Market While You Sleep: The Power of Traditional Marketing with Dave from DOPE Marketing

Dave: It is an industry that I've really fallen in love with. I didn't know how to spell AI at the end of 2024. When they need a new roof, when they need new gutters, when they need new siding, when they need new windows, like, who are they gonna call? Right. It's not Ghostbusters. They're gonna call you.  

Pete: You're listening to the Roofr Report, the ultimate podcast for roofing professionals, business owners, and entrepreneurs.

Get insider access and hear about the highs, lows, and tales of triumphs from thriving business owners. Brought to you by Roofr, hosted by Pete McKendrick.  

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to the Roofr Report. I am your host, Pete McKendrick, and a, a special guest here today. We always have our Roofr of the Month every month, you know, and, and we, we love to showcase our roofers, but, you know, sometimes we wanna step away from that a little bit and, and get some other industry people in here for you guys to listen to.

And excited today to have Dave Carroll from DOPE Marketing on, so welcome, Dave.  

Dave: Thanks for having me, Pete. I appreciate it, man.  

Pete: Yeah, man. Uh, you and I have been friends for years, known each other for years. I was trying to think this morning when was the last time you and I were on a podcast together.

It's probably been... It was back in, uh, you know, back with my former company, I think, when we were all kind of doing that thing with Brad Acres and all those guys, so it's probably been six years. I, I feel  

Dave: like, so wasn't it something we did at one of Dimitri's shows?  

Pete: Yeah. I'm glad to have you on, man.

Excited to have you on. Oh. This is your first time on the Roofr Report, so that's cool, man, excited to get you on here. So for people, you know, obviously we have a lot of new users at Roofr that are, you know, maybe new companies or fairly new to the business, in their first, second year. Um, for those guys that may not know who you guys are at DOPE or who you are specifically, just maybe a brief introduction of what you guys do over there and, uh, maybe a little bit about yourself.

Dave: Yeah, for sure. So, uh, Dave Carroll, CEO and founder here at DOPE Marketing. Uh, we... DOPE Marketing solves problems for roofers for helping you market while you sleep. So regardless of the tools, the systems, anything you're using in your business, DOPE Marketing focuses on traditional guerrilla-style marketing, so postcards, yard signs, door hangers.

We don't do SEO, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook. Anything online, DOPE is very focused on helping you get better jobs in the right neighborhoods for less money, that convert higher, using traditional marketing tactics that, you know, we hear a lot, like, "Oh, my God, postcards are dead," or, "Print is, you know, for older companies."

Yeah. Um, DOPE has gone, grown substantially over the past five years, and we really got, like, our start in the roofing industry. I think when I... We, we were talking the other day, um, we, we were exploring, as most of you probably have looked over the years at- Picking a new CRM or changing CRMs. We looked in our database, and we have worked over the past five years with over 60,000 different roofing companies  

Pete: And it's crazy that that's kind of, like, where you guys got started.

I know you guys have since branched out. You're in a lot of other, uh, verticals as well. Um, you know, obviously, your services make sense across all these other verticals in the home improvement space. But yeah, it's funny that that was kind of like, that's at the heart of it, the roofing industry  

Dave: I- it is an industry that I've really fallen in love with.

I've owned a home service company now for, I'm getting old, 17 years. Um- ... and I, uh, I always, I always joked with my wife, you know, people ask me a lot on these things like, "Dave, if you could start all over or do something different in your life, what would you do?" I was like, "I would've started a roofing company right away."

Instead of g- instead of getting into w- we got into window cleaning and power washing, and since then, we've gotten into a lot of, like, different GC work. Uh, we do a little bit of roofing, not a ton. Uh, water, mold, fire- Yeah ... everything you can think of. Really, like, we've created some cool systems in that business that I think really apply to roofers that we can talk about a little bit today when we get into it.

Uh, that company does about $700,000 a year in just gutter cleaning, and we've gotten into Christmas lights and concrete restoration and all different types of stuff over the years. But it's fascinating to me a lot of times when I ... 'Cause we talk to a lot of roofing companies, that a lot of roofing companies don't offer gutter cleaning as, like, a foot in the door.

You know- Yeah ... you're willing to pay a, a canvasser 100 bucks a lead or an appointment setter 350 to 500 bucks a lead, but what about charging a homeowner 150 bucks to get up and clean their gutters and give them a free inspection?  

Pete: Yeah, you're literally on the roof pretty much.  

Dave: Exactly. So I, I have been in the trades for, you know, my entire career.

I started Lion Share when I was 25 years old. Um, I turned 40 last year. I guess that's 15 years if you're counting right. I don't know where we get 17 years. I went to nine high schools. My math isn't always the greatest. Um, but- High  

Pete: school math, right?  

Dave: Amen. Amen. But born, born in the trades, still very involved, and, uh, roofers will always have a, a dear place in our hearts.

Pete: Yeah. No, it's interesting, right? 'Cause I just did a Roofr of the Month podcast with a, a guy who started exclusively doing small jobs like that, like gutter cleaning, repairs. Like, that was really his focus, and for the entire first year, almost two years of his business, he did nothing but, you know, those small ticket items.

Um, you know, and then p- kind of like parlayed that into, uh, doing, you know, full-blown roof replacements instead of this idea of like, "I need to start a roofing company. We need to learn how to do roof replacements right out of the rip." Like he said, "I didn't know anything about roofing, so I go in, I start- doing these tiny repairs.

I learn how to do the repairs. Next thing you know, I've essentially covered the entire roof. Now I know how to do everything there is to possibly do on a roof. Now I can start doing full replacements. I'm much more educated. I'm much more knowledgeable as an owner, right? And it was just like a, a very smart entry point, uh, you know, in comparison to a lot of other conversations that we have.

I was, I was actually, uh... It was pretty interesting to have that conversation with him about how he kinda got into it.  

Dave: I always was fascinated. So one indust- these industries kinda got combined out of nowhere about seven, eight years ago. Um, the, the, the Christmas light installation industry- Yeah ... got really in with the window cleaners.

'Cause you figure, like, they're on ladders, they get it. The- Yeah. Installing Christmas lights isn't as technical as you would think. Like I... When we got into it with my company, I tried to burn my mom's house down, like, four times. I couldn't figure out how to do it. Like, the Christmas light thing is really kinda plug and play.

Most states you don't need any type of, like, electrical license. And I always would scratch my head, being a business owner, like, we're in Minneapolis, the most seasonal market that you can have in home service. Yeah. Like, we literally can work seven and a half, eight months out of the years. And for all my guys, girls in, you know, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Dakotas, like those type of states, you guys know the drill.

You know, you get after Halloween, and you're kinda already planning for next year. And I always would- Yeah ... scratch my head and wonder, like, "Why more roofing companies," especially ones that get into higher end neighborhoods doing- Right ... you know, whether it's DaVinci stuff, or slate, or some of the higher end, you know, metal roofs or whatever, like, those customers are so turnkey.

And those Christmas light jobs, even if you're not gonna train your staff to do it yourself, even if you were to reach out to one of these window cleaning, power washing, some of these companies only do Christmas lights- Reach out to those ... and be able to service your client more, make some revenue over the winter, or if you're, you know, you got i- in-house staff that you wanna keep busy to do this stuff.

Right. I've met business owners that in their first, second year of these, getting into this Christmas light installation are doing 200, 300, 500 grand. My guys down at Alamo Roofing down in Texas, I think David's gonna do three, four, 500 grand this year in Christmas lights in his second, third year. Crazy.

And there's real margin in that stuff. I mean, I know it's not a- Yeah ... you know, one hit and you're profiting 8, 15, 20 grand like some of the roofing jobs. But these, these jobs that are $1,500, $2,000, $2,500 are running at- 30, 40, 50% profit margins even on the first year, and the second year they've bought all the product and you're just reinstalling it, and now you're at a 80% margin.

Like, you're just paying labor- Yeah, crazy. I don't think of that ever ... and it's actually, like, not always roofing money. Right. But it is good money, especially for seasonal markets, so it's always been something that I wondered. Along with the gutter cleaning during the season for the lead gen is kinda looking at these other things if you're looking at...

You see a lot of these companies that are looking to either prime theirselves to sell, or their buddies have sold, or they're in conversations with private equity. Yeah. I promise you, none of that additional revenue or more customers is gonna hurt you if you're working towards- Yeah ... an exit either. Like, it kinda, it helps- Yeah

'cause a lot of those, those private equity companies are looking at what's your customer list, what's your maintenance plan, what's your repeat business, are you retaining customers, or are you more of just, like, a sales shop, which is still a, a, a purchasable company, but when you get these other services in, or you're doing more repairs, or you're doing- Yeah

gutter cleaning, adding Christmas lights, it's only gonna help.  

Pete: Yeah, and you know, we're coming off of a season where obviously things were very, very slow in the roofing space for a lot of people, right? Not a, not really any storms to talk about, you know? And so, so many companies that I've had conversations with are like, "Man, we're so down on revenue," and like, you know, "Really hope things pick up because it hasn't been a good year for us," and all this stuff.

And, like, this is a perfect example of a very low-hanging fruit of how you could potentially supplement that income. You know, hey, just add something a- You know, these are, like you said, they're not huge-ticket items, but the volume's also there too. Like, one of the things that I found interesting when I was talking to the guy who does repairs is he's like, "Yeah, I can do a crap ton of volume, like, by myself pretty much."

He's like, "I'm doing multiple repairs in a day, you know? So it's not like my crew's on a job, you know, from sunup to sundown, you know, and that, that's my one opportunity to make profit." He's like, "You know, I'm bouncing around. I can do three jobs in a day sometimes as a one-man show. Like, I don't even  

Dave: need a crew."

And make, make great margins off of it. Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times I think as business owners, we don't always consider, like, how do I keep priming the pump even when we're busy? I mean, maybe, uh, you get a storm, or you're working an old date, or you found a neighborhood of a honey hole where you're doing some repairs or whatever, where it's like the scalability, especially for these new businesses that are in their first year or second year or third year, coming off two bad years, and maybe you're in Denver and you haven't had a storm in a while, something like that, where it's like the scalability of a smaller, newer company as an owner/operator doing what the guy you're talking about, right?

Maybe he's not super busy with, with reroofs or pulling stuff down- Yeah ... but he's able to create a system of lead generation where there's repairs of 300 bucks, 1,200 bucks, two gra- you know, whatever it is. Because you can hire for that. Let's say you're a newer business and you- Yeah ... get that going on your own, it's easier to find, from my experience, it's easier to set up a system like that and hire into it, 'cause you can find a subcontractor that's down, that's not getting a w- a lot of work, he's an older guy, you know, whatever, and plug him into that established system in your business as a full-time employee versus having a sub do that work.

Now you got a revenue stream coming in all the time. And again- Yeah ... getting a little ahead of myself as usual. For those of you that haven't seen me on a podcast talk, I'm a little bit of a talker. But, like, imagine that you're a growing company, whether you're new or you're in that one to five years, imagine if instead of buying leads or getting in the Facebook groups asking people how they're growing, you were putting yard signs out for gutter cleaning, having revenue coming out.

And maybe you don't do their roof the first year, but you clean their gutters twice, you find another job at their house that you can point out to sub out, and you do that for two or three years and you're making money off of them every year, that establishes the trust that when they need a new roof, when they need new gutters, when they need new siding, when they need new windows, like, who are they gonna call?

Right. It's not Ghostbusters. They're gonna call you because you've, you've been at their house- Yeah ... doing business for a certain amount of time. And I think when we look at, like, what does it take to grow a roofing company, or maybe go further, you're watch- you're, you're watching online, you're going to the trade shows, and you're seeing these companies that went from 2 million to 8 million to 12 million- Yeah

in three years, and you're like, "Shit, I gotta figure out how to do that," when in reality, again, my experience, and not shitting on any companies like that, 'cause there are very good businesses that have grown like that, but there are just as many that grew too fast, didn't have the systems, didn't have the playbooks- Yeah

didn't have the KPIs. Where imagine if you just looked, whether you're a little newer, a little green, maybe you're in a slower market, and you could establish these systems that are bringing in leads, bringing in work, bringing in revenue, and it's a little more scalable than, like, sitting around waiting for a storm and then having to mobilize around that when you've never really done it before - Yeah

versus having, like, that solid work coming in. So something to consider.  

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, and, like, that's kind of the, you know, the gist of what he did is, like, essentially he started reroofing or it just organically happened. Like, he did repairs for the first two years of business, and then year three comes around, people start calling and saying, "Hey, you did a repair for me two years ago.

Are you willing to come back and do my roof?" Right? Yeah. And so now all of a sudden he's a reroofer. He didn't, he didn't specifically go down that path. He wasn't really looking for it. Like he said, like, and you, you made a good point of, like, he had more than enough work. Right? For, he, he was small. He hired, I think, like one other guy.

He had more than enough work to make money and stay busy. Uh, the repairs came in much, much faster than the reroof jobs would've, right? Because they're low-ticket items. It's a lot easier to land a bunch of gutter cleaning jobs and stuff like that than it is to land full-blown reroofs. And, uh, especially in a time like last year where there isn't a reason, right?

Like, uh, Corey Combs is a good friend of mine, once said- Yeah ... "If it ain't raining, roofs ain't leaking, people don't know," right? Like, they're not looking to, to replace their roof. So- Yeah ... you know, and, and that's, that's the situation, so. But he was able to get, you know, a lot of repair jobs early on, and it just kind of organically happened that he morphed into this reroof company now, uh, that still is doing a lot of...

You know, now he's got essentially two flows of income, right? He's a, he's a reroof company that's still doing a ton of repairs because that's where his roots are. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. It was, so it was interesting, you know. I think that that's an overlooked piece. I still think to this day is like everybody comes in and thinks like, "Oh, I gotta reroof and I gotta, you know, try to land commercial jobs," you know, 'cause they're huge, they're big dollar, big tickets.

And it's honestly, it's the repairs and that small stuff that I think bridges the gap a lot of times.  

Dave: The other thing that I don't think it's focused on enough is like, it's easy to get s- distracted by opportunity. You know? Yeah. There's so many possibility. In Minneapolis, there's 3.5 million people in our seven county area within, like a probably 35, 40 mile service radius if you dropped a pin right in the middle of it.

And we, we had crossed this bridge many times as I was growing my home service company of like, you know, we could do everything. There's so much. Yeah. There's so many homes. When finding those neighborhoods and those honey holes, especially for a new business, to really focus on, like getting your logo out there, getting your brand out there, being a truck they see in the neighborhood as opp- Yeah

as opposed to like, you know, when you get into these lower ticket jobs, you get the opportunity to really sell yourself. And instead of look- getting overwhelmed, or I'll say it too, like excited by what could happen in your first year- Yeah ... second year, third year. The companies that I've seen grow the most or be the most successful are the most disciplined companies that really focus on, like staying in the neighborhoods they're working in, getting the branding out, making sure that like, you know, whether, whether you're doing the, uh, what's that?

The catchall, or you got your signs out, or you're knocking the doors around your jobs- Yeah ... or you're using these different marketing tools that are out there. I think it's easy to get distracted initially in business by what could happen versus being a little bit more disciplined and intentional about like- How focused are we...

I, I quote that, that Harvard business study all the time, that 7 to 11 touches. Like, are you making sure that the neighbors of your jobs know that you're in the neighborhood, you're leaving a door hanger, you're popping a business card in the, in the wipers of the cars in the driveways, you're, you're putting the little flag up or the...

You know, I'm not saying everyone's gotta have that, like, uh, used car dancing man in the front yard- ... of the jobs or whatever. But asking yourself, especially as a newer business, like, how much time are you spending driving across town chasing a buck versus, like, spending your most valuable asset, which is your time, being known in the neighborhoods where you're getting these repairs- Yeah

where you're getting these, you know, jobs that they're coming in. It's about, I mean, like right now as we're recording this, it's, like, the end of April in 2026. What I know being in Minnesota, if it was 70 degrees here yesterday, it's warm everywhere, and so like- ... spring is rocking the- Yeah ... the things are budding on the trees, my kids are taking their Zyrtec 'cause the allergies are kicking in.

That's right. And all that means is, like, if you don't have a ton of work on the calendar right now, what are you doing around the job sites that you currently have to kinda get the word out or get your logo in front of people?  

Pete: Yeah, I love that. I think it, I think it, it's great advice because I do think that's what happens, right?

You think, "Oh, we can expand our area. Like, we gotta get more leads. We'll expand our reach." Yeah. And there's just so much opportunity right there, like, right around the jobs you're working. You know, we, we often talk about how do you become that neighborhood roofer? You know, like, I always use the examples of, like, you know, hey, if I take my kids to the doctor, I've got a guy, right?

I've got a doctor that we go to the same person every single time, you know? I take my car in for repairs, it goes to the same person every time. I have a guy that I trust, right? Why do we not mimic that in the roofing space, right? Why do we always wanna be one and done? Like, "Hey, let me go, you know, knock this house out.

My yard sign's in the front yard for three days. I forget to even go get it half the time," right? It ends up in their trash, you know, because I never go back to that neighborhood. You know, as opposed to, you know, why are we not that, that guy that's constantly there, right? Constantly in the neighborhood.

You know, like I, I think back to when I lived in New Jersey, you know, this... I lived where there were some older homes. This guy probably did eight houses on our street, right? He was on our street roofing houses- Right ... for probably a couple of months, right? Like, so by the time he was done, everybody on that road knew who he was, saw his trucks there every day, saw him move from one house two houses down and do it again.

You know, so they saw the quality of his work. Like, you know, he was super smart. He never went out of... You know, our town was super small, probably- Yeah ... you know, four square miles or something Yeah ... you know, like tiny little town, right? And this guy just killed it inside of the city limits because, you know, he specialized in being that local guy.

He lived in the neighborhood. You know, and he took care of his neighbors more or less, you know? And I think that we overlook that opportunity way too often  

Dave: One cool trick that we did, I remember, uh, I bought our second v- it was a express van that I bought for our company. This was sh- I mean, shit, this had to be 13 years ago.

Couldn't afford it. We were so broke, the, the, the van payment was 500 bucks, the insurance was 400 'cause I had a bad driving record or- ... was a knucklehead or whatever, and I, I couldn't afford the $900 a month, so I had to drive it courier overnight to be able to pay- To pay it ... to have the van. So we had this van.

It wasn't always busy, but I knew it was our ceiling. Like, I'd heard a friend of mine say one time, "The size of your shop is your fish tank. Like, if you put a shark in a small fish tank, it's not gonna grow." So I was always big on, like, overextending a little bit, getting a bigger shop, buying the truck, hiring the person, and using the, like, sales solves everything.

So one of the things we did, we wrapped the van with the, with our logo and stuff, but it wasn't busy. It would sit at the shop. So what I would do on the, the days that we would have jobs in certain areas, I would find the gas station the night before that was right off the exit to the job, and I would leave the van there for the whole day-

'cause it was like a billboard. Yeah. So whatever van I could find, and usually I'd try to find one in, like, you know, the gas station right off the freeway in kind of an affluent area that, like, if you were getting off to go to a neighborhood, you'd have to go by it. You'd have to see it. And I would, like, obnoxiously park it sideways in two parking spots or something in the, in the thing- Just a draw attention.

Pete: Another  

Dave: buddy of mine down in Phoenix just started a garage door company. He worked for one of the big SEO agencies and just went off on his own and started a garage door company, my buddy Mike, and, uh, he does this thing on, on Live Now where he'll pull up to the gas station. He has this beautifully wrapped big truck, and he pulls up, you know, where the, the concrete poles are, where, like, so that you can't run into the gas station.

Yeah. He'll pull up and, like, park illegally right there when he walks in, just so, like... And then he'll film it when he's walking out, like, "Who do you think they see when they're walking out of the gas station at the lunch hour?" Or whatever. But just those little things- Yeah ... like, as you're growing, I think realizing whether you're gonna stay disciplined and stay in the same area, the most valuable asset you have as a new business owner is your time, and when you don't have all...

Like, your calendar's not full. You don't have jobs on the schedule. Asking yourself, like, what are you doing to make sure that the right people are seeing you? And that could literally be, like, dude, I used to walk around in neighborhoods, get those huge, big, huge, like, whatever gallon trash bags, and we would roll up flyers with rubber bands, and at the top of the flyer, it would just say, like, "Gutter cleaning" or "Power washing," and we'd just walk around these neighborhoods just popping them on the door handles, so when you'd see it on your door, it just had, like, that little headline, hero line of the whatever.

I would say if I had to look back in my home service company, one thing we did really right- Was any time we weren't busy, we were out in these neighborhoods just, you know-  

Pete: Marketing ...  

Dave: we weren't knocking because we weren't in the roofing space. Right But just getting that, those impressions in front of people, and the dividends of that investment just paid off over and over and over.

Pete: Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about that, 'cause obviously marketing is your guys' wheelhouse, right? But you guys have obviously taken a different approach. Everybody's mind, when you say marketing, goes to their website, their SEO, like-  

Dave: Well, paying- ...  

Pete: hiring a marketing agency to keep track of all that.

Now you've got AI in the conversation, right? How is that playing into it? Now, you guys have kinda taken a different approach from day one of, like, I don't wanna call it old school, right? But it's like- It is. Yeah ... the tried and true method of like, "Hey, this is stuff, if it ain't broke, don't fix it," kind of ways of marketing- Yeah

um, you know, that are traditional ways of getting out there. And like you said, like rolling up the flyer and sticking it in the door, the business card under the windshield type of stuff. Um, talk a little bit about how you guys are seeing, still seeing success in this world of like, you know, everything's digital now- Yeah

and I've gotta go after everybody. You know, I gotta make sure that my content gets found on ChatGPT and, like, all this stuff, right? And you guys are still, you know, pushing that kind of traditional way of marketing.  

Dave: Yeah. I think that it's really important, we talk about, like discipline and accountability.

You know, case studies are one thing. I can rattle off a bunch of stats, and I'll talk about a couple of them as we get into the conversation. But it's like, you know, lead quality is a really big thing. You can have all the leads in the world, but if it's just someone that like- Yeah ... filled out a form online, or they're not ready yet, kinda kicking a tire or whatever.

I think one of the highest quality leads that a company can generate is a search lead on Google. Someone searched for a thing, found your company on the top or on the map pack or whatever, filled it out. Like, there's intent there.  

Pete: Yeah.  

Dave: I believe the second most valuable lead is when you send someone something in the mail, and they get it, and they call you for it.

Like- Yeah ... I never try to explain traditional marketing to people like, "You're gonna send this out, and this is guaranteed gonna happen." Now, in the direct mail side, there are times of the year for every home service business, and it's pretty predictable. Now, go to seasonality. Like I shared, we're in Minneapolis, so it's gotta warm up.

We're not in Phoenix or Dallas or whatever. Yeah. But it's like every single year, what we always focus on is advertising while you're busy. So as the phone's ringing, as things are coming in, you're always gonna get a better response on traditional advertising when people are in the market for your services.

And more often than not, with roofing companies- Not gonna say nothing gets done over the winter, but people are sitting on their projects, especially the higher ticket projects, the 10 grand, 20 grand, 50 grand. Like, that's not a decision most people make around Thanksgiving, Christmas, after the New Year.

It's like that's the consistent part of the home service space. Everything slows down after Halloween, then you're getting to the holidays, and you're getting into the new year. Then it starts kinda warming up, or even if it's not seasonal, just people's minds are more like, "Hey, my house, the spring, we're getting back to it," whatever.

And so what I really like to educate companies on when they look at their budgets, like everyone's got an amount of money they're willing to spend to grow their business, even if you don't have an exact number, "It's $7,332 a week I'm gonna spend growing my business," I think it's very important for companies to understand regardless of how they advertise, you have a marketing budget and you have a branding budget.

Your marketing budget is based off campaigns. What's a campaign? You have a targeted neighborhood, list, group of people. You have some type of offer, whatever that is. It could be as bland as a free inspection, it could be a gutter cleaning, it could be a, a financing deal, it could be a something off of a retail job, whatever it is.

You have a list, you have an offer, and you have an amount of time that you're allocating to running that campaign. That's a marketing campaign. Like, "I'm gonna spend 10 grand over two months. We're gonna target this area. We're gonna look at who we targeted. At the end of two months we're gonna see, like, of the addresses we chose, how many leads did we generate, how many jobs came from that," dollar for dollar, checking your ROI.

But your branding budget is a little bit different, because when you look at whether it's Facebook, TikTok, maybe you're into commercial and you're doing some stuff on LinkedIn or some targeted outreach, your branding budget, which I believe every company should have a couple thousand dollars if not into the five figures of, we historically have done work in this area, or we grew up in this area, we know a lot of people, or our sales team is kinda hot.

Their, their, their girlfriend's dad was a banker and we did his house, so we can kinda work the neighborhood and reference Bill a little bit or whatever. Your branding budget is an amount of money that you're investing in growing the exposure of your company each month that you're holding yourself accountable.

Yeah, I might not see an ROI on this right away, but it's an investment. Just like if you bought Tesla stock or Pokemon cards or crypto or whatever other thing you're into, there are investments that pay off right away. There are investments where you're, you're parking something or you're doing something for a certain amount of time.

Like for anyone who's bought real estate in their career, maybe you own a business, you made some dough, you bought a rental property- You're not, you know, calling, calling, uh, Warren Buffett every day explaining to him that the $700 a month you're making in profit off your rental property is gonna buy you a Bentley next month.

But you know that the renter that's paying that mortgage off, that in however many... Let's say you got a 15-year mortgage on that property, you're gonna, like, there's gonna be dividends at the end of that. And I go deeper into the financial side 'cause I don't think business owners, especially new ones right away, look at the value of putting out door hangers or running Facebook ads consistently in a neighborhood so when someone picks their phone up, they're reminded.

They might not need a roof right now, but when they go to make that decision, you're in one of the three companies they're gonna request a quote from because you've stayed in front of them the whole time. And so every business owner needs a business card at some time. So can we earn the business of a home service company and show them how we can do things with the yard signs, the door hangers, the flyers, the business cards?

'Cause there's strategies on how to use that stuff, but it's not like... No one's reinventing the wheel. When it comes to the direct mail side, one thing that I've really seen for roofing companies is setting up, what we do at DOAP, we set up automations. So when you mark a job approved or an estimate complete, we can automatically send postcards to the neighbors of that job without lifting a finger.

That's one of kinda the, I won't say proprietary, there are other businesses that offer those services, but at DOAP, that's something we've really focused on with the design, the strategy, the tracking, the who to target, and some of the filtering, too. 'Cause one really cool thing, Pete, is, like, not only can you, you know, mark the job approved in Roofers and the, wow, the 25 neighbors get a postcard for four weeks in a row, you can put filters on it.

So, like, the nearest 25 neighbors, but only the houses over 15 years old, or over 4,000 square feet. Yeah. Or we do some cool stuff with, like, the permit data. And so at DOAP, and w- whether you use us or you find another company that does other things, I don't wanna make this a sales pitch, but if you're not focusing on, like...

Let, I'm gonna use an even number. Let's say I got, uh, 10 grand a month to advertise. Let's even go lower and say I got five grand a month, I'm a newer company, to advertise my business. I would look at, like, of that $5,000, how much am I spending it on things where, like, it's true lead gen, I'm really looking to get a return.

'Cause in all marketing there's gonna be low-hanging fruit. Go back to that seasonality. You advertise r- your roofing services around Thanksgiving or Christmas, probably get a couple less leads than if you're mailing a neighborhood in the spring where you've done a job before, you got people out canvassing or whatever The summer is the summer, right?

Kids are out of school, people go on vacation, it's a little bit slower, whatever. And then right when, in Minnesota, it's the state fair that happens, I think it's Memorial Day or Labor Day, one of those holidays at the end of the, the summer or whatever.  

Pete: Yeah.  

Dave: Now, kids are going back to school, vacations are over, parents are back to work, they're going back to those projects before the winter.

So there are times where even your branding campaigns could generate leads. But the, the discipline that I would try to, uh, advise for a newer company or a company trying to grow is look at that amount of money that you're gonna spend month over month in advertising, and kinda split it up and say, "I'm gonna allocate this much towards the, you know, the PPC, the targeted direct mail, the other stuff where, like, I'm really focused on getting a return on my money," versus, like, the money I'm spending for those jobs to come in month over month while the prime is being pumped because I'm, I'm staying in front of the right neighbors.

I'm doing something similar to that guy you were talking about who's kinda like that hometown hero in your four mile square neighborhood of, like, staying in front of those pockets, those honey holes of where you're getting work.  

Pete: Yeah. No, I think that's great advice because I think the... So many times the idea is, like, marketing, like, my SEO, my website-

it's, that's all I need, right? Like, that's all the exposure I need, right? And so this is super smart in saying, like, "Hey, you do have..." There's two different kinds of marketing here. There's marketing and branding, and, um, I think too many times we just meld the two of them together and just assume the marketing is taking care of the branding side of it.

Um, not the case, right? Like, uh, we have, you know, Roof Tiger, Ben, Ben Tiger, Ben Morrow, whatever whatever name you wanna call him by, right? Uh, you know, a- and Ben's, like, the master of that. Like, he's mastered, like, the branding side, right? And, um, you know, and obviously he's doing marketing too, but, you know, the branding side is where he went super heavy, you know, and that's how he established himself, and that's how he- That's what- Yeah.

And, and he was able to do it in a very short amount of time because he focused early on, instead of focusing on the SEO part and all that stuff, he focused on the branding, right? He, "I want everybody in the neighborhood, everybody in town to know who I am, to see my trucks-" Totally ... and them be recognizable."

And, uh, you know, he was able to grow the company very quickly early on because of that. So, um, yeah, I don't think enough stress gets put on the branding side and, like, what you guys do, right? Like, with the print marketing, I think that speaks much more to the branding side, right? Like, you can, you can brand yourself a lot better.

Like you said, if I'm blasting these neighborhoods around where I'm at, you know, now not only are they seeing my trucks, but, and my yard signs, but now they're getting something from me. You know, I'm leaving postcards. And it could be as simple as, like, your guy being out there, your sales rep- You know, dropping these postcards at some of the surrounding houses to start with, right?

100%. You  

Dave: know? I mean, that's the thing is you can get really creative, and I just go to the, like, the logical side of growing a business. So if you've been open for more than a year, and you look at two neighborhoods, you got neighborhood A and neighborhood B, and in neighborhood A, going into this year, you're just gonna do whatever you were doing last year.

You're doing a little Google, you're doing a little Facebook, you got some SEO going, maybe you're ranking on ChatGPT or doing some of that, and you're gonna do everything you're doing in neighborhood A, 'cause it worked last year, right? You're into this year, you made some money, you got some shit, right?

Like, it was going good. But in neighborhood B, the only different thing you do is you're gonna take that 200 to 500 homes in that neighborhood, and you're gonna send one postcard a week for three months in a row to those homes. If you look at neighborhood A and neighborhood B, and let's just say for round numbers, it's 250 homes you're gonna focus on, and you're gonna do this for three months in a row, and it's a dollar a postcard.

Let's round up. Our postcards aren't that expensive, but let's just say it's a buck a piece. If you were gonna spend $250 a week or $1,000 a month in neighborhood B, and then you spend three grand more in neighborhood B than neighborhood A on those 250 homes, is it logical that you would be better known and have a better result with those homes that you were sending a postcard to every week that had a headshot of a sales rep, a meet my team, a here's our review, a here's a recent job we completed down the street- Yeah

would the neighbors in neighborhood B know you better than the ones in neighborhood A where you weren't doing that? Would you have a higher likelihood of getting jobs allocating $3,000 to 250 homes? And that's the type of stuff we focus on at Doe. Don't get me wrong, we have companies that are spending 25, 50, $100,000 a month sending out postcards doing blanket marketing, and if you have the budget for that stuff and you're consistent with it, it works, but it's not what we advise for smaller companies.

What we advise for smaller companies is put all your jobs in a map, look at your top three zip codes, and in those zip codes, let's go down to the neighborhoods. Where are the neighborhoods where you got a couple, you know, density of those pins or those jobs? Let's focus in there. Let's look at the consistency of...

Not the homeowners. I don't care how old they are, what their dog's name is, if they're married or not, how much money they make. Your W-2 is in public. Stop targeting people off their income. It's not real. But if you look at their home, like what year was the house built? How old are the houses? What type of roofing or siding do they have?

Finding those pockets and those consistencies and really staying disciplined and focused of, like, being in those people's mailbox every week or every other week, having a yard sign, the stop sign when you drive out of those neighborhoods, or having literature at the, the Pilates studio, coming out of the day.

Tim, our boy Tim from Hook will always joke, you know, Tim and Bea started a roofing company this year. Yeah. And they would joke, so they live in a pretty affluent neighborhood here in the Twin Cities- And Tim would always send me this yard sign coming out of their kids' Montessori school, 'cause we would go to all the affluent Montessori schools, and Pilates studios, and Jamba Juices and shit-

and put a yard sign coming out of the parking lot- Coming out of  

Pete: the parking lot ...  

Dave: of those establishments. And Tim would always be like, "This is the slickest thing I've ever seen." Because we're, we're targeting our ideal customer. We found the neighborhoods that we had jobs in around those affluent areas, and not only are we coming out of the neighborhoods, I'm like, "If the, if we're talking to the wife a lot of the times, where's she at during the day that we can get those additional brand impressions?"

So we're on Facebook, we're on Google, we're hanging on her door, we got the yard signs, we got the postcards. Where can we have that husband or wife see us when they're out about? 'Cause what's a yard sign? What's a postcard? Yeah. They're tiny little billboards. Yeah. Not all of us can afford to do $30,000 a month billboard campaigns, but if you're looking at a yard sign, a postcard, a door hanger as how many impressions am I getting off of this thing, that's one way that I don't think a lot of new business owners look at traditional marketing.

Pete: Well, and I think t- something that you touched on there briefly I think is important to note is, like, when you are sending these postcards, if you decide to go this route, right, and you're, you're sending some type of literature to the house, it doesn't always have to be some type of promotion, some type of deal, right?

There you go. It can literally be a, "Hey, meet the team," you know? "Here's the sales rep that works your area. This is a house we did down the street," right? It's just, all you're doing, like you said, all it is is impressions, keep me top of mind. Like, I, I don't ... You know, like, one of the things we talked about on one of the, on one of the first podcasts we ever did, uh, Matt Grassmeyer from Hail Trace said- Yeah.

I love Matt Grassmeyer ... "How many of you guys are selling, sending a postcard one year after you've done the roof that said, like, 'Today's the birthday of your roof'"? Birthday  

Dave: of your roof cards, yeah.  

Pete: You know? Like- Yep ... you know, and, and stuff like that. Like, it doesn't have to necessarily be tied to some type of promotion, or, you know, you're not trying to hard sell every single time with these things.

It's, it's more for the branding side, right? It's more for the impressions. How many times can we just get in front of these people? 'Cause all of that is building a relationship. We're building towards this relationship that, like you said, it may be two years from now that that person goes, "Oh, crap. I need a roof," right?

And who's the first person they're gonna go to? Right? They're not just gonna start randomly picking up the phone. They're gonna be like, you know, "Oh, I remember getting those postcards from this guy," like, "I remember his logo," whatever the case may be. "I remember seeing his yard sign at the Pilates studio," right?

Whatever it is, right? Like, "I'm gonna reach out to him probably first." And so, you know, like, I think that that's something to keep in mind when you guys are, are doing your marketing is, like, hey, it doesn't necessarily have to be this hard sell. I don't have to have some type of crazy deal, you know, like a- You know, I remember this dude in Texas saying like, "Oh, you know, if, if you close a roof with me, I'll give you an AR," right?

Like, it doesn't have to be like that crazy, you know, every time. Right.  

Dave: Exactly.  

Pete: You know? Like-  

Dave: You know, I had this guy that did this awesome trick. So he was trying to, uh... He was trying to get into this gated community, and for anyone that's tried advertising in gated communities, like you can't just drive in there, right?

Yeah. So the promotion they ran, they had the option of they were giving away these, uh, these blenders, these re- It was like a $200, $300 blender, and you'd get a free one with an estimate. So they looked, I think there was only like 200 homes in this neighborhood, and they ran a campaign over three months, and I think they did two variations.

It was a, it was a blender or a free Ring doorbell, and it, it let them... It- The one time they got an estimate, they had to get put on a list to get into the neighborhood. Well, what happens is, after you do the estimate, most times they don't take you off the list for like a year. So now you've dropped off the blender- Now they know

tea towels to do the inspection. Now, when you go a week later to pull back in, you're like, "Hey, it's Dave from, uh, from, you know, Dave's Roofing. Just gotta get back in here quick." You're already on the list. Now you can go knock in that neighborhood or you can kinda work somewhere. Nice. And depending on how affluent it is, can't go do that in like the Augusta neighborhood or something.

They'd probably kick you out pretty quick.  

Pete: Yeah.  

Dave: But there's just, especially for new business owners or business owners that have grown and are like hiring more staff, trying to fill more seats. You got some guys, maybe they're not super busy yet, just thinking through those creative ways, and I know we said we're, we're probably coming up on time pretty soon, but we're gonna talk about AI a little bit, is like one of the things that I've done successfully as a founder, I didn't know how to spell AI at the end of 2024.

Like, I was not the AI guru. I still try to not post a ton 'cause I don't have a, I don't have an AI product to sell anyone. I'd love to educate people, but there's no really end route of hearing me ramble about all the shit I'm doing on Claude and Perplexity. But like this is a great example of a use case for AI, even if you're not super deep into it.

My advice in the end of April would be pulling up Claude or Perplexity, just saying. Get on the chat and go talk to text. "Hey, this is Dave. I own Dave's Roofing. I've been a business owner in the Minneapolis area for three years. I'm kinda learning how to use AI now. One of the things that I want you to tell me, Claude, is I'm trying to figure out some creative ways to get in front of homeowners in my area.

Here's some unique things about my business. Ask me five to 10 questions about my company so that we can go through a exercise of you giving me advice of how I could get in front of some homeowners." Claude will interview you, ask you some questions, go back and forth, and probably spit out some pretty cool ideas that you wouldn't have thought of on your own.

Pete: Yeah, and I mean, to, to be honest with you, so many times, 'cause we, you know, we have the instant estimator at Roofr, and it's- You know, it's very flexible Amazing tool It al- it allows you to put it... You know, obviously the first thought is like, "Oh, I'm gonna stick it on my website, drive traffic there." Right.

"People will click on it, right? And I'll get it." It's like a form fill out. But we've seen so many unique uses of that product, like just smart places like, uh, 'cause you can generate a QR code, right? Think of all the places you could stick that QR code. And, and so- Right ... you know, like I remember there was one guy saying that he put it, like a picture of a guy having on the side of his boat, right?

He's driving- No ... around the lake all weekend with this QR code on the side. No. Who's not gonna scan that, right? Like, where does this go, right? You know? Yeah. Now next thing you know, there's people scanning it, getting a free estimate of his roof. Smart too, 'cause he probably wrote his boat off, but, you know.

Dave: Wrote his boat off, and you probably wouldn't mind doing a roof for a boat owner versus a 200, uh, a 1,200 square foot rambler or something. Somebody's got a boat- Yes. ...  

Pete: I gotta do Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, the clientele that's out riding around the lake probably is an ideal customer for him, you know? So, yeah, but I mean, just like the creativity there was so interesting, right?

And so I... It is, it's smart, right? Like at the, you know, we just... So many times we get caught up in just like, "Oh, this is the way you do it," right? Like, I do a job, I stick a yard sign in, I drive away, right? Let's wrap my truck. But like you said, where do you park the truck? How visible is the truck, right? Like, yeah, you're gonna park it in front of the house, but maybe that's not the...

Nobody's driving past it, right? I'm roofing  

Dave: a house that- Even take it further from this conversation, if you're a boat lake type of dude, are you bringing a couple yard signs with you just to put at the boat launch? Yeah. 'Cause those are probably good customers. Like thinking through- Yeah ... where is your ideal customer spending time, and where there's some creative ways.

You go to a bar, and you go to the bathroom, and there's the screens in front of the- Yeah. And you're always like- Yeah ... how the hell is that gonna work? Or what's the- That would be part of your branding budget to get another touch. 'Cause with those services you can pick restaurants in a certain side of town or something like that.

Yeah. And if you gauge out like, all right, I go into this restaurant, there's probably 300 tables in here. If I'm gonna do this aver- an advertising campaign, if I... I tend to jump around a little bit. But if you go to an advertising campaign versus a branding campaign, an advertising campaign should be like three months, or a marketing campaign should be like three months.

You wanna give something 90 days to spend money to see what came from it. Mm-hmm. And even if it doesn't work, you got data to reassess. So if you went something as simple as, like those bathroom advertisements or the... I don- I don't like the golf stor- the golf cart grocery store, get on the golf ticket.

Those have never worked very well for my companies. But those impressions that you can buy on the screens around town or, like those digital billboards are really cheap. Here's a gem for everyone. I have no affiliation with this company, but it's called Blip Billboards Blip Billboards made an interface that you can go on and you can buy digital billboard space that is unsold, and they show you a map of where these things are.

I've done it for Dope Marketing over the years, and I'll have people sending me screenshots in different cities. That's fantastic. Like, "Dude, you have billboards in my city?" I'm like, "Dude, that cost me 20 cents to get that impression." Yeah. So Blip Billboard, and they also have some competitors. I don't know who they are.

But these just different ways to look at, like, what area are you working in? How can you take some of that marketing budget and that branding budget to just get more of those impressions so you're a little more known in the areas that you work?  

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, like you said, we're getting close on time here, but to kind of sum it up, right, I think that some of the big things like you talked about today, be creative, right?

But be deliberate with it, you know? And I think so many times that's, you know, it's like, "Hey, we're just kind of... Our marketing budget is throw shit at the wall and see what sticks." And I think people aren't as smart about how they do it, right? They don't go behind it, like you said. Don't... They don't run it for three months and then see how it performed and decide whether we continue to put more money there or we, you know, sunset that and go someplace else, you know, with our marketing.

And so be deliberate about how you market. Be smart about getting in front of the customers that you want and not just trying to blanket an entire area. Yeah. Um, 'cause I think that's a mistake that's made. You know, we just be... We're too general about our marketing, I think, a lot of times. And so, um, yeah, man, good advice.

Good, good stuff. Absolutely. We probably could do two or three more of these. Right. Maybe we  

Dave: will.  

Pete: We haven't even, we haven't even gotten to Brain's fear of small spaces yet.  

Dave: We had, we had a fun experience in Vegas, uh, at IRE this year with my wife's love and affinity for being in small elevators or going on the...

I got my arm twisted by you guys to go on that ride on the top of the-  

Pete: Oh my God. Yeah, so we had- That was- ... our shingle and mingle event, our post event, at the Stratosphere, which was what, like, 140 stories up or something crazy, right? Yeah. Like, high. I mean, you're talking about a significant elevator ride.

And what was hilarious about that is that Richy, our CEO, also has a huge fear of elevators. Definitely. Will not go... Like, taking the stairs everywhere he goes. And so we were walking to dinner, and the Stratosphere was there. Like, we could see it in the distance, and we're like, "Oh, look, that's where we're going for our event later."

And he's like, "Wait, what? How are we getting up there?" And we're like, "Well, you gotta take the elevator. It's like, it's huge. Like, you gotta go way up." Yeah. He's like Who planned that? He's like, "Somebody's getting fired tonight." He's like, "How am I gonna get up there?" We're like, "Well, you ain't taking the stairs, bro."

Dave: Yeah, it's the stairs.  

Pete: Yeah. Well, man, I appreciate you jumping on. I don't wanna hold you up. I know you're busy, and, uh, yeah, like I said, we probably could jump on and do some more of these later on. But, uh, awesome advice, and I really appreciate you coming on. And for anybody listening, this is great stuff.

Hopefully you guys can put it into play here. And a lot of this stuff, you know, if you need to reach out to, to Dave and his team, DOAP does some fantastic stuff, and they'll definitely help hook you up and get you guys set up, um, doing it the right way. So, uh, appreciate it, man.  

Dave: Appreciate you having me, brother.

It was a great time.  

Pete: Yeah, man. Thank you for everybody listening, and we will see you next time on The Roofr Report. Thanks, everybody.  

Hey, everybody, thank you for listening. Check us out next time on The Roofr Podcast. But until then, be  

sure to like us, subscribe to us, and check out all our other episodes on YouTube and Spotify.