Lighting for Profits - Episode 208

From hand-lettering trucks at 14 to leading the world’s most awarded home service branding agency, Dan Antonelli’s journey is proof that passion fuels success. In this LFP episode, discover how the President and Creative Director of KickCharge™ Creative has built over 2000 brands, authored four books, and revolutionized service business design—one logo and truck wrap at a time.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to Lighting for Profits. All Light. All Light. Powered by EmeryAllen

Welcome to Lighting for Profits.

All Light. All Light. All Light.

Powered by EmeryAllen. Here is your host, Ryan Lee.

Today we're talking about branding for your landscape lighting business

All right, all right. All Light. Welcome, welcome, welcome to the number one. It's the number one landscape lighting show in Washington, New Jersey. It's a miracle. It's happening. We're taking over the world. All those people in especially Washington, New Jersey love Lighting for profits. And we're going viral today, guys. We got the one, the only, Mr. Dan Antonelli with Kick Charge Creative. So excited for today's show. If you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, there's lots of different ways to do it. There's lots of things you need to do. But today we're going to talk about all things branding which when you guys hear me talk about business, it's like, here's my kind of stages. It's like number one, you need the right mindset and then number two, you need the right branding. Like this is pretty dang important stuff. So I'm excited to have Dan, with us and we're here to educate, we're here to motivate, to help you dominate and grow your lighting business to whatever you want it to be.

Landscape Lighting Secrets Secret Summit coming up September 25-27th

and before we have Dan on a couple, couple of reminders, couple announcements. Number one, Secret Summit coming up next month, September 25th through 27th. It's going to be in West Palm beach. And, and so I'm announcing this. If you are in Landscape Lighting Secrets and you have not registered, you need to get registered asap. we got discounted hotel room block, we got all the stuff, we're feeding you guys meals every day and we're ending the bash, the mastermind with a, a party at Greg Matthews, the 10 year anniversary of luxury illumination. It's going to be not just an event, it's going to be an experience. We got a live band, we got food, we got cigar roller guy, we got all sorts of stuff. We got a vendor fair that's happening. So there's gonna be manufacturers and lighting, service providers there. So we got, it's gonna be awesome. So it starts 4:00 clock on Saturday, but if you have any questions, just send me a message. But Secret summit coming up. Don't miss out. If you're in Landscape Lighting Secrets, it's pretty much mandatory. You have to be there. If you're not, you can join Landscape Lighting Secrets now and, and then, you know, join us and come hang out and party. or if you're a member of Lighting Academy. There's a couple different ways to make it to this year's event, so don't forget. and again, before we have. Dan. Dan, come on, I got one.

Alex Hermosi gave a webinar on marketing and sales last Saturday

One more thing to share. if you don't know who Alex Hermosi is, you probably do now. And if you didn't know until now, now I'm going to tell you who he is. So this last Saturday, he launched his new book, $100,000,000 Money Models. And, I knew if you're. If you follow Alex at all, or if you're in, like, the coaching space or anything like that, you know what a webinar is. I kind of knew what to expect. I knew it wasn't going to just be a book launch, because it's much more than that. I knew something, you know, I knew there would be an offer, I knew there'd be a webinar, knew there'd be an upsell and all that stuff. but here's what I want to share. this was. This was really, really cool as I, you know, I learned from him. and it wasn't so much about the pitch. It was the execution, it was the experience that he did. That to me was a masterclass on marketing, and sales, really. but before, before I share that, I want to share. Something that stuck out to me is, you know what? When he was teaching and the stuff he teaches in his books and, and in his classes and in his podcast and all this stuff, I was like, you know what? This is really cool because I was amazed how much it aligned with what we're teaching in Landscape Lighting Secrets and have been for the last five years. When you look at what he's teaching, think about what Hormozi's really teaching. It's how to raise your prices, it's how to get higher quality leads, how to make more profits, and how to close deals faster. And I'm like, those three things, like raise your price, high quality leads and close deals on the spot are. Or it's what Landscape Lighting Secret sits upon, right? And then there's all these little subcategories. We're gonna talk about branding today and how it supports these things, but those are the three main things, right? And so it. It actually was like kind of confirmation to me. I'm like, dude, this is awesome. Like, we're on the right track. And not to say that her mosey, he doesn't know who I am. He didn't learn anything from me. But it's like, this is Cool. These are, like, these are universal business principles that you need to scale any business in any industry. So that was. That was one thing that was really cool. But what I want to share with you is that here, here's what was interesting, and here, here's what I want you to try to take away and how you can model what he did and use this in your landscape lighting business. I mean, he spent $4 million on ads, and before the thing even started, I think he had already sold $6 million in books. So that was cool. I mean, he spent money to make money. But here's. Here's what was awesome. He has spent so much time the last few years building a brand, building an audience, building trust, right? And if you've ever seen him on YouTube or anything like that, you'll say, my name's Alex Hermosi. I have nothing to sell you. And people are like, oh, yeah, I don't have anything to sell me. huh? And they're, like, pissed because he has something to sell him after he's given, what, millions of dollars of advice over the last few years? Like, you can't. If you said that once, you can't ever have anything to sell anyone. I heard you say once on a webinar. but here's what I really appreciated about it. And, this is why I decided to buy his offer was because. And this is so genius, the way he did this, right? and there's haters, and that's fine, but he basically made a pitch, and he said, this is what you're going to get. I'm, giving you the thing, plus I'm giving you this BONUS that's worth 2,000. And I'm going to give you this bonus that's worth 8,000. And this bonus, conservatively, is worth 15,000. And I don't think anyone would disagree, that bonus was probably worth 15,000. And he says it's a $60,000 thing. And then, you know, the pitch is coming, and he's going to give you the thing. He says it's $10,000. Actually, it's not 10,000, it's 5,000. Actually, it's NOT 5,000, but it's a thousand. And he goes, actually, it's free. And he. And before he actually even made, his real offer, he gave everyone the feeling that they had already received $50,000, $10,000, 1,000. They had already received value in exchange for their time without pulling out their credit card, right? And then he decides to go, you know what? I'm not going to sell this offer. I'm not going to sell this course. I'm m not going to sell this stuff. He says, I just need you guys to help me. We're going to work together, we're going to change the world together. And I just need you to donate. If you can donate 200 books, which is $6,000, if you'll do that for me, I'll give you all this course and stuff for free. And which is awesome because everyone else in the world is pitching like, hey, buy a $6,000 course and I'll give you books and all that. Here's. But give me 6,000. And then on top of that, the bonus would be like, hey, we'll give away some books. And he, he did it. So genius. Because you'd are one. You already felt like you received more than $6,000 in value, so you're like, dude, I've already received more than 6,000. $6,000 in value. So just take my money. And plus, I'm helping people. Like, that feels good, right? So what can you learn from that? And by the way, I do have 200 books. If you guys, if you guys want a book, just hit me up, I'll send you the link. And I'm not going to take 200 books. I only need one. So I want to give them. Hm to you guys.

I encourage landscape lighting professionals to lead with value, not money

But again, I'm not, I'm not the hero here. I'm not. I didn't do it to be the nice guy. Like, yeah, I'll be a nice guy, give you guys 200 books. But I did it selfishly because I had already received a ton of value. I see some people posting and they're like, I have, I have some free books and I did this for you. I'm like, I didn't do this for you. I did this for me because I want to learn, I want to get better. Right? and also at the same time, I got this bonus where I can give away 200 books. So if you don't have or you don't even know who he is and you didn't get that offer, whatever, just, hit me up. I'll share the link online or whatever. you have to pay shipping and handling with it, which I think is 8 bucks or 10 bucks or something like that, but definitely, a worthwhile book to have. But anyway, I just want to share that with you because he didn't do what everyone else is doing. He didn't sell a course and then, you know, give the bonus away. As the books or whatever, he, he flipped the script, right? But also again, he gave so much value in advance. And in the landscape lighting world, people like, you know, should I charge for a demo? Should I charge for a design? I mean, you know, my time is worth a lot. And I'm like, no, your time is worth a lot. But like, what are you doing to give back to the world? Like if you follow even what I do, which is not a, not even close to what her mosey's doing, but like all I do is give value. Like, people will come up to me and be like, dude, your emails are awesome. Like I earned $10,000 from the one email I read of yours. Like, if you can give value, you're basically depositing all this goodwill into this relationship so that when you do ask for an offer, it's kind of a no brainer. Like, yeah, I've already made more than that in return. And that's what he did. That's what was so awesome about it, is he's been building this for years, this relationship with people so that when he asked for money and then when he, even before he asked for money again, he gave more value. He said, hey, by showing up live to this, this is what I'm gonna give you. You get this and this and this. It's worth tens of thousands of dollars and you get it for free. So you already felt like you were ahead. So what's an extra 6k? Like it was, it was, it was. He made it like a no brainer offer. So want to share that with you guys and encourage you to, you guys to lead with value. Okay? When you, when you stop thinking about money, that's just like a result of all these things that you do. When you stop thinking about money and thinking about like, how can you serve your client at the highest level, how can you show up, how can you over deliver and not think about like what's in it for me? That's when everything gets easy and there's still, you know, not everything. There's still a holes and there's still people that are difficult to work with and you still have to recruit and train. Like business is hard in general, right? But it gets easier, right? And just think about what way. And there's times where you get burned. I was talking to a client just yesterday and he's getting burned. Person's taking advantage of him and making him do all this work and he hasn't gotten paid for it. And like that happens. But like that's, that's rare. You know, there's a lot more good that happens in the world than evil. so lead with value and see if that changes your trajectory. See if that changes the results that you're getting. Don't get so focused on like, well if I'm going to go spend an hour with someone, I mean I'm worth at least $200 an hour. I think I'll charge $200. Like, well, what if you just went out there and met with them, you know, and didn't think about that and gave them a ton of value over delivered and then you can make that money back up on the install like when you actually go do the work, you know. So, it's a strategy that clearly worked for her. Mosey, I think, it's, it's hard to say how much money he made on Saturday, but at least 100 million. I mean he's, he had about 25, 000 offers that he was, he was trying to sell 25, 000 people a six thousand dollar offer, which is actually 150 million. That's outside of some of the other offers that he had. So who knows how much but it, it was a lot. So it's working for me. I, I didn't make, I've never made that close to that kind of money in a day or a year, a lifetime. But if I feel good, I feel like I'm doing the right thing, you know, and I, I measure my success on again, I've shared this before. Like I'm not competing against her, Mosey or anyone else. I'm just competing against myself. And I feel like I'm better than I was last year. So I feel like, I feel like I'm winning. So. All right guys, that's that for that. So report back. If you guys need a book, hit me up. You know what to do.

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Dan Antonelli talks about Alex's new book launch

I think it's time. I think it's time. I m know why you guys came here. Not to hear me talk about how I'm going to try to model her Moses thing and how, how you should do it, but you should take notes. You should do it. But I know you guys came here for Dan. So let's get the music going. What do you guys say? Welcome to the show, Mr. Dan Antonelli. What's up, Dan?

The music is out of control.

How are you?

A little bit.

Thanks for coming on the show, man. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Some good stuff you were just talking about with, Alex's new launch. Some crazy stuff. I mean, it's just amazing what he, what he put together for that book launch.

I. Unbelievable. I mean, I, I was like, you know what? We, I, I've got stuff planned with the family. We're taking our daughter to college and stuff. I was like, I should be done. It should be like 90 minutes, two hours. And like, I'm like, okay, it's still going. So I didn't catch all of it, but I caught enough of it to be like, holy cow, this is incredible. Yeah.

When I do my book launch, I'm going to try something similar. I'm going to try this. Get as many people to buy a few hundred copies and see if that, if that works. No, I'm just kidding.

Yeah, I'd be like, you know what? I'm gonna get people to donate 300. Why 200? Like, why stop at 200?

Exactly.

And that's the thing he did, you know, he talked about. He actually was practicing what he's preaching and the stuff that he's offering. He's like. Because then there was an upsell. You get that one. He's like, hey, you thought that was cool. What if you donated 800? And 800 is going to get you access to Me and my team and all this stuff. And it's like, if someone's going to pull the trigger on a, at that point, another 18 grand, $24,000 offer without a salesperson, they're kind of a, ah, qualified business owner with money and stuff like that. So now it's a little mastermind and it kind of makes sense. And you know, for someone in my position, I'm like, dude, I'll. I love buying offers like that. Some people are like, you know, are you going to do it? Is it a scam, dude? I'm like, dude, are you kidding me? Like, I've. I've almost never gotten scammed because, yeah, there's offers where I bought where I was, like, that wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be. But I always find the value. Like, I'm not going to get ripped off. Like, if someone said they were good, yeah, maybe it's not as good as they said, but I'll find the value where I can learn this new skill that helps me make a thousand a month the rest of my life. It's 12 grand a year. After 10 years, it's 120,000. Like, okay, 6,000. Big deal, you know?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thanks for coming back on the show.

Dan Antonelli runs branding and digital marketing company Kick Charge

for those that might, not know who Dan Antonelli, do us a quick snapshot of who you are and the work you do over at Kick Charge.

Sure, absolutely. So I run a branding and digital marketing company here in New Jersey. We have about 60 employees. This is actually our 30th year in business. So it's nice, my mind, that 30 years later, I'm still doing what I set out to do 30 years ago. so we, specialize in doing, home service branding. we have about 3,000 home service brands under our belt, at this point. we just actually made the Inc 5000, this year, which is kind of cool. I think we were number 2212. I wish it was 2112 because I'm a huge fan of Rush. if you guys are any fans of Rush, you'll know why 2112 is a significant number.

I don't.

2212, it's still pretty good. So I just got the number. I was like, oh, man, it was so close to 2112. That would have been pretty cool. So, yeah. So,

2212 on the Ink 5000.

Yeah, 2212. So, yeah, you know, just really blessed with an amazing team, blessed that I get to serve the trades. you know, I'm also, I. I always like to give thanks, as well to the fact that I'm still here to actually be around. I had some heart issues a couple years ago. Actually, I have it on my phone because I keep track of how many additional days I've been granted since my heart surgery. So I always try to keep the mindset of gratitude always front and center in my mind. So it is actually 1645 days since my heart surgery that saved my life. So I'm super grateful that I'm still hanging around and still building brands that change lives and, get. Get to live out my. Why still. So I always just really try to keep that mindset, in everything that I do, you know, so just really grateful to be here with you. Appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about my favorite topic, and, super blessed to still be around.

That's cool, man. Do you review that number every day or.

I have it almost as a screensaver. So, yeah, I do try to look at it every day because you could kind of sometimes forget, and you can get caught in the day, in the moment, and you can forget about sometimes when you think about things that you hear people say, oh, I have to do this, and I try to change that mindset and try to say, I get to do this. Because if you change that mindset, then you're realizing that you're lucky that you're still even here to get to do the thing that you're complaining about. Right? So let's change the focus and the mindset and try to think more about the fact that I shouldn't even be here to get to do the thing that, I'm a little aggravated that maybe I have to do, whether it's something I don't want to really want to do, but I'm like, well, I get to do it.

I love that. It's. It's easier said than done. Like, I tell them it reminds me of, like, conversations with my kids. My kids are like, oh, I have to. I have to go to church, or I have to give. Walk in church. And I tell them, no, you. We. We get to go to church.

Right? I'm,

Like, trust me, there's days I'm just telling you guys the truth. I don't want to go to church either. Like, I. I just want to sleep in. I want to be lazy. I get it. But, like, it truly is a blessing. There's people that would love, like, to have the opportunity to go to church. Like, some people don't even know that it's an opportunity. So, I'm glad you shared that because perspective is everything and, and sometimes we need those. I don't know that we need heart surgery, whatever, but, like, that's obviously had a huge impact on your life and probably changed the way you view relationships and work and all that stuff.

Complete game changer. You know, I, I have joked that, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Like, obviously not dying was a super cool part of that. But, even just as, as it relates to leadership and, and trusting the people that you have, and, it forced me to take a few steps backwards in the sense of recognizing that I had such an amazing leadership team here that I didn't need to be doing so many of the things that I was involving myself in. And I let them sort of do the things that I, should have been letting them do more often and just, was always just trying to maintain some of that control. And then I realized when you don't have control and you let people step up, that the really good ones rise to that occasion. and so it's, it's, it's helped me because I'm, I'm so less involved in day to day, which I hated also to begin with. Right. So it was, it was good and I got myself in a much better place to focus on the things that I truly love about what we do here, you know, So I think it was a really great experience and I'm just, like I said, just super grateful. And for me, it was like, it was actually a second opinion that saved my life, you know, so the first doctor had told me I was fine and, wow, if I had listened to that guy, like, I definitely would not be here today. So, a lot of things to be blessed with and, you know, again, just, just happy to be here.

There's probably people listening like, hey, I, I, I know what he's talking about. I want to get out of the day today. I don't like this. They're probably praying for heart surgery right now.

There's other ways you can do it, that are a little less traumatic, probably. But, you know, again, I have such great people and always trying to hire people smarter than me, and that threshold may be kind of low, but just making sure I've, got really good people and then letting them do the task and just letting them execute and not trying to get in their space. and I think when you do that, ultimately you really see people rise up and take on more responsibility and enjoy taking on more responsibility ability. So I think over the last several years especially I've been more visionary based, which is where I like to be and just more like, hey, I've got this idea guys. I don't care how you guys do it, just make it happen and then just let them run with it and, and sketch out the broad strokes of what I'm trying to accomplish or what I think we need to accomplish and then let them run with it. And that's, that's been so much of a shift. and again, just mindset change, that happened subsequently.

So, so yeah, I mean, I've heard people say like, you know, the best way to learn is from your mistakes, but I, I, I actually feel like the faster way is to learn from other people's mistakes and like, you don't have to get, have heart surgery, you don't have to do this stuff. Like, you, you've, you're obviously very talented. you have passion, you have everything it takes to be successful in what you're doing. But I, I mean, I've only known you for a few years, but just from an outside perspective, you see what's happening and like, I'm like, wow, like, Dan, you're like, even though we're not here to talk leadership and like scaling the business, stuff like that, but you're a really good example of, of, of that, you know, and you're obviously doing things the right way. And I think a lot of that is getting out of your own way and like, hey, this is the trajectory, this is the vision. You guys like, make it happen and letting other people's light shine, so to say, you know, so that's really cool.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you.

Where did the branding bug come from? Um, I know you

well, where did the branding bug come from? I know you used you, you did like pinstriping and stuff like that, but when did you like, go? You know what? Branding is my lane. Like this is, I'm gonna be the home service branding guy.

Well, I mean, I, I, I hand lettered my first home service business, their van when I was probably, I think 16 years old. so I just really enjoyed. First of all, I think there was something about the idea of seeing my work in public, right. So I would let her this van and then I would see it driving by and there's a sense of pride that goes along with it, I'm sure, for the landscape. Guys, when they drive through a neighborhood at night that they did the lighting on and they point to it and there's a sense of pride that comes with that. and so I was fortunate to get a job working in a sign shop. And we were basically working with 75% contractors and then probably 25% were retail clients, you know, for signage, for a retail location. So we did a ton of lettering and I just always enjoyed working with contractors. And then seeing the work out in the, in the public was just always a sense of pride that ah, I would get when I would see my work out there. and I wanted to be a sign painter, as my full time career. You know, I was, this is probably in 1987 or so I would say. I was 17 years old. my parents thought it probably a better idea for me to go to college. and I did go to college and I studied advertising and I studied communications. And that experience, also was super helpful for me to learn more about the psychology behind branding, behind color theory, behind composition, layout, design. So a lot of those things, were really important in the journey. and I don't know that I get to where we are today without that experience. And even while I was in college, I actually had a side hustle. I was painting all the signs for the university's events. So every single event is my first sort of real entrepreneurial journey. And they were paying me, I think it was $30 for every sign that I painted. So I would paint it and then Friday the event would be, and then Saturday I would take the sign down, paint over it and then do another one for next week. Right. So I was making money, I was hustling. And I think I've always had that mindset to be kind of hustling. and then I graduated, I went to, I went and worked in New York City as a graphic designer, but I missed working with the contractors. So I launched the business as a side hustle the way so many entrepreneurs do, working, nights and weekends. and then eventually, you know, my wife and I talked about it, we thought we had enough work for me to quit my day job. and then I never looked back, you know. So that was 30 years ago is when I went full, full time. so it's, it's been a crazy journey. And then to sort of just think that the intent that I had when I started was I always thought if a business could go to one person and get all their marketing from them, that would be so convenient for that, ah, small business. And not only that, everything would match. Right? So the way website would match, the truck would match their business. Cards would match, their brochures would match, and. And that concept is literally what we do today. So it's just kind of crazy that this idea that I had 30 years ago is exactly what we do today. Like, we coordinate every aspect of your marketing. And, it just, you know, like I said, just still kind of blows my mind that this, what I'm still doing, you get to do this, but Now I got 60 people behind me helping me with Instagram, so it's just kind of wild.

It's a dream, man. You're living the dream. You get to do it.

There are similarities between lighting and branding, Dan says

you probably have never thought about this, but there's a lot of similarities between lighting and branding. I absolutely love how passionate you are, how nerdy you are about branding and all this stuff. And when you, you. You've met some of the people in the lighting community now, like, they're so passionate and hardcore. It's like you can't understand, like, when someone is so ignorant. Like, what do you mean? You don't know what good lighting design and layering and all this stuff, right? And I feel like that's how you are with, like, branding. It's like, what? Like, I don't.

I don't understand.

Right? But here's the thing with lighting, any lighting is better than no lighting. Like, a homeowner who has no light on their house, they go hire anybody and just put out some lights and like, oh, it's beautiful. And it's not beautiful, but they think it's beautiful. Like, it actually sucks. But they're like, oh, my gosh, this is so nice. We get to drive up to this, right? And then you get the, like, passionate people like me and stuff like that, or clients, and they're like, that's. I can't believe you wasted your money. And I feel like that that's how you are with branding. Like, I used to be a guy before I met you, and I don't know if you know this. I own a vehicle wrap shop in, in Texas. So we have graphic designers that put out probably terrible work. Okay, if you can help me sign them up for a class or whatever. But, I thought it was good. Like, we had a van wrapped and we got calls, and we attributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to our truck wrap. So it's like, any branding is better, is kind of the same thing as lighting. Like, what do you mean? That's bad branding, Dan? Like, I get calls. I made money. I spent $6,000 on a wrap, and I've made hundreds of thousands. Like, who are you to tell me that it's not good, right? Is that, that's a pretty rapid, problem in the home service industry, isn't it? Everyone kind of feel like they know what good branding is already.

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting thing. It's the same thing you described. Like you could look at a house that's lit up with some Home Depot stuff and you'd be like, oh my God, like, look what they did here. Like, that's not pointing in the right direction. There's, you know, there's so many things that you as a professional can, see. And so on one hand, in my perspective, it's like a blessing and a curse because I can't help but analyze literally everything that I come in contact with. So, you know, driving with my wife on a long drive and it becomes an exercise of let's spot the awful truck wrap, as quickly as possible and identify all the things wrong with it. So, I think that passion though, like you describe, you know, and I think that, you know, the landscape lighting is an interesting vertical because it's, it's one that I consider to be more closely related to an art form form than something like H vac or plumbing. Now there's an art to some of that, to a certain degree, but what you're doing is artistic and how you build interest on a home with lighting is artistic. Right. So I don't think people get into landscape lighting, without having that passion for doing something that looks beautiful. Like that's why they do it. Like, I'm sure, obviously there's a financial aspect to it, it. But I, I would, I would suspect if you ask most people, it'd be like, because I really am passionate about what I do. Right?

It's like it's a hundred percent because most of them, most of it's not financial. They're all, they're all operating a non profit. They're not doing it for the money. They're doing it because they freaking love it.

And, and to your point on that, even like when I first started, it wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this because I think I'm gonna make a ton of money. It was like, no, I'm going to do this because I love this. I, think the shift for me came when my wife was pregnant with twins and wasn't working any longer, where suddenly I was like, okay, can I still like, make some money while still loving what I do? and So I had to kind of change a little bit of that mindset and just look at it a little bit from a business perspective. Instead of just being happy, I was doing something I love. Why can't you be happy but still make, you know, a living doing it? so I, I think that there's, there's something to be said about, you know, chasing that passion and then I think the money will follow, eventually.

Yeah, absolutely.

A brand is the sum of all the things that comprise the logo

let's, let's talk about what makes a good brand. you know, when I had my lighting business, we had our logo. what's the difference between a brand and a logo? First off?

So a brand is the sum of all the things that comprise the logo and other things like voice story M. The integration of the logo on all these channels is actually what the brand is. And then the brand is also just the personification of who you are as a company. So what do people say about. Your company is also a part of what a brand really is, but where people kind of get things messed up a little bit is if the logo itself is not built correctly, then the brand is very difficult to have in a functioning manner, working correctly. So I always use the analogy that, ah, a brand is like a wheel, and in the center of that wheel is your logo. And if that logo or that hub of that wheel is not displayed, designed correctly, it will be very difficult to get that wheel to spin properly. Now you can get it to spin, but typically what's required to get it to spin is more effort or more money. So the ideal is have a perfect center and then your spokes, which build that wheel, like your channels, your. All your marketing channels, your digital, your social media, all those, your truck wraps, all those things, will make that wheel a lot smoother to turn if the hub is done correctly. So it's almost impossible to build a great brand with a poor logo.

I love that.

Yeah, but it's just going to take more time, effort, money to, to make that happen.

I've, I've actually seen that because people will come in our group and say, hey, before I hit print on this wrap, what do you guys think? And I'm like, I think you got to redo your logo.

Yeah.

I mean, the other elements on it aren't bad. I mean, there's, you know, some suggestions, but like, everything's hinged around that and that's kind of bad.

And that's what happens sometimes too is people like, hey, I love my logo. Can you do a truck wrap with this logo, and 99 of the times I can't. I, I can't take money, first of all, for something I know is destined to not deliver an roi. So I'd rather not take any money from it and just say, listen, if you love your logo and you don't want to change it, like, that's cool, and I completely respect that. But I don't add enough value to this equation to take money from you to deliver something I know can't function properly and will deliver a marginalized roi. So that foundation is so important. If you, if you get that part right, everything else is going to function better.

How often are you met with resistance from business owners where it's like, oh, no, I have to keep the name. Everyone knows the name in the city that I'm in. My grandfather founded the. Whatever, you know, or, or, yeah, no, these are our colors, or these are this. No, we have to stick with this.

What, whether I, I. Yeah, I think most of the people that are coming to us already know that they have a problem.

Okay.

You know, so I would say, the vast majority already know. For the other people, again, you just do your best to educate them on why what they have currently is actually hurting them and not going to move the needle in a significant manner.

Naming is probably one of the biggest challenges most home service companies face

So naming is a big one. You mentioned that earlier. So naming is probably one of the biggest challenge that most home, service companies have is they're named incorrectly, they're named after themselves, they're named after initials, which are the absolute worst things to ever name your. Your business. Like JK Landscape Lighting, you know, awful, horrible, no one will ever remember it. you know, so helping people understand why and the psychology behind why that will never work is just part of the process. Like, I always just recommend people, hey, listen, like, even if you don't ever hire me, and I'm not trying to sell a book here, because I make like $3 on each book, so it's not about that. But I just say, buy my book, read it. So you understand, no matter who you hire, what it is that this brand is supposed to do and how it's supposed to function.

I love it.

Five Mile Famous is the notion of branding your business on the street

you talk about five, Mile Famous. What, what does that mean? And how. How does, how does that work?

Yeah, so, so five Mile Famous is just the notion of what would happen if everyone within five miles of your location knew who you were and what you did. What would that mean for your business? Right. So people think about, you know, buying keywords for different search terms. Like, I Want to be number one for landscape lighting company near me. Okay, great objective, right? But what's it going to cost for that click for us to be number one, assuming that we can't get there organically from day one. Right. So what are we going to pay for each one of those leads? What is our customer acquisition cost truly? But what if somebody typed in the name of your company and still instead, aren't you going to show up number one for that without having to pay or pay a lot for that particular search term? So the notion of branding is just really revolving around how do I live in someone's mind rent free, how do I have them think of me first when they need my service? and what are the techniques that we can use to make your brand more memorable and more sticky so that again, when they think about getting this service? Because obviously you're driving and you're driving a branded vehicle. Not everyone at that given moment that sees your vehicle needs landscape lighting. Right. Maybe only a small percentage are even thinking about landscape lighting. But what if it was four months later or six months later and you're like, you know what? I really want to get some landscape lighting. Remember that cool truck I saw that had that really cool image? What was the name of that company? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. And they type in the name of the company at that point. That's what we talk about certainly in the book a lot more, is just how do we win on the street? Like, how do we get our brand so that people remember it when they need our service? And so you can become less dependent on Google to deliver that lead to you. I would rather them know your name and be able to just simply go in Google and type it rather than pay for that lead. Of course anybody would want that.

That's true. And even if they didn't remember, maybe they only saw it once. Maybe if you're on a service plan and you're in that neighborhood a lot, they're going to remember it. Remember it. But if it's just one time, it's still going to be recalled once they do type it in. If they put outdoor lighting near me, then you're, you're almost guaranteeing that you are going to get that opportunity instead.

Of like, and so again, those impressions of, I saw the truck, I saw the sight sign, I saw it on my neighbor's driveway. and then when they do a search, and even if they didn't search for that particular brand name, but then they see the name and they remember having seen it. That trust is established because they've seen it in the community. They already know this brand name exists. So the conversion rates on a branded company name are much better because they've heard of you before, and the more they hear about you, the higher the likelihood that they trust you and that they think you're reputable. All those other things, the other thing too, that's, that's really important.

The second edition of your book talks more about branding and data

and this is why, you know, the second edition of the book that I just finished talk so much more about data. So that was the really important thing. I love my first book. I think it's. It was a great, it still is a great book. but since it was published three years ago, I, I started compiling data. Right. Because who cares how pretty the truck wrap is if it doesn't translate into actual a measurable return on ad spend. Right. So. So looking at the data as far as how does good brightness branding affect KPIs? And some of those KPIs might be average tickets, booking rates, close rates, things like that. Right. So. So looking at the before and the afters of those metrics to Judge, why would Mrs. Jones want to pay more for my service versus someone else's? Well, does the brand communicate that there's a reason to pay a premium for your service? Right. So. So, so much more data went into the, the second edition of the book where I talk a lot about the results post rebrand and compare, like, even with name changes. Like, some of the name change data was really striking for me, even just to see because, you know, names like. There was one. One example in the book is talking about a plumbing company that used to be called economy Plumbing. And they literally, like, as soon as we rename them, like, average tickets went up by so much, close rates went up, booking rates went up. And basically they, they were doing 30, I think it was 30 service calls a day and they were getting an additional $200 per service call. Wow. You do the math on that. It was like another one and a half million dollars in revenue just on that one change alone. They didn't change anything operationally. So, you know, there's so much data behind the fact of how critical the brand is. Not just in low and marketing spends, but just what it does to the consumer and the psychology behind purchasing decisions.

Yeah. So it allows you to raise your price, allows you to get more leads.

Yeah.

All of a sudden you raise your price by 200 at ticket. What does that do at the end of the year? And that's, it doesn't cost you, there's no resources, it doesn't cost you any more overhead. It's literally just pure profit at that point.

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you see, I think the interesting thing even as, as far, especially in the landscape, lighting world, is you have companies that do a great service. Like, you could look at their body of work on their portfolio or on their website and you'd be like, holy. Like, these guys are the shit. Like they're amazing. But then you look at the branding that they have and one doesn't match the other. So the reality of what the brand communicates doesn't match the reality of the service that they actually, actually provide. So the, the whole key to branding is to get those two things in harmony with one another. Right. Because the consumer wants to believe that the service is going to be amazing. I've got to demonstrate that even before I ring the doorbell. Because if I can demonstrate before you get to ring the doorbell that we're the best at what we do, then my expectations are already high. And along with those high expectations is the, the idea that I'm expecting you to be more than H and K landscape lighting with the shitty truck. The weak website guys aren't in uniform. Like all those other things all go to the psychology behind why the homeowner believes there's a reason to pay a premium for the service.

Yeah, I mean it. That's why, that's why I love what you do. That's why I love branding. Because our landscape lighting secrets is founded on the three things. charge a premium price, high, quality leads, close deals on the spot. And it's you almost. You just can't do that with a crappy brand. Yeah, but you do it with, you have the right brand. It's not that hard. Some people are like, I don't know. I said that I'm doing what everyone else is telling me to do. I'm like, look at your brand. I mean, it's really hard to do that if you have a weak brand. When it, when you have a strong brand, those things just fall into place. It just makes it so much easier.

Yeah, absolutely.

I know, I know. One of the things you mentioned it, that landscape lighting people, they're artists, okay? They're like all artists. They've got a little business owner in them, but mostly they're, they're that artist side of their brain and so they struggle going, ah, man, you have, you have. I don't, I'm not an AC company. I'M not H Vac, I'm not electrical. Like, I don't want. I don't want my brand to look like that. I want to appeal to someone else's higher audience. How do you. How do you overcome, or, how do we overcome that? Because the data is interesting. I would tell people all day long, like, would you rather, like, look at it, look the way you want and make less money, or just lean in and trust this expert who actually has data behind what it will do to your business? Maybe it's not what you would do, but it's what the expert would do. It's similar to when we go and do lighting designs. We have customers all the time. They're like, put a light here, put a light here. I'm like, you're not the designer here. Like, go inside, I'll tell you where we're going to put lights.

Yeah.

Ryan: Too many owners get hung up on their own brand

And I think two things on that point is, you know, do you build a brand that the owner likes, or do you build a brand that Mrs. Jones likes? Because they're two distinct audiences. So I think too many owners get hung up on, oh, my God, I need to love my own brand. And a. Of course I want you to like your brand. I mean, that would be foolish to say otherwise, but my primary objective is not to make you happy with the branding, it's to make her happy with the branding. And I can guarantee you, if she's happy with the branding and you start seeing what that does to revenue, you're going to become quite happy with the brand. And, you know, and the other interesting thing too, Ryan, is so much of the. So much of the information are right there at their disposal. So the data is telling the story of what is actually working and what is actually not working. So when you have high acquisition costs, when your PPC costs are through the roof, you know, when you look at your average tickets and your booking rates and your close rates and those numbers are poor, there's a lot of issues that could be pointing to that, whether it's just bad CSR that can't answer the phone, bad salesmen that can't close, like, things like that. But sometimes it's pointing to the brand, especially the high marketing costs. So when you look at shitty conversion rates on your website, why. Why are they so bad? Like, why. Why am I not converting so many people that come to the website? Like, I paid for the click, but they didn't fill out a contact form. Well, they've never heard of me. My brand looks weak, doesn't look like a company that is instilling trust. I'm already worried about contractors in general, and you're not helping me by having a brand that looks like chat GPT made it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, so, so, so much information is at your disposal, and you have to look at the numbers to truly understand how to interpret it. Or, yeah, you can talk to an expert, and I'm sure they can. They can also figure out what's not working and why it's not working.

Yeah, well said. I think, I think it might be changing a little bit, but I still feel like a lot of small business owners kind of wear, like, if they just operate their business on word of mouth, it's like a badge of honor. Like, oh, man, I've been around 12 years, never done a day of advertising. I never, you know, don't need. I don't need no truck rep, whatever. But what they don't realize is, like, they don't understand how it works. Like, word of mouth is like me saying, hey, you should check out Dan Antonelli. Oh, yeah, what's his number? I'll give you the number. But they're probably, mostly. Sometimes they just call. Right. But sometimes, like, what's. What's the name of the company? They're going to Google it and they're going to check you out, and there's. They're missing out on opportunities because it's their branding, their website, all the stuff is off. They're missing out on those. You know, we work on referral opportunities just because it's not all in place.

Yeah, but imagine they had the amazing brand. Imagine they roll, up on the driveway with this great impression, first impression they've made to me. Mrs. Jones, what do you think the effect's going to be on their average tickets and their close rates and their book rate, so they can still rely on word of mouth. But why not control the narrative about what's been saying, what's been been spoken about your brand? Like, control that narrative. Like, you have to understand that, again, everything that the brand is doing is trying to control what she believes about your company. Why not. Why not control that narrative instead of letting her control that narrative?

Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Antonelli has a new segment called quick hit Controversials

All right, I want to do, we started a new segment called quick hit Controversials. Are you. Are you down to play?

Yeah, let's go.

Just quick, rapid fire lightning, round with Dan Antonelli.

Okay.

All right. This will be good. I think I know what you're gonna say, but you never know. All, right.

Which contractor with bad branding is more dangerous than good service

Here we go. Which, is more dangerous? Oh, wait, I'm already screwing this up. Do you believe most contractors can't even tell the difference between good branding and bad branding 100%? Which is more dangerous, A contractor with a terrible brand but elite service or one with elite branding but terrible service?

Oh, that's a, that's a tough one. I think the latter is more dangerous because they're going to show up and the expectations are mismanaged already. Whereas the other way around, I can build up expectations as I'm working, even though the original expectations were super low.

All right, that one's tough because, yeah, I, I think it might be dangerous when someone has, like, this awesome brand, but then they do suck at the follow through.

It's like you set this great expectation, you ruined it.

An advertising agency shouldn't even work with a business if the branding is poor

All right, agree or disagree? An advertising agency shouldn't even work with a business if the branding is poor.

I agree.

Agree is the future of branding. But by the way, follow up to that. I agree or disagree. Most agencies don't care.

Most agencies do not care. We say no so frequently.

Yeah, most will just click on client. Give me 1500amonth, I'll run your ads.

Yeah, and I, and I think that there's something wrong with that model. and I think if they were being honest, they would bring that up as a, as a, as an issue. And, and just. Because the other thing, too is you're pissed off at the digital marketing company when they don't deliver any results and they're like, well, we're doing the best we can with your shitty brand. Yeah. But they don't have that conversation up front. So. Yeah, I get that.

I love it. Is the future of branding going to be decided by AI tools, which will make designers irrelevant?

So, you know, it's, it's, it's really an interesting question. Right? So people like, oh, my God, like, what is AI going to do to a business like yours? And, And I think there's so many challenges with it. There's trademark issues with AI, so you can't trademark an AI generated brand. Right. So if you're trying to own your own intellectual property, that's, That's a big problem. there's also just so many telltale signs on an AI generated brand. So when you try to think about branding and having a level of authenticity, I don't think you can really pull that off from an AI perspective. but it's really kind of funny because you just look at some of the things that it spits out that People are using and you know, it's so painfully obvious. so, you know, I get it if it's the only thing you can do and if you can't afford board like to hire a professional or whatever, you gotta just use something to get by. It's probably better than Fiverr or, or crowdsourcing honestly. but just know the limitations of what it can and can't do and it's a lot of stuff we've seen with it too that just optically don't. Doesn't make any sense, honestly.

Yeah, no, great answer. I, I think, yeah, it's like, okay, if it's your side gig trying to get something off the ground, yeah, at some point you're gonna have to play in the big leagues, but yeah, it makes sense. there's a difference between modeling what works and copying someone else's idea. True or false?

Yeah, 100% true. Yeah.

which wins more customers? A well wrapped truck or 200 five star Google reviews?

that's a tough one because it's harder to get the 200 five star reviews without having a mechanism to get the leads in the first place. so yeah, that's, that's a hard one to answer. I don't think that can be answered.

Oh, you have to pick one.

I'll, I'll go with the truck being more important.

That's, that's what one I would choose too.

Yeah.

But Ryan, Ryan reading is probably gonna be mad at you now.

You know what I mean? I gotta, I gotta get you to the site first. Otherwise my reviews are irrelevant. Like, so I can have a thousand five star reviews. If you don't know I exist, what good is it all?

right.

Should branding ever be designed to intentionally polarize and repel certain customers

Should branding ever be designed to intentionally polarize and repel certain customers?

no. So I'm not a fan of any brand that elicits any type of either controversy or is done in a fashion that is meant to elicit that type of response. And people will argue and say, well, any publicity is, is good publicity. and I just look at it as like, listen, I, I want as many people to like our brand as possible and I would rather have more people like it for the right reasons than, than more people hate it for, for their reasons, their own reasons, if that makes sense.

So you might not like my Facebook advertising idea, which no one's taken me up on this, but I want to start a lighting business just so I can do this campaign. And I might just do the campaign and if I get leads, I'll give them to people. And, all. It's just gonna be a really nice picture of a property and it's gonna say, we can please your wife every single night.

That's just more. Yeah, I mean, I, I don't know that that's what I had in mind when you asked the question. As far as being polarizing. No, I think there's a sense of, of, you know, that's playing along the lines of being provocative in the ad itself.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I think there's a difference. Like we, we. I'll give you a real quick story. We did a brand for of years, a couple company called Garage Door Doctors. And the billboard headline that we did for one of their ads was, having trouble getting it to go up. Call the doctors is. What is the, the punchline Call the doctors. so, like, you could say, oh, well, that's really edgy because, you know, sounds like erectile dysfunction kind of thing. But, you know, I, I.

You can.

Go both ways to a certain extent. I think you just got to tread carefully, that's all.

Got it. Well, yeah, and I forgot to tell you, I was going to be. When I do that ad, the name of the brand I'm going to have you build is called Peak Outdoor Lighting.

Okay.

It's already planned out. We just haven't built it yet.

Okay.

safer to cut ad spend or safer to delay rebranding?

Safer to cut. Safer to delay rebranding. I would always say delay rebranding. I mean, you have to be ready for it. and if it means that we, we're cutting a little bit to try to save up to do it correctly, I would say that that's the, that's, that's an okay strategy. I would say lean on the other things that you can do that don't cost money for Legion. So like, or cost very little money. Email marketing, social media, like some of those channels where it's not going to be as costly. So maybe you could save that money to try to work towards that goal.

I love that. I mean, that's the thing. There's so many different ways, like, I'll go knock doors. You can go knock doors and sell outdoor lighting and make money. And now you have Vegas. Now you have money that didn't exist before.

Yeah.

To now reinvest into, like, hey, let's, let's make this branding thing a real play here.

Yeah.

Which matters more, consistency or creativity? Um. Wow. That's a hard one. I would say. Creativity. Okay. So you

All right, last one. Which matters more, consistency or creativity?

They both really matter. That's a hard one.

Quick hit controversials.

I would say. I mean, in my instance, created creativity is more important.

Creativity. Wow. Okay. So you don't want people to be consistent. That's what I heard. Okay.

Because if you're not creative, it won't matter how consistent you are in my business.

I love it. Love it. All right, well, thanks for playing. Quick, hit controversial, Zan. Thank you.

You won even if you didn't play, right? It's in the mail

Do I win a prize? Did I. Anything? Nothing.

Yeah, yeah, well, we. It's in the mail. It's in the mail. You. You won even if you didn't play.

So.

no, it's. It's just kind of fun to, you know, go up, go spin off a little bit.

We'll talk about truck wraps and what makes a good truck wrap

all right, so maybe what we'll do, we just have a few minutes. I wanted you to just share because I think. I don't think people know the difference between a good brand and a bad brand and a truck wrap and what makes that good. There's. Can we just maybe close. We'll just close by talking truck wraps. there's, like, you. You've said it so many times, like, don't put bullet points, but they're still putting bullet points. there's good questions. I think it's a good question, like, should I have my phone number on there? And. And should I have my website? And what about a QR code? I know those are popular. Do you want to m. Do you want to share your screen? Do you want to do that? Or do you want to just talk through it?

That's cool. Maybe I'll walk you through, like, the before and after for. For, the brand we did for Mike Long for,

Okay.

His previous company was Mike's Landscape Lighting. So this is his previous brand. it's the best picture of his van that I could find from his old one. but you can see, even just looking at this that, ah, there's some challenges even with legibility. So it's very difficult even just to read the word. Mike's Landscape Lighting, because it's yellow on white, so poor contrast there. and, you know, the space is not really well optimized. It's also using a photograph, which we tend to not want to see on truck wraps themselves.

Why is that? Why don't you want photographs? Because I know, like, again, we're artists.

Yeah.

We're proud of our work. We think people don't get it, but once they see it, they'll get it very visual in our industry.

Yeah. And that's a great question. People like, oh, but I want to show My work. and that's great. Like, I understand the reason why you want to show your work, but the problem is it comes at the expense of your own brand. So, yes, I can see that you do landscape lighting, but now because of spacing and because of the real estate that's available now, I marginalize the ability for you to know who actually did the work. Right. So I would rather just slam your name super large, and have the brand do the talking rather than relying on photographs to do the talking. And they tend to get dated. They tend to just feel a little bit stale after a while. And photographs themselves do not represent a brand. They just represent what you actually do. It's the same reason why we don't want to see condenser units on the side of H VAC trucks. Okay, so that's a condenser unit. great. Now I know you do heating and air conditioning. What was the name of your company? Well, the condenser unit took up two thirds of the available space, and your name is now marginalized because of that. So just trying to look at it from that perspective, it's not usually something we want to try to focus on. As far as that driving website.

It's not that it's bad. I mean, it's still. It's like, oh, that's cool. I can see what you do. But now you're potentially creating a lead for someone else.

Could. Could be as well. Yeah. Oh, my God. That's what landscape lighting is. Yeah, yeah, 100%. So this is the, this is the before and, you know, again, Mike wanted to really communicate, a bigger sense of who the company was than just Mike. Right. So any, any last name brands, names with first names, names with initials. The homeowner just tends to think it's one guy. Right. So it's hard to communicate a, ah, sense of a larger company, more professional, more people, more team. Right. So we rename them, Light Quest. This is actually from their Facebook page. So you can see the way that their trucks look after they all got, branded. And then this was actually the, the, one of their trailers that they had done. And this is what the brand looks like by itself. And then we did their truck wrap here. We wrote their tagline, your journey to legendary lighting. Just think about what that feels like to the homeowner now with that image and that name, Light Quest. Right. So it feels very premium. It feels very high end. you can see some of the stationary that we did for them. There's a tagline this is their uniforms. This is for a home show.

What it looks like when you go to a home show. this is their equipment sticker that they put on the box outside.

Nice.

And door hangers.

The bigger the phone number, the weaker the brand

So there we have a photo. Because it's a different kind of medium at that point. Right. So I'm okay with having a photo in the, in this particular context, just not on a truck. this is their sales brochure. So imagine having all these assets when you go to ring the doorbell. Right. And imagine what your other competitors likely have. And I can guarantee you they don't look anything like this. Right. So you're already getting like a much bigger upper hand. And then you roll up on the driveway with a van like this. You think Mrs. Jones is saying, oh my God, these guys are going to be cheap. Saying, oh my God, like these guys do some premium work. And I'm expecting this ticket to be a little bit higher than J and G Landscape Lighting, who's got a white truck and a magnetic sign on the side. And you know what I mean? Like so, you know, I hate to sort of paint that obvious picture, but that's kind of what we're, what we're talking about.

Talk a little bit more about. you'll see a lot of people say hey, what do you think of this? And they, they'll have it the reverse. Like Light Quest. Let's say it was Light Quest. They'd have Light Quest smaller and then outdoor illumination or landscape lighting. And again you know that's promoting the thing, but not necessarily who talk about a little bit ratios and what's supposed to be first and what's supposed to be read second and third and things like that.

So typically the brand name is going to be the most important, piece that you want to make sure, reads easy from a distance. this, even as outdoor illumination sits, still has good distance legibility and the visual that goes along with it also helps tell the story. So the combination of all these things, I can very quickly and easily digest it and I can understand what they do, very quickly. You know, even as it relates to phone numbers. Like this doesn't even have, have a phone number. You'll hear people like, oh my God, you gotta have a phone number on your truck. And then you say, okay, when was the last time you actually took your phone number, your phone out and actually dialed a phone? Do you do that? Or do you go on Google and type the name of the business and then click call now. Right. So even Having phone numbers. I'm not saying we don't put phone numbers or we wouldn't put a phone number if it was appropriate or if we had the real estate that didn't jeopardize the rest of the layout. Yeah, I'll put a phone number. Number if I need. If I have the space to do it. But phone numbers on truck wraps are. They're. It's like Yellow Pages. Right. I mean, it used to be really important. It's not nearly as important today. And it's not the way people actually contact you. They're more likely to Google your name if it's branded correctly. I always make the joke, and I say this, and you'll. You'll get a kick out of this, Ryan. I say the bigger the phone number, the weaker the brand. And, you know, you could go back here, we could look at this, and I would say, case in point. Huge, huge phone number here. And his name is probably much harder to read and. And much less legible than his phone number is. So if you're running around with a huge phone number. Well. And I don't know what you do. Like, what's the point then? Like, it doesn't make any sense. I would rather. Brand name.

Yeah. I mean, when you just showed both of those, you notice. Yeah. No phone number to huge phone number.

Yeah.

The Mike's landscape was the smallest, and then it said lighting was the biggest. So it was like the exact opposite of what. Of what you guys do.

And even if you just say the words in your mind and imagine that you're talking to your neighbor, and you said to your neighbor, and you're the neighbor, and you get this information, and you said to the neighbor, hey, who did your landscape lighting? And they say, light Quest did our landscape lighting immediately. Your perception of Light Quest is much different than if they said, oh, Mike's Landscape Lighting did it. Mike's Landscape Landing. Okay.

All right.

Yeah, I'll give him a call. But Light Quest, well, that. That sounds like, man, this is gonna be freaking, like, epic. Like, these guys must be the right. So, I mean, like, that's. That's, again, the psychology behind naming, and that's why it's sad to see so many guys get that piece wrong. Wrong. and then they struggle to overcome that they're going to spend their entire entrepreneurial career working to overcome a poor name. it's probably why we do so much naming. Like, we. We renamed. I think this year we're on pace to probably rename over 50 home service companies but they all suffer from that problem, and it affects them on so many different marketing channels. The fact that it's unremarkable.

Yeah, that's crazy.

The QR code is meant for brand building, not point of purchase

talk about, why no QR code?

So, again, the truck is meant to be brand building, not point of purchase. So point of purchase, you could. Like, if it's in a magazine and I'm reading the magazine and I want to scan, well, that's fine. But it's an. It's not a point of purchase vehicle. It's a medium that is meant for brand building. And again, let's be real here. Do we not know how to contact Lite Quest without a QR code? Are we going to not be able to figure out how to get in touch with them unless we had a QR code? So what is the QR code actually solving as a problem? You see it for weak brands. I think you got a weak brand. Yeah. Put a QR code on your truck.

Wrap a big QR code. yeah, the bigger the QR code, the weaker the brand. I've always had that.

When, when you've got a great brand, I. I don't really need to rely on a QR code for you to figure out how to contact me. And people say, oh, my God, I put one on my van and people scan the code. I'm like, okay. Would they not have found you otherwise? Right. They wouldn't be able to figure out how to contact you unless you had a QR code on your van. I'm not sure that that's the right demographic for you if they can't figure out how to contact you without a QR code, honestly.

All right, well, that's true. And I'm sure some of the data you're talking about in your, revised, branded, not blanded book talks, about that. I'm sure you guys track like, oh, after. After rebranding their search volume for Light Quest, went up to whatever and all that type of stuff. Well, very cool. I think I've got about 10 million more questions for you, but I think what we should do, we'll wrap it up.

The second edition of your book has 65 new pages of additional content

I want to refer people to the book, because, I mean, I started the show with talking about leading with value and how I learned that from her mosey and how I'm trying to do that myself. I feel like you do a phenomenal job at that strategy. and I refer people to your book all the time. I'm like, I'm not the guy. I can give you some advice, but I'M not the Dan Antonelli of branding. Like, he's the Dan Antonelli. So, how do people get ahold of that book? where do we send them?

Yeah, so the second edition of the book is going to be probably available on Amazon within a few days. and you can also get it from our website@kickcharts. com. and you know, like I said, if you already have the first book, this adds about 65 new pages of additional content. And that's even with the font, actually smaller. but I think, the other component on this is we talk a lot about Brand story. So there's a whole chapter on brand story in the, in this new edition where I didn't. I touched upon it in the first edition, but not nearly as much as I do on this one.

Okay, cool, guys. Highly, highly recommend it.

Dan: We acquired a digital marketing company in January, correct

The other thing I forgot to ask Dan is you guys, recently, this year, was it this year that you guys acquired Leveragy, correct?

Yeah, yeah, we, we acquired a digital marketing company in January that was, run by Ryan Redding. Super, ah, good guy, ran a great operation there. we knew digital marketing was something we wanted to do more of. and so we brought, that team on with ours. So like I said, we have about 25 people now on the digital marketing team. and then about 35 people that do, the brand development, that naming, the content, the graphic design work, all that other stuff. So, we launched a ton of new websites since, since that's happened and it's been again, just great to see what the return on AntSpend is for the better branded websites and what that equates to in acquisition cost, et cetera. So it's been an awesome thing for us to now just truly have everything under one roof.

I love it, man. Congrats to you and Ryan and both of your teams and organizations. I think it's just so cool because now it's like, it feels like, hey, we can get our brand done and we can continue the growth and just a lot of synergy there, obviously, having those, those, two companies together. So what I just saw the other day, you came out with like a new name for it was Kick Charge something.

Kick Charge one.

Kick Charge one.

Yeah, yeah. So that, that covers, brand, digital email marketing and strategy. So like all six components and social media is the other one. So all six components basically live under that umbrella. So everything regarding the marketing, the budgeting, the planning, the strategy, and then the execution we can assist with. So it's pretty cool.

Love it. Well, congrats man. Congrats on everything you've accomplished. The 30 year career and how many ever days on free time you've had after your procedure. you're doing amazing things. I look up to you. I appreciate what you do for the trades, appreciate what you do for the lighting community and yeah, thanks for coming on the show.

Absolutely. Thanks Ryan. Appreciate being on man. Thank you so much.

Don't order the book today because there are some glitches with Amazon

All right guys, go check out kick Charge Creative. Go check out Branded not blanded. Wait a couple days because then that's.

It looks like it's available. Just wait a couple days till it says second edition because there's a couple of glitches with Amazon right now that we're trying to work through. So don't order the book today.

Yeah, wait a couple days and then we're going to do a giveaway where you buy 300 and give them away to charities and stuff.

Exactly.

All right. See everybody.