Episode Summary

Joe and Mike break down why Google reviews matter more than ever for home service businesses. They share fresh ranking and consumer-behavior stats, explain the concept of review velocity, and give a practical, low-tech “Google Review Hack” that makes leaving reviews easy for customers and consistent for your team. If you want more calls from your Google Business Profile, this episode is a playbook.

What You’ll Learn

• Why Google reviews are the new word-of-mouth for home services
• How replying to reviews impacts trust and conversion
• What “review velocity” is and how it affects rankings
• Why reputation can beat ranking position for call volume
• How reviews influence results in tools like ChatGPT, Yelp, and Reddit
• A simple QR code system to get more reviews on the spot
• How to encourage techs to ask for reviews consistently

Visit Joe at: https://bigwestmarketing.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/joeburnich

Visit Mike at: https://www.mancinidigital.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeMancini

n this episode of Home Service Marketing Pros, hosts Joe Burnich and Mike Mancini tackle one of the most common — yet confusing — questions home service pros face: “How much should I spend on marketing?”

They break down practical budgeting strategies for every stage of business, from brand-new startups to established multi-truck operations. Whether you’re an electrical Contractor, HVAC tech, pressure washer or carpet cleaner, this conversation will help you set up a sustainable marketing plan that grows your business without draining your wallet.

Key Topics Covered

• The 10% Rule: Why allocating 10% of your revenue to marketing can keep your business healthy and growing.
• Adjusting for Your Stage of Business: What to do if you’re just starting out vs. already established.
• Referrals Aren’t Enough: Why relying solely on word-of-mouth will eventually stall your growth.
• Budgeting Habits: How to set up a dedicated savings account for marketing and make it automatic.
• Hustling Without a Budget: Proven ways to market your services for free — from door hangers to partnerships and community networking.
• Avoiding the Comparison Trap: Why chasing “big competitors” can lead to overspending and burnout.
• Smart Scaling: How to reinvest wisely as you grow and when to slow down or ramp up your ad spend.

Real-World Advice:

Joe and Mike share personal experiences from their own service businesses and marketing agencies, revealing both the wins and the lessons learned. Their bottom line? Marketing never stops — it just evolves.

Visit Joe at: https://bigwestmarketing.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/joeburnich

Visit Mike at: https://www.mancinidigital.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeMancini

In this episode of Home Service Marketing Pros, hosts Joe Burnich and Mike Mancini break down one of the biggest frustrations for home service businesses — when Google seems to ignore or “hate” your business listing. They explain why your Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) may not be ranking in the local map pack and what you can do to fix it.

Key topics include:

• Why your business address plays a huge role in whether you rank or not.
• The major problems with using PO boxes, UPS mailboxes, or virtual office addresses.
• The truth about home addresses and why hiding them can still help you rank.
• The difference between Google Ads and SEO — and why they don’t impact each other.
• How Google decides which businesses appear near the city center (centroid bias).
• The importance of updating your profile regularly, uploading real photos, and engaging with reviews.
• Why consistent address and citation information across your website, Yelp, and other directories matters.

Joe and Mike also share insider data from over 100 businesses and real-world experiences to help you understand what Google really wants to see from legitimate home service pros.

Visit Joe at: https://bigwestmarketing.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/joeburnich

Visit Mike at: https://www.mancinidigital.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeMancini

In this episode of Home Service Marketing Pros, Joe Burnich and Mike Mancini reveal a simple, free marketing tool that saved Mike’s clients over $6,000 in one month — and could save home service pros thousands more.

They dig into one of the biggest mistakes contractors make: not tracking their leads. Mike explains how 9 out of 10 home service businesses fail to track where their calls and leads come from, leading to wasted ad spend and missed opportunities. The duo shares practical ways to fix it, including using tracking phone numbers, CRMs like ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro, and a free Google Sheets lead tracker that Mike created (download link in the episode notes).

Listeners will learn how to:

Identify which marketing channels actually make money.

Stop wasting thousands on ads that don’t perform.

Set up simple tracking systems that anyone can use.

They also discuss CallRail for call tracking, how to assign numbers to your website, ads, or even business cards, and why tracking gives smaller companies a huge edge over big competitors.

Visit Joe at: https://bigwestmarketing.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/joeburnich

Visit Mike at: https://www.mancinidigital.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeMancini

In this first episode of Home Service Marketing Pros, Joe Burnich and Mike Mancini share their backgrounds running service and marketing businesses, establishing credibility in SEO, web design and Google Ads. They emphasize that Google search and ads consistently outperform social media for home service companies because Google captures intent-based customers actively seeking help, while social media leads are often low-quality and hard to convert. The hosts set the stage for future episodes with niche-specific strategies, ROI tracking tips, and actionable marketing tactics for electricians, HVAC, cleaning companies and other service pros.

Visit Joe at: https://bigwestmarketing.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/joeburnich

Visit Mike at: https://www.mancinidigital.com/
Or his Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeMancini

I'm excited to bring you this episode with Tony Mayorga. He is an electrical contractor with A & B Electric out of Denver, Colorado. So, Wendy Moon, our SEO specialist jumps on a call with Tony, asked him some questions about his business and how he's doing with his SEO and his marketing. Who he serves and a lot of it centers around customer service and the quality of service he provides.

Transcript Highlights

Wendy:
Hi, I'm well I'm well, so okay, can you tell me about your business A & B Electric, how long you've been in business?

Tony:
We've been a yes, absolutely. We've been in business for about 11 years. We started off just me and my partner, doing jobs for friends and family and just word of mouth. We we did that for a few years. Then, then we started being very successful and we completely ventured off into, we quit our jobs and we just started doing became, electrical contractors.

It's been great ever since, especially since we got on with Big West marketing. The SEO marketing has been amazing. It has really expanded my business. It's tripled my business and yeah, this is where we're at 2021 and we're still growing. -

We do everything, the full spectrum, full spectrum of electrical work. So anything you can think of that requires electricity and then residential or commercial application that we can handle, but we, we try to stick to the service area.

So if you have if you need an electrical panel install, you need some recess lighting in your house or a particular piece of equipment and your commercial property or commercial business is not working or it lost power, then you can call us. So we definitely focus more on the service side of it, but we also do new construction. We do custom builds, custom houses. So yeah, we do pretty much that.

The best part is, is helping people with our service. I think we, we provide the best value, I strive for that. I strive for 100% satisfaction, customer satisfaction. So it really is. It feels great when somebody recommends you [crosstalk 00:04:42] or a referral, like you do a project for someone and their neighbor or their family member calls you and they say, Hey, you did some work for, for my mom, for my brother. I liked the way everything worked out. The price was good and you know, they call me and, and that really, they call my company and that's really satisfying to be able to provide a service that people could rely on and can rely on, on an electrician that will be there any time of the day or night. I think that's the best part about being an electrician is putting a smile on people's faces at the end of their other project. So-

We are somebody that you can trust, somebody that's reliable, it's going to get the job done. that's A & B Electric, essentially somebody that's going to get the job done. It's going to be a trustworthy contractor because you can't believe how many stories I've heard of other electricians that came in there. They didn't do the job. They took the money never returned, or they did something improper.

With us, with A & B Electric, it's all about customer satisfaction. We're going to do with the job that we said we were going to do. At a fair price for both the homeowner and us. I guarantee you that the client's going to be happy. That's just my ultimate goal at every job, whether it'd be a troubleshooting call, or a big project custom build, the customer has to be happy. That's my number one priority. It's like when you purchase something and you're happy and you're wow, that was a great experience.

Joe Burnich:
You can always jump on BigWestMarketing.com or you can give us a call at (406) 493-1881. 

My name is Joe Burnich. This is my first crack at podcasting for my business Big West Marketing. In this episode I talk about what we do for our clients here at Big West Marketing. Basically we empower home service businesses to take their businesses to the next level with web design and search engine optimization (SEO). 

Visit our website here: https://bigwestmarketing.com/

Partial Transcript:

This is Joe Burnich with Big West Marketing. This is my first crack at doing a podcast. I really have no idea what I'm doing. I'm usually on YouTube doing YouTube stuff, but I thought I'd give this a try. See if we can get any traction with podcasting. I'm always trying new marketing things and podcasting is something I have never jumped into. So, here's my little trial first episode. Welcome everybody, if you are listening to this.

Big West Marketing. What is it that I do or that we do here at Big West Marketing? Well, let me give you a little overview. Currently, we are a nine person team including myself, so I have eight employees. Two are part-time, six are full-time and we primarily help service businesses, home service businesses, take it to the next level by providing a proven marketing formula that includes web design and search engine optimization.

So we create a website, not just any website, but a website that is built to convert. What does convert mean? Convert means that when somebody lands on your website, they have the highest chance of calling you, filling out a form, emailing you, taking action, because they are looking for your service. They look at three or four different websites on the internet when they're searching for, let's say, electrical contractor in Houston, Texas. They're going to look at several different companies, several different websites before they pick up the phone and call, unless they're just looking for a quick deal and they're looking for a coupon or something like that. But most people, they want to look that are searching around on Google, they've got an issue, they need some sort of installation or some sort of repair. What they do is they click on several websites and they're like, "Okay, what's this person all about? Do I like this person?" And you notice I used the word person. I'm not using the word company. People want to work with people.

When they get on a website and there's lots of, I don't know, big moving pictures and generic stock photography that is not branded to that electrician's business, then people are less likely to take action and call that person. What they want to see is, who are the people behind this business? If you get on a website and you see a big picture of an electrical contractor, but you see the big picture of all the crew and big smiling faces, and they're all uniformed and they're ready to go. The higher end clients are going to be more likely to resonate with that picture than the picture of some hands inside of an electrical box working on some stuff. They know you do electricity. They know you work on wires. They don't need you to remind them of that. What you need to tell them in order to separate yourself apart from the competition is that you're professional, you're personable and they don't have to worry about who's coming into the house.

There was a big research study done, I don't know, 10 years ago where they asked a bunch of homemakers, females, that are the decision-makers in the home when it comes to any kind of repairs, upgrades, remodels, any of that kind of stuff. They asked them what the number one thing is when it comes to hiring a service professional. It wasn't price. It wasn't whether or not you're licensed. It wasn't whether or not you're insured, all that stuff's important, I know. But the number one thing was, what kind of person is coming into my house...