Building Trusted Brands with Dan Antonelli of Kickcharge Creative – EP.276

(00:00:00) – Intro
(00:00:37) – Finding your niche in business
(00:04:16) – The importance of branding in home services
(00:05:32) – Making data-driven decisions
(00:07:51) – Challenges and rewards of specialization
(00:09:00) – The value of saying no
(00:13:53) – Building brands that change lives
(00:27:50) – The impact of branding on recruitment
(00:32:30) – The power of a strong brand story
(00:35:16) – Effective use of vehicles in branding
(00:37:02) – The decline of phone numbers and QR codes
(00:41:08) – The role of mascot branding
(00:45:17) – The power of color in branding
(00:53:36) – Retro vs. modern branding
(01:01:49) – Customer experience and brand authenticity
(01:07:31) – Final thoughts and recommendations

Dan Antonelli: [00:00:00] I’m not under any illusions that you can totally get out of paid advertising, and I know that that’s not realistic, but the, the notion of what can I be doing to become five mile famous in my community, I think is the most important piece for any home service business.

Alex Bridgeman: Welcome Dan to the Think Like An Owner podcast.

This podcast is all about interviewing CEOs of small companies on how they grow and you’ve certainly not only grown kick charge, but also helped a lot of other small companies around home services and ancillary industries grow too. So I’m super excited to chat and thanks for coming on. I appreciate it.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, absolutely. So glad to be here.

Alex Bridgeman: I’m curious off the bat, I, I have a, there’s a cousin of mine who, he runs my website and then he has a small marketing branding business that he started and he is helped a lot of my friends too, on their own websites and branding. We were talking a few weeks ago about this specialization, and I actually showed him your website and I said, Dan, you know, he did basically exactly what [00:01:00] you’re talking about.

Like he found a, a niche in an industry that he liked and was good at. And instead of being kind of all things to all people thinking that you’d cast the widest net and number of customers, you know, you focused on a certain niche and ended up dominating that niche. And so like as a, just like hearing, talking to my cousin about his business, I’m kind of curious, like what was that decision and thought process to focus on an industry like for you in starting graphic deigns and becoming kick charge?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, I, I think when we first started, I don’t think I had thought that that was the best approach, like to, to niche in and to be, be hyper-focused on one area. And I, and I would say we were, we were probably more generalized. With a very broad spectrum of clients. When we first started, so probably the first five to 10 years we had healthcare that we were actually doing work for, we were doing newsletters for a large health insurance company.

We were doing some marketing [00:02:00] for them, and we had a lot of small business. And the idea was still central that a small business really needed to have a very consistent presentation of their marketing assets. And so the idea that we could help any small business with their brand, with their, their website, their brochures, any of their marketing needs was still central to what we, what we believed in and, and you know, where we came from.

I think as we started doing more and more work, and especially becoming more and more well-known within home services. For a specialization related to how we were building brands that need to live on a vehicle and how those vehicles were such a critical component of their marketing. We started getting just a lot more call for companies that had vehicles as one of their primary advertising vehicles.

And so I, I’d love to say it was a. Massive brainstorm. And I drew a hard line [00:03:00] in the sand and said, oh, we were, we’re definitely gonna focus on this. Only I would say that came later where we did really draw a hard line in the sand and say, home services is where we do our best work, where we can have the most impact.

And where we are most skilled and we understand the, the market, we understand the owners, we understand what’s important for them. And so, you know, I, I can recall a meeting like 10 years ago. We were going through some, some stuff through EOS and EOS is good in the sense that it helps people really try to dial in exactly who their market is and what their, their, their target looks like and what the messaging should be around it.

And as designers, I think we all thought. For a second. Hey, wouldn’t it be really cool if we did things like microbrewery branding? Like that would be pretty cool to, you know, brand a line of, you know, alcohol or beer or something like that. And [00:04:00] then, you know, we, we really stopped and thought and said, well, what would we need to know how to do that?

And then we just said like, we’re taking, we’re moving away from what we’re actually really good at. And, and selfishly it might be a fun project for us to take on, but it’s not what we’re specialized in. And we just also recognize too that it’s the brand for a home service company is something that most of them really understand how critical it is, and they’re not.

Generally speaking, they’re, they’re looking to get the most value from that particular service in certain verticals. They don’t have the budget to support what we needed to charge for our work as well. And we just kind of learned that going through experience, you know, hey, they, this specific vertical doesn’t have enough money to invest in branding typically.

So we obviously wanted to go where we knew we had a lot of clients that fit sort of the, the parameters that made most sense for us. [00:05:00]

Alex Bridgeman: So if it wasn’t one major decision and it was, it sounds like it was so much a small decision along the way or small like. Ahas that kind of collectively led to this change.

What were some other small moments? It sounds like one of them was focusing on vehicles. So you went to small businesses, so you left healthcare, like large healthcare behind, then you went to vehicles. Sounds like those were two of kind of the small dominoes, but what, what were kind of the next couple that led to that further specialization?

Dan Antonelli: You know, when you really stopped and you looked at the numbers? Right. And, and, and I think that that’s the part too where you would like to think that owners make decisions based on data. And a lot of times that’s not really accurate. And, and so when we looked at the areas of revenue, we looked at the areas in which we were most profitable and looked at where the source of those numbers were coming from.

We’re like, it’s [00:06:00] not actually coming from some of these other verticals that we thought. We were getting a lot of work for, and I’ll give you an example, like when we first started, we used to do a lot of work for landscapers and New Jersey probably has more landscapers per capita than any other state in the nation.

And I don’t really know why that’s true and it may not actually be true, but it seems like there’s a lot of landscapers. And so when I first started and we were doing a lot with, with lettering and, and trucks and things like that, there was a great line of business for us. ’cause we would do their logo, we would letter their trucks, we would do their website and we would do some other things.

But that particular vertical, you know, if it’s a bad summer and it’s a bad winter and they’re not out there making any money, then they have no money to spend on marketing. And so we, we pivoted away from landscapers and we still do a lot of work for landscapers. And it’s not like, like I won’t do work for landscapers.

But we realized they don’t typically have an advertising budget, like an actual budget set aside for, for marketing and investing in marketing. And we started [00:07:00] really seeing. Hey, home service guys in the HVAC space, in the plumbing space, in the electrical space, really, they know they have to spend money on marketing.

And once it got beyond, you know, their typical way of marketing was being in the Yellow Pages. And once it got beyond that, they started obviously investing in digital and some of these other areas. And you know, we were very early on doing websites. I mean, I can recall doing websites in 1997, honestly, 1998.

And so we started, you know, pivoting more and focusing more just on hvac, electrical, plumbing, and those types of companies. And we found that they were more receptive to the idea of why brand was important. They had budgets to support actual marketing initiatives, and it just fit really well with what our expertise was.

Alex Bridgeman: It’s so interesting ’cause I, my first kind of knee jerk reaction to specializing is that you’ll ignore a lot of customers and you’re, you’re, the number of [00:08:00] customers you’ll have is smaller, but, uh, almost is never true. And it just means that your success rate in that industry just goes way up when you focus on it.

Did you have any of that kind of hesitancy around, ooh, if we specialize, that means saying no to certain work that, you know, you talk, you talk about throughout your book of, like, some businesses they just take on work that they have to, ’cause that’s just how the, you know, keep the lights on.

Dan Antonelli: I think that’s a great question.

I, I think for us, the ability to ability have enough revenue and clients to say no is, is great. And I don’t take that for granted. Like, I, I talk to other sign companies and, and rap companies frequently and, and sometimes they put out work that they know is not good. And is is marginal work and work they’re not proud of.

And they’re like, well, listen, the, the client was happy and we just got a cash to check and move on with our lives. [00:09:00] And we’ve been very blessed to be able to turn down work that doesn’t align with our principles, that doesn’t align with our values, or also just work that we know will not move the needle for a particular client.

We have so many people who want to use us, but they have, or they’ll come in with a set of parameters that we can’t abide by. For example, they’ll say, well, I love my logo and I have to use my logo. And quite often the logo is the fundamental problem in all of their marketing. So it’s like, I don’t wanna fix my logo, but we’d love for you to do our truck wrap of, we’d love you for you to do our website and handle that digital marketing.

And I’m like, well, listen until you fix the foundation. We, we just can’t deliver an ROI that would make your investment in, in us, deliver a good return on that investment. And, and often we’re the first people to have that conversation and, and to say to them, Hey, fix the foundation first before you invest in these other [00:10:00] channels.

And you’ll have much better results if you fix the foundation and you won’t need to spend as much money on your marketing if you fix that foundation. And sometimes they’re like, well, you know, they’re either offended that maybe I, I have, you know, made some suggestions on things or deficiencies within the brand, or they’re like, you know what?

You are the first person to tell me that, but I understand why you’re telling me that. And, and I appreciate that because I always look at it and I say, listen, I’m not willing to take money. For something that I know won’t deliver value, it just, I’d rather you, you know, not take your money and if you are really stuck on this is what you wanna do, I completely respect that.

That’s totally fine. I just can’t in, in good conscious take money for a product that I know won’t deliver results for you. So it’s an interesting thing. Like I said, I think that honesty probably gets us more business than not, because I’m, I’m approaching it from a perspective of [00:11:00] truly looking at it like a partnership rather than a client vendor relationship.

Like, I don’t, I don’t want to be a vendor. Like, if you want a vendor and you want someone to do exactly what you ask them to do, that’s totally acceptable. And, and I appreciate if that’s the direction you want to go, but at that point, I don’t add any value to the conversation. And if I don’t add any value, then you should buy that service for the cheapest possible price.

Because that’s what you’re asking them to do. You’re asking them to do exactly what you want, which is totally fine, but at that point, whoever you’re buying that service does not add value. They’re just basically doing what they’re being told to do. And again, there’s certain instances where that makes complete sense, but at our price point it does not make any sense.

You could go to Fiverr then and, and tell that person on Fiverr what you want them to do, and I’m sure they’d be happy to give you exactly what you asked. It may not be what you need, and that’s the difference. [00:12:00] Honestly,

Alex Bridgeman: it also probably engenders a certain amount of loyalty, like I have to earn the right to work with Dan, you know, but when, when I get to work with Dan, like it’s gonna be this thing that is, you know, it’s gonna be, have a bigger impact on my business.

There’s a, there’s a specific constraint within the work with Dan that is different from working with other vendors and it probably gets more personal investment from them too, I imagine.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And, and I think, I think it’s fair to say that no one goes through the process and subsequently says, I feel like I overpaid for this service.

In fact, it’s usually the opposite. It’s usually like, you guys should raise your prices. You guys should charge more, because they start to experience what the impact of having a great brand is on their actual business. So I think that that is, is true almost uni universally. But again, not everyone is the right [00:13:00] fit.

And being blessed with a lot of work, I don’t, I don’t have to make things fit that don’t, that don’t really belong. And, and when you start doing that as an owner, when you start taking on work for the sake of taking on work, even though it’s not ideally suited. 99% of the times, that’s when problems arise because there’s mismanaged expectations, you know, going into it that it’s gonna be something that probably isn’t gonna work.

So we’ve all done that, and I think I’ve certainly experienced that early on in the career where maybe I didn’t have as much work and was just trying to get as much as I as I could. Um, but ultimately, when you really dial into who an ideal client is and, and actively seek those types of people, I think ultimately that leads to the best type of partnership you can have with a client.

And, you know, just being vested in their, in their success too. I think from a cultural perspective, we, we really, truly believe the notion that we build [00:14:00] brands that change lives. And as a design perspective, one of the things that we often speak about is that we need to design as if lives were at stake and.

We look at that responsibility as being sacred. And we have a wall here in our office that’s a wall wrap. It’s, it’s probably 10 feet by 20 feet long, and it has a headline that says, we build brands that change lives. And, and on this wall wrap, there’s about 150 clients, photos of our clients in front of their trucks with their team.

And it’s a visual reminder for everyone that our work has impact, that our work matters. And I, it’s centrally located in the office, so literally everyone sees it, like every single day. And I think that reminder is really, really critical for, for our team to always remember that behind every brand there’s a family, there’s there’s employees, and the work matters and it, and it’s really, [00:15:00] really important that we never take that responsibility for granted.

Alex Bridgeman: Why do you like marketing and branding so much? Like where does that come from?

Dan Antonelli: I think from a very early age, I was obsessed initially with seeing my work out in public and being able to, you know, look at a brand that we had designed or I had designed. Obviously in the beginning it was just myself and say, Hey, I did that and I still, it’s 40 years later from the first van that I hand lettered in my parents’ backyard and I still

Alex Bridgeman: get that same emotion.

Dan Antonelli: You know, I was just traveling down to Delaware and then I had to go to Virginia to visit some colleges for my daughter who’s looking, she’s a senior in high school, so we looked at Del and then we went to James Madison, and along the way I passed probably five or six of my brands as we were driving, [00:16:00] and it’s just still cool.

Like, it’s like, Hey, we did that. That’s our brand. And seeing billboards along the way and, and knowing that those are all lives impacted by our work. And I think that that part’s really cool.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, that does, that does make a really big impact, uh, especially personally. One thing you talk about too is that like branding and marketing are not the same, and there’s a distinction, there’s kind of, a lot of these terms are kinda lumped together in marketing, but they have distinct goals and ambitions.

Can you talk through kind of how you distinguish, like even just advertising from marketing, from branding, kind of lay out your framework for how you approach like branding a new company?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. I think, you know, marketing is meant specifically to get the lead, to get the call in. So there’s aspects of that, that, that deal more with the [00:17:00] channels.

The advertising that is used to support the sales initiatives where, whereas branding is, is really more the foundation in which to build those assets, right? So, so we look at them as, it’s not that they’re separate, they’re obviously very, very much related. Because if you don’t have that solid foundation, then all the marketing in the world won’t solve your sales problem.

But you have to obviously have a aspect of your marketing that is dedicated specifically to generating leads and, and lead gen. Whereas branding is more top of mind, establishing trust, having people become familiar with their brand. It’s funny, I, I saw something posted today where another marketer that I’m friends with and, and he published something and he wrote something that, something like, on average people need to see your brand 20 or 30 times before they remember it, or they, or they know who you are.

And I responded back to him and I said. That [00:18:00] particular number is directly related to whether or not you have a remarkable or unremarkable brand. So if you’re telling me it’s 30 touches on average for people to know, and I’ve heard, I’ve heard numbers all over the map on that particular comment I’ve heard it’s like eight to 10 or whatever.

And I would say, well, what if it could be five? Right? What if, what if it could be five touches and people remembered your brand and who you were and your brand name, what do you think that that would do to your marketing spend? Right? And I think that that’s the part that people miss is they, they get upset about how much marketing costs, and they don’t ever fix or address the fundamental problem in their marketing efforts.

And that’s typically brand foundation deficiencies. So again, what if your brand was recognizable and memorable after five impressions versus 30? Right. What, what would that mean to you? Like how [00:19:00] much would you be saving if it only took five impressions of your vehicle in the community? For people to stop, remember it, file it in their brain, and then in six months when they need your service, they actually remember you instead of going on Google and typing in, you know, air conditioning repair near me.

Like, what would that mean for your business if you became that term that I talk about in the book, which is Five Mile Famous? So definitely a huge relationship with the idea of brand and marketing. But I think where people struggle is, is marketing feels really hard and it’s really hard to do when you don’t have a great brand that’s just gonna cost you so much more.

Like you can, you can market your way out of an unremarkable brand, it just will cost you a lot, a lot more money. So quite often you see that with, with people who. Are upset with how much of a slave they are to Google and [00:20:00] how much money it’s costing on PPC or LSA and some of these other channels. And I always say, well, wouldn’t it, wouldn’t it be better if they knew your name first?

And, and what are you doing as a company to become five mile famous in the community that you serve? Are you attending local events? Are you sponsoring soccer teams? Are you at the high school, you know, sponsoring an event? Like what are you doing to actually become visible? And for a lot of people like that work is not sexy.

It’s not maybe as fun and, but it’s easy just to say to the digital marketing company, Hey, you know, spend $2,000 this month on LSA and I get it, like it has to be part of the marketing mix. But working on becoming visible in, in the community is, is so often. Underserved and underutilized as a marketing technique.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. That was really counterintuitive to me [00:21:00] first reading about it was that, you know, good branding should be cheaper marketing ongoing, like your ongoing costs should go down as a result. When I think of like high quality branding and I investing in a brand, like investing to me means like you’re spending more, like there should be a greater expense of your revenue going to marketing every year.

But you kind of, you know, you, you challenge that idea.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And I think a lot of times as well, like, and, and if you, if you spend time on different Facebook groups and you see owners talking about marketing expense and, and you’ll hear a lot of people want to, want to define a specific budget that they should subscribe to and they’ll say, Hey, what percentage of revenue should I be spending on marketing?

That’s a very common question that, that people ask and you, and you’ll get a wide range of people. Asking that question, you’ll have some people that’ll be like, well, you have to spend at least 10% if you want to grow, and you, you should spend maybe 15% the first two years to get traction [00:22:00] and, and or ongoing.

And there’s so many success stories that we’ve experienced with clients that have a very disruptive brand, a very sticky brand. They’re spending less than 5% every year on marketing and yet growing enormously. And I say to myself, well, how does that happen? You know, how are these companies growing on a 5% ad spend?

While these other companies are insisting that you need to spend 10 to 12 to 13% of revenue on advertising it. And sometimes the answer is, for me it’s, it’s very easy. Like I’ll go and I’ll look at their branding and I’ll look at their truck wraps and I’ll look at their website and I say, okay, I know why this company is spending 12% or 13% of revenue because they are unremarkable.

There is nothing about this particular brand that connects with their ideal target audience. There’s nothing exciting or memorable that makes me believe that I will get an amazing experience if [00:23:00] I should hire this company. These are all the things that are working against them and thus they need more money to generate more leads.

It’s like, it’s not rocket science, like that’s the crazy thing. It’s just, it’s kind of bizarre to me sometimes to see, because I feel like the notion of how critical brand is, especially to home service is not. You know, five years ago maybe it wasn’t talked about nearly as much as it is today. And I just, sometimes I just scratch my head.

I, I don’t, I don’t get it. You know, it’s just like, why, why don’t you fix this foundation first and you’ll have a much better outcome?

Alex Bridgeman: Why do you think so many owners get trapped into a kind of mediocre brand? Or at least just not spending that thought and that time thinking through what does my brand actually mean?

Like, is it helping isn’t an ally to my business? Or is it a hamper? Like, like why do you think there isn’t that thinking happening so often?

Dan Antonelli: [00:24:00] Yeah, and I talk about, in the book, I, I talk about, I call it like a warm blanket syndrome, and I understand it. Like I, I get it. It’s, it’s, it’s the thing that you’ve had that has got you to this point, right?

So you started this company, or you got this logo and. It got you here or so you think it got you here. And so the notion of saying it will not get me to where I want to go is, is very challenging for them to accept. And so they look at it as any success that they’ve had as the rationale as to why they should never change their branding.

And I always look at it and I say the opposite. I say, it is amazing what you’ve been able to accomplish with this brand that shows me that you have operations dialed in. It shows you, you have a great team in place if so many things going for you. That’s awesome. Imagine what we could do with better branding.

How much further we could take this, where we could really go with this. And I, I like to [00:25:00] use the example of the branding and the rebranding that we did for Tommy Mello at a one garage. And when Tommy came to us to rebrand, he was at 30 million in revenue, which for home service businesses, very few companies that ever get into that neighborhood of revenue.

And he said to me, I, I want you to rebrand because I don’t really believe that my trucks look good. I don’t believe that the image that we put forth represents the quality of service that we provide, and I want you to help fix that. And, and we did. And they went from 30 million to 300 million in I think two and a half or, or three years.

So incredible growth there. But he had the, the insight to be introspective about his brand and ask that hard question, does this represent who we are today? Or does it represent who we were five years ago or three years ago? [00:26:00] Whatever the number is. And I think that that’s the question that I would challenge owners to ask themselves.

Right? If you looked at this brand and you had no other context, you just moved to this neighborhood and you saw this truck. What do you think you would get if you hired this company? And if you can honestly answer that question and say, oh my God, I think I’m gonna get an amazing experience. I would be willing to pay a premium for that experience or that service, great.

Then, then keep your brand. That’s fine. But honestly, take a hard look and, and does it really answer that question about the promise of your brand? I know when you ring the doorbell and the service is completed, they’ll be believers. But for every one of those, there’s 10 other people that don’t give you the opportunity because there’s no promise in the brand.

There’s no inferred promise of a unusually good expectation of, of a deliverable. And you have to [00:27:00] remember too, that for every. Homeowner, there’s a certain amount of bias that goes along with their decision making process. They are afraid of contractors. They’re worried that they will not be treated fairly.

You know? How does your brand help answer those biases that they have? How does it make them feel confident in the service before you get the chance to ring their doorbell or answer the phone when they call? How does it, how does it help them feel something good about what they might get if they hired you?

So, I get it. I understand. You know, there’s a lot of complacency in branding. You know, it’s like, Hey, this is what got me here. It’s, it’s working. I, I always use the quotation parts for that. It’s working. Why would I ever change it? And I think the, the bigger question is, is wow. Imagine what we could be doing.

And it’s not something you have to look beyond just marketing too. It’s not just marketing that it affects, it affects culture, it affects recruitment so much. Like, oh my God, recruitment is so. So much [00:28:00] impacted by brand and when again, you hear the common common challenge from owners, oh my God, I can’t get anyone to work for me.

No one wants to work these days. And then again, I’ll go in, I’ll, I’ll look at their logo, I’ll look at their truck, I’ll look at the uniforms and I’m like, I know why you have a recruitment problem. This just doesn’t look like a place I want to be a part of that I’m excited to be a part of. Like Tommy Mellow does not have a recruitment problem, even at 300 million because of what he provides, because of what the brand signifies.

And I think that that’s something too that people misunderstand or, or underestimate. They think the brand is always externally focused and they forget how important it is from an internal perspective.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, I had a bunch of notes here about the internal impact, like a, it sounds like a lot of the most successful clients you have have the internal service quality training kind of figured out, and it’s the brand that unlocks a lot of that.

What are the [00:29:00] impacts internally that you see with branding and where do they kind of show up? Like if you see, if you visit a client, like right before you start work and then a year later, what sorts of things do you start seeing in that second visit after all the work’s been done for a year?

Dan Antonelli: I think there’s a lot of things that go along with it.

First of all, is there renewed enthusiasm for where the company is going and what it mean for them as an employee? And I think that part, I think is exciting from an employee perspective because it shows that we’re not being complacent. Well, why are we rebranding? What does that mean for me? What’s in it for me?

Well, we’re rebranding because we want to grow this company. We wanna have better, better marketing tools. We wanna provide a better environment for all our employees to participate in. And as we grow, we want to have more opportunities for the people that have been part of this company from the beginning.

So you quite, you often see a, a renewed enthusiasm that really stems from the owners themselves initially, because we’re breathing sort of new [00:30:00] energy into this entity that they have. And you see them get so much more excited or you know, just higher level of engagement themselves because it’s just fresh for them.

You know, it’s just representing who they are, who they’ve evolved into. It’s really ironic too sometimes, because you see the owners and they can’t wait to literally strip. Everything of the old brand. Once they get the new one, they’re like, you know, I always get this question like, well, is it okay if we have a few trucks with the old logo, because I wanna change them as soon as possible.

And sometimes people think that like they have to change everything on day one. And I’m always like, listen, like if it’s, you know, it’s the end of the, the lifecycle of that particular van, leave the old logo on like, it’s fine. Like the two brands can coexist for a little while, but you see some owners where in their mind you’re like, everything’s gone.

Like I gotta strip everything off. And they’re so excited about it [00:31:00] and I understand that too. So it starts from the top where they get just so much more enthusiasm about their own company and then it gets, I think disseminated to all the employees and how it’s rolled out is actually really important too.

And we’ve seen some great rollouts of rebrands where the team knows nothing at all about this happening. Then they have an event where they have brand new trucks either under wraps, like under a big giant sheet, um, and they pull the sheet off and they unveil it. And then they have all new swag for all the employees.

So the new hats, sweatshirts, uniforms for the guys. And I’ve seen ones where they just go through the history of the company and just talk about how this is a new chapter, the next chapter in the evolution of this company and where they wanna take it so they kind of lay out their vision to it. Um, so it’s a big part I think, of culture and when you, when you integrate the brand as well, within this spaces of the offices and the conference room, [00:32:00] in the meeting rooms behind the reception area.

Again, from an employment perspective, when you walk in and you see the implementation of the brand and these visuals and messaging that goes along with it, it feels very different than probably what they’ve experienced that other employees. So definitely,

Alex Bridgeman: yeah. It feels organized.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah.

Alex Bridgeman: Like this, this company has a, a vision, there’s a unity here.

There’s a, there’s a self-awareness here that’s, that’s missing elsewhere.

Dan Antonelli: And it’s also part of, you know, the brand story. I, I always tell this, this the, you know, the story of Grasshopper, which is a $25 million HVAC and plumbing company up in Albany. And we rebranded them and they were previously renamed them and rebranded them.

And they were, they were at about 400,000 in revenue before we renamed them. And their previous name was PMA mechanical. And there was no sense of story. There was no sense of anything. Well, we just

Alex Bridgeman: proved it. You, we could barely remember what the name [00:33:00] was originally. It’s the whole point. Yeah.

Dan Antonelli: And so we renamed the Grasshopper and Grasshoppers can only move forward.

And, and that notion of moving forward as a company became central to everything that they stood for. So we as a company will only move forward and their tagline is, forward is a way of life. And I think in four years they’ve added. You know, like I said, from 400 to about 25 million in revenue. And they don’t have a recruitment problem.

They don’t like, people want to work in this environment because of what it stands for. You work at, walk into their offices, we designed all these massive wall wraps. They have such a cool, you know, area with, you know, video games and like all this cool stuff. It, it just looks like a very different environment.

And yes, they work hard, but they play hard too. And I don’t know that you get all those things from PPMA mechanical or, or whatever they were called before. Right. So, so I think the, the idea of a, a more legitimate anchor to [00:34:00] a story, to a mission is really important. Another example, real quick of, of a garage door company that we rebranded that was called RW Garage.

And I had said to the owner, I said, you know, initial base names and I know we we’re gonna talk a little bit about. Naming, but initial based names are the worst things to ever name your, your business. Mainly because there’s no promise inferred for them, and they’re really hard for people to remember. And I said to him, what about if we change the name from RW to Right way?

And that made so much more sense because it was not only externally focused, it was internally focused as well. So their tagline, get it fixed the right way, made a lot of sense. Not only from a consumer perspective, but from an internal perspective. It means that we as employees will only do things the right way.

We’re not gonna take any shortcuts. We will not cut corners here. We will do things always the right way. And that is our mission, that is anchored in our values. And so I, again, I don’t [00:35:00] know that you can pull off some of that feeling, some of that emotive characteristics with RW Garage. I don’t, I don’t care how much advertising you wanna throw at it.

It’s not gonna have the same feeling as something that’s inferred just by the name alone.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. There’s a, there’s a whole bunch of questions around branding, not just naming, but styles and colors and combinations of colors I’m curious about, but one concept that stood out to me was that vans and trucks are not meant to be a call to action.

So no phone number, like maybe you have a URL at the website, but there’s no, like, there’s no noise and extra words for phone numbers or go here or leave us a review here, or here’s our, you know, our contractor license number, that sort of stuff. Like you, you make it clear that the, the purpose of the van is to build the brand, not be a call to action.

Whereas, you know, a website or Google profile maybe is more call to action, but you maybe distinguish like, what are the goals of certain parts of your [00:36:00] company and how do they, how do they kind of interact with each other?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as it relates specifically to, to vehicles, we look at the priority of what’s being communicated and that should drive the emphasis, right?

So the priority is brand name. So logo is always the most dominant. And obviously if the logo is done well, you have, you should know what the company does without any other context or, or needing any other things. So clarity in the name is really important. Next thing we look at is of course, a tagline that maybe reinforces what the promise of the company is.

It also sometimes can help make the brand itself more memorable if it is connected in a meaningful fashion. Meaning the tagline relates back to not only the brand name, but the visuals that are being communicated on that particular truck wrap. And then the third thing that we look at as being important is, is the URL.

And honestly, it’s not usually important because if the [00:37:00] company is well branded in the first place. Most people are more likely to Google the name of the business and then get their phone number and then get their website address than needing to actually type in to their browser. The actual URL. Same with phone numbers.

Like if you honestly ask yourself as a consumer, when was the last time you physically dialed your phone number, a phone number, you know, instead of just Googling the name of the company and then hitting call now, or you know, off their website calling from there. So, you know, a lot of people look at phone number like, oh, you know, some people will take a picture of my truck and then they’ll call me that way.

And I’m like, okay, does that mean they wouldn’t have been able to figure out how to call you without the phone number? Like, I’m confused, like, are we really, you know, not able to use Google for most people or just type in your URL? So. We, we [00:38:00] still use phone numbers on, on a lot of our trucks. I would say it’s probably 50%.

I don’t mind putting a phone number on a truck so long as it doesn’t come at the expense of the branding. So if there’s not a way for me to work it into the layout and it will marginalize what I deem to be more important, then I won’t put it there. And we’ve had, you know, we have a client that we did the branding for Eco Plumbers in Ohio.

I think they’re close to a hundred million in revenue right now. They were at 40 when we rebranded them two years ago. No phone number on their truck. So how did that happen? Like, how did people contact them? There’s no phone number on their truck. They somehow figured out how to contact them though.

Right. So I, I just don’t think that it’s meant to be point of purchase. It’s a different type of, it’s like a billboard, honestly. You have to look at it in the same, and, you know, same holds true for QR codes. People want to put QR codes on their vehicle. We have [00:39:00] never put a QR code on a vehicle again, because I still think people know how to contact you without the QR code.

They really, generally speaking, detract the layout and don’t look good on a vehicle. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to scan one while you’re driving. It’s not a good idea.

Alex Bridgeman: No. It reminds me of menus during COVID and so I really don’t wanna see a QR code. QR codes to me have like a almost negative sense to them now,

Dan Antonelli: so I get it though.

Were people like, oh my God, I have one on my on my truck, and I know people have used it to contact me, and I’m like, okay, does that mean they never would’ve been able to figure out how to contact you without it? Like, I’m not sure what that’s proving that you got people to use it. Like, okay, so you know, we just.

Listen, you wanna put a QR code, knock yourself out. Like, it’s just not something that we typically wanna have. And it’s like, in my mind, it’s like putting a QR code on a billboard. Like, why would you do that? [00:40:00] Like, that makes no sense, honestly.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. I mean, the only place I could think of for, you know, a phone number on a truck, be like the back of it.

So if you’re behind the truck at a stoplight or you’ve been following it for a while, you know, there was a, I was driving in Minneapolis and I was following, there was an a one truck ahead of me, like, as I was gonna the airport, and I followed it for like 10 minutes. It was on the highway. So like there, like I had enough time like to see, like if there was a phone number, I could read it.

But I, I imagine, I like reading the book. I was imagining like more of a truck, like driving through an intersection, like the opposite direction. So I, I, I see it for like two seconds.

Dan Antonelli: Let’s test that right now. So you drove behind it for a few miles. What was the phone number?

Alex Bridgeman: Oh, no idea. No clue.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, exactly to your point.

But you remember it. You remember a one garage.

Alex Bridgeman: I do. Yeah.

Dan Antonelli: So if you wanted to contact them, would you have, would you be perplexed on how to actually reach out to them?

Alex Bridgeman: No, no, certainly not. I, for most things, I Google Google Maps even for like doctor’s office or our dog [00:41:00] borders. Like sometimes I just go and Google Maps.

We go there frequently, but I still sometimes just Google the number. It’s easier.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, absolutely.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. There’s also a, uh, a particular style that I think a lot of your work is identified with that has kind of a, a cartoon look. And you made a point also in our earlier conversation about using AI to generate work that you can’t trademark.

And there’s kind of a balance of like a creativity that’s unique to you and your company that isn’t easily copyable by somebody else. And so. And I’m also imagining kind of the, some of the stuff you’ve talked about with most home service decisions being made by women and all of these things kind of influencing this artistic style that a lot of your work has.

Can you talk about some of those influences and why this look has been so successful and all the different components that go in that?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. I mean, the question of, of mascot branding is, is one that that comes up often in people. [00:42:00] You know, it’s interesting ’cause I think people believe that sometimes there’s too much mascot branding being, being done perhaps.

And, and I will say that there is a lot of mascot branding that is being done that is really poorly executed. And so they run counter to what we believe the brand should be doing in the first place. So if you have a mascot that is not rendered professionally, that is not communicating the emotive characteristics that you wanna personify in that brand, then it is a negative for you as a owner because it will reflect then in the perception of the business.

So I see some of this work, you know, whether it’s AI generated or just from budget branding, I don’t wanna use that in quotation marks. Budget branding companies, the vast majority of it is not done well. And so when it’s not done well, it does reflect poorly on the company that is [00:43:00] deploying it. So when we look at mascots and, and I think for us, it’s interesting that we have.

Sort of a reputation of doing a lot of mascot branding, but we, we probably do just as much non mascot branding as mascot branding. But for some reason it seems like the mascots just maybe get more enthusiasm. I, I don’t know exactly what their right word, but in the book I talk about, ’cause people often say, they say, Dan, well, wood works better mascot or non mascot based brands.

And so I would, I wonder that question myself, right? So I was like, well, what if I went and I looked at maybe the top hundred companies that we’ve done branding for? And looked at what kind of brand they have, if I’m gonna put them in a genre, right? What kind of brand? So I looked at a hundred companies that we had branded that were all north of $10 million in revenue.

It actually represented like over [00:44:00] $2 billion total revenue combined for all these companies, which is crazy. It was really interesting, right? So I, I, you know, one by one mascot non mascot, and 51 of them had a mascot and 49 of them did not have a mascot. So. While everyone wanted a definitive answer from me as far as, okay, well what works better?

I think the reality is, is it wasn’t necessarily a, a question of what type of brand was deployed. It was more of a question of how was that brand deployed and how consistent was it integrated across every one of its channels? And I think that that’s still the, the, the right answer, like mascots are not the right answer in every situation, in every market.

And, and to me, those decisions should never be made until that assessment is, is done. Um, certain names will automatically lend themselves creatively more to a mascot than a non mascot based approach. But I would never go into any [00:45:00] conversation with any owner saying right off the bat it has to be a mascot or it doesn’t have to be a mascot.

Like, I need more to, I need to know more about the market and the goals and the direction before that would be ever decided.

Alex Bridgeman: What have you learned about how colors generate a feeling in, you know, as a customer sees a brand and maybe combinations of colors too? There’s a, a funny quip you had about working with a surgeon who had red and black as they’re like brand colors, like red for blood and black for death, which probably not what you want to hear or see or think of from a surgeon, but like what have you learned about like, combinations of colors and like which colors kind of generally what images in someone’s mind?

Dan Antonelli: Yeah, that is, is kind of a funny story and ironically he is a client of ours still. Even though it is obviously clearly not a home service, he just will not go to anyone else like we’ve been doing his work for. 20 years now [00:46:00] at this point, and he just will not go to anyone else, which is fine. Like we love working for him.

And he is, he’s a, he’s a great guy and he’s grown his practice from like five people to, I think he has 500 people now. So it’s pretty incredible what he’s been able to do. But we had that conversation with him literally on day one. I, I, I was like, Dr. Rob, you know, you’ve got black and red, which are the two worst colors I want to see as a patient.

And so we, we had changed ’em to, uh, blue and as a primary brand color and rebranded him. But we look at color in a number of different ways. One, one way is what does it personify? And, and, but I think, I think we look at more of the market as the primary determining factor. So every brand that we create, we do market analysis to look at what colors are being used in that particular market, and then we make decisions around that.

So if there’s. Two or three really huge companies in their market and [00:47:00] they own Apple Green and the other one owns Orange and the other one owns Blue. Well, now I know I can’t put another brand in that particular market with those colors. And so we look at, well, can we have two unique colors or can I have a combination of two colors to make the whole brand palette uniquely identified to them specifically?

So color is really important from that perspective because what, what I want people to remember as they see the van driving along is I want them to think of that brand only. It’s one of the reasons why, you know, I talk about it in the book, why Americana is a really, really tough. Brandable asset to try and own, because red, white, and blue is very difficult to say.

I’m going to be the only company that when people see red, white, and blue, they think of me. Well, no, the thing about a lot of other things, and it’s also such a common color palette, especially in home service, if you’re an HVAC space, everyone uses red and [00:48:00] blue, or a lot of people uses red and red and blue.

So again, we’re always looking at colors as far as what can be uniquely identified to your business only, and make decisions based on that. So as soon as I see this van, no one else in this market has purple and apple green. So I’m only gonna think about your company when I see purple and apple green. So as it’s driving towards me, I’m already getting that signal.

Oh, that must be one of their trucks. Right. And it’s subconscious. But again, the repetition of it. But if it was a white van, I’m not thinking of any one particular company because. Probably 75% of every home service contractor has a white van. And so we, you know, I talk about in the book we call that white van syndrome because it, it is something that is so common and therefore forgettable, therefore, I can’t expect anyone to remember it.

Right. So, you know, having a white van is, is typically something we would never recommend for anyone because you, you know, you look like everyone else at that point. [00:49:00]

Alex Bridgeman: You also don’t have a lot of street lines on your brands and, and wraps a lot of curves, a lot of angles. And I imagine there’s kind of a, an eye catching aspect to that.

Like on the, when you’re on a street, all the, all the lines are straight, your stoplights are at right angles and straight. The cars have a lot of straight angles or, and you know, straight lines. I imagine there’s kind of an attention piece to that. Is that an intentional choice of having more curves that maybe catch the attention better?

Dan Antonelli: I mean, to your point, everything that we are trying to do is trying to disrupt the space of the person viewing it, right? So if they’re seeing a lot of things that look very similar in nature, and then suddenly something rolls by them that doesn’t conform to what they are used to seeing, that definitely causes them to change direction and stop and maybe take a look at that and say, oh, what?

What was that? Because it feels different. It’s the same theory that [00:50:00] Seth Godin talks about in Purple Cow is if you’re seeing a lot of cows along the countryside and then suddenly you saw a purple one, well it would stand out. Even if you’ve seen a thousand of the cows, like you start getting used to them and they just kind of blend into the background, you don’t pay attention to it.

But if something suddenly came up that disrupted sort of the space of what you’re used to seeing. Then you would pay more attention to it. And, and that theory of disruption is how we approach vehicles. So we are deploying things that we want to disrupt the viewers’ attention with. We want them to stop and take a second look.

You know, it’s funny to, to hear you say that we use a lot of curves. I hadn’t considered it from that perspective, but we probably do use a lot of curves. We use a lot of what we call color blocking. So color blocking is, is. Is deploying the brand colors in very dominant fashions on the truck. So it’s not all one particular color, usually [00:51:00] it’s two.

There’s a, there’s a logic behind that as well because quite often it is more difficult to own a singular brand color in any market than it is to own maybe a triad or just two specific brand colors. So there’s definitely a logic behind that. And, and as far as color theory, like even when we rebranded Tommy Miller’s a one Garage, Tommy Miller’s original brand colors were black and red.

And I said, Tommy, I can keep the red. His red had been integrated on, you know, 50 trucks. At that point, I felt there was too much brand equity to suddenly just get rid of it. But I said, um, I can’t have black because it doesn’t appeal to women. I wanna introduce dark brown and I want introduce ivory. So it would became red, dark, brown, and ivory.

And again, the logic behind that was that meant it made the brand feel more premium. Um, so it was very deliberately done, but I also knew no one in his market was using those three particular brand colors, and I knew I could own it in [00:52:00] that, in that space. So again, a lot of logic behind, behind that. But the idea of, again, just how do we use this vehicle as a mechanism for something that will live in someone’s mind and be able to be recalled later on.

Alex Bridgeman: How do you think your brands and designs five or seven years from now will look different than they’re today?

Dan Antonelli: That’s a great question. I think the theory and the principles will not change. I think you may see an evolution of some techniques or styles or, or potentially genres. But if I look at the way in the theory behind the brands that we create today versus the brands that we created 15 years ago or or 20 years ago, the same exact principles apply.

And a, and a lot of the principles that I think I learned early on originated from studying outdoor advertising and studying the work of the original billboard painters that were in the fifties and the forties, [00:53:00] and the principles that they had to subscribe to while creating advertising that would catch your attention as you were driving by.

And those, those same principles, I think are very apparent in our work today. And so, even looking at brands that we designed from 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, are there things that we might do slightly different today? I, I think there’s always things that maybe you, you would look back on and say, maybe I, I would’ve done it slightly different.

But I think the core principle behind it has hasn’t changed, and I don’t suspect it’s really going to radically change moving forward.

Alex Bridgeman: So, um, on a totally different question, I’m a big aviation geek and I, I like when airlines will have, you know, they have, you know, there’s a delivery that most of the fleet has, but airlines often have through high history, bought other airlines and integrated other brands.

And, you know, there’s a retired brand that they moved away from. But sometimes there’s a retro, there’s kind of a throwback, you know, NFL teams have throwback uniforms. [00:54:00] Pretty common in sports generally, but what do you, what’s your thought between like there’s a retro of a simpler times vibe to certain brands and certain identities with also a forward-looking brand that, you know, kind of has hope for the future and is forward-looking and there’s often a combination between the two.

That’s interesting. I’m curious what you think of like retro versus modern and just as themes that you kind of think about when you’re designing a brand.

Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And we, we’ve done so many nostalgia based or retro based brands in our, in our time, like I, I would say 15 years ago, we were very well known for that particular genre.

And we did a lot of work in that genre. Like one of the most famous nostalgia based brands that we created in the home service base was for a company called Gettel Air Conditioning. And, and it features a boy holding a flashlight, and there’s a story behind that boy, and that represents the owner holding a flashlight for his dad who was an HVAC technician and what that meant to him, and how that [00:55:00] story became central to their marketing campaign.

And there’s a certain amount of authenticity that comes with nostalgia based branding. But I think doing nostalgia for the sake of doing nostalgia is a mistake. Doing it for a rational storyline that you’re going to expand upon. Yes. That makes total sense. And so. I particularly and personally really love nostalgia based branding because a lot of it involves hand done aspects.

So from a topography standpoint, we usually create custom lettering, whether it’s scripts or fonts that we build from scratch that are more indicative of the period in which they are meant to represent. I’m blessed to have such skilled topography designers on staff that come from that era, like one of my longest.

Serving illustrators as with me now almost 20 years. His dad is a sign painter and he comes from that world. He comes from that background. And [00:56:00] so when we get to do nostalgia, I think we do nostalgia probably the best out of anyone. I know that’s probably sounds a little ego there, but we’re not using fonts to try to fake it.

Like if we don’t have the right font to replicate as a period of time, we’ll just create it from scratch. And there’s not a lot of people that can build topography from scratch and do it in a, in authentic fashion. So, you know, does it work better than modern brand or does it make someone think that the company is not up to date?

We haven’t really seen that from a consumer standpoint. We’re like, oh my God, this. Company’s too old. Like I think a lot of ’em recognize that it’s obviously not a brand that was born in the forties or fifties, and it’s something that even though it is a older looking brand, that they are still using the, the same technology.

So I haven’t really seen a negative, um, reaction or say someone, um, well, well, they’re not up to date on modern HVAC or anything like that because their [00:57:00] brand is retro. So, so, like I said, I, I haven’t seen. A lot of evidence to support that. It works negatively.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. There’s kind of a, you can tell it’s retro, but it still looks modern.

There’s a, I don’t know, I, I’m not smart enough to know what this stylistic thing is there that makes it look still modern, yet bringing back to an earlier time I think of like in and out or something like that, where it’s clearly like meant to look like something from, you know, but it doesn’t look old.

It doesn’t feel stale or tired when you’re there.

Dan Antonelli: Yep, absolutely.

Alex Bridgeman: There’s like, what do you think that is? Like, what do you think gives it that look or gives any brand that look where the retro doesn’t look tired? It looks, it still looks fresh and new.

Dan Antonelli: I think it, it all revolves around integration. There, there’s a brand that we did.

It’s called Masten. It’s M-A-S-T-O-N-S, and it’s Maston’s Plumbing, and they’re in Tulsa, Oklahoma. If you Google it, you’ll see their brand. And we did their website, we did their, their [00:58:00] logo, their uniforms, all their marketing materials. And when you put it all together, like there’s a really cool story about this and I’ll just tell it really quick, but he was wearing his uniform and he was in a store and a woman came up behind him and said, are, are you the owner of of Maston’s Plumbing?

He said, you know, yes, I’m ma’am. You know, it’s nice to meet you. My name’s Kale. And she said, I just wanted to let you know that I was driving behind your, your vehicle. And the image of the, the, the logo really connected with me and it really brought back a sense of when Craftsmen cared about their jobs.

And it just harken to me this time. That was just such a simpler time, and I just wanna let you know that it really meant something to me. He is like, oh, you know, thank you so much. And we, we literally have her on camera retelling this story. And, and that’s when I say sometimes like, are you going to get that same reaction from someone that looks at your Sun and Snowflake logo?[00:59:00]

Is someone going to go out of their way and tell you how that Sun and Snowflake logo really connected to them on a deeper level? And I think that that’s the part that so much home service branding is truly missing is, is that connection. And, and his tagline is, is service the way it ought to be? And again, that means something to him and it means something to the values of that particular company.

So I think the integration of all the different assets when they’re done in a professional manner, they don’t feel dated at all. It just feels like a modern take on a older, older style brand. You know, I I, I love that story, just, just for the sake of. When we talk about those impressions and we talk about how do we connect with someone and live in their mind, do you think that she will ever call someone else now when she needs service or is she going to just type in Maston Plumbing and get to them right away?

So [01:00:00] again, just simple things like that I think go a long way for people to think about in terms of their own brand. Like how likely do you think it is that someone actually cares about your logo and your brand and, and files it in their memory to recall later on? And if not, then what are we doing to try to fix that?

Alex Bridgeman: There’s also probably a staying power element to retro branding where like, oh, this company looks like it’s been around for 50, 60 years. They must be doing something right. There must be, you know, reliability. They must have probably learned by now how to perform quality service or something. There’s a, there’s a reason they’re still here.

Like there’s something to trust in that

Dan Antonelli: brand. I understand. And I, and I think sometimes too when we, when we are doing rebrands, especially when we do second and third generation rebrands for maybe it’s new family members that are taking over the business, and you look at this brand that it looks like they just started the company like a year ago, and I’m like, wait, you guys have been around for 40 years?

Oh yeah, [01:01:00] we’ve been around for 40. I’m like, then why does it look like you just started last year? You know what I mean? Like, why aren’t you leaning into this from a messaging perspective? Why aren’t you talking about the history and the heritage and what it means to be a third generation plumber for your family business?

What, why aren’t we talking about that? So, so I think sometimes that is a unique selling proposition that is not leveraged in people’s brands and should be, especially if it’s unique in their market. Like if they’re the only ones that can talk about it and talk about that history. Especially with so many companies being PE owned now.

Well, what are you doing as a privately owned business or family owned business? To talk about how that’s important, why that means something to the community and the brand can tell that story if it’s done correctly.

Alex Bridgeman: What other brands do you admire in study?

Dan Antonelli: In what? Vertical or

Alex Bridgeman: anything? Like, just what, like what famous brands or [01:02:00] companies or do you feel like you’ve spent a lot of time around or, or admire something that they do really well?

Dan Antonelli: It’s funny that I, I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna name two. I think Savannah Bananas, I think is a amazing story of brand. It’s an amazing story of being very much driven by the experience of the people that you are selling to. I had the opportunity to meet Jesse, the owner about a month ago in person, and he is just a super cool guy and saw him on stage talking about how that company came to be.

And I think what the idea of doing something that is so completely disruptive, like that really connects with me on a, on a lot of levels. ’cause I think what we do is also similar in that particular fashion. And I would say the other brand that I think a lot about is, is Disney. Because Disney also just is so focused on the customer experience as part of the journey.

Right. [01:03:00] And, and you know, it, it’s kind of funny and you know, I was there a couple weeks ago and. The experience is always just from the person who greets you when you arrive at the hotel to any of the people that you interact with at the park. And I think that that’s really so fundamental of what the Disney brand personifies.

So I would say yeah, those two I, I think are pretty cool ones.

Alex Bridgeman: Disney in particular is really obsessed with authenticity. Like it needs to feel like you’re in that cinematic world and that your, your story, your trip here is really important. Like it makes an impact on us just as much as you. It’s hard to pull that off.

They seem to do it really well.

Dan Antonelli: It is hard to pull off and to do it consistently. I think. And you know, it’s funny ’cause we were at Universal before we went to Disney, and it’s not that we had a bad time at Universal, but you could sort of see a distinct difference in. How they’re both run. I, I, I would just [01:04:00] put it this way.

It’s not like we had a great time at Universal. It’s not, we had a bad experience by any stretch, but you sort of saw things at Universal that I think would not fly in, in Disney. Whether it was how the, the cast members were dressed, how they interacted with people, things like that. Where I think on the Disney side, that wouldn’t be up to their standard.

Alex Bridgeman: Is there one detail that Disney did really well that stayed with you?

Dan Antonelli: I wouldn’t say there was one detail. I, I think it was just general. Like even when we checked into the hotel, the woman that that checked this in really went out of her way to make sure that every single question was answered. Made sure that like our park passes were gonna work and our magic bands were hooked up properly.

Like, you know, really took a vested interest in making sure that we felt a hundred percent confident. And I tried to get some questions answered about some passes that we had at [01:05:00] Universal. And I don’t wanna say it was a struggle, but it was just a different kind of experience to get those questions answered at one versus the other.

Alex Bridgeman: Is there a company you feel like has taken some of like elements of different companies that have done authenticity really well into home services and maybe what are some small details around service that you find yourself admiring over time? Like when you, like if someone, if three different companies came to your house and they had interacted in three different ways, like what things do you think you would pick up on and notice that the really well run company or well-trained company maybe is gonna do differently?

Dan Antonelli: I think, you know, there’s so much focus on sales, there’s so much focus on upselling and I think. How that’s presented to a homeowner is, is really important. So you see, especially a lot of the PE owned companies having a very sales driven mindset where the, the [01:06:00] sole focus is, how much can I sell to this particular homeowner versus how much value can I provide them?

And I think when you look at, you know, the takeaways between those experiences I think is really important. So what, what is the motivation behind the solutions that are being offered? Are, are they, are they driven from a financial perspective or are they driven from a perspective of this is something that will truly help you as the homeowner be more comfortable in your home, et cetera.

So I think how that information is presented is really important. I’ve seen some sales methods that I don’t agree with how they’re actually done. I think they’re done in a way that. It’s maybe not as authentic as the true motivation behind them. So

Alex Bridgeman: it seems like a lot of good sales is just educating customers.

Dan Antonelli: Absolutely.

Alex Bridgeman: Because I, ’cause I have no idea how a furnace works or HVAC or garage door or any of these things. I don’t, [01:07:00] I’ve never really spent a lot of time thinking about it. So when you say, you know, filter or circuit or a roller or whatever, like, I don’t really know what you’re talking about. So you could tell me, you could tell me that there’s a better one out there, but I don’t know what that actually means

Dan Antonelli: or how it would benefit you,

Alex Bridgeman: right.

Yeah. What, like, what does it mean that this, this would be better? Like, does, is it cheaper to operate long term? Is it quieter? Like what’s, what’s the thing it doesn’t, doesn’t always compute, but what should I have asked you that we didn’t talk about in this episode?

Dan Antonelli: I think we covered, we definitely covered a lot.

I think I would encourage people that. Or thinking about starting a business or are in business, maybe not too far along the journey. I wrote my book branded, not branded very specifically for that type of person. You know, if you’re really struggling with the marketing, if you’re struggling to gain traction, if you’re finding that things aren’t working as well as you would hoped, or even if you’re thinking about starting something, [01:08:00] I think this book will help you avoid, make so many of the most common errors that are made literally on day one.

And especially as it relates to naming, I think naming is one of the most important factors. So yeah, I think that that, I mean, we covered a lot of stuff. I, I think also just noting that the more unremarkable your brand is, the more money you’ll need to spend the market. It’s not very complex or complicated, but trying to get off sort of the, you know, I, I heard another person refer to it as the, the cocaine of Google and.

Sort of rid yourself of that. I’m not under any illusions that you can totally get out of paid advertising, and I know that that’s not realistic. But the, the notion of what can I be doing to become five mile famous in my community, I think is the most important piece for any home service business.

Alex Bridgeman: Absolutely. Well, Dan, thank you for coming on the podcast. This has been a ton of fun. I appreciate getting to chat with you. I [01:09:00] enjoyed your book and I, I’m excited to continue chatting about all sorts of different random things, but thank you for the time today.

Dan Antonelli: Awesome. Appreciate Alex.

Alex Bridgeman: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoy today’s episode of Think Like An Owner. If you enjoyed the show, please consider leaving us a review and telling a friend. To help more folks find, think Like an Owner. For full episode transcripts on our weekly newsletter, please visit our [email protected].