Unknown: Hey, good morning, and welcome back to the marketing perspective, I'm James stanela, and we are in our second season now I'm excited.

We've added video, as you can see, I'm really looking forward to because we have some special guests this season, all experts in their areas, all very talented, all knowing things that I don't know, which is why we do this.

I am pure marketing.

Everything I say is always going to be from a marketing perspective.

The people that I bring on will be solid in the chair that they're in.

So you get their perspectives as well.

And the idea is you, as a business owner or a senior person in business, you get to take some of this information and apply it to your world as you fit.

There is no selling.

There's no advertising.

Here it is pure education and information.

This is a topic driven show.

So today we are talking about what it looks like from a business owner's perspective and an employee's perspective inside the walls of how to market a business effectively.

So this is something I really hope you're tuning in today.

I think it could be valuable information and insights that you will walk away from a lot happier, hopefully in the near future.

So let's get started.

I'm going to bring on a very special guest and friend and colleague, and we've met some time ago, full disclosure.

When he talks about the agency he used to have, he's talking about my firm.

So whether he says it or not, I don't know, but it's that's how we initially began our relationship, and I call it that because it is a relationship.

We got pretty tight.

We have helped each other thick and thin.

I'm excited about where he is now.

He has switched over to another company, which he is going to share.

But his insights are valuable, and I hope you are tuning in and listening today.

Let's get started.

So Rob Bauman, I want to introduce you to the show.

Rob is now with all star security, and he is the director of marketing and sales there, Rob, thank you for tuning in and being a part of the show.

Thanks, James.

I appreciate your invite.

It's always good to see an old friend on on the screen, and hopefully we we don't go off the rails too much today, because this could be a lot of fun for two old friends chatting about business in the past, and then all of a sudden we start crying in a corner.

Possible, that's possible.

So you have a lot going on in your life and a lot of good even even family stuff, you know, because we know each other.

So it's funny, if you're a business owner, business owners tend to carry stuff on their shoulders.

You know, there's a lot.

Everybody has a lot going on in their personal world.

How do you separate that?

How do you conduct business and when it comes to marketing?

So my perspective of that is, you have to have your big boy panties on, and the company has to show strength, and it has to show that it can do the job that you want it to do.

But at the end of the day, it has to be real, and has to be authentic.

And I just want to say Rob is probably one of the most authentic people I know, and he shoots from the hip.

So Rob, I'm really excited that we're about to talk about this, and thank you very much for jumping in.

So why don't you uncommon Shut up, and I'd like you just give us a little exposition.

Tell us where you came from, if you want to tell us how it started, so we understand your head and the journey a little bit.

Just give us the bullets here and there, and then we can dive in.

Yeah, well, I was in construction for most of my life, in some trade form, for approximately 25 years, middle 2007 eight, when things started to go terrible.

I went back to college, got a six year degree.

It was only a four year degree, but it took me six to get it.

Went into project management in a firm in a town near us in Nashville, in Murfreesboro, south of Nashville, and enjoyed, enjoyed that a lot could their company changed direction.

I didn't want to go there.

We parted ways amicably, and I started a my own firm with a partner, and it went really, really well.

Now, I've always been a self marketer, networker, you know the face of my business.

So that was the way I stayed.

And I started that way in 2019 I think it's how you and I met through networking, and then when we started talking, and we brought your business.

And to to market the new business honestly, and things went exponential, but we can go there a little bit later, and it was a night and day difference.

As far as the traffic.

We went down that road for about five years, and we can also talk later about how that ended and where we are, but now I am currently in an employee role, which is a very different place as a business owner.

My I tell people my stress levels are about a 12 at all times out of 10 I 10, and the day I started as an employee, my stress level went to about a two.

So, yeah, it changed the way I treated my family at trade and zere.

I treated my grandkids.

It trained.

It changed the way my wife saw me.

It changed the way I walk through life with my shoulders relaxed, rather than here.

So yeah, I'm, I'm super excited where I am.

Obviously, there's, it has its cons, and obviously we can talk about the cons as well, but I think the pros that way, in my opinion, Now, some people just love to own a business, and they love to work under that stress, and that's, you know, more power to that person.

I find myself in my fourth business saying, I don't want to do that anymore, but James, you still do it, so I'm a little crazier than you are.

You know that I've had times where I said, I said, You know what?

I would sleep a little bit better at night.

I would.

Business owners understand that if you're not a business owner, I'm sorry you just don't understand that.

I don't care if you're a mom pop or a big company, business owners understand when they go home, it's still in their head.

They have responsibilities.

They have responsibilities to their staff, to the people that they serve it.

You know, there's good, bad and indifferent about owning your own business, and it's I commend people that are able to do it successfully.

So I have had days over the years.

I mean, my company is 20 years in business now, and I have had times where I was like, you know, what my life be so much easier if I just go back and work.

I made more money, I had less stress.

I slept really well at night, you know?

So I get it.

I totally understand that's not why we're here today.

We're here.

I really want to give insights to people, good, bad and indifferent when it comes to marketing their own business.

So let's get back to your as a business owner when you were handling marketing yourself now, when I met Rob, Rob is not your average young business owner.

Well, he's not young, but you know, Hey, was that too much across the ballot?

Was too quick.

Was just kind of right across.

Yeah, right.

He his, he had a natural gifting for marketing and sales.

He's he's excellent at at at a high level, understanding human behavior.

He understands how to develop relationship.

He understands how to present his offering, and it's just a matter of, you know, honing and polishing and some of the strategies behind that.

But he was way further ahead than a lot of companies that I meet, so I want to give him that right out of the gate.

So in the beginning, you were doing all that yourself.

Start with that.

Talk about when you were doing your own marketing, when, when your company first got going, what were the pros?

What were the cons, and then maybe even some of the successes and failures there?

Sure, yeah, I think some of the things that I didn't know before I did do a lot of marketing, and I actually love marketing.

It's one of my favorite things in the world of James, you ever need somebody just holler and patchy boy in her, I'll come work for you, but with me.

And believe me, when you were in transition, in the back of my mind, I was like, Can I afford Rob?

I wasn't kidding.

You never asked, but it was in my mind, I didn't, I didn't.

But, yet, no, I love marketing.

It's one of my favorite things.

I love the creation part of it.

I love, you know, creating things.

And one of the things I did, even working for another firm, we had to market our own work.

So we had to bring in our own leads.

I had to generate our own leads.

So I did a lot of social media, obviously.

And it was, it was a lot of on social media, I would use a lot of third person, or I would use a lot of we group us terms as a team, building a team around myself, although most of the time it was just me being the responsible party, but I would always make myself look bigger.

That's one.

It was one of my tricks.

It, you know, even when it was just one or two or three of us doing the work or being part of the company, I always made it seem like we were bigger than we were, you know, even so much as to label the trucks in a very professional way, so that when people saw them down on the road, and then they saw a couple of graphics online, and, you know, a few odds and ends, they thought, I've seen you everywhere, and we've gone over that as well.

James, in the past, where you know that we've discussed that mental transaction that happens.

Rob, Hang on one second.

That's something like, if you all have listened to the show when we talk about branding, and people get nervous when you talk about branding.

Oh, it's a big term.

Only large companies can do that.

But what Rob just said, those basic touches, the consistency of their brand, of beating on a truck, and you go to the site, and there's consistency there, and whatever collateral they have, he goes, he connected the dots.

And that's branding at a very high level.

Believe it or not, with pennies on the dollar.

You can actually do that for your own company.

So just that in mind, as he's continuing, I just want to make sure, I want to reiterate it and put an exclamation point at the end.

I mean, it was $400 in my first truck rep.

I know everybody's like, what, but I had a white truck, and I got gray letters, and we just did them on a font that matched our logo.

And obviously it wasn't super colorful or bright or fun and it wasn't a full vehicle wrap, but we utilized the paint on the car against the color of the graphic.

And before we started with Media Vision.

We had no color in our logo.

It was one of the first things that changed, and they added some color to the logo for creativity.

But we had a very basic gray and white.

We created that idea from the clean square design purpose.

So we had all those things in mind that were real, I don't know, just clean and edgy.

And then obviously I just, I had every networking event possible, and I always wore a branded shirt, and I always showed up in, you know, clean pants and clean boots and and I made sure that my presentation was good.

I worked on my elevator speech.

I made sure people knew exactly what I was looking for.

You know, there's a lot of things you pick up in books and podcasts and growth opportunities, you know, such as having four elevator speeches and rotating the four elevator speeches for specific items that you're asking for.

And then, you know, that's, that's personal branding and personal advertising, just getting out there and and grassroots building it.

That's, I guess that's what I did, that I would add the the first thing that we did, I remember, it was more about content marketing than it was, hey, let's go spend a lot of money.

And the content marketing, I mean, just because it's what we do every day, kind of added to that.

We didn't take away from what you did or or change much adding that color was really to give you an identifying color to your brand and give you something that was unique in comparison to what everybody else was doing.

That was doing gray, white and black, you know.

So it kind of sets you all apart, and it did help.

I have to say that color did help from a brand perspective, but we still, at the end of the day, you still gotta drive business in the door today.

And with that, the content marketing that we added started to do that pretty quickly.

And then, you know, we kind of went from there.

One of the things that I remember very clearly when we first started talking was first thing you did was, you're doing a great job.

You praised me for what I was doing.

You, you, you made sure I knew exactly what to keep doing.

But the next thing you did was say, you know, we could do better in this area, this area, this area right now.

And so the color, obviously, the orange color.

We got a few conversations about it.

I didn't want it to be, you know, the big bucks lumber store orange.

And I didn't want it to be the university orange.

I said it needs to be something completely different.

And your team found a great blood orange that I really, really liked, and it worked for the Nike shirts.

We the orange Nike shirts that almost a perfect match.

And But anyways, I learned a lot from you guys, especially specific colors, specific use of color, and how that works in the human mind, and helps people connect dots, the use of font.

I mean, I knew a little bit.

About, you know, font, and the memorization of font and how it connects the dots.

But other than things like Chick fil A and McDonald's and the big items, you know, I didn't know that it would work on a small business, but it does.

It truly does.

Yeah, it is hard to get that.

I think we had it, though.

I think we had that recognition.

We really did.

You did 100% when I've talked about your company to other people, Oh, I know that company, and they would, even when you were younger, we they would say, that's a big company, right?

So big.

I had an office in my garage in the beginning, but then, you know, by the end, you had three physical locations.

And I never had an office because you're sitting in the office.

You're not really not getting the job done.

So yeah, and that's the what Rob's attested to the creative side and the brand side.

And it did actually work.

It was part of the secret sauce.

The content was a big part of it as well.

Those little the videos I'm going to make Rob squirm a little.

We started doing these videos that I swear by, and it was, he was the first company we did this with it just was this brainchild that came out of a create, internal creative meeting, and we said, well, this is what I think we need, and little two minute vignettes on topic driven a little tip, not handing away the farm, but giving the homeowner educational things they can do for their own home.

Like some people don't even know where the shutoff valve is for their water, right?

Or the emergency valve for the gas, or little like, my favorite one was the dryer and the washer.

I'll never forget that.

Here's this man.

How tall are you?

Rob?

Six four.

I'm six five.

Ish, yeah, six five, yeah.

He's a big guy, you know.

And he's down, tucked in between the washer and the dryer, and he's holding up his phone trying to take video, like, real crunchy granola, like gorilla style kind of thing.

He's like, James, this just isn't gonna work.

He goes, I hate that.

He was so uncomfortable, but I'll tell you, like, the minute we pushed that that video out, we got like, 800 hits, like, the next day, like, it was crazy.

And then we were off and running.

He became known for doing that kind of stuff, and he had a pretty decent following because of it.

It cost us virtually nothing.

You know, it's not it's not always about spending money.

So that's what I mean about content marketing.

It, it sometimes you got to think a little bit out of the box, be a little bit unique, and one of his strengths is being authentic.

So we took advantage of it, and it went off pretty well.

I think, Rob You hated it, right?

Well, I did hate it.

I hated doing the video work and the work itself.

It was really difficult.

You know, I think one of the benefits I had is I'd been on a couple of television shows doing home improvements, and I saw them do it over and over and over again.

I was gonna, I was gonna bring that up.

But you said it so while I was used to, you know, and I came from that world like high production values and, you know, multiple takes and five cameras.

And, you know, there's a craft service first.

And here he is holding his own camera.

He's like, James, what are you thinking here?

Yes, yeah.

And, you know, I'm happy, like, when it comes down to clients, if they want to bring in crews, the bigger, the better, the more money, the more money a client spends, more money an agency makes sure, go ahead and spend the money.

And I'm the one on the other side of the table saying, don't spend that money.

Let's do it like this.

So it was a it was an interesting dichotomy that it was, it was, it was reversed, and you wanted bigger and more.

And I'm like saying less, but usually I was the one saying, No, it's got to be bigger.

And we eventually found our our balance between us, and it went off very well.

So again, if you're listening, it's not always about spending more.

Sometimes, if you can be smart about it, you and use the tools that you have at your disposal, you can get the same things done much more cost effectively, and still get the result that you're trying to get to grow your business.

So that, I have to say that's has to be one of my favorite interactions with the company over the years, is that time frame between you and I, I had the most fun trying to talk you down from the tree, like, where's the lights?

James, I'm like, You're it get out in the sunshine.

And we did so.

And we definitely had some good times.

And then there were some bad times, you know, the company did.

And.

Have its downturn had nothing to do with its marketing, just for the record, had nothing to do with anything, any inability.

I'm just going to summarize it.

And it was a financial situation that occurred internally, and things happen.

It went really horribly.

Yeah, there's other videos out there online that explain that, yeah, if y'all want to, you know, I don't want to park there, because I don't think that's the point of this.

But I bring it up because I will personally say that Rob's company was probably my favorite experience since I've been to Nashville and I saw the successes.

I saw how we were able to do things without spending a lot of money.

I mean, he had a budget, and little by little, that budget grew, because he started growing as a much bigger company.

It was going perfect.

He was my jewel, you know, my case study of case studies, and to see it go away personally affected me, emotionally.

I mean, I know it affected Rob.

We had, had we gotten together more, we would have drank very heavily.

I have a feeling.

So why am I bringing that up?

Because if you're a business owner, it's not business isn't personal, right?

It's just business, but it's more than business.

It's it.

It is a part of you.

It becomes a part of who you are.

And it's like your baby, in a sense, it's a family member.

The entity becomes this living, breathing thing, and your responsibilities grow.

And it's almost like, you know you're a father and you have children, all of a sudden your life changes.

It's the same thing when you own a business.

So it does get personal.

Feels personal?

Get a coach.

I highly recommend have some have a business coach that can navigate you or put people around you that are experts in their field.

Can I interrupt you just for a second?

James, yes, I totally agree with get a coach.

I absolutely say everyone should have a coach.

But if you're a business owner, make sure you vet that coach.

Make sure that they're an actual business coach, that they actually know business.

They've been in business, they've been successful in business that's key as well.

Or if they're not successful in business, at least they've learned, you know, there's so many coaches out there who've read a book and had a class and now they're a business coach, and that doesn't qualify someone to help you run your small business.

So definitely, definitely, definitely, get a coach, but make sure they come with high recommendations and they know terms that you don't know, like EBITDA and net, net and what does gross margin really mean?

Truly mean, if they don't know those things, you know, don't do it.

It's not worth it.

Wasted money.

Yeah, I think it was a business coach that I recommend.

And when I first met him one day, he was talking about gross, anticipated revenues.

I i almost hugged him, but he's like, six, four and 250 and I decided not to.

I was so happy, you know, I you find somebody who understands more than you do, Right exactly.

Hey, before we go away from you as a business owner, one the one question I really want to understand is, what was the impetus that made you turn around and hire an agency?

What you got to a certain plateau, or it was, I just don't want to do this anymore, like because you were good at it, and I think you knew you were and you don't know what you don't know, right?

But what, what was the impetus that made you go ahead and do that?

Well, to be honest, I think it was us talking us, just having conversations and going through networking.

And I saw some I saw some hope in that.

And I when we started talking about it, thought that would be really cool.

How much would that cost?

And then, obviously, it was over my budget, right at first, you were very generous in helping me, you know, get started at a lower level.

And I did get COVID, so I remember that.

And I remember the next year going, Hey guys, we gotta do something different.

Yeah, but yeah, once you get used to having that many calls per week and having being able to pick your work and, you know, being selective about what you want to do, it's really hard to go back to four or five calls a week and taking every job that comes in the door.

So I think, you know, that was kind of my impetus to go into it.

I.

And then to stay in it, you kind of just get used to that process and that speed and that that load, and then we started hiring.

So then we had to fill that higher, and then we got over full.

We had to hire some more, and then it just kept going.

I think there's a whole growth segment that someone needs to have that conversation as well.

But that's not it for this podcast.

You know, as companies grow, they they have to add certain key people like CFOs and things like that to really, you know, make sure they're guiding ship correctly.

I see it all the time.

There's companies that they go into growth mode, but if they're still acting as a small company, it gets dangerous.

That's why those coaches and consultants and stuff are so important.

Great.

I appreciate you.

That's a that's a great why as to how we got to work together.

And it was, it was a good experience.

I don't want to park there, but let's switch over to just for time's sake, you and your current role.

You're working for a Atlas, all star.

All Star Atlas, wow.

I have a company in New York that I that I work with.

Just give me the summary of all star and its capabilities and size and all that kind of stuff.

So I moved into the sales and marketing director role here at all star fire protection.

We are a fire protection service based out of Nashville, Tennessee.

They're 34 years old.

I've only been here a few months at this point, and I was brought here to help develop and train and grow a sales team in the four markets that they owned, which were Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga and Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Since then, we've been purchased by a larger firm, a national firm, and we are learning how to be a national company at this point.

So I'm growing in that role.

I'm learning along the way.

It's been an adventure and a lot of fun, but I will say again, to come into a role where cash isn't my concern.

I have a budget, but the cash.

When I say cash, I'd say it's more along the lines of how we're going to make payroll on Friday.

That's That's not my major concern.

Every week, I get to focus on the creativity, I get to focus on the development.

I get to focus on that, the growth, the recruiting, the hiring, the development of people, which is one of my favorite things in the world.

I love to teach.

So I'm really I'm hitting all the high points of what I love to do and who I am, and I think that's the biggest thing for me right now, is just that ability to do what I love.

And you know, there's several things in business I could do, and it doesn't always mean that, you know you love doing them, but I could do them.

I could do disciplinary action.

I could do budget.

Meetings, I could do negotiations, I could do all those other things, but they weren't my fun.

They weren't that wasn't why I got in business.

I truly got in business because I love creating.

I love growing.

I love building.

So I'm in a construction business.

It is commercial construction.

We do fire protection, we do inspections and service work, and we do full installation.

We're working on towers, and we're working on flat land, working on brand new builds, and we're working on Mom and Pop florists.

So we really get to cover a wide gamut, and it's so much fun to just get out there in the world and see that and be part of it.

So that's why I'm in it.

I'm enjoying myself having a good time.

You kind of alluded to it in between the lines, if you're but I know you, so I want to make sure that our listeners understand.

Can you share what the transition was like and maybe what that past experience, how it helped you bring it into where you are now?

So the last year of business was one of the worst years of my life.

I can't talk about it without getting slightly emotional.

So when it came to an end, and all the money was gone, and we were unable to pay our bills, and we were.

Able to truly close it in a healthy way.

It was a full collapse.

And if you've never gone through that, I can't explain it, you'd have to walk beside me it.

So when it, when it fully collapsed.

And we filed chapter seven, and everything went down, and I lost a lot of friends.

I lost a lot of business connections that I had built over the last 15 years.

I lost a lot, I won't take away from the people that were affected by it, because they lost as well, and there's not enough apologizing for that to be fixed.

I can't do it.

It's been proven.

I can't offer it enough.

My partner and I did try to start a new business and keep going, because it was what we knew and we had to keep going.

That was a complete mistake.

What we should have done was taken some time to heal and recoil a little bit.

Take time off would have been a great idea, but we were also in the middle of some things that we had to close up, and we didn't know how.

We truly did know how, and honestly, as many people that were around me, I don't think anybody really knew how to tell me to manage that moment.

So we spent 3045, days something like that, trying to continue to do business we shouldn't have, but we did, and when it finally came to the place where we both learned this isn't going to work, and I just went to my partner and said, If we're going to stay in this industry, we can't do it together, because it can't afford both of us, and I'm going to bow out.

And he agreed, and he went and continued to do work as a smaller business.

I I basically told myself, I'm taking two months off.

I'm going to lick my wounds and find some healing, you know, and just separate myself.

I put the word out to some networking friends from a group we all were part of in C 12.

And I just said, Hey guys, I'm going to take some time off, but I put myself on the market.

I'm going to be an employee.

I'm going to reach out to some folks, if you don't mind, share my name.

Here are the things that I'd love to do, and basically named everything I'm doing right now.

And a friend of mine, Casey, who was an owner here at all star, said, I would absolutely refer you, and I appreciate you reaching out to me.

He said, But can we have lunch?

And absolutely I don't have a job, let's have lunch.

And so we sat down.

He said, I really need somebody for this role.

Really need somebody for this role right now.

We could really use some improved sales force in our company.

We could really use you to kind of develop this department.

And so I jumped on it.

Honestly, the pay didn't matter.

I just wanted to do something, and it's been absolutely some of the most fun I've had in business.

Simply because I get to do everything I love.

I'm in my wheelhouse, everything that's not in my wheelhouse has been taken away, and the responsibility is not asked.

But I'm also included in a lot of high level meetings and a lot of fun growth opportunities where I learn things, and I learn from other executives who, you know, I just learned by being in the room.

So it's been a fun experience so far.

Well, while I'm sad about the first part of how I know you, I'm really happy for you, because it seems I can attest to that you're in a better place, and life's a little bit easier, and you're having a heck of a lot more fun doing what you're kind of meant to do.

So there they are fortunate to have you.

I'll tell you that.

Well, thanks.

I appreciate it.

Can you provide any insight to somebody who's listening today, if they are that business owner?

Because we may have just like, convinced a few people to just close shop and go and get a job and just say, Wow, he's right.

Let's just go do this, you know.

And it's possible, if you're out there, you know, and that's what you know your gut is telling you, or God's nudging you, and you're getting hit in the back of the head, maybe you should do that, or maybe this is empowering you to dig deeper.

And really try to grow your company.

Can you give some insights to those people?

Either way, I don't want to discourage people who want to go on the adventure of business ownership.

And there are a lot of successful people out there, and you don't know if you're going to be successful at it until you try my biggest piece of advice.

And I know people gave me this advice, and I did not listen my biggest piece of advice.

I feel like my greatest piece of advice is to hold the business small for at least five years.

Do not let it grow.

Do not allow it will want to grow.

It will try to grow.

I use the analogy of just hold your hands around the throat of that business and keep it down.

Because if it grows, it will grow out of hand like a weed, and unless you're really, really skilled, you're going to struggle to keep control of it, and it will get out of your hands, and you will not be able to manage it.

Keep it small forcefully.

Keep it small.

Reject business.

My goodness, if I don't listen, reject business, especially that those customers who don't look like your customers reject it.

It's not worth it.

Hire a good coach one more time.

Get advisors around you, even if you can't afford an advertising company, find an advertising guru who loves to have coffee and will advise you until you're big enough to hire them.

That's important, because you can do it on your own.

You truly can to a certain point.

I mean, when you get to an enterprise level, you need somebody to take that over, because you've got so many other hats to wear, just as much as your social media, your your your digital advertising, your billboard advertising, all that stuff you don't want to be managing that when you've got 12 other systems to deal with.

But yeah, yeah, if you, if you're nothing else, if you're starting a business, keep it small for five years.

Very important.

That was really good advice.

I took a lot of notes when my next slide in the on the other side in the chair that you sit in.

Now, I know you're young in your role there, yeah, but there's a lot of companies out there.

There's a bigger company.

Director of Marketing.

What insights can you give?

Because you have a lot of vast experience that you kind of put into bucket now.

So how can you help them?

For my currency, I love the creativity part of it, but know you're on, know your know your product, know your service, know who your top three buyers are.

What is their title?

If it's business to business, who's your buyer?

Make sure you know that it's not the CEO.

If you think it's the CEO, you're wrong.

I mean, unless you're an advertising company, and then maybe, but know your product highly recommend, if I can say that, you can cut it out later.

LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, I'm finding good success there, finding people and reaching out to them and giving them, you know, just let them know who we are.

And, yeah, if you know your top three buyers who they are, and you know the industries that you're targeting, and we target all industries, we kind of just rotate them as we cycle through our marketing so we'll rotate between senior living in schools and industrial and manufacturing, and just keep rolling them through our marketing plan.

Have a marketing plan that's important.

Develop a plan for a minimum of six months, if not 12.

That way you know what you're doing.

And the spring, fall, summer, winter, who are your targets?

In the winter, it's our market.

We have a lot of freeze ups, so in the winter time, we're targeting those businesses that are affected by freezes, so that they know our name.

So that marketing plan is important, knowing who your people are and knowing what businesses you're targeting, I think are probably three of my top piece of advice.

That's really good information the marketing plan part, I had a tear in my eye because it's.

I cannot if I had $1 for every company I've met that doesn't have a plan.

So the only company that ever gave me a Brand Book was Media Vision.

And after seeing that brand book, I'm addicted to having it.

I need it like I need, I need to disperse it throughout the company like these are.

These are the Pantone colors.

Please, don't use the wrong blue, please, because it is that important.

Brand standards are very important.

That's the term.

See, you know the terms.

I'm just Well, I've been doing it for a few years.

I Yeah.

Well, I know the man that I'm speaking to today, and I know his integrity, and I know what he stands behind.

So if, if you're a business out there and you do have that kind of a need of what he's talking about with fire suppression systems, and he is going to do his best effort and give you 1,000% and as the company he stands behind, because I actually know the gentleman he was talking about.

I know KC, and they're a great company, and they're both men of integrity, and I'm excited about that, that you're putting people like that in the same room.

Good things are going to happen.

So if you have a need, reach out to rob, if and if you're in the markets that he talked about, I'm fairly certain at least let them be one of the three conversations that you have when you're making an educated decision.

And I, I 100% believe that you will not do wrong by that.

So Rob, if they want to contact you?

Yeah, so if you want to reach out to our Nashville number is 615865, 5600, or all star fire protection.com reach out through our chat there, and if you want to reach me directly, 6154314, 615-431-3760, be happy to chat if you if you want to talk through fire protection or any other services that we offer, remember, every building That is functioning legally, has to have a fire extinguisher, and they have to be inspected every year.

So happy to do so.

Thank you for that, Rob.

So just to close us out today, you know, we, we, we went in different directions, I which I knew we were going to but if you're, if you're listening today, understand that.

So we were talking about marketing, in a sense, but marketing is a lot more than just advertising and even pure marketing.

It's, it's the culture inside the walls, it's the people.

It's, it's the decisions you make.

It's, it's the circle that you surround yourself with of a brain trust smarter than you to make a company better and stronger when it comes down to a company that can have sustainable growth over time.

That's what was talked about today, and I hope you took something out of it.

Feel free to reach out to either one of us if you have a question, if you wanted to share something we love that seriously and happy to help.

And I am, by the way, that guy that will have coffee with pretty much anybody and help their marketing effort in an hour or two hour conversation, because I believe it's important like Rob's the same kind of person it's it's about educating others to do their best, to be their best, and to give them our best, you know.

So find people like that that are willing to be in your circle, and you'll, you'll see differences in your business over time.

So Rob, thank you so much for taking the time today.

I know, I know you have been traveling a lot.

You're we follow each other on social media and Bowling Green Rob didn't chat very good sometimes in the same day.

Yes, he's running around, but it seems like you're having so much fun and just loving life, and I can say that you are happier now.

If you're a business owner, don't go out and sell your business tomorrow.

Just hold on, you know, think about it.

You know, there's pros and cons of both.

Understand that, and that was part of what Rob you want to close down anything else you want to share, yeah, call me if, if you want to have coffee and talk about, you know how not to feel your business.

I'll be happy to help you.

I love coffee, and I don't mind.

I don't mind sharing my mistakes.

I think, I think it's better to learn from other people's mistakes than to make them yourself.

I just it's so much better.

I.

I've learned a bad lesson in my older age.

So thank you.

I appreciate the time.

James, it's always fun.

I was looking forward to this.

I had no idea which direction it would go.

Not Me neither.

I know I had a guideline.

I knew the things I wanted to talk about, but I know us so and some our offline conversations go like this too.

So this is about as genuine as you're gonna get.

So thank you very much, Rob.

Appreciate you being here.

Say hi to Casey for me.

I will.

I will.

So last thing, thank you again.

Today, listeners, you're listening to the marketing perspective.

I am James tonella.

I do own media, Vision advertising.

You're welcome to reach out if you have a question, if, even if it's a topic that you don't think we can, we can talk about we can.

It's okay.

My firm also does PR if you've gone through issues behind closed doors.

I know we're navigating some new territory right now with what's going on in the world.

I'll give you my my last little nugget today is, if you're still doing your marketing effort the same as you did yesterday, it's probably a mistake.

There's some things occurring.

Marketing needs to stay live and adjust, and your marketing plan has to continually evolve based on what's going on.

If you just set it and forget it, I promise it will be unsuccessful.

So keep your eyes open, head on a swivel, and we'll keep moving forward.

Thank you again for being here.

Remember to like, share love on us.

Make comments.

Please share the link of the podcast however you listen to it, because we stream everywhere, and help continue to grow this podcast.

Thank you very much for being a listener with us on the marketing perspective, and I'll see you next time.

Have a great day.

You.