted two to three times a day, every day, until you get an answer. This can be automated. It can also be just put in someone's calendar and it's a 10 to 15 minute task. It sounds a lot more than it is, but that's what we've seen the best success with from sales reps right up to top 15 roofing companies, right? The ones that do it well master that. And then you need to build up the intent of the lead, right? So if someone's just randomly scrolling along, they've seen a great offer, they still don't know who you are well, like not yet anyway. So it's then your job to consistently put your message in front of them in a way that makes them trust you. So without any of those things, your Facebook ads won't work anywhere near as good as they should. Not a lot of marketers that I've seen, not to bag anyone out, not gonna name names or anything. except Kevin, he's just a, we don't even know if he's a real guy at this point, but if they, he is, but Kevin is like the mantra for all fake marketers, right? Anyway, if you miss one of those crucial elements, it's just not gonna work anywhere near as well. And then you have to have the understanding of that's what the platform requires in order to get a great result. That's hard to do without really good training on it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Oh.

Mat Smith: Just in terms of training, I don't know if there's much out there that teaches all of those things. I haven't seen it, maybe it exists, I don't know. So yeah, if you don't have the right approach, it's gonna be very difficult. I imagine whilst not the same, if you were to run your own Google ads, you would experience similar problems in that if you don't understand the platform, if you're getting clicks run up like crazy, if you don't have a system for converting the lead, you're gonna waste a lot of time and a lot of money. And then SEO to do that on your own, damn. I think that would not be too easy, so.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: although do look at this is plenty of folks out there look at all you gotta do is get surfer seo chat gpt and did you can

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: write a hundred articles a day and you'll be ranking in no time you guys do that and report back to me how works for

Mat Smith: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you

Mat Smith: what a disaster that would create. Pretty

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so

Mat Smith: sure Google doesn't like AI generated stuff just quietly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I don't know. All right,

Mat Smith: Ha ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'm

Mat Smith: ha.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: just the lead janitor here at Ascend, trying to make

Mat Smith: Hehehehe

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: sure everything stays clean, okay? What would you say for those that are hiring a marketing agency, what's the biggest mistake that you see?

Mat Smith: not vetting the person properly, and then just believing whatever they say, right? So a great marketer will set the expectation. They will be able to demonstrate real results in your market or similar markets. I have no doubt that's what you do, Mike. I feel I do that pretty well too. Another couple of guys that we both know do it well. They have proven results with people that are just like, you know, themselves. So that's super important. Okay. The other thing is that if the marketer isn't pointing out the flaws and the things that to be aware of and the reasons why it hasn't worked as good as it should, that to me is another red flag. It's one thing I'm very consistent about is sharing real results. I don't just take our dream clients who have the best results in from like Facebook advertising. Because if all I did was share them and I didn't set the right expectation that it's difficult at the start and it gets better as time goes on and you need a good

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm-hmm.

Mat Smith: system and all that normal jazz, I feel it would be an unfair, like it would, it would not set the right expectation. So

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right.

Mat Smith: that, and then I, you know, sales gurus would hate it, but I, I'm, I'm more than happy to send references, connect with some people that I work with, connect with some people that I no longer work with to get the actual experience of what, what it's all about. I think

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: if you get those few things right, you'll always be in a good spot.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah and you know and if it doesn't end up working out after that you feel good about the decision made and likely that the severity of the potential outcome positive and it will make it for sure is far less than the floors way higher right because let's face it you know The reason why people don't do the things that you just stated is because they understand that, hey, if I do this, there's less likely a chance that I close this person and do business with them, right? So they do things

Mat Smith: That's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: that

Mat Smith: right.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: are disingenuous or less than forthright so that they don't have to address those things. So they keep the likelihood of that opportunity closing as high as possible. Well, again, the problem with that is that if you're not doing your due diligence and you're not vetting this person. There's a good like there's a lot more shitty marketers than good marketers. There's a lot more shitty dentists than good dentists, lawyers, roofers. Doesn't fucking matter. Most

Mat Smith: matter.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the majority of people aren't exceptional at what they do. And you heard it here first. Probably not, maybe not, but it's my show, so I say what I want.

Mat Smith: Exactly. If you think about

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: it though, think about every single person who watches this show can come up with some negative experiences they've had in any industry at any time. They're

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: all out there.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Protect yourself.

Mat Smith: So yeah, absolutely.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Protect yourself. And you made a really good point, like current people that you're working with. Like, I see people all the time given endorsements for individuals or companies, and they don't even have a fucking company. They don't work with

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: them. They don't even have a fucking company. They're in the same industry. You know,

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the roof is asking for us, you know, this guy that does. He's an HVAC technician endorsing this guy. It's like, dude, what?

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So connect with the folks that you see and you know, I don't know.

Mat Smith: That's a good point too. Roofing marketing is not the same as advertising for a wedding business. If you find a generalist marketer who's great at doing local stuff, but they haven't done roofing, and I see this a fair bit, it like, I hate to be the one to break it, but it's probably not gonna work. Roofing is different. It's not impossible. There's people that do it well, but for the most part, for people who are, they might be good marketers at certain different niches and blah, blah. Come to the roofing, come to the real game. It's gonna sort you out, so.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and it's like you said, it's not impossible. Like. But there's like we deal in web development and SEO and Google ads. And there's, there's nuance to roofing that isn't the same as any, you know, HVAC or electrician, right. And there's certain vocabulary that's associated with the products and services that you guys are offering to your target market that we're very well versed in because for the last fucking, I don't know, eight years I've been doing it and my team, that's all they do. We've got like two clients outside of roofing and we're, we'll take clients outside of roofing. don't because everyone reaches out to us to work with us which is fantastic but we have a reputation for excellence in roofing we have a pest and lawn company that's in Memphis it was a referral of one of our roofing companies we fucking kill it for him

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'll only take certain opportunities like that though because it creates friction in our process. It's not that we can't do it, but it requires a certain level of effort from myself and my team, and there's friction that comes along with that, and with friction comes headaches and less profit to where it doesn't make as much sense. So you can do it, but most companies aren't going, you know, they're gonna sign that contract and then fucking put in, you know, they're gonna half-ass it and your results are gonna suck. But if you vet them and you look through some of the work that they've done and you feel confident after doing that, then go with God. Give it a shot. But make sure, especially in that instance, that you dive, you dive deep, you talk to a lot of people, ask them what expectations are. Show show, ask them to show you a few instances of those expectations coming to fruition for clients that they're currently working with. Currently, recently. not legacy clients from 10 years ago, they've been with them from day one that they were doing work for free for so that they could build their business. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We've all been there, right? It's fine. But it's not a it's not a fair expectation. I love what you said, right? Pretty much, in not so many words, it's like, this is a potential outcome, but I'm not going to set this as the expectation, right? You can still market those you can still make it a an Instagram real or a Facebook story. I do the same shit. We've got a we've got a client east we've rebuilt his website to the some SEO like month one he ended up landing a deal that got him like a $600,000 commercial job. Now I could go around and tell everyone like you know, month one SEO we

Mat Smith: Yeah, 21

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: made him 600

Mat Smith: days

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: grand.

Mat Smith: in, 600k.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Dude, I

Mat Smith: Fight

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: mean,

Mat Smith: me. Ha ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you

Mat Smith: ha. Ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: want

Mat Smith: ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it or not? Like,

Mat Smith: ha.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah, exactly.

Mat Smith: Ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Like that'd be a

Mat Smith: ha

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: fucking dick move. Right. Because

Mat Smith: ha.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I know that is such an outlier. Now I'll talk about it, but I'll also reign you back in and like, here's typically what you find. We've had clients that, you know, just step up to bat. They've never played baseball and they fucking smoked a fastball out of the stadium. And great. It's fantastic. We can high five a little bit, but I'm going to let you know that, Hey, let's take the win and move on because. And a month where your Google ads aren't performing well, I don't want you to fucking freak out. Right. That's why we typically deal with like a 12 month range. Like that's a robust enough data set and size of data to be like, okay, on average your lead cost was $148. That's good, that's a good expectation. We hit it, fantastic. Don't fucking, don't tell me that you want out of your agreement if it's 227 next month. And don't tell me you want to triple your budget based on the fact that we hit it at 96 bucks this month. Or if you want to triple it's fine. I won't fight you too hard

Mat Smith: We'll

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: on

Mat Smith: take

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it. But

Mat Smith: it.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: shit son.

Mat Smith: I guess the other thing there is, yeah, don't, back to the legacy stuff, don't rely on the L Bundy of marketers. They killed it in high school, scored four touchdowns,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ha ha ha!

Mat Smith: but haven't done anything in 20 years. I had to get that in there, it was in the head.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Good, it's so true.

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Is bigger better?

Mat Smith: Big R in terms of company revenue.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: bigger agencies

Mat Smith: Bigger agences?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: course we're talking about agencies

Mat Smith: Hmm, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't, I have to base this off the data that I've gathered over the last five years. I guess it's, I guess the thing that impacts the data, which is literally people reaching out, telling us about their experience with who they've worked with, blah, blah. They're normally reaching out because they haven't had a good experience. So I guess I haven't spoken to that many people who have had a good one with the big guys, but just from, if we just look at it from above. And by what do you mean by big? Like they've got 500,000 clients, that sort of jazz.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, sure.

Mat Smith: Big, big, yeah. It depends what you're, what you're, what's important to you is quick responses, like same day responses or problems and questions answered and handled within 24 hours. Is that something that's important to you? I have to say that in my experience with roofers, and I think you would be the same, because we both don't suck. We have tremendous hair. That is important to most people. You want your shit answered. You want, my bad, we'll pull the swear. But you want your problems solved quickly, or at least to be heard in an efficient manner with a big company where you are just a number and you have a different account manager all the time. This is the feedback I've got. I don't think you're gonna get that experience. Add to that what are the results like. That's something I can't really speak of, but in my personal opinion, Um, I, I feel that you're going to get the best support and the best opportunity to get great results with someone who genuinely cares and someone who's very much invested in your company. Um, it's going to be someone who's just like you as a roofing business. Um, I don't feel that's probably going to come in, in the way of, of the big national people that, you know, they sign you up, you don't hear from them. Again, this is just sort of feedback I've heard. The

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.

Mat Smith: only thing that's important is that the invoice is automatically paid on a monthly basis, which you can't get out of, right?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right.

Mat Smith: To me, I don't like any of that stuff. It's kind of what we took a stand against when we started. So my personal experience, long-winded way of saying it, I would believe that a smaller agency that has, you know, you're the same. We work with people in most states of the country. is going to be able to give you a better experience and a better opportunity to get better results.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Well said. I like especially what you hit on. My least favorite class in higher ed was political statistics with Dr. Michelle Benson. What's her name? Benson Saxton. She had two last names. And she was an awesome teacher. I just hated stats and nothing. The only thing I hated more than statistics was political statistics because I would, you know, I can usually read and digest things pretty well, synthesize the information, pull it out. I would read the same three pages four fucking times and I have no idea what I read. So it was challenging. Needless to say, you made a point about, OK, so I've got a I'm basing this off my experience. Now most people are not happy with their provider when they reach out. So it's skewed, right? So the skewed nature, that data, it doesn't provide for what's called random sampling and statistics. Right. So you're not taking a thousand people that are spending at least a thousand dollars throughout the country without regard to the size of the agency they're working with and then testing what their experience was with a large agency for a small agency. So therefore it would be statistically insignificant. doesn't fucking matter Matt Smith it doesn't matter what you say sorry

Mat Smith: Exactly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: that's what that's what doctor Michelle will tell you so

Mat Smith: That's correct.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: if you're listening if you if you're listening I'm sorry haha or you're welcome one or the other I don't know I

Mat Smith: She

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: can't

Mat Smith: might

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: call

Mat Smith: love that.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: yeah we will set a clip in an email or something I still have around my UB email so that's all good yeah I think you also you made some really good points as far as like you know what What is your desire for the dynamic of that relationship to look like? Are you okay with, you know? Folks getting taken three days, four days to get back to you. And that can happen with a smaller large agency.

Mat Smith: Ken.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right. But there's going to be there's going to be clues leading up to your relationship. If you unless you just, you know, randomly talk to someone, say, let's do it. You know, test out like if you call them, are they accessible or whoever your point of contact is, do they respond to you? If they can't take your call, how long does it take them to get back in touch with you? Because I'll tell you what. If somebody is trying to get your money. by way of providing services and it takes them a day or two to get back to you. And there's no and shit happens. But if there's no explanation, if it's kind of just like you feel like they're not trying very hard, it's probably not going to get better once you commit to spending money with them. They're

Mat Smith: That's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: probably

Mat Smith: right.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: going to work the hardest they're going to work to get your business and to be high touch and accessible to you before you give them your money. So maybe it's a red flag. I don't know. I would like to understand what so

Mat Smith: The genitacy

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: what

Mat Smith: is all

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: what's

Mat Smith: though.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the next well any jobs idea supplies you know so those

Mat Smith: Exactly.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: was a great job I love that it was my best dad joke admittedly but fine whatever what is what you see in the future in is there anything that you see in the near future that's going to make a large impact in the way that people are

Mat Smith: I think that the classics are going to stay around for the next five years. One thing that will impact at some point is AI. I think it's a little while away yet from being something that someone can just go to and does all your marketing, does your SEO, blah, blah. And the reason for that is when someone uses AI and they make a post or they write an ad with it, the first thing someone can like when someone else sees it. Oh, that's AI,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: to

Mat Smith: that's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: LGBT.

Mat Smith: fake. Boom, they click off like an ad on the TV, on the old television, all right? You order, your brain is tuned in, it's like, ah, that's crap. So it's not there yet. It will be at some point, how long that is, I don't know, but the number one opportunity that I see is investing in your personal brand, is building an audience, not to necessarily make cash out of right now. But being well known, well trusted in your market is something that will pay off for years and years to come. You can do that by, you know, having half decent video. It doesn't have to be high quality stuff, but being consistent with content. I feel that's the number one thing everyone should be doing. Everything can be built upon from that. And if you're not doing it, someone else will.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: That's your fucking, that's your shit

Mat Smith: It's

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: right there,

Mat Smith: that simple.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ain't it?

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: If you're not doing it, someone else will.

Mat Smith: It's a primal desire.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I like that. God damn.

Mat Smith: There you go.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I've got so we're going to end up doing another show because I've got a lot that I want to want to talk to you about as far as like Matt Smith himself and not the ads man right so we dealt with the persona and we got a lot of valuable insights into questions that I had and I'm sure is going to add a lot of value to everyone listening and I think that the next show what we'll do is we'll dive into and maybe I did it as backwards but again I don't give a fuck because it's my show I can do it backwards ha I think we'll do another show where we talk all about Matt himself and not the ads man. What do you

Mat Smith: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: think?

Mat Smith: I love that. Well, when you're the founder of Ascend and you go into the moon, who says we have to go directly? Like we can go whatever way we want. So,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: We'll take the scenic route.

Mat Smith: yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah. I mean, would you be obliged to come back for another episode

Mat Smith: Yeah,

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: at the

Mat Smith: for

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mission

Mat Smith: sure.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Control podcast? Yeah?

Mat Smith: Absolutely.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Okay. Well, then that's what we're going to do. Do you have any questions before we wrap up?

Mat Smith: Um, I liked your last question. Like where do you see the opportunity or the potential disruptors in the roofing and home improvement space?

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: AI?

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Is it a fucking cop out cause you said it? So, this is what

Mat Smith: Yeah.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'm thinking. You know, everybody understands the value of video. Nobody fucking does video. Right? Why? Well, cause I don't wanna be on video. Or, um, you know, it's just, I got so many things going on. That's like, okay, well then have one of your sales reps fucking go up on a roof when they're inspecting it and you know, do that when you're doing your 33 point inspection that you're advertising on Facebook as opposed to just a free inspection, I don't know. What do I know? But

Mat Smith: I would never.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: here's what I'm thinking, here's what I'm thinking. Is with all the technology AI like there's gonna be deep fake technology that's gonna be readily available to a lot of people and like many people use that malevolently and some folks will leverage that in a very positive way. So for instance, If I have, if I can input a hundred videos of Mike Stern saying a bunch of shit that nobody wants to hear about and then I can take that same face And superimpose via prompt like, hey, I want this person to say this, this and this. Well, now I can come up with an outline through like a chat GPT of topics that I want to hit. I can I can type all these things in, I can elaborate on them, I can make them mine, and now I can make a perfectly articulated video where you can't tell that the mouth is superimposed over my actual mouth, and it's an AI video of me as opposed to some fucking cheesy avatar that talks like this,

Mat Smith: Mm.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: right? And it'll have my voice, and it'll have my delivery of my tone, my inflection. All the things that make y'all love Mike Stearns will be available through like a deepfake technology, right? able to create content, you'll be able to create trust and credibility, you'll be able to create sequences automatically through like your CRM, as far as delivering even intro videos of whatever sales reps assigned, they're going to get this video. And then when it hits this status, you're going to get another video, it's going to be this and it can be used in so many different ways. And for those that in there will still be a lot of people that don't fucking do it.

Mat Smith: That's Piro.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It can be spoon fed to them and they'll spit it out and that's fine. uh... but for those that you'll take advantage of those types of advances in technology and leverage it for the better betterment of their company i think they're going to see fucking massive gains and who knows maybe i developed technology

Mat Smith: They've had a day first.

Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: You heard it here first, folks. Dude, you're fucking awesome. I really appreciate you coming by. The ads man, Matt Smith, drinking from fucking skulls, folks. Appreciate the audience, and again, we appreciate Rufor for help bring this show to life. And we gone.