Brian Sooy:  I prefer to say that the brand is the story. People tell themselves about their experience with your company and it's also the story they tell other people as much or more about the words you use to sell, the words you use to create your reputation, um, than it is about that visual representation of your company. Branding is something you do to customers, but category design or the service you offer is something you do for them, just like. I always go back to think about branding a cow. You're just putting a mark on it. It's painful and it hurts. It's searing the skin.

‍Austin Gray:  Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Owner Ops podcast. I'm your host, Austin Gray, and this episode I'm hosting Brian Soy from Aspire. He is a branding specialist and what I learned in this episode. Blew me away, and I will take some of the feedback that he gave me. We had a one-on-one dialogue specifically about my business here in Colorado, and he gave me some ammo to go use in our marketing messaging to further clarify what we are working to do here at my company, and I know you'll be able to take the conversation that we had and sort of implement the same principles into your own business.

If you listen to the full episode. Before I forget, we have launched a free school community specifically for local service based business owners. If you were looking to grow your local service business, if you're currently an owner or an operator, you don't wanna miss out on joining the free community. There are other local service business owners. I have a bunch of video trainings in there about how we thought about building our own local service based business, and there's a bunch of free value in there. You can join now school.com/owner ops. That's SKOO l.com/owr ops. See you in the episode, especially in the sector, 

‍Brian Sooy:  is that many trades companies think their brand is all about their logo and their truck wrap, and it's so much deeper than that and so much more important than that because it's really about the customer and not the company.

‍Austin Gray:  Interesting. So tell us more. Why is it not just about. Truck wrap. 

‍Brian Sooy: There's this misconception that a logo is a brand. So you said you've got a background as a designer. Are you familiar with Marty Neumeyer? No, I'm not. So Marty Newmeyer wrote a book called The Brand Gap, and he's got this great illustration in that one where he is got the Nike logo and underneath it it says in French, this is not a brand.

And a lot of people conflate the two, like the visual with the brand, the meaning behind the visual. So I prefer to say that the brand is the story. People tell themselves about their experience with your company, and it's also the story they tell other people. So it's really as much or more about the words you use to sell, the words you use to create your reputation, um, that it is about that visual representation of your company.

‍Austin Gray: Interesting. So if someone were to start right now from scratch, what is your recommendation for where they start? Creating a brand. 

‍Brian Sooy:  All right, so let's jump in and out of Bearclaw two. Yeah, sounds good. One, a name needs to be memorable, but like just the name. Let's say Bear Claw. Tell me more. What is Bearclaw?

‍Austin Gray: So when I started this business, I knew that we could go two different routes service-wise, but there is a local icon, a mountain that it's Perry Peak, and the locals refer to it as Bear Claw. It's the mountain. You can see from the ski resort here. It's got three scratches in it, or four I guess, and it looks like just a big bear flawed at the mountain.

And so this is the mountain from Winter Park Ski Resort. And so being an avid outdoorsman and skiing and hunting and fishing and all the good stuff, I spent a lot of time outdoors. When I moved here, it was because I love the outdoors. And so to me, I always thought that icon was really cool. Then when I started it, I was like, man, there's some symbolism here between one, a local icon, and then also we want to go into land clearing and excavation.

And so there is this concept of the arm like clawing right there. And so that's what I started with in my head. And then I just used the name and I was like, I don't know if we're gonna be a tree company and I don't know if we're gonna be a dirt company, but I knew there was demand for both and I just went.

Started doing tree work as a solo owner operator, and then I did some driveway work for the dirt side. The interesting piece, and this is what I was gonna tell you about now that I'm several years in looking back, I think I would've done it differently. I. But I chose a general term like land services, right?

Because I wanted to encompass trees, dirt, and then here in the winter we have to switch to snow. There's no summer work that you can do because of the snowfall that we get. So I wanted to encompass all of our services that we would offer into kind of one general name. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

‍Brian Sooy:  Yeah, no, it does. Think about starting from scratch, so. 

‍Austin Gray:  I recently got back from launching a land clearing business down in Austin, and this last winter I launched a snow shoveling business alongside Bear Claw. In both businesses, I've implemented jobber as a way for us to efficiently manage quoting job schedules and invoicing, and even collecting online payment. Why? Because it's worked so well for us in Bearclaw and it's saved us a ton of time and headache. So if you are looking for a software that can help you manage the back end of your business, look no further than Jobber, you can visit go.getjobber.com/ownrops O-W-N-R-O-P-S. 

‍Brian Sooy:  You've got a name. You've associated your name. Then with a category, which is a good thing. So a lot of service companies, if it's HVAC, they'll have, say, heating, cooling, plumbing, if it's electric pest control, which is really important for the customer because that's where your truck wrapper design and the logo can be helpful because they're driving down the road, and that's what those end up being is a rolling billboard.

They're driving down the road, but they're not thinking, oh, I need a bear claw. If they're thinking Bear Claw, they're like, oh, I need a donut. That's what we call those bear claws out here. Um, but they may be thinking, oh, I've got this stump. I need clear, or, I've got some land I need cleared, or I'm gonna need snow plowing for the winter.

So land service is this category, and you may need more than that to explain to people. Bear claw land services snowplow. I just, or snowplowing. Tree removal. So you need to get a little bit more specific because you have to make sure your ideal customer connects with their problem and the solution they need.

So that's where the words matter and that's where we start to lean into what's that story they're gonna tell themselves? I saw this truck, it said Bear Claw, but it didn't tell me anything else. So here's another example. I was just down in Florida and the company name was WeCare and their, their symbol was a lawn Nome.

We looked at it, we're like, and what is that? And we drove by the building and it's an HVAC company. And if they're listening, it was clever, but it first did not connect with us what it was. And just being from where I am looking outside into the sector, we look at it a little bit more critically because this is designer, that's what we're trained to do.

And I'm sure you do the same with your business. It didn't immediately connect. So you're starting from scratch name, making sure the category really connects or something very descriptive of who you are, what you do, and why it matters in four or five words. But then when you're talking with people, they're gonna see those visual things, but they're going to know what you do.

And so you need some clear messaging to talk about that. And that's where we now, as part of our branding, lean into StoryBrand as part of our narrative branding process. Fantastic process. It's a business. Storytelling tool and helps us clarify who the customer is, what do they want, what's the problem they're trying to solve, and then position your company as the brand and the guide to help them get that it works so well. I've been certified since 2017. It's really transformed the way I think about and do any brand strategy and brand development. 

‍Austin Gray:  So why don't we go back to the start. Let's say I'm starting this business. Mm-hmm. How are you going to coach me? Let's take everything off the table at this point. Let's say I don't have a name. Let's say I don't have the logo. What questions are you gonna ask me to start to develop that brand? 

‍Brian Sooy:  Sure. So let's just say you mentioned there's this mountain in your area that reminds you of, it's got regional significance to what it is you do. Just knowing you, I would ask, is that gonna scale if you're gonna move to another state, or if you're gonna do the service in another state, is that gonna scale? Is that gonna transfer? Will that meaning behind it mean anything to the customer in a new city? So I'd make you start to think about that from a naming perspective. So maybe it's not land services, but then we'd have to think about what other category words or descriptive words could we use to modify Bear Claw.

I'll step back and use my own company as an example. I started out 30 years ago as Brian Sewing company, super original. That was because the accountant said, you need a name for your company, what's it gonna be? And I had to think it up on the spot. Then we shifted to Aspire and the idea behind Aspire is to help people achieve greater.

One of my consultants says, 'cause it's spelled A-E-S-P-I-R-E. People are gonna have hard time, time pronouncing it, and two, they're still not gonna know what it means. And so I use a variation. I'll say Aspire branding or Spire Marketing, depending on context, it's all in that same category. So is land services a broad enough category that would transfer to other areas as you want to grow?

Or is it flexible enough, as you said, to cover land clearing, tree clearing, snow removal? So just thinking hard and deep about that because you get down the road, it's difficult. And expensive to go back and change many of those things. Or it takes time to shift people's perception about what you do. And then we just start to talk through the StoryBrand framework, who's your customer and what do they want? So from that, think through that idea. 

‍Austin Gray:  Yeah. It's interesting here, and I'm gonna be very vulnerable on this, like I haven't really shared any of this stuff publicly before, but I would love to. Because I can tell like your framework, had I met you before I started my brand, I would've thought through a lot of these things a lot more. And I'll tell you for listeners, it's a third full busy season in Bear Claw. And there are things that I've learned from a lot of people who are a lot smarter than me, who have scaled a lot bigger businesses than I have. I have taken those snippets away from them, and I've thought, man. What if I would've gone this route or a different route with my branding strategy? And so some things that you have brought up that I've been contemplating on is who is that ideal customer? 

‍Brian Sooy:  That's a great question. It's been thinking deeply about it. Austin. Now, who is your ideal customer? 

‍Austin Gray:  Three years ago, I'll tell you why. I went the general route of land services because I didn't know what the market was going to respond to. Mm-hmm. I thought. I knew what our main service was gonna be, but to be transparent, there was some self-doubt there and that self-doubt being like, man, if, if I go all in on this one service, which for listeners, for the people who've listened a lot, know that service is fire mitigation. The main service I wanted to solve was wildfire mitigation.

I was just like, I couldn't get the data from Google to support that. There was like enough search demand for this, but I knew. Internally being in these mountain communities, I'm like, this is a big deal right now. We have to prepare for wildfires. So wildfire mitigation for you and for other people listening who don't know is simply just tree removal and land clearing to clean up the trees around these mountain properties to reduce wildfire risk.

But there was some self-doubt there. I'm like, man, what if I go all in on, or what if I try to market this and it just doesn't work? I knew I could go do driveway repair, right? And so it was the strategy to be prepared for the worst case scenario and be back up when looking at it. Now I go back and I'm like, dude, I should have just went straight all in on some sort of fire mitigation brand and just built that around the ideal customer profile.

‍Brian Sooy:  That's really interesting. It's never too late to pivot, but you started your business post COVID. But think back to all the businesses who had these strong businesses going, and then 2020 hit March 20, and everybody in some way had to pivot. Thankfully, our company had been doing a lot of virtual work anyway, so pivoting to more zoom, more video, um, consulting was a quick pivot, but you can reinvent yourself and just make that transition.

So it's just a matter of flipping. That messaging, I would think fire mitigation and the fear around that is powerful motivator. Because when we think about customer motivations, we have to think about a little bit behavior science, which most people don't think about. We are motivated to make purchase decisions in two ways.

One is to avoid something and one is to gain something. And so in your instance, it's avoiding, you know, the risk of loss due to brush clearing and. That's so prominent in the news lately, especially with the fires in California. But then pivoting to gain, if you're concerned about losing this, pivoting to gain what we call the stakes of success.

So what's at stake by not working with you, and what would success look like and what would the benefits be? And not just the functional benefits, but the emotional benefits of working with Bear Claw. And that could be beautification, not only the safety issues, but it could be beautification, it could be. Less hassle next season for all this stuff that would've built up over the summer. There's just so many ways to take that. 

‍Austin Gray:  Agreed. If I've learned anything though, change is hard. And so listeners, if you're hearing me out on this, let me ask you this, Ryan, what other questions would you encourage listeners to ask themselves or consider before jumping in on, say, Bearclaw Land Services general brand?

‍Brian Sooy:  Just, let's just walk through the StoryBrand framework, but we can also walk through something a little more simpler. What is it you do, and this is where you get into your service differentiators a little bit. I'm referring to some of the things that are gonna be in the blue collar branding book that I'm working on right now.

What specific problems do we solve? So again, for Bear Claw, the fire mitigation, but it's also slightly trees that have fallen down is some very specific things. I'm just making 'em up. You could fill 'em in and then. How does that help transform people's lives? Because these are then things you can talk to people about.

If we're just focusing on the transactional in this brand, it's empty and it's meaningless for the customer. The other thing is then too, what's gonna be your process for helping them get from where they are to where they want to be? And that could be your basic business sales process. Call me for a quote.

Send me your address. I'll take a look at the the Google map and see how much land you have. Send me a photo of the tree that you need cleared. That way it simplifies your process so that you can see. This starts to get that into how are you gonna operate your business in a way that's more profitable?

And that's another area. I don't think people understand that. When you align your brand strategy and your business strategy together, you can actually optimize your business for more profit. Because you're integrating everything instead of saying, I have a business over here to operate and I have a brand over here to manage, but when you put them together, it's quite effective and quite powerful, and you can see that in any of the really big companies.

I'm just trying to scale it down with this thinking and then what's at stake by not working with you and what will success look like in working with you? That's the basic story that. One you can introduce people to, but it's one that they can, when you simplify it, repeat back to others. Oh, I hired Bear Claw. I just had these trees at the back of my property. I didn't know what to do with. They came in, they cleared 'em out. They cleaned it up, and now I have this beautiful view behind my house that was hidden before. 

‍Austin Gray:  Okay, so I have answered the first question. It's fire mitigation. Where do you guide me next? 

‍Brian Sooy:  So. If it's fire mitigation, and I'm a homeowner and I don't understand fire mitigation, how do you connect fire mitigation with on the ground problem they're trying to solve? Let's just say they've had some trees fall from heavy winter snow. How is that a problem for them and how do you identify that as a problem for them and position your company to solve that problem?

‍Austin Gray:  So where I think you're guiding me here is what is that specific service that you would actually offer that they would think to search for it? 

‍Brian Sooy:  Yeah. Think of it this way. So they have a problem, you have a solution. What's the solution? What does success look like when they buy that solution from you?

‍Austin Gray:  Okay, so I will brain dump here and then you stop me jump in and say, Hey, this is where we need to go. If you hear anything or just say, okay, let's scrap that and let's go somewhere else. Alright. So. What fire mitigation is, it's actually tree removal and and brush cleanup. And what success looks like is you have dead trees all across your property, and the solution we provide is a quick and efficient way to clean these trees up and remove them from your property for three reasons.

One, to reduce wildfire risk. Two. Better the forest health. Think of it like a garden, right? Like when you prune a garden, the other trees grow up or the other plants grow up stronger and healthier. And then three, the beautification perspective, like when we clean up your property, we leave it pristine. Like we are essentially like what differentiates us from a logger coming in is like a lot of logging companies will just come in and grab everything and tear everything up like. We take it the last step, like a landscaper would, we wanna leave the property looking like a park? 

‍Brian Sooy:  See, that to me, hits emotionally. Wow. What if my property could look like a park? We were just in Destin, Florida, and we were walking down the street a mile off the bay, and we looked left and there was this park, and immediately we were drawn into it. We wanted to walk through it, we wanted to explore it. We found Blue Heron Colony in the park and my wife didn't wanna leave.

I'm like, let's go for the walk. She's, no, I wanna stay and look at the herons. So imagine evoking that idea that now people are starting to associate with your company, that this company can come in and leave my property looking like a park. I had no idea my property could be so beautiful. So they hired you.

They do that. What are they gonna tell their friends? They're gonna invite all their friends over, come over and see what Bear Claw land restoration did. To our property just by clearing out these trees. Now I feel like I can go out and take a walk back there. We're gonna put a bench right here because when I sit at this bench I can look this way and see this view. But you see how that drew me in? Just that one idea. I'm thinking you could come and do the backyard. We've got a wetland. I don't know if they'd let you, but we look out now and there's like dozens of down trees that we can't do anything about '

‍Austin Gray:  cause of wetlands. Yeah, they're tough. We ran into that last year on a property like. Of course we have the machinery that can clean up these streams and everything and we know that we could make it look pristine. It's just, yeah. So permitting is like through Army Corps engineer. That's another rabbit hole. So you resonate with this property beautification. The wording was that we're gonna leave your property looking like a park. That seemed to be when I saw your eyes light up. So where do you direct me? From there, if I'm just starting this business out with blank, no brand, no name, nothing, like where do you push me from there? 

‍Brian Sooy:  In ideal world, here in Brian Topia, we say, Hey, instead of Bear Claw land restoration, we're gonna say we bear claw land beautification. One little word. What does that mean? First, it means we clear out the trees that create fire hazards. And can inhibit growth, safety, sustainability, and then we leave your property looking like a park. So beautification. So three words there, safety, sustainability, beautification. Those are three things then you can differentiate on and then just keeps speaking into, you can use that, like you said, loggers don't leave your land beautiful.

They may clear it, but they don't leave it beautiful. Another company may do this. And so you start to build this narrative messaging. So I call that a narrative brand around your business. And then from there you can start to build out your marketing messaging. You can start to build out maybe a tagline that expands on the beautification.

I'm just gonna go back to one of our clients. They do home services. They say we make your home safe, healthy, and comfortable. So. Safety with electricity, healthy with indoor air quality and comfortable hot water, cool and hot when you need it. Just coming up with something like that, and each of these elements then build upon the first one.

So I call it compound brand interest. One thing builds on the other, and then it's easier for you to communicate who you are, what you do, and why it'll matter to a homeowner or even a commercial business, or. Say you get hired by a giant forestry management company because they see that you've got this work that aligns with how they wanna preserve the environment and sustain the environment and create more beautiful parks and even hunting areas for people.

Austin Gray:  So let's start from scratch though. Take the Bear Claw name out of it. Take the brand, take all that stuff. It seems like you're pushing me to. Understand. Okay. What is that trigger word that triggers emotion or that phrase that triggers emotion within your customers? And we're both agreeing on it that it is property beautification or land beautification. We make your land cleaner safer and the forest healthier. I'm just throwing things out here. So like, is that where you start in your process and then work backwards into a name? 

Brian Sooy: A logo,  it can go either way. It doesn't have to be a linear process. Again, we tend to think linear because that's the way we look at things. If you were to come to me and say, Hey, I've got this name, bear Claw Land Services, I just ask questions, is that the right name? Based on what you're telling me, do you want to reconsider that name? So even if you didn't have a name, then we would start to talk about what it is. What is that category now?

Is there a name that can resonate not only with you and have meaning for you? 'cause as the founder, we want that name to be important to you because you, you're the one behind it. Think about companies, just think about any company that's a startup. Um, I'm thinking Palantir, which is a defense contractor.

They have this idea of seeing what's gonna be coming in the future. That's what the Palantir was from, I believe the Lord of the Ring series. It has a lot of meaning for them. They could have just named it like drone defense tech ink. It's boring. So I see you come up with that name and then you build the rationale into it. Okay. And so that's what you're starting to do. Bear clock can be perceived as violent maybe? Yeah. I'd really have to give some thought, thought to that one. 

Austin Gray:  Stryker Digital specializes in SEO services specifically for local service businesses. Bodie and Andy, the two co-founders, have helped me get BearClaw Land services to the number one search result on Google inside my state for my specific search term. If you wanna learn more. Visit strykerdigital.com. That's S-T-R-Y-K-E-R digital.com. I will tell you my thought process behind this. I played sports all growing up, right? And it's whatever logo you put on your helmet, it's like that's the one you, you're working for your teammates like every single day when you're, you're in the weight room, 5:00 AM.

Like whatever brand you're riding for essentially is the one that you're working for. And so like for this business, we need tough badass dudes. So my perspective on this was like, let's create a brand that's gonna attract that person who can go work in the forest all day long for eight to 10 hours a day, ripping chainsaws, throwing logs around, doing heavy equipment stuff, right?

A very masculine brand that's going to attract the right team members to get the work done. And yeah, that was a strategy behind that. I'm like, man, if I can create a brand that literally people are gonna be proud to wear a hat and a shirt that's gonna resonate with that, like hardworking guy who's gonna just go work in the forest all day.

'cause like that to me, attracting talent for this business in our location is the toughest piece about the business. So we have to check that first before we have a business. And so what I would say is like two, three years in, we've got a rockstar team of those people who are proud to put this shirt on and go to work every day.

And so that was the first piece of it. Now, the downside of it is the very forward, like masculine, almost like violent brand, right? But I don't think anybody's out there picking flowers, doing the kind of work that we're trying to do. And so. I think I'm trying to balance the two here. Like how do you create this image?

'cause like internally our core values, integrity, teamwork, efficiency, five star service excellence, right? Those are the things that we're committing to doing internally. We're pushing in our messaging that like we will deliver five star service and we're not done with the job until you're a hundred percent satisfied.

Brian Sooy:  So you could tie that, which I think that's a great idea, is taking those values and integrating those into your message, which again, the things you say to people are the things they're gonna remember, and they're the ones who are really gonna be creating your brand because they're gonna be telling the story to other people.

One of the groups I follow called Category Pirates, they say branding is something you do to customers, but category design or the service you offer is something you do for them. Just like. I always go back to think about branding a cow. You're just putting a mark on it. It's painful and it hurts. It's searing the skin.

Why do we wanna do that? Thinking about the other flip side of a bear is I think maba bear, you're gonna be fiercely protecting the land and fiercely protecting the value that they have in their land and property. So your brand has that attracted part to attract employees and retain them, but also that positive protective messaging to the consumer. Interesting. We're not gonna come in and care for it like a fierce mama bear would for her cubs. I love that. I'll look for it next week on your website. 

Austin Gray:  Okay. All right. Fiercely protecting Colorado's mountain properties. 

Brian Sooy:  There you go. There. Oh, that's beautiful. So think I saw something about. I think Texas on your X feed, 

Austin Gray:  That's a different business that I'm doing some consulting work with.

Brian Sooy:  Okay. But think about if you were to expand into another state, how easy it would be to then just switch out a couple words in there. Fiercely protecting Ohio's wetland properties. I, I'm just making it up. I can't, I say we have this little tiny wetland behind us that is just part of the development. So Yeah, I like that.

So. That becomes part then of this whole process, because then when you're starting to build this brand, you want to continue to attract this team of men who are unafraid to work with powerful equipment and be in the forest for 12 hours on your hiring pages, on your about UST pages. You can speak to that.

We're not looking for the mama bearers here, we're looking for the the protective father type bearers. Let's just think of it that way. But you know, your ideal preferred customer is that. The husband calling or the wife calling a lot of times. 'cause I think you have to look at that too and make sure your message is a little more tailored to who's making the call to you.

Who's got the concern? Uh, you know, we just had our garage floor coded, which was something I always wanted to do, but it was, my wife was like, oh, there's the guy in the booth. Let's talk to him because I really want this done. And now that it's done, guess what I'm doing this weekend after this call as I'm painting the garage, a warning to all men. And putting in new cabinets that we bought, so 

Austin Gray:  Oh geez. 

Brian Sooy:  But just, but just think about how that rolls. We could put up a gazebo back there now. 

Austin Gray:  Definitely. 

Brian Sooy:  I love how you took that then where we are going with that brand messaging, you just spur of the moment, came up with that tagline. Fiercely protecting Colorado's natural beauty again, that to me says a lot more than. Clearing trees or fire mitigation for Colorado's landowners just sounds a little stiff. Yeah, it's, it's aspirational and it appeals to the transformation I am looking for as a customer for my property. And I know even this protecting that means you're coming along not only coming alongside me, you're stepping front of me. You're protecting what I value most. And boy, you could straight to the land. It's, it can be patriotic. There's so many ways you could take that as well. 

Austin Gray:  Absolutely. This is incredible. I love how you've extracted that in one setting. Tell us more about the book, because I'm a hundred percent interested in, and I will be a buyer of this whenever it's ready to roll. Like what are we missing here that you cover in the book? 

Brian Sooy:  So my particular point of view is. And it's just, this is what drives me. And if it offends anybody, I apologize. But it's just that I believe the trades have a branding problem. I've been in this field for 30 years. I've owned the business for 30 years.

I've been in the field for 40. I'm certified as a brand architect. Meaning I went through a two year process of rethinking through what does brand look like, what does brand strategy look like? And so I look through this lens, but I also look through the fact this can be really complicated. And for someone in the trades, I just know a lot of owners, they just want something to be simple and practical.

So I've taken this idea of brand strategy, something that seems very lofty, that something like a Johnson and Johnson would use and just tried to simplify it to what I call the care framework. And that care framework is clarity for your business messaging and your brand alignment between your operations and how your customers wanna work with you.

Relevance, are you relevant? To those customers of what you do and what you offer, and then what's the experience going to be like for them working with you And just coming up with some very practical ways that you can implement that in your company at every level. And the reason I think through this way is because for all of our clients and the way that we work as an agency, we're in it at the revenue level.

'cause if it's not driving revenue. You're not profitable. You have a very expensive hobby, and we don't like to see that for anybody. So just laying out these four pillars of what a simple brand strategy can be and how, again, we just worked through this idea of clarity. I really think now you've got a little bit more clarity for how you could go to market with your message.

Austin Gray:  I do. Um, 

Brian Sooy:  how are you aligning with your customers then for service delivery? Because I've heard. Of home service companies just listening to calls and realizing they're missing some things just from the recording. So they adjust how they deliver their service. Um, are you relevant? 'cause a lot of companies say, I've got this great product, or I've got this great service, and they go to market and nothing happens because they haven't either come up with the right product or service or it isn't relevant to.

Let's make, let's go back to the truck wrap. Is the phone number big enough that somebody can read it? Is the phone number high enough on the truck so that people don't have to go like this over their dashboard to see do where they put it on the bottom of the truck. AI is really hot. Now, I'm sure you've seen this or even experimenting with it.

Is the AI who answers your phone after hours sounding like a robot, or are you hearing weird clicking in the background or does it sound natural? I mean, those little things put people off. You want to create an experience all the way through that when they get to the point, they're gonna leave a review. That review is awesome and that's, we all know from any type of service company that review, especially on Google, is golden. 

Austin Gray:  Absolutely. 

Brian Sooy:  So just what I'm trying to do is create this framework and this blue collar branding book, and I'm calling it Blue Collar Branding, A field proven framework to trans service companies into market leaders in any market, depending on the service.

There could be over a hundred companies per a hundred thousand people serving those areas, especially in the higher volume type service areas. So if you're not the market leader, you're, you're basically scrambling for less than 25% of the rest of the market. That's a statistic on category leaders. So how do you outmaneuver them?

How do you outperform them? Again, without breaking the bank? I'll have a few. Probably on a secondary website that people can get access to. Just here's some best practices that we've come up with for, I think what I call a three court approach to digital marketing. One being your foundation of your Google business profile and local SEO work that's organic.

You just continue to do that over time because it lays this foundation, but then. I see this all the time. People are saying just, oh, we're just gonna throw money at Meta and Google. That's just a great way to waste a lot of money unless you know what you're doing. So doing that wisely, doing that in a way that really makes sense.

And then layering on top of that on the digital side, perhaps something like programmatic or another channel like direct mail. And again, we know all of this has to scale differently. Your emphasis is on companies going from that zero point to a million. Well. You're not gonna have a ton of money to throw into all those channels then. And I know you've shared some of those things. Can you just remind me, like you, you had a while back, which I thought was excellent on here's, if I had a thousand dollars a month, here's what I would do. 

Austin Gray:  Mm. I thought through my response, and one of my friends, Bodhi, who is our SEO partner here, they've done an incredible job on our SEO with Stryker Digital. But he had asked, what do you do? With a thousand dollars and a bunch of people were like jumping in like Facebook ads, Facebook, this and that. I don't remember what everybody else was saying. And don't get me wrong, I run Facebook and Google ads and I take it very seriously. But I would never start there.

And I actually had somebody pay me for consulting, and this was frustrating. It really was because they wanted me to give them the magic answer to start a business. What they wanted to hear on that consulting call was like, you need to run this Facebook ad. And Facebook is, the algorithm is going to show you what business and what service you should do.

And in all reality, I'm a big fan of bootstrapping in the early days and doing whatever you can physically do with your time with the least expensive way possible to go get in front of customers. And this is exactly how I started my business. I just went. To the neighborhood that I knew that I wanted to provide services in.

I knew what their problem was already. They needed brush cleanup and tree removal because of this fire mitigation thing. It just went door to door and I just printed off flyers and people had this negative connotation with door to door. It's, oh, they're just sleazy salesman, whatever. I didn't need to go sell somebody right there.

When you're starting a business, if there's one thing that people hear from my podcast, if you're starting the only thing. That you need to focus on is getting your service in front of more people. Because in these home services, they're oftentimes such needed services that if you just focus on getting eyeballs on your service, there's gonna be somebody convert.

So rather than saying, Hey, I need to go sell one job today by knocking doors and handing out flyers, it's, I'm gonna go knock a hundred doors and hand out a hundred flyers. And there's no high pressure sales. It's literally not, Hey, my name's Austin. I'm just stopping by in the area. I offer tree removal. I saw that you have some dead wood here.

Any chance I could just clean it up while I'm here? I'll give you a great deal. And when you're starting out, people, all the finance bros on Twitter are like blasting people about pricing. I'm like, come on man. The dude is starting a business. Like your job as an entrepreneur is to be a deal maker. That's how you start a business.

Sorry, I'm getting fired up here. 'cause that post, but my point here is print off a hundred flyers, go knock on a hundred doors and just shake people's hands. And guess what? If they don't answer the door, leave the flyer on their doormat. Leave the flyer somewhere where they can see it. And if you do that a hundred times, I guarantee you, or if you have your phone number on there, put your cell phone on there.

I guarantee you somebody's gonna call. And if they don't, within a hundred, go do a hundred more. Do that until somebody calls you or until somebody answers the door and lets you clean up their brush. It's so simple and people overcomplicate it, but it's like not very many people want to actually do it because it's hard and it's uncomfortable.

But if you're willing to get uncomfortable, just like tie the stump guy, like that dude's cranking. He just hit a hundred K and he's a solo owner operator and he has a. Stomp grinder. Why? Because he picked up his phone and he called tree companies and he texts 40 of them every single week. There's a million different ways to skin the cat here, but my point is, get your brand in front of as many people as you can in the early days. Who cares if people tell you no, they're going to just get used to it. 

Brian Sooy:  Yep. That idea of overcomplicating you, if you spend enough time on X or on LinkedIn, it seems like brand can get overcomplicated, but really it comes down to. Making your name familiar so you can become famous. Nothing more complicated than that. And that simple truth came from, uh, somebody named Bob Hoffman, who's got this fantastic article called The Three Word Brief. And it's basically the three word brief was Make us famous. But when you think about it, the smaller your company is, the more familiar people need to be with it. And so. That's where, again, being consistent in how you present your brand, having a recognizable logo that creates a visual man having a truck that's recognizable different than everybody else's and not, it doesn't have to be over the top, it just has to be memorable because those are triggers that prime people to remember who you are, what you do, and why it matters.

And so that's where coming back to land beautification, protecting Colorado's land, I can't remember exactly what you said. And over time. You can close that value gap. You don't have to make as many deals because people start to associate the value of what you do with what you do. Ideally, over time, you're able to raise prices and that because of course, any, any service business, that should be our goal. From a business op perspective, I do have a chapter in the book talking about identifying your company's true value and how you can move from being that lowest price commodity. To something that people desire because of the value you provide? 

Austin Gray:  Absolutely, and I hope people don't take what I just said about making deals as the long-term plan. We absolutely try to be the highest priced company in the market doing what we do right now. And the reason being is because we believe that there's room for two, there's room for the best and there's room for the cheapest, and we wanna be the best. And so. We believe that there's a market who will always pay for the best quality service, and we're going to pay all of our guys the best rates.

We're gonna buy the best equipment, and we're going to deliver the best service that we absolutely can possibly do. And it's not about competing with other people, it's about competing with our own internal self. Every single day we can get a little bit better. And so if we commit to being the best that we can be, then that's going to merit.

And when you break down your overhead, like you just get to a certain price point where you're like, this is the price that it takes to operate this business. And people tell us all the time, oh wow, that's a lot higher than the other quotes we got. So yeah, it's 'cause you're gonna get a great service and you're gonna have a great team who's gonna be here when we say we're gonna be there, we're gonna do what we say we're gonna do, and we will not leave until you're ready to leave at a five star review. And that's the guarantee we give. 

Brian Sooy:  Yeah. That's great. And that reminds me that the review I left for the team that did our garage floor. Um, the owner showed up, we'd gotten to know him through the home show, but the team that showed up from the time they got here was, ma'am, I'm gonna explain to you. He's talking to my wife.

Ma'am, what's your name? Oh, miss Lisa. Miss Lisa. I'm gonna explain to you what we're gonna do. Hey, fight your husband over here, Mr. Brian, if we're gonna tell you what we're gonna do, what we're gonna do and explain everything. They were polite. They were. Yes sir. No sir. Which we see a lot down south, but up north in Ohio where we are.

It is rare and we are really impressed with that. And we told the owner, these guys were the most polite that we've ever seen. So think about brand from a hospitality standpoint and how you make people feel at the end of the day. My aunt, I believe it was Maya Angelou, said, people will forget what you said.

They'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you feel. And. I put that in my first book. 'cause when I was writing it was like, that is so critical. And then I've read a book called Unreasonable Hospitality, and that talks about just the experience people have. And it was about the world's best restaurant.

And they found at the end when they achieved number one, it was not about the food, it was about how people felt when they left. So think about this idea of hospitality in your service company and how you can make people feel. And they'll spread the word for you. That's the whole goal. You want your customers to be your sales force.

Austin Gray:  Absolutely. I love that saying. They will never forget what you do, but they'll always remember how you made them feel. 

Brian Sooy:  Exactly. 

Austin Gray:  That's great. Brian, I know we're over the hour mark here, but this has been so much fun. Thank you for sharing all of these insights. This is going to be an incredibly helpful episode for.

People who listen to this podcast, especially if they're just starting out, I wish I would've been able to talk to you before I started my brand. What you also gave me the confidence if you're two, three years into starting your business, I don't have to go change a million things, but making some little tweaks in our messaging could move mountains, no pun intended, with our customer.

Brian Sooy:  That's very true. And I'll tell you, after 30 years. I've done a reinvention about every eight years, and I'd say right now I'm into my fourth reinvention where we've gone from Really? Yes. We've gone from a generalist, we for about 15 years, specifically for the nonprofit sector. Then we narrowed that down to working on service businesses and now really tightly focused in on the home service sector because it's about specialization, it's about niching down.

But it's about understanding the audience and being able to know here are the problems that they have. And so I just continually tweak my message, refine it a little bit more, and I'm very confident in it now. And I just feel empowered. Even for me, I've taken my own medicine, I've drank my own Kool-Aid.

Austin Gray:  Is the Aspire brand going to change? 

Brian Sooy:  Fire's not going to change. The name's not gonna change, but the brand where we talk about that, we work with independent home service companies. Because we know that private equity is really working hard to basically crush them and some want to position their companies and grow it so they can sell. I work with a lot who want to stand out so they don't have to sell out. 

Austin Gray:  Absolutely. That's awesome. Okay, before we wrap this up, what is the best home service brand that comes to mind that you can give people an example to go look at? 

Brian Sooy:  Oh, that's a tough one. 

Austin Gray:  This episode is brought to you by dialed in bookkeeping. Ben and his team provide bookkeeping services, job costing reports, and accurate financial information for the home services industry. If you're looking to keep your books up to date, visit dialedinbookkeeping.com/ownr ops. When you use this specific landing page, you'll get your first three months, 50% off. 

Brian Sooy:  I've been watching Peterson Brothers. I believe they're out of Indiana. They're a home service company. I'm very proud of the work that I do with a company called Goj Home Services, and we've worked with them for a number of years. Great relationship with the owner. They're doing outstanding work, and it's just been a fantastic collaboration, I would say. And that's a lot of times the space we tend to be in is the homes, HVAC, electric plumbing. So Peterson Brothers is a model that we look at. Go Inc. Home Services is one we're actually getting to have an influence on, so I'm really proud of those two. 

Austin Gray:  Okay, cool. And Peterson Brothers, is that P-E-T-E-R-S-O-N?

Brian Sooy:  I believe so. 

Austin Gray:  And what are they? Hvac? 

Brian Sooy:  Yeah, I believe that they're full service. Um, essential home services. 

Austin Gray:  Okay

Brian Sooy:  Oh, but Peterson and, yeah, don't go to Peterson Brothers. 'cause you end up at a funeral home. Of course. I can't find it right now. 

Austin Gray:  We, we will find the link after this and, and if, yeah, whenever you find it, send it over here and we can add it in. Let's see. 

Brian Sooy:  And maybe I have the name wrong 'cause I'm not in their state. 

Austin Gray:  Alright, Brian, thanks so much for being on  OWNR OPS podcast. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with listeners before we wrap this up? 

Brian Sooy:  Yeah, thanks. I appreciate the time, Austin. I appreciate being able to share this and learn about Bearclaw. You've got a fantastic story too, and I'm excited to see what you do. People wanna get in touch with me, they can find me at Aspire, which is AESPIRE.com. And there's link to my current book on there. And again, blue collar branding's coming out, hopefully Q3. Um, and of course I'm on LinkedIn and on x where a lot of people are hanging out right now. So appreciate the time and I'm glad to have this conversation with you. 

Austin Gray:  Awesome. Thanks again for being on and listeners. Thanks for listening to another episode of the OWNR OPS podcast. We drop episodes every Friday, and we also send a weekly newsletter on Saturdays with a recap of the main learning lessons that people like Brian share in the episodes.

So if you haven't signed up for that newsletter yet, it's free. Just go to ownrops.com/newsletter. That's ownrops.com/newsletter. And we'll see you guys next week. Thanks again for tuning in listening. Don't forget, work hard. Do your best. Never settle for less.

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