SMS Appointment Scheduling Made Easy

I’ll get on my little soap box for a second. It’s Mark Sherwin’s contractor marketing soap box, your guide to getting found, selected, and remembered. And now, here’s Mark.

Hey, soap boxers. I really appreciate you showing up today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. We had a little programming change there right at the end. Happily and luckily Joe Garcia, my CTO, he’s going to magically Hey, how you doing? He comes on in and he has stepped in some into some a conversation that I’ve wanted to have with Joe for a while and I’m sure others have the same question but about communication as it relates to conversions and a little background for everybody here we all know and everybody you know everybody has their their perception of what a convert version is. And for some it’s a phone call, for some it’s a text message, for some it’s a form fill. There are a number of ways that a conversion occurs.

In our conversation, we’re talking about contractor marketing, right? What are the goals of a contractor marketer? What do we want contractor marketing? What do we want people to do when they show up to a website? Not buying stuff generally but they definitely have a need and Joe is my CTO is has joined us. We have the reason that Joe is here and and I think that’s imperative that we talk about that is Joe has helped create what we affectionately call as a conversion optimization package which consists of several tools including a chat system along with a scheduling system that is available systemwide to all of our clients as well offline to other clients who might not be a LeadsNearby client. Client and through that Joe has learned quite a bit about how people interact with websites and tracking and all those fun things.

So, I’m going to talk less now and let Joe kind of give you some background on our conversion optimization package. Instead of going into a sales pitch though, we’re really going to start talking about what the mindset is of the consumer. So Joe, I don’t know if I took away your wind or your sales out of there, but we No, no, no. We Yeah, we can go into the shameless plug at the end, so it’s all good. Fair enough. We’ll go to that shameless plug at the end.

So, yeah, thanks Mark for the intro. We’ve spent a lot of time making sure that we provide, you know, products that are going to give our contractors, and really all contractors, the ability to be able to convert more of the leads that make it to their website. That’s really at the core of what we’re doing almost every single day here at Leads Nearby. So again, being able to provide those tools is paramount for us. Most importantly, quick ways for our clients to be able to get a hold of our clients, customers to be able to get a hold of our clients is chats and forms, right? Phone calls are obviously always going to be there. , but it is the summer time and I’m sure for most of our clients, their phones are blowing up. So, they necessarily can’t get to every single phone call that comes through. So, being able to communicate using other channels is also important. So, we’ll spend some time today kind of talking about those. Awesome. It’s a perfect prelude. You talked a little bit about it. You kind of touched on it. Not all communication is created equal. Yep. And by that we mean that not every person that comes to your website, a contractor’s website has an immediate demand and you and I can evidence that by just listening to the phone calls that you do get, right? How much for you know hey what this is happening to my system. I hear this noise. What is it? These are people that might not be ready for an appointment but definitely need some help. So not all conversions are my air conditioner stopped and I need somebody today. Communication being that paramount in your conversations with clients in your discovery of them. Hey Ray, come on in, your discovery of them, what we have is I thought Ray had a conversation, a question. I say pop in out of left field. I was like, our producers jumping on. It’s like it’s like it’s like our own little audience popping in. , so when people get to websites, right, they have a need, right? They might not have air conditioning. It might be too warm in their house, too cold. The water’s not where it’s supposed to be. There’s electricity not doing what it’s supposed to be. Whatever the reason, there’s a demand necessary. I have had a number of clients get very concerned that offering too many ways to communicate will stop somebody from doing what our clients really truly want as a phone call. Like the phone call is the holy grail for most clients. In your analysis of all of our clients as well as the industry, have you noticed a drop off in conversions if you offer more conversion avenues? No. I think it’s important for our clients to meet their customers where they’re at. Absolutely. Especially as newer homeowners are coming in, right? And some of those older homeowners are either, you know, phasing out, going into either condominiums or retirement homes, so on and so forth. , you know, we need to be prepared for a newer generation of consumer. Those consumers like to communicate using a vast array of options available to them. Ironically enough, yeah, the phone’s available to them, but that’s not their go- to, right? They would rather text. They would rather use a chat like we provide. They would rather use social media. For an example, just last night I’m I’m shopping around for tints for my wife’s van and yeah, you would think that I just Google it, right? So on and so forth. No, I went and found a guy on Reddit who was recommended by a few other people, sent me right to his social media page. What did I do? I sent him a Facebook Messenger, right? And that’s how we communicated, right? At no point was there a text message or nothing else was going on. I mean, that’s just a new way for people to be able to get a hold of you. And we want to make sure that again our clients are there to consume those leads when they come in. And that’s so important for everybody listening to this is that conversion avenues don’t just occur on the website. They occur off the website. Per adjacent to the website. Heck, you probably have had people just show up at your door saying, you know, hey, I’ve been driving by your business every day. What’s it going to take to come, you know, five minutes ago? Not even five minutes ago, I had somebody just come knock on my door, ask me if I wanted to clean my roof and my gutters. Yes, they do need to be cleaned.

Did you sign up?

I did not because you know they’re gonna be blowing it and scraping stuff off and it’s just too loud.
I appreciate that. I will tell you this, and for everybody listening, communication is key. And what Joe just said is absolutely paramount. Do not stand around and wait for your perfect scenario to happen. A person calls between exactly 2 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Wants service whenever you can get there. We’ll give you a credit card over the phone. And it’s just that perfect client. They do not exist anymore. Your clients, the people that you’ve helped in the past, their loyalty only goes so far. They are going to want to feel special throughout the process. They’re going to want to feel instant communication.

So, let me ask you this, Joe. If that guy hadn’t responded quickly on Facebook Messenger, would you have sought someplace else?
I’m going to the next guy. And when you deal with it, we’ll use this time of the year. Again, it’s the summer time. Sure. And you’d be surprised. It doesn’t actually just apply to HBAC contractors, although it probably hits home for them most. If my stuff is broken, and it shouldn’t be and I can’t get a hold of my guy, I’m going to the next guy. Like, I’ve got a few other people in my house I got to worry about. And the last thing I need is my wife in my ear talking about how come I haven’t had anybody to come fix the air conditioning because my guy can’t get a hold of me for another day or two. That’s not going to reply. Nope. It certainly is not. I have heard stories of people, even maintenance agreement members calling somebody else because they couldn’t get seen in time. I see it every single day. So, just again my shameless plug right in the launch SMS app, right? I can see all the messages that go through. It’s all secure. But I see it all the time where a client of one of our customers reaches out and says, “Hey, I’m a member. My AC’s messed up. I need somebody to get out of here. Right. Your membership says you’ll be out here within 24 hours. Guess what? That was on a Friday. I got CSRs reaching back out sometimes on a Monday. What do you think the client’s response is going to be? It’s going to be two things. One, I already got it fixed by somebody else. And two, I need to cancel that membership. Cancel that membership. That’s exactly right. See it all the time. And that’s really important. And I think most people truly need to understand that you say you’re 24/7. At least be monitoring it. It gets into a conversation, Joe, that I have wanted to have with you. I’m anxious to talk to others about this in the industry as well, but is there a combination? Is there too much of a reliance? AI what impact is AI having on phones on chat? Can I rely solely on it? No. Again just a shameless plug. We actually do have AI built into our software as well and it is not as utilized as I would probably want. That being said, there’s a good reason for it. Even though there is growing adoption for AI, we’re not there yet, right? Consumers don’t necessarily want to be met with a bot, especially over the phone in a time of urgent need, right? They want to be heard. They want to be felt. They want immediate action. And no matter how good the AI tool is, ours will dispatch a technician out in an emergency situation, right? There is still a level of trust that does not exist with those systems yet. Right? They’ll communicate with them day-to-day normal stuff. Hey, I need to update my membership or I need to buy something. They’re good for that, right? And again, 9 to5 stuff, there’s a place for it. But when it gets into urgent emergency situations, sorry, just not there. And listen, and this is from somebody who utilizes it every day. This is somebody who’s implemented in their software, and I can tell you it’s just not there yet. Task I’m of the opinion taskbased things AI all day long, right? I’ve got zero issue with that. But when it comes to that human interaction, that empathy, the oh my gosh, you have a problem with your air conditioner. Oh, let’s see. Let’s get that fixed right away. There can’t be that tone of concern that can’t exist in AI yet because it doesn’t have it. We can teach it to have it, but I don’t believe they’re there yet. Yeah. It’s fake. It can fake empathy though. I mean it can fake it, right? And I think AI is kind of turning into one of those I’m going to fake it till I make it kind of situations. And you know depending on the circumstance, it actually doesn’t do a bad job. Like I’ll give you an example like our AI when we originally tested it out and I tell the story often because it’s hysterical. We’ll either call it or do a chat and say, “Hey, my air conditioner is on fire.” And immediately things like, “Hold on, wait a minute. You need to get your family out. We’re sorry to hear that, but you need to get your family out. Once you get that situated, feel free to give us a call and make sure that we can get your AC, you know, replaced or whatever the case is.” So, I mean, it does to a degree, you know, you can show it to care, but again, at the end, it’s still superficial. It’s a computer that doesn’t really care. It’s only going to do what it’s told to do and it’s only as good as what it’s told, right? I will tell you communication, it’s it’s funny to me and I’m just going to go back and we’ve dealt over the course of the 15 years we’ve been in existence at LeadsNearby. There are, you know, hundreds if not thousands of clients listening to phone calls, watching, you know, just watching chats, watching, form fills come through. You get to understand that not everybody is the same. Not every person that comes in has the exact same problem or if they are the exact same problem, it’s unique to them. They feel like they’re alone in this world. Mhm. And I have sort of boiled it down to a couple of things. Why will somebody call a company that they’ve never done business before with? Why will they call a company that even an existing client, right? Existing company, why will they call them? What are those parameters? And I’ve boiled it down to a couple of things. Right, will I get ripped off? Like that, is that a conversation that is happening in the back of your brain, your tint for the windows, right? Is this guy, you know, what’s he what’s he going to do, right? Is he going to come in here and put really junky stuff up and it’s going to peel off? Am I going to get ripped off? Is he going to charge too much? What, you know, how fast can I get it done? Right? What will be a convenient time for me? Can I trust them? He’s gonna be in the car. Like, is he going to put an AirTag in there? There’s things that go through each and every person’s mind today based on the environment that unfortunately we’re in for a lot of us. You went dark there. You put an AirTag in your car. I didn’t even think about that. See, these are the things that my wife thinks about when she has me. I got to go and get an oil change from my daughter’s car later. And you know, do you trust this place? Have you been there? She wanted me to go there. [Laughter] Fair enough. All right.

You know what, Joe? When’s the last time you went furniture shopping? Furniture shoping? 2022. Yeah. Okay. It’s been a hot minute for that. But let me tell you something, right? We went out shopping for chairs the other day and we went into five stores. Do you know that the store that she wants to go back to was the store with the highest priced item? And the reason she wants to go, my wife wants to go back to that store. It’s very simple. That store had the best customer service, answered our questions, no pressure, right? Hey, took our contact information, but no, there was nothing there that dissuaded her. She trusted them in the process even though I’m talking about right. It’s that it’s like that whole project triangle thing, right? You either want it good, you want it fast, you want it cheap, right? You almost never get all three, right? I mean, that’s the same for my tint guy. My tint guy was not the cheapest. But I’ll tell you what, I don’t have to go see him. He comes to me, takes care of everything. He answered my questions very quickly. Right. Right. I mean, he earned my business before I even sent the last message. And I’m not reaching out to anybody. Why? Because, like I said, he responded quickly, had answers to all my questions, and can meet me where I’m at. And he met me where I’m at from bank to bullets, right? So, I will and each person has their own Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting cheap, right? Don’t get me wrong. Like I said, my guy’s also not the most expensive either, right? I gotta tell you a story later on. We went to Tint World and after talking to that dude, I felt like I needed to just take a shower. Yeah, there’s going to be those. It was just slimy sales. But, right, but you go into those types of stores, that’s what you’re going to deal with. I want everybody listening to this, we’re talking about tint, we’re talking about furniture. When people are coming into your website, they are at different stages of decision making. They might be in research mode. They want to know what the benefits of a tankless water heater are, right? They’re not they’re not ready to change, but they just welcomed somebody into their house, right? And now they’re running out of hot water. The kids are getting older. They’re taking more showers. Things are changing in their house. They’re on the research mode, right? But then there’s that guy that’s going to call and say, “I got a huge puddle underneath in my garage or underneath my house or leaking through the ceiling. I need it fixed.” Now, they’re not in research mode. They’re in panic mode, right? Yeah. We need to accommodate you as the business owner need to understand that each person that comes in isn’t there by happenstance. They didn’t, they’re not just cruising the internet looking for you. They’re looking for something that you do. When you visit those pages, when you look at them yourself, understand that communication, that’s a form of communication, isn’t all about SEO. It’s about answering people’s questions. It’s about education and understanding that you want to be able to use your website in a sales process if you could, right? Hey, here’s a white paper. Here’s a download, right? What to look for, why certain size, what type of gas would work well with a tankless water heater. It’s the same with a lot of electrical products as well, right? What size ceiling fan should I get? I didn’t realize there were different sizes until I went shopping for a ceiling fan. There’s all kinds of questions that are going through people’s minds. Having that information on your website is a conversion point, having a form that they can fill out to ask questions when they are answering the call. And this is going to be imperative and this is one thing I hope every person watching this now or in the future takes away from this. If somebody calls you, fills out a form, your pay-per-click, your Google local services, if you get contact information for a person, that is gold. Hold on to it. Stick it into your CRM. Like I need you to understand that they might not be at the conversion point that you hope they are with a credit card in hand and ready to spend 15 grand with you, but they may be in the future. I mean, listen, with the right sales process, you can turn around, right? I mean, how many Listen, I know you. How many times have you walked into a dealership, I’m just looking and then, yeah, just looking turns into, “Hey, hey Joe, I just picked up this new yada.” That’s not fair. No, I’m just listening. But no, it goes to prove your point. I’m just trying to help you out here. I appreciate that. I have been known to buy a car. That’s what I’m saying. Right. And you’re just looking. This is why I’m going to the car dealership with you. Just be just because it’s a good deal. I Yeah. All right. Maybe I’ll talk to you. I will. It’s the same with any conversation. Get that contact information and put it in your system. Even if that person doesn’t spend 15 grand with you today, you have every opportunity to remarket to them later. And I cannot tell you the number of clients I speak to who get leads from Google local services and since they didn’t book, they don’t put it into their system. Yeah. It’s a non-qualified lead. Like how Yeah. Seriously, like how are you a non- qualified lead? They’ve got money. They’re in your area. I was talking to one of my last podcasts with Bighgam from Power Selling Pros and he’s sitting there. He’s like, “I don’t care if they call to sell you something. Ask if they’re local and if they have a house.” I’m like, “That’s thing.” I mean, I’m trying as you’re talking in my head, I’m like, “Okay, so who would actually be a non-qualified lead?” And I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be too mean about it, but short of living in some kind of a mobile home and you don’t literally do anything regarding that, whether it be electrical, plumbing, or otherwise, okay, cool. That’s a non qualified but I mean even there’s always opportunity down the road. But I mean I mean again I want to tell you good money to somebody. You paid good money SEO. You paid good money to a pay-per-click. Do you pay good money to Google local services social media ads? You paid good money to get that contact information. Use it. Sit on it. Own it. , Don Johnson, , one of our longstanding clients, formerly from Freedom down in Birmingham. He’s got his new new thing going now. , and let me tell you something, right? His entire philosophy was to get contact information, contact information. We used to do Groupons and he did not care that Groupon took all the money. He’s like, I got contact information. I get to market to them now and later and they get to spend money with me. And he just grew his database information now gold, right? Because they might not have reacted at that moment in time, but they will react in the future. And he got more maintenance agreements from doing things like that. I will sing those praises to the contact info is king. He is not wrong on that. I will, getting back to the understanding of communication with clients. Communication is also proactive. And I and I want clients to understand that anybody watching this do not ever assume that your loyal client is loyal. No. Even in the marketing industry I can’t assume that. I have to assume right that they need something more, desire something more from our services. I have to continue to show value. Do not assume that they’re going to be their first call just because you went there six months ago. No. Listen, the way I bullied that when I talk to clients, I tell them this all the time. Consistency creates loyalty. Yes. Right. When you’re doing regular follow-ups, whether it be appointment reminders or scheduling check-ins, seasonal maintenance tips, all of those things are going to build those long-term relationships. Always trying to make sure you’re being top of mind with those clients, but Joe, my email open rate is not good enough. I’m sorry. What constitutes an open they saw you in their inbox, it might not have any need for you right then and there. Yeah, they read your newsletter. It’s okay. They saw your name. They got the text message that they ignored. It’s okay. They saw your name. Exactly. Right.

I had an electrician come to my house a few days ago and I hadn’t used the guy since two 2021. I could have and should have forgotten all about the guy, but I didn’t. Why? Because he’s constantly blowing up my email. About to put him on spam anyway, but he’s blowing me up all the time. So, what did I do? I called him. Yeah. You had a deal and here we go. Right. You had a need. All four years of emails and all of a sudden got a need and all of those paid off. And that email cost him what? Like all the emails he’s ever sent me. If I had to boil it down to a number, maybe $130. You were more generous than I was going to be. , literally that’s how much it cost him to email you as many times as he did over four years. And some people send out postcards that cost $1.30 just to send. So, understanding that and I use the analogy, , if you’re a contractor, you’re watching this, build a moat around your people. Build a wall. Do whatever you can. They are your people. I had a client the other day. This is as good an example as I can make it. He wants more maintenance agreements. I think everybody watching this who’s an HVAC guy or has a maintenance agreement wants more maintenance agreements. I think we can all agree on that. There are two people there are two types of people that are interested in a maintenance agreement. Those who already have one and those who should have one. Okay. Now that we uncovered that, how many companies are in your area? You know when you start looking at the number of companies and number of maintenance agreements that are out there etc. We begin to understand that there are a great number of people that understand the benefit of a maintenance agreement but already have somebody. They already have a maintenance agreement with somebody. Then there’s the other faction of people that I’m just going to wait for the coupons to come out. Cool. Right? When you talk about communication with them, those maintenance agreements, we talked about it a little earlier, they’re only as good as soon as you can get out to see me. I’ll cancel them just as soon as I don’t see value in them, right? Don’t assume that person’s loyal. But the other side to that is when you communicate, right? Separate. If you don’t or are not speaking to your clients individually based on how they’ve done business with you, you’re missing an opportunity. Oh, dude.

So, fun story. So, I usually am not the guy to buy a maintenance plan. Usually, guilty as charged. Now, granted, I’m a little more technically inclined than most. So, I can maintain the vast majority of my stuff. That being said, I bought a hot water heater. That was a joke. It’s not a hot water heater. Just a water heater before my contractors jumped down my throat. Just a water heater. And it came with the maintenance plan. Joker had a maintenance plan on it for like three years. Never used it. I completely forgot about it. Sure. Completely forgot about it. They never reached out. They never, I mean, listen, good on them. I guess they sold me something that I never utilized. Maybe. I don’t know. But I went to somebody else to go and actually do maintenance on because I completely forgot that they sold it to me, who I even used. Like it’s just crazy, right? But again, it comes back to that consistency. Yep. Right. I went to somebody else. I completely forgot. And they weren’t memorable enough for me to be like, “All right, cool. I’m going to go use them again.” Like the most memorable thing about them is that they messed up on the invoice. They gave me a way better water heater than I paid for. And that was it. But I couldn’t find it. Your memory is only as good as those wow factors. And you know, I’ve dealt with a lot of people over time. Terry Barrett from Air Now down in Milbrook, Alabama used to jump up and down the wow factor, right? Be memorable. He used to teach this one little thing. He’s like, “Mark, I tell all of my texts have a little couple of dog bones in their pouch, right? Hey, do you mind if I give your dog a bone? Like if you’re in the house, like that little bit was a memorable thing. Can I change that light bulb for you? Memorable. Yep. We’re a little off topic on communication, but No, you know, I don’t. I don’t think we are because I think it just comes back to that consistency, right? I think making sure that you’re always staying top of mind. Guess what? And I joke around with my wife when I say this all the time, but when I eat, my dogs eat. And guess what? If you’re over there, you know, give my dogs treats for me that matters. I’m gonna remember that. I’m gonna remember that more than you messing up on the water heater invoice and giving me something better than I paid for. Right. The only reason I remembered is because I just happened to look at the invoice a few days ago. Other than that, I will communication’s key. And here’s the thing for everybody listening, watching, whatever you’re doing right now, think about it from your customer’s perspective. Think about it from your client’s perspective. Are you communicating with them in an effective means? Are you giving them tools to communicate with you that’s easy for them? Not ideal for you possibly, but easy for them. The easier you make it for them, the more likely that they’re going to stay with you. You’re going to give you an opportunity. You can even if you get that message at 2 am you don’t get an immediate response until the morning there’s that you’ve made it easy for them. Yep. Less by just want to make sure they’re heard. That’s it right acknowledged and heard. Leading their buy over the over these last 15 years we have seen every tool come and go. I’ve seen tons of tools from schedule engine to what whatever we’ve seen a ton and what we end up with here is understanding that not everybody has got these you know I say deep pockets but they all understand the value that these things provide in the communication process but which ones are the right ones for you right and that’s key any again you’re watching this yeah you know what a lot of slick sales guys out there. They’re going to tell you what you want to hear. Best thing, best thing since sliced bread. You’re going to make millions. You’re gonna be number one on the search engines. Temper all of that expectation. Is it easy to use? Is it encompassing? Does it encompass a good amount of things and is it cost effective for you? Yeah, we built our product around those thought processes. And here’s comes a shameless plug, Joe, our launch SMS product is just that. We developed it around communication, effective communication. Yep. I know we just came out with a whole bunch of new stuff on it. , I’m going to give you kind of the floor to talk a little bit about what problems were you out there to solve. And I’m gonna go backwards a little bit just to kind of touch on any stretch, right? For when we conceive about any really the programs that we do not just launch SMS but any of the programs we want to make sure that it’s it’s well executed in terms of how we make the experience not just for our clients but for our clients customer right we want to make sure that we can give those customers multiple forms of communication whether it be for forms or SMS call chat whatever right but you can have all of those systems on your site today, but if they’re in disparate areas, it’s going to quickly become overwhelming for your folks internally. Right? If I’m a CSR and I’ve got my CRM job or service titan here, but then I’m getting SMSes here and phone calls there and web forms somewhere else, you’re going to miss something. It is inevitable, right? You know, if it’s, you know, down time of the year, depending on what vertical you’re on, all right, cool. Probably easier to kind of handle those things, but especially if you’re a smaller business and you’re getting all of those leads from all those different places, that could be overwhelming for you and it’s going to immediately create a bad experience for your customers. So when we conceived of everything that we’re doing in LaunchSMS, we wanted to make sure that we gave you everything in one place or as best as we can so that you can go ahead and communicate with your client effectively and efficiently really without overwhelming you and not giving your client a very bad experience. Probably the biggest thing.

Joe, we were asked a question. Yeah. In the chat, you know what text message-based program do we recommend? Obviously, we got a little bit of a launch SMS. Yeah, we recommend that. It’s the only one, of course. Here’s what I will tell you. Tell anybody watching, listening, whatever it is, the text the system that you choose has to work for you and your company, right? The thing that we have found here at LeadsNearby at LaunchSMS and the product that we developed there was that not every person is created, not every visitor, not every program is created equal. Yep. And it is very difficult to customize every single aspect of what we do for clients. Right. There has to be some sort of baseline in there. Correct. Yeah. While you are re looking at what’s out there from launch SMS to whoever else you choose. Okay, does it work for what you are looking to accomplish? Test it out. Get your free trial, right? Text. Have your wife, your significant other text you on it, right? Is it something that you’re like, you know what, we can really get behind this. It works for us. Yep. I like how it flows. Oh, there’s that customization. Ask the questions. Don’t go run and jump on the bandwagon because you know the guy down the street using it must be good. It might be good for him. It’ be good for him. He may have the bandwidth to be able to deal with it or not. Exactly. Now, the other thing that I tell people a lot is do the people, you know, especially when it comes to programs like this, do you have access to or are they willing to accept ideas to make it better? And if you can be part of that development, if they’re listening to your needs. To us, that is a key differentiator and what we do here. We can’t promise we’ll do everything you ask, but I’ll listen to what you’re looking for. Just had an example of that yesterday. Yeah. One of our so first I guess I’ll start with saying I would say 90% of what we built not just again not just in launch SMS but most of our tools are really client driven right we want to hear from them so that when we create an experience it’s something that is going to be tailored towards making life easier for you guys and again as well as your customers I had a customer reach out to me yesterday saying hey I love the new features you put in we’re getting the emails it would really awesome if you could tell us, you know, what the lead attribution was in the email, right? Immediately like, okay, you know, you can just log in and see it there, yada. But, you know, for us the data already was there. It took all of about 20 minutes to be able to go ahead and implement it, QA it, and release it. And now I’m going to have a conversation with this individual in an hour or two. But it’s, again, makes for a very positive conversation. Hey, I got your feedback. I thought it was a great idea. So we immediately implemented it. It doesn’t always work that way. But again, client driven feedback really is where most of the changes are made for us. So to answer the earlier question, there’s a self- serving answer. Yeah, launch SMS. We’re the best one out there. But honest and truly, you know, do your due diligence, kick some tires, look around, and test these services to your liking.

I will tell you from a cost perspective, we’re going to come in at a you know, definitely below the median, right? We’re we’re not the cheapest on the block, but we are certainly nowhere near the most expensive out there. Gotcha. And we and we and we package and quite frankly you’d be looking at two or three products that are all inside of one product. Yeah. Yeah. I would say between God there’s even stuff you know what in that those last release notes I don’t know if we actually put everything in there because it was just there was too much to list but between the scheduling functionality that integrates with a different a few different FSMs with our updates to analytics with our version two broadcast messaging for those marketing folks and the other one that you don’t know about Mark is our social media management when it comes to you know just creating a social media calendar and being able to actually implement it and distribute it on a timed basis. I mean, for us as an agency, we’ve historically had three different products to do that, right? Today, we could do it all in one, right? And that’s those are features that we can provide out to our clients as well within that particular platform along with several other things that were listed in those release notes. Communication equals communication equals conversions, right? And if you have that mindset, if you understand that nuance behind it, and answer those people’s questions, you will win. To all my contractors, to anybody watching this, right? Think of it from your own perspective. The educated consumer is going to spend more with you every single time and will be more loyal. They will be more open to what you’re saying to them, educating them on that communication will equal conversions. The tools to which you use to do it need to be something that is embraced operationally. Please do not hire a text message marketing based company and go okay good text messaging is done and walk away. It’s the same with review acquisition. It’s the same with content or your SEO company or whatever. Don’t think hiring that company, that service, that product, and putting on a site solved your problem. You are part of the solution. I cannot express to you enough the communication. The clients that have been with me the longest and are doing the best are the ones that are constantly communicating with us internally, educating themselves, making what they have part of their operations, training. It all works together. It’s no magic pill. I’m going to wrap up. I don’t think there’s any more questions out there at this moment in time, but now is a great time to ask those questions.

Joe, do you have anything from a closing standpoint while we see if there’s any questions that pop in at the last minute? No, I mean, you know what? I appreciate you having me on the podcast. You know, you don’t get me on here anywhere near as much and I always got something to say. You know, I like the sound of my own. Fair enough. No. Like I said, we’re doing a lot of neat stuff over here over at LeadsNearby. Again, you know, we brought you here. I get to talk about Launch SMS, which is really cool. , but I know Mark and the marketing team are constantly crushing it for our clients. So, like I said, happy to be a part of it. You know, hopefully, , get some more messages coming in. If not, like I said, you guys know how to find us, know how to find me. Just jos Nearby. Happy to answer any questions you guys may have. Wow. We really appreciate it, Joe. And instead of keeping everybody around, , Joe leads nearby, marketleadsby.com, by all means send us a tech a , we are more than happy to answer those after this call. , and as many of you know, my cell phone number is probably plastered all over the internet. , but I have zero issue with that call as well. 919-830-7471. So please give us a call if you have any communication questions or ideas ways to improve something. We are all ears over here at Leads Nearby. Thank you again for your time today. Appreciate it.

It’s Mark Sherwin’s contractor marketing soap box. Call Mark to learn more. 919-7588420. [Music]