Andy Felice on Garage Door Marketing for Ambitious Owners – EP.282

(00:00:00) – Intro

(00:00:51) – From door-knocking to garage door consulting

(00:02:32) – Learning the industry through A1 Garage Doors

(00:03:49) – The case for vertical specialization

(00:07:23) – Understanding repair vs. replacement psychology

(00:09:04) – Beyond marketing: Operations and consulting

(00:12:20) – Sales training as lead conversion insurance

(00:14:57) – Deep dive: Marketing rabbit holes

(00:17:53) – Tommy Mello’s sales process and recommended books

(00:18:46) – Books every garage door owner should read

(00:23:05) – The harsh truth about changing business models

(00:26:17) – Market dynamics and geographic differences

(00:30:40) – Evaluating acquisition targets

(00:34:06) – Database reactivation and retention systems

(00:38:37) – Join BNI: Andy’s top advice

Andy Felice: Repair, it’s in- it’s inelastic is what it is. It’s, you, you need it. It’s like insulin, you have to have it. And then replacements, that’s a whole different ballgame. A lot of it is, is the, the, the lady of the household is usually driving the purchase decision, and it’s very much aesthetic. It’s very much, you know, wanna flex on my sister-in-law coming over for, for, for Thanksgiving dinner.

Andy Felice: That’s the example I like to use to like, to, you know, show that it’s more of a aesthetic k- type of purchase. So, uh, but if you don’t understand that, and you’re a marketing agency that works with all home services, you’re gonna waste a lot of people’s money learning that the hard way. Uh, that there’s a humongous difference between all these things, and you need to be marketing to them, and the language that you’re using needs to be different for both of them.

Alex Bridgeman: So trace back, like, from where you are now, maybe a couple years ago. Like, how’d you get to this point? How’d you get to decide to focus on marketing for Garage Door?

Andy Felice: Yeah, I can’t even tell you how many times I get asked this question, especially at, like, family events when people are like… My aunt would be like- “Y- you do what?

Andy Felice: Like, for who? Is, is there enough clients out there for you?”

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. Yes. And then you gotta say it again the next time too. Yeah.

Andy Felice: Yep, 100%. Yeah, man. So I started– I quit my job in twenty seventeen– twenty eighteen. I had no clients. I started knocking on doors the old-fashioned way. I almost became a financial advisor at Edward Jones, and at Edward Jones, they teach you how to knock on doors.

Andy Felice: So I knew I didn’t wanna do that for a living, but it gave me a good skill, so that’s how I got started. I started driving for Lyft at night and knocking on doors during the day, and my company’s called Felici Marketing. It was twenty eighteen. You know, only did that for a couple months until I started to get better at networking and, and presenting myself and communicating my offer and things like that.

Andy Felice: And long story short, you know, to make this kinda quick, I, I would get pulled into consulting opportunities. I was, like, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six. I mean, I was a young, young man and just getting started, and people would recognize, okay, Andy is, he’s key. You know, there’s some opportunity here, and they would offer me positions and such, and I would say, “No, thank you.”

Andy Felice: You know, I enjoy working for myself. I’ve got the curse of entrepreneurship. It’s in my heart, it’s in my blood, it’s in my family, it’s in my DNA. It’s just how it is. And, and so I’d get pulled into these consulting opportunities, and one of the… A lot of them were much bigger companies than what I would normally work with marketing-wise at the time.

Andy Felice: And just one of those opportunities with my first garage door company ever was this little company called A1 Garage Doors, owned by Tommy Mello, and I did a six-month consulting engagement there doing, for sake of time, process optimization. So mapping on paper and then making the software match the process.

Andy Felice: And that was how I learned the garage door industry. After that, you know, I’d mentioned it a couple times to a couple people, and they’d say, “Oh my gosh, what’s, what’s Tommy Mello like? You know, what’s he l-” And I’m like, “Tommy? Like, A1 Tommy? Is that who you’re talking about? Like, the guy I went to dinner with last night?

Andy Felice: Like, you know, just he’s, he’s a super cool dude. He’s awesome.” They’re like, “No, he’s, like, the god of the industry.” And it honestly, man, I didn’t understand the gravity of my experience, of what I got to do, my opportunity, as you call it, until after the fact, and then I started mentioning that, and it, it, I was like, “Wow, okay.

Andy Felice: I, I’ve learned more about garage doors than I, I realized,” and, uh, started applying it aggressively and intentionally, and, and here we are. Uh, Garage Door Marketing Lab is our, our sole brand now. We used to be called Felici Marketing. Now it’s Garage Door Marketing Lab. And yeah, we haven’t turned back since.

Andy Felice: We, we turn away all other business that is not a garage door company.

Alex Bridgeman: Nice. I have a cousin who’s a, he does some web design work and has designed most of my websites actually. We were having this conversation maybe six months ago, and he’s thinking about kinda what industries, if any, should he specialize in, ’cause at this point it’s been pretty broad and like I’ll, you know, design website and branding for lots of different industries and types of companies.

Alex Bridgeman: But he’s deciding on there’s, there’s probably a benefit to being focused and focusing on one niche or one type of business, and we were like, “Yeah.” So we’re like running down the list of like what do you need in an industry if you’re gonna focus on it? Like, one, you need lots of companies in that industry, so you have a lot of business to go after.

Alex Bridgeman: You need, like, ongoing marketing spend. Like, there has to be a reason you’re spending every month on your product or service, and then, like, has to be, like, high enough margin that they’re kinda willing to spend more or, like, do more business with you over time. It’s not some declining industry that’s, you know, generally gonna be steady or declining, and you have to enjoy it.

Alex Bridgeman: You have to, like, have a good time, like, working in that industry and talking to those people. And so you like, you start kind of go- going down the check boxes, and seems like garage doors, like, fits that, although yours was more of like, from what it sounds like, just really good opportu- opportunity with one client that was like, “Oh, okay, this actually makes a lot of sense, and there’s enough here to specialize in it.”

Alex Bridgeman: But did you think through some of the, like, okay, if I’m gonna specialize in this industry in garage doors, is this a good fit for something that I would specialize in, or should I look at other areas? Like, how did you kinda think through that?

Andy Felice: No, I, I fell just right back into it, you know? I, I, I was not going out looking for it.

Andy Felice: Completely just, you know, the universe, God, luck, whatever you would like to call it, that’s, that’s what it was. I was not trying to create Garage Door Marketing Lab. It kinda just started getting built, you know, on its own

Alex Bridgeman: Nice. So then how does that compare to, like, your first couple clients? Like, what industries were your first clients in?

Andy Felice: Uh, I’ve worked with probably north of, mm, 300 different clients, uh, most of them not in garage doors. So we– It was a few years of just running Felici Marketing. We really– We, we thrived in home services, so I’ve worked with almost any kind of home service company you can imagine, except for, like, two or three, and then a lot of, like, health services or soft health services.

Andy Felice: So, like massage therapy, acupuncture, chiropractic, you know, things like that, that have more of a, a recurring kind of model, not just going to the doctor when you have a sinus infection type of thing. So yeah, we were, we were all over the place. And the challenge with that is you have to learn a whole new business model every single time, a whole new, you know…

Andy Felice: What’s the, what’s the purchase cycle? What’s the personas? What’s the buying psychology, you know, of repair versus a replacement to very different mindsets for, you know, going for, looking for one of those products or services. And you have to relearn that. And, uh, hon-honestly, at the time, you know, I, I had a lot of energy.

Andy Felice: I, I enjoyed the heck out of it, like making the automations and such for every single different industry. I really enjoyed it a lot. Got to learn a bunch. I, I get bored if I’m not stimulated pretty fast, so that was, like, a nice way to keep me, you know, keep me engaged, keep me stimulated. So yeah, man, just a l- a l- attorneys.

Andy Felice: I mean, I’ve, I’ve worked with quite a few different industries over the years.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, it feels almost counterintuitive to say, “I’m gonna ignore 299 industries and only focus on one.” Like, well wouldn’t your universe of clients, like, shrink and be super small? But the counterintuitive piece is, like, when you get really good at that industry, you become known in that industry as the go-to person, and that changes the whole, like, sales cycle for you.

Andy Felice: So I, I would come at it at a different perspective. While what you’re saying is valid, I think what’s higher priority or more relevant would be that if you work with one type of industry, you can learn the operations of the business, and you can learn the best practices of the business, and those little tiny things that can get a deal over the finish line.

Andy Felice: You pick up enough of those crumbs along your journey of learning, then you can really help a, for me, a garage door company, you know, get that next truck on the road, send their kid to college, you know, hit that 20, 28% profit margin that you’ve been eyeing for a couple years, you know, stuff like that. You pick that up as a marketing person.

Andy Felice: You know, and honestly, we’re, we’re great at marketing. We’re, we are amazing, and we got it dialed in. But it’s almost boring me now. Like we’re, we’ve got it pretty … We got it in a good spot. I want more. I want more information. I want more knowledge. I wanna learn how th- these businesses run internally because if I can make the operation

Andy Felice: I mean, every business is just finance, operations, and marketing. If I can learn the other two things, then I can make it all work synergistically and just really create something cool.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. And what would make the most sense to add on to that? A little cart before the horse in some ways, but, like, the, what’s the other tack-on service to kind of go after one of the other two?

Andy Felice: So I wouldn’t … I w- I, I’m not talking about it from, like, a ta- like, adding on services kinda perspective. I’m talking about the more knowledge, the more information that I can gather about a, a garage door company and how it operates, then I can fine-tune everything- Mm … that I’m touching to accommodate what is reality already instead of adding on additional things.

Andy Felice: Now, we are adding on additional things. You know, you’re thinking forward. I’m thinking forward. Like, that’s where this conversation, I think, will probably go. But yeah, that’s, that’s what I, I meant. But to answer your question now, the next level of this, you know, marketing is awesome. Generating leads is great.

Andy Felice: Repair jobs, you know, hardware rebuild jobs, awesome. Replacements, awesome. The next level is how do we get our technology Work for us twice as good as it does currently. Whether that’s, “Oh, we’re using ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro, and we don’t have good, better, best hardware rebuild packages built out for the five most common size garage doors or the five most common spring sizes.”

Andy Felice: “Well, why not?” “Oh, I just haven’t gotten around to it.” “Okay. Well, would it help if, you know, me and my team hopped in there and, and got that whipped up for you, and we’ll just… You know, we can talk about the price you c- or you tell us, you know, what’s included, whatever?” “Yeah, okay, Andy, that sounds good.” And so then we’re able to, to do this consulting on their, on their CRM, you know, and that’s, that’s a huge value, and that does, you know, very clearly connect back to marketing, attribution, all that kinda stuff, you know, getting dynamic number insertion set up, and all those kind of extra nerdy things that are kinda boring to talk about maybe.

Andy Felice: But we, we love it, you know, that’s our, that’s our thing. We’re, we’re getting D&I dialed in for one of our clients in ServiceTitan this morning. So yeah, I think the direction for, for me and my business, marketing always. We’re o- we’re Garage Door Marketing Lab. That’s, that’s the name of our company. It’s always gonna be that name.

Andy Felice: But we are becoming a proper consulting shop, and, and that’s more of my background. We’re like deploy in, do proper discovery, analysis of all the data sources, what’s talking to each other, what’s not, then we make our sprints, you know, what’s the highest priority that’s gonna give us the most value so we’re not just building forever, and then let’s get after it.

Andy Felice: So I think that’s the direction of everything. I think that’s, that, I think that has to be the direction of every marketing agency. A- and if they’re not, you know, super techy and, and able to do that, I, I think they’ll just get bought up by everybody else.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. Well, I mean, to the point of, you know, some other owners who are more ambitious have kind of relayed to us is, you know, m- marketing is like, as you’re saying, like it’s interacting with operations.

Alex Bridgeman: Like your, your marketing is only as good as you can handle leads and service leads and get techs out quickly, and then there’s sales training. There’s all, there, there’s all these components that interact with marketing that can determine the success of your marketing too that you wanna make sure are dialed in as well.

Andy Felice: Oh, absolutely. You’re spot on, and if you don’t mind, I’ll just elaborate a little bit on that. So something we started doing with all of our clients of a certain level, we… I shouldn’t say we. I do a 90-minute sales training with all of our clients. So- You know, recently I had 28 technicians all on a Zoom call.

Andy Felice: Some of them are out in the field, some of them are in the office. Most of them are out in the field. You know, the owner’s in there, the, the head of sales is in there, and I’ve got… I know the process of how to sell a job, how a technician should arrive, whether it’s a repair job, replacement job, whatever, and to the point where they’re leaving, you know, shaking hands firmly, asking for a referral, and then, you know, taking off.

Andy Felice: And so we, we do a whole 90-minute interactive training, and the reason for this, it was purely, it was self-interest. Like, let’s be honest. Like, come on. I’m a marketing agency. I get leads for people. I look much better when my clients close more deals, but we just tee it up. We’re not smacking it out of the park.

Andy Felice: We’re not grabbing that driver and, and hitting it for them. You know, we’re just putting their, putting it right there on the tee. So if I can teach them how to sell better, then it makes my data look better. It’s, it’s purely self-interest, you know. That’s really… That’s, that’s what we can call it. It helps our clients a lot.

Andy Felice: They really enjoy it so far. Everyone that we’ve done, like, we’ve done, like, 10 or 12 so far, they’ve been amazing. They’ve been, they’ve been so grateful for it. They’ve been… One time I had a guy, he got off the phone, and he’s like, “Hey, I’m on, I’m on a call right now, but I’m gonna try that thing you’re talking about, Andy.

Andy Felice: Like, I’ll, I’ma let you know, man.” I’m like, “All right, dude, like, let me know. Like, tell me how it goes.” Gets off, 25 minutes later gets back on, and he’s like, “Hey, I just got back to my truck.” Like, I see him join the Zoom meeting again. “I just got back. Andy, that thing, that, that thing that you mentioned, the way you articulated that, it worked.

Andy Felice: Like, I just sold this job. It’s 1,300,” and the goal is, like, 1,000 bucks for a average repair ticket, you know, and he just went 300 bucks over it. So th- that’s rewarding. That feels really good because, one, it makes the business owner, you know, who’s our decision maker, you know, for signing our proposal, keeping us, you know, as r- recurring, you know, continuing our, our engagement.

Andy Felice: But also, like, the technician, they’ve got families. If they’re able to make more and do better, ’cause everyone’s on performance pay. I, I mean, everyone should be on performance pay. I’m sure there’s garage door companies out there that aren’t. It, it, it makes a difference, you know, the lifestyle you’re able to live, the, what you’re able to give your, your family, your kids, and, and that’s, that feels really good.

Andy Felice: That makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. No, okay. What, what parts of, like, g- garage door marketing, and maybe I can loop in, like, sales training into that. Like, what do you get most excited about, and what are the, like, rabbit holes that you’ve gone, you feel like you’ve gone deepest on?

Andy Felice: I would s- There’s a lot of, of rabbit holes of, like, wild things in this industry that I, I never thought I would learn about.

Andy Felice: And not all of them are appropriate for, for podcasts, so I’ll, I’ll keep it to some of the more, you know, high- highly leverageable, you know, type of information. But really, I think for me, what’s been most– what I’ve been able to give the most to, to the industry or to, to my clients has been, like, understanding the psychology aspect between a repair and a replacement.

Andy Felice: ‘Cause the, you know, repair, you need it now. You, you need… You’ve got a situation, and the garage can be holding up your lifestyle. It can be preventing what you want to do, either taking your kids to school, going to work, you know, whatever. Your car, car can be stuck in there.

Alex Bridgeman: It can- My, uh… My grandparents, like, when, like, when I was a kid, their garage door was broken, and their motorcycle was stolen out of it.

Andy Felice: Oh.

Alex Bridgeman: So… And it was, like, a… Not, like, a Harley, but it was, like, a dirt bike, like, you know, Central Oregon kind of, you know, old Honda. That’s the story I usually use, uh, when talking to owners. That’s- Like, like, there’s… You know, stuff like that happens. People want their garage door closed.

Andy Felice: Exactly. That’s a great example.

Andy Felice: So repair, it’s in, it’s inelastic, is what it is. It’s… You, you need it. It’s like insulin. You have to have it. And then replacements, that’s a whole different ballgame. A lot of it is, is the, the, the lady of the household is usually driving the purchase decision, and it’s very much aesthetic. It’s very much, you know, wanna flex on my sister-in-law coming over for, for, for Thanksgiving dinner.

Andy Felice: That’s the example I like to use to, like, to, you know, show that it’s more of a aesthetic k- type of purchase. So, uh, but if you don’t understand that, and you’re a marketing agency that works with all home services, you’re gonna waste a lot of people’s money learning that the hard way. Uh, that there’s a humongous difference between all these things, and you need to be marketing to them, and the language that you’re using needs to be different for both of them

Alex Bridgeman: Totally agree.

Alex Bridgeman: And because the sales training piece drives so much of… Like, what principles do you try to hammer down with techs that say, like, as a way of framing, like, sales training? There’s a, there’s a lot of, like, no sales training happening, there’s a lot of bad sales training happening. There’s a … Sales is seen usually as a dirty word.

Alex Bridgeman: Like, how, how do you kinda come at a tech who maybe has had a mixture of hearing all those different things and say, like, “Here’s what the ideal looks like. Here’s how we think about sales training”?

Andy Felice: Yes. So, uh, that was a question I came to, ’cause I considered designing my own, and the conclusion that I came to, we’re mem- we’re GarageDoorFreedom official vendors.

Andy Felice: So what we do is we just … We use Tommy’s eight-step sales process, which is on page 112 of the Home Service Millionaire book, his first book. There’s two books that I think every garage door company should read. It’s that one first, and then Elevate second. But we just use that, and because a lot of our clients are in GarageDoorFreedom already, we found that it, it helps when you’re just immersed in a community where everyone’s kinda drinking the same thing.

Andy Felice: You know, everyone’s kinda on the same page of how things are done. And u- I mean, I’d say 90% of the industry that has an intentional sales process is already just using Tommy’s sales process to begin with. Like, that’s, that’s what I’ve found.

Alex Bridgeman: What book do you feel like is missing from the home service garage door-

Alex Bridgeman: world that five years from now you’d write?

Andy Felice: It’s pretty funny that you asked that question because I have a printout with the answer on it. So here is something we send to all of our clients, suggested reading. So you’ve got “The Home Service Millionaire” at the top, “Elevate” on the bottom, and then this book right here is “Multipliers” by Liz Wiseman, and this was the book…

Andy Felice: I’ve done a lot of– I went through a phase a few years ago. I’ve read a lot of different books, mostly, like, career-oriented, and this one had the biggest impact on me because if you can teach somebody to be a leader, teach someone to be a multiplier, and they have a team of five technicians, let’s say, and they’re really good at teaching other people how to, you know, do more, then you can get, you can get twenty X out of a team of five, versus having a non-multiplier leader, you know, in, in place instead.

Andy Felice: That concept has really stuck with me, so I would say reading “Multipliers” by Liz Wiseman for sure.

Alex Bridgeman: Nice. Can you send me a picture of that?

Andy Felice: I sure can.

Alex Bridgeman: That’d be great.

Andy Felice: I’ll, I’ll get your address after this. I’ll do you one better. I’ll send you a little something.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. Let me– I have a, I have something to send you too.

Alex Bridgeman: There’s a book I r- was writing with a, a small team, “Operator’s Handbook.” It’s like a print magazine for-

Andy Felice: Hmm …

Alex Bridgeman: small business owners. I don’t think I sent you one. It’s a– It kinda ties in with the podcast and it’s like a heavy print for… It was meant to be kinda like a coffee table kind of thing. Got it.

Alex Bridgeman: There’s a, you know, there, there’s room for more print content in small business. But I, I love the idea of, like… I think that also distinguishes you as a, a company to y- to customers I care about your business more than just its marketing. Like, I care about, like, you as a business owner building a g- a growing, you know, high-performing business, and here are some, like, recommendations, like, how I’m gonna be…

Alex Bridgeman: And I think positioning yourself as a, like, broader consultant with, like, marketing as, like, a specialty, I don’t know, that seems smart. That seems like a way to, like, a nice way to distinguish yourself.

Andy Felice: Yeah. A- and honestly, it keeps things more interesting for me. Like, it really get… it keeps my brain stimulated, and it’s just more exciting when we can have conversations about, like, the business and not just these nerdy metrics about the marketing.

Andy Felice: Like, yeah, th- those things are necessary. They’re a requirement. Every garage door company needs to be doing a certain number of, of marketing services, in my opinion. I, I can say that with a lot of confidence. But after you dial it in, you know, you’re, we’re working together for, you know, we got everything kinda in a good spot, it’s like, “All right.

Andy Felice: Let’s, now let’s, let’s not take our foot off the gas. Do you have SOPs?” “No.” “Okay. Why not? Do you have your pricing dialed in to where you’re not having to explain a whole list of, of items in front of a customer and explain to them what, what, you know, this drum is better than that drum?” And they, they don’t care at all.

Andy Felice: They want you to get the heck out of their house. It’s weird, you know? Like, that’s the reality of things, but I think for, for, especially for garage door guys in particular, of any other service-based kind of business owners that I’ve worked with over the years, they kinda take themselves for granted almost, where it’s like, hey, you, you have a PhD in garage doors, and, like, that, that’s worth something.

Andy Felice: People don’t just have that information. I thought that the garage door got opened by the motor, you know? Like, that’s… And I, I bet you a lot of people thought that too, and I’d say I’m probably a little more tech-, like, savvy, you know, than the average person perhaps. So I think it’s, it’s important that, you know, we can kind of remind those kind of things to the clients and talk about the operations in a way that’s just like, you know, we’re seeing reality clearly.

Andy Felice: Let’s make operations kind of accommodate for that reality.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, completely agree. What concept do you feel like is, as you think of like the pool of garage door, maybe even just like home service owners broadly that you’ve talked to, like what concepts do you find take maybe the longest to fully absorb and incorporate in someone’s business or, or life or whatnot?

Andy Felice: I would say for the garage door industry in particular, the hardest pill to swallow for… I, I mean, I’ve had this conversation probably at least eight times, seriously, and, and the summation of the conversation is, if you don’t change the way you do business, you’re gonna feel good at night, you’re gonna sleep well at night, and you’re gonna be bankrupt in the morning.

Andy Felice: Because the way that a garage door business ran 12 years ago, 15 years ago, and the cost per lead on Google, and the average repair ticket that could actually get you a profit of, of 15%, which is still low You ca– If you do that same thing today, you will go bankrupt. I, I would, I would bet every single dollar that I own on it because I’ve seen it happen too many times.

Andy Felice: And, and the reality is that, and, and this is just, this is normal. This– I’m not saying I have an opinion one way or another on this. This is just the reality. Private equity comes into the industry, spends a lot of money, which is awesome. Rising tide raises all ships. But there are externalities that come with that, like the increasing price of leads.

Andy Felice: Every single year, lead prices, they go in one direction in the garage door industry. They’re not going down. They’re just not. And we have to, we have to pivot. We can’t just keep doing things the same way. You have to be selling the hardware overhaul, the rebuild kit, whatever. It’s like East Coast, West Coast lingo, whatever you call it, you know?

Andy Felice: You have to be selling that good, better, best, and your average ticket needs to be north of $1,000, including tune and lube leads. Not everyone knows what those are. We, we do a lot of tune and lube leads. Our clients crush it with proper coaching on those. But including those, it needs to be north of $1,000.

Andy Felice: Ideally, it’s north of 13, $1,300. But that’s the hardest thing for, for some guys to swallow. And I, I was talking to a guy last week. He’s had his business for 40 years, and we were on the phone for an hour. He wasn’t even a client of mine, but he, he’s probably, probably become a client pretty soon. But he’s like, “Andy, I, I’ve known this in my heart for a long time, but I haven’t been able to stomach it and to hear you articulate it, it’s like, it feels like I can, I can, I, I can see it now.

Andy Felice: Like I, I kinda get it now. But I’ve, I’ve been watching this happen for so long.” And it’s like when you’re so close to the fire, I don’t blame you for not, you know, you know, you’re, you’ve got a lot of things going on. You got a business to run. You got people to take care of. You got clients to take care of.

Andy Felice: You know, no problem. I’ll, I’ll bring this stuff up and have that hard conversation

Alex Bridgeman: How, how do you think that changes geography-wise in different markets? Like, obviously I would, I would assume leads go up pretty much everywhere, but a lead in, you know, Phoenix is probably gonna be more expensive than a lead in, you know, Spokane, Washington or Billings or somewhere like that.

Alex Bridgeman: Like, how do you… Where does the region come into play, and does that adjust how you approach marketing or sales training or, or maybe not at all?

Andy Felice: It, it definitely has an impact, without a doubt. Every market is different. It’s … Everything’s a competition. It’s an auction system. It’s not just, like, static everywhere.

Andy Felice: And really, so we’re only, we’re talking about ads. We’re not talking about SEO. We’re not talking about … You know, we’re, we’re very specifically talking about generating leads through ad-like channels, PPC, meta ads, et cetera, LSA, whatever. Yeah, if there’s 25 garage door companies in one market all spending $85,000 per month, then yeah, that, that in, that, that market is gonna just be, it’s probably gonna be north of 200 bucks per lead or something crazy.

Andy Felice: You know what I mean? But you go somewhere else, let’s say Podunk town in Mississippi, where there’s no Precision, there’s no R&S, there’s, you know, Access, none, none of those guys, then yeah, we, we can generate $6 tune and lube leads, and those are real metrics that we’re really attaining right, like, in real time right now.

Andy Felice: So yeah, it just, it totally varies. And for the, the sales training part, in my sales training, there’s, there’s no augmentation of things, you know, for, for something like that because what I’m talking about is really it’s, it’s the … We’re just getting … We’re just dipping our toes into, to sales training. I think sales training needs to happen every week.

Andy Felice: It’s not something you do once a year with your marketing agency. So that’s … For a real sales trainer, you know, that’s doing something every single week, I think that should really be dived into really deep and really consistently. Does that answer your question?

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. So I mean, it sounds like if, if you’re me and you’re looking at, you know, building a handful of good garage door brands through buy and build across primarily West Coast but hopefully nationally, it sounds like there’s maybe an opportunity in smaller, like secondary and tertiary markets to kind of build the one-stop shop or, you know, the group that, you know, can, you know, own most of a small market versus compete in larger markets.

Alex Bridgeman: Do you approach clients in each one maybe a little bit differently? Like, if you have a client in the, in like Bend, Oregon versus Phoenix or Dallas, maybe in thinking about my perspective of, like, trying to build companies- Right … how does that change?

Andy Felice: How does it change for you, Shane?

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah, approaching… Like, if you were my– if, if I was a client of yours looking in smaller markets, what are some things that you would do differently with me?

Alex Bridgeman: That’s-

Andy Felice: It depends. I think a big thing, so, like, something we really like to do is be strategic with our money on a month-to-month basis. So, you know, we’ve got PPC, we’ve got meta ads. If you’re over staffed, you want to shift your budget towards PPC because those are more expensive leads, but they’re much higher, you know, converting and much higher average ticket than, than meta ads.

Andy Felice: Because meta ads is where you get the $49 tune and lubes and replacement leads. In, in a smaller market, I guess you could just, you can be a lot more, you know, pick and choose which one you wanna do and, and have, like, a more closely similar, like, lead cost. I think it’s just really, at the end of the day, it just makes you…

Andy Felice: It, it allows you to breathe better when you’re in one of those smaller markets that, you know, none of the big, big brands are in. It’s, it’s kind of like you’re in a more normal kind of environment, like, not all these externalities going into the marketplace that are debatable of, of how natural they are or unnatural.

Andy Felice: So yeah, I think, I think you just have a little bit more ability to breathe. And the other thing is not every single small market is gonna be stoked to have a, an outsider come in and, and join the community. So some of our clients that are, are going gangbusters with our, with our marketing, I have to give them some credit too, because they’ve been around.

Andy Felice: They grew up in this, in a small town. They went to the elementary school, the middle school, the high school there, you know, and, and they– their grandma’s always at the public library down the street. You know, so they, they do have this kind of a little bit of, of some roots in there that there’s, there’s so- there’s credibility there.

Andy Felice: There’s something to be said for that. But on paper, yeah, I mean, it just, it, it’d let you breathe a little bit better, I guess, is my answer to that.

Alex Bridgeman: Does it matter if you have Ford Mavericks versus, like, vans branding wise? Like, does that matter? Is there data behind that? Or is it more like having any branding at all just, like, makes so much difference than there’s no reason to fine-tune and pick, you know, nitpick?

Alex Bridgeman: Or, like, understanding, like, a shitty marketing plan and, like, I’m being able to, like, diagnose, like, what are the three things I should look at to understand, like, what’s the rough, like, weighted score of, like, how well this company is doing? Like-

Andy Felice: Let, let- Do you, like- Here, let me just give you, Alex, some, some real suggestions, and maybe these are things you know already.

Andy Felice: But what I would do, like evaluating a deal to see if this is a, a company worthy of, of get, you know, getting acquired and at what multiple. I would get heat map reports for their Google Business Profile or profiles, depending on how many they have, for garage door repair near me and garage door replacement near me.

Andy Felice: Have to get both of those. Run the reports at the same time so your variables are all held constant, you know, ceteris paribus. That’d be the first thing I do. Second thing is just see how long the domain has been alive. Is this website brand new? Is this a brand-new, fresh domain that they just rebranded to because they wanted to put lipstick on, you know, the business?

Andy Felice: Or Is it, has it been around forever and it’s just junky HTML website from the ’90s or early 2000s that they’ve just left, but it has a ton of domain authority? You, you gotta look at things like that. And how many times have they changed locations? How many times have they changed domains? Stuff like that, very important.

Andy Felice: Phone numbers. That’s the biggest one. I mean, I looked at buying a garage door company and, and I nearly bought a, a small garage door company two years ago. My cousin was gonna be the technician. I was gonna run the business. He decided to become a firefighter instead, which I totally support, obviously.

Andy Felice: It’s super exciting. But what I was interested in with this gentleman I was calling on, he’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna sell my business.” And he was telling me the numbers and I was asking him about his books and, you know, what’s this look like? And s- and I was like, “I’m, I’m really sorry to say this, but you don’t have anything to sell.

Andy Felice: Like, you’re, you don’t have a business to sell, um, unfortunately. You just didn’t design it well enough. You just, you just didn’t. Uh, it’s– So you don’t have anything here. You, you’ll get maybe five grand for your website and your, your phone number, and that’s what someone’s gonna buy.” You know? So if you can, if you can find a good website, a good phone number that’s been around, been consistent for a long time, and they are using LSA, they’re– they’ve got LSA working and it’s providing, ’cause not every LSA account just gives leads.

Andy Felice: Some of them just, just doesn’t work, and it’s like, what the heck’s going on? And there’s only so many things you can do to, to shake that snow globe to get it to work. So I’d say the website, the phone number The LSA account, health status, and, and their database. Their database. Do they get emails? A lot of people only get first name and phone number.

Andy Felice: Like, why? What are you doing? Get their full address. Get their email address. Like, let’s be professionals here. Um, because there’s a lot of, a lot of free marketing, database reactivation, these are things that we do that there’s a lot of juice to be squeezed there.

Alex Bridgeman: Yeah. Maybe even just diving into that for a few minutes.

Alex Bridgeman: Like, what’s … Okay, you’ve done the, the $1,300 service ticket, couple months go by, maybe, maybe longer. Like, what are the things, like, a well-run marketing, like, engine should be doing once- Mm … a customer’s already purchased from you, they’ve got an upgrade from you? What happens then?

Andy Felice: Well, they should be getting

Andy Felice: You, you, you’ll probably be … This might interest you. You should be getting all of your clients on an annual maintenance program. It should be priced at at least 250 bucks a year. Give them discount, give them a free tune and lube every year. Wash their garage door, put a ceramic coating on it maybe. These are products I have on my website branded with my brand on it that I thought I was gonna sell to all my clients, but, you know, it’s, it’s not working that way.

Andy Felice: But it’s a great idea still. I know it, and my, my clients- I agree … really love it when I talk to them about it. And, and the big obvious thing, uh, of, of this, and the reason why I tell my clients to do it, is if you get 100 customers paying you 250 bucks a year, what’s it gonna do to the multiple? It’s gonna make it increase.

Andy Felice: It’s, it’s, uh, it’s just that’s the … A- and everyone knows that’s the game right now, you know? So that’s a big thing that they should be doing. You know, let’s say they, they, they don’t get them on there. No problem. What we do, and this is included in, in a lot of our programs, not all of them, and I custom architected this myself.

Andy Felice: Don’t ask me how long it took. But we have a database reactivation program. A system, I should say. And the way it works is I tell my client, “Give me every contact, give me every contact that you’ve, you’ve gotten that you haven’t touched in the last 11 months.” 11 months because I want 30 days head start so I can get my client trained up on this.

Andy Felice: But the way it works, the way database reactivation works is you take the list, we upload it into my system, and then we trickle out emails during scheduled times. So let’s say the customer service rep, the CSR, Susanna, she’s only available– “Andy, I’m busy. I’m a busy, I’m a busy lady. I got a lot of stuff going on.

Andy Felice: I can’t be doing this all the time. I can do maybe three hours a week.” “Susanna, all right, I got you. No problem. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from three to four PM you’ll be available, right, Susanna?” “Yes, Andy, I’ll be available.” “Awesome, Susanna.” So I schedule 50 emails, emails, has to be email, to go out to each client, to each past person And when they open the email, my client gets notified, and I train them.

Andy Felice: I give them a script to pick up the phone the old-fashioned way and do an outbound call to that lead and say, “Hey, this is Susanna with XYZ Garage Doors. We just wanted to call you because you are a past client of ours, and we’re actually running an exclusive offer for our forty-nine dollar tune and lube.

Andy Felice: We’ve got Thursday at three PM or Friday at eight AM available. What works best for you, Mrs. Homeowner?” And Mrs. Homeowner goes, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’re calling me. I just saw an email from you. That’s crazy.” But the way I designed the system is that if the email just gets opened, just gets looked at, my client gets notified in real time.

Andy Felice: So it makes it stickier, makes it more relevant. So that is something I haven’t come across other garage door companies doing that or other marketing agencies doing that. We’re pretty proud of that system. So yeah, that’s, that’s something, you know, after the annual maintenance program that, that I believe needs to be on…

Andy Felice: There’s, there’s more stuff too, like doing like farmer’s markets, having a, having a booth there or home shows. I’ve had a couple clients, man, oh my gosh, especially the ones that like to focus on higher end replacements. They’ll do a hundred grand in a weekend off of, of couple doors, you know? I mean, it’s, it’s nuts.

Andy Felice: It’s absolutely nuts. So doing stuff like that, collecting email addresses, it- it’s groundwork. Like it’s just, it’s consistent, consistent persistency. Like you just have… You, you can’t stop. It’s not just like, “Oh, we did this. We’re done.” It’s gotta be momentum. It’s gotta be a system. It’s gotta be constantly going.

Alex Bridgeman: As a, as a closing thought, like what’s a piece of advice you give owners often?

Andy Felice: Oh, that’s easy. Join BNI. I tell every client to join BNI. I have a blog article about it. Everyone that I talk to, you know, “Oh, you… Okay.” Every technician needs to be in BNI. It’s plain and simple. The owner should join first and set a precedent, and then every technician has to be in a different chapter, one that starts at seven AM so they can still get to their jobs, you know, early.

Andy Felice: It’s not in the middle of the day, gonna throw everything off. But I have clients, I have clients that I’ve s- I’ve set some records with in the industry that my records were, are awesome, but it’s hard to hold a candle up to how successful they’ve been in BNI. So BNI, absolutely, that’s what I tell my clients and, and prospects the most, you know, as, as advice.

Alex Bridgeman: I love it. Andy, this has been awesome. Thank you for sharing a few minutes. I’m excited to chat a whole lot more off mic, but appreciate the podcast here too.

Andy Felice: Absolutely, man. Thanks for having me.

Alex Bridgeman: Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed 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 and our weekly newsletter, please visit our website at tlaopodcast.com.