On todays episode, Mike has on Dan Antonelli, an expert in home service contractor branding. As the author of Branded Not Blanded, book on brand marketing, he has equipped contractors with innovative insights, and guiding them on crafting impactful brand identities.
Dan emphasizes that branding encompasses not just what customers perceive, but also the company's internal culture and employee dynamics. He also explains the importance of consumer psychology, empowering contractors to optimize subconscious trust of their target audience.
In today’s era of digital evolution, Dan has guided home service contractors in embracing the modernization of communication. Recognizing the shift from traditional phone calls, he has enabled contractors to adapt to modern approaches so they can optimize their branding.
Check out Dan's book Branded Not Blanded here!
https://www.amazon.com/Branded-Not-Blanded-KickChargeTM-Service-ebook/dp/B0BBL1CCJ9
Interested in learning more about Roofr? Get your first roof measurement report for free: https://shorturl.at/quCQ5
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Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So, alright Dan, I got a question for you. You got an answer?
Dan Antonelli: Okay. What do you got?
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What do a tick and the Eiffel Tower have in common?
Dan Antonelli: Can't do it, man. Can't put it together.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: They're both parasites.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: late.
Dan Antonelli: I'll have to remember that one for my daughter.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: You're welcome. Already added value. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Mission Control podcast. I'm your host Mike Stearns with the Sun Digital Agency. Thank you to our sponsors over at Roofer. If you need clean and pristine proposals, instant roof measurements, or just talk to great people, hit them up. There's gonna be a link down in the description in the comment. It'll be somewhere just click it and go talk to them. So we've got Dan Antonelli today. Dan, tell people who you are.
Dan Antonelli: Sure, I run a branding agency here in New Jersey. We do home service branding and have done that for the last 28 years or so, which is a pretty
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: That's
Dan Antonelli: long
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it.
Dan Antonelli: time. Yeah, so we've got a few thousand brands under our belt. We've learned a couple of things along the way, I would hope, and I've written a couple of books on branding and the last book I just wrote. is called Branded Not Blended, How to Kick Charge Your Home Service Brand. And that basically contains all the data that's been sitting in my brain for the last like 15 years. And I decided to finally put it out into a book to hopefully help as many home service contractors as I can with the information. Give them some tips on what to do, what not to do, and some common. errors to avoid and hopefully help them to build a better brand for them and their company and their customers and their clients and their employees.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that's great. And by the way, for you guys watching this, go read the book. I read it before the podcast. It's a great fucking book. There's a lot of takeaways that even I got out of it. And, you know, they're not the same, you know, running a digital marketing agency and a branding agency, there are some parallels and overlap. And I certainly pulled out a tremendous amount of value. So go, Jen, put the link below to right below roofer, get it in there. All right, you guys click it, go buy it. It's fantastic. Thank me later. Yes, what is what is blended? What does that mean?
Dan Antonelli: So, you know, the biggest challenge that a lot of home service owners have is that their company brand basically just blends in. So we call that blending. And that's really when there isn't a lot that a consumer would look at your brand and recognize a distinction, recognize something that's unique about it, and even more importantly, something that they would remember later on when they actually need service. So the idea of what we do. behind our brands. We talk a lot about disruption and disruptive branding. It's just a notion of trying to create brands that are more memorable, that are sticky in the homeowner's mind, and that will help that consumer when they are ready for service to actually type in the name of that particular company rather than typing in, you know, roofing contractor near me. you know, and hoping you show up on that game and how much is that lead going to cost and things like that. Obviously, as you know, if everyone knew the name of the roofing company that was the best in their community, they wouldn't have much need for LSA and PPC and all those other things. Now, of course, they're still going to need those other avenues. But in the book, we talk about the reality that like 84% of every home, of every consumer, for a home consumer, I should say. doesn't know the name of a contractor before they go to Google. So that's making Google very wealthy and it's also emptying your pockets really quickly. But it would be much better if that consumer knew your name before they went to Google and you would spend a lot less. So we talk about trying to win on the streets. Obviously how critical it is to have a brand that's disruptive, have a truck wrap that's disruptive. have a name that people can remember. It's also, you know, that's probably one of the biggest chapters in the book is on naming or how to name your home service company. So that's certainly the idea behind a lot of what we do.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that's a really good point. And just to piggyback off that, you know, I, when I look at it, You know, it could be right. So it's not binary. It's not like they, you know, they don't know anybody or they definitely know somebody necessarily. Right. It could be something. And this is where branding comes into play where they might be looking for best roof. And then they see seven roofers. Right. And then they remember based off your branding. So they might not be all the way brand committed to do a direct search, but there's a tremendous amount of value
Dan Antonelli: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: in putting out material. It's clear, concise, consistent, right. So the messaging,
Dan Antonelli: Right.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the look, the feel. You guys do some dope fucking work, by the way. I
Dan Antonelli: Thank you.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: go check out their portfolio. It's fantastic. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Let me ask you this. What, when is the right time to rebrand?
Dan Antonelli: Um, there's a lot. I mean, that's a, that's a question. That's a really important question is the reality is everyone starts or a lot of people start and they bootstrap the thing, you know, maybe they, they can invest the money to really get a great brand, maybe to start. And certainly we, we understand that not everyone has the budget to afford great branding from day one. I mean, some, a lot of people do, but sometimes you can't, right. But you have to look at your brand and say, does it actually represent what we've evolved into today? If I were to judge you on what you present to me, whether it's via your website, whether it's via your trucks, your business card, the uniforms for the guys, does it actually project the level of expertise and the quality of which your company is known for? So if I knew nothing at all about you and I simply looked at these things, what's my takeaway? are you cheap, maybe not gonna be in business next year, I'm not sure I can trust you, or these look like a really premium home service company, I can trust them, I know if my roof leaks next year, they're gonna be back to fix it and help me and make sure that everything is going well. So those are all the things, because remember branding is really, again, just trying to control what Mrs. Jones thinks about your company. before she even gets a chance to interact with you. So if I can control the perception of what she believes, then I'm winning already, right? So before you ring the doorbell, if she thinks you're a premium home service provider, your pricing, again, this is where you talk about how it helps with higher average tickets, right? Because it looks like a company that I can trust. It looks like a company that does great work. Looks like a company that I'm not worried about. working on my home, they're gonna be licensed, they're gonna be insured. So all those things factor into does the current brand actually speak to those things? Does it represent who we've evolved into? And the other part too is there's so much generic roofing branding. To me it's one of the most generic branding verticals out there in terms of what a lot of roofers do. You know, they get this clip art and they, you know, they put their name underneath it and it's a rooftop and it's just, this is the same, right? Everything's the same, right? So, so if you, if you go and you Google roofing company logos and you see a derivative of your own brand up there in Google or on a, you know, a clip art site, then, then why would Mrs. Jones ever remember that? Why would that stick out to her as being unique? Even the use of colors are so critical. when it comes to branding. For some reason, roofers like to use a lot of black. They use a lot of red sometimes. And just colors that are very common. Well, what if you were purple and apple green, and you were the only roofer in your community that was purple and apple green? You think you'd have better recognition than if you were black and red? So looking at colors is also a really, really critical component. So if you're blending into all the other trucks, and all the other roofing companies, or even if you're being confused with other home service companies in your space, think about how you can do something that's very distinct. Part of our process as we build brands, is we look at your top five to 10 competitors, and we look at the colors that those companies are using. So if I see a lot of saturation of one particular color palette, obviously I'm not gonna put another brand in the market with the same color palette, that would make no sense. So
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm.
Dan Antonelli: those are some things that you can look at and just sort of see if, you know, hey, do we really, you know, blend in with what everyone else is doing? Or do we actually feel different? Do we look different? Are we communicating brand promise to that consumer? So again, like just controlling what she feels before she gets to interact with your company is, you know, so important and a big piece of that puzzle.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that's some really, that's some really good information, Dan. Let me ask you, let's start here though. And I probably should ask this first, but just to I think that there's sometimes there's some confusion, right? So we're talking about like the manifestation of branding, right? And how that makes people feel. But what's encompassed when you say brand?
Dan Antonelli: Mm-hmm.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What's encompassed in that?
Dan Antonelli: So, you know, in the book we talk about this branding wheel, the idea of that branding is essentially a wheel that's made up of different components, right? So in the center of that wheel, you know, we say is your logo, okay? So driving out from there are the spokes basically comprising the wheel. And the spokes might include your truck wraps, your uniforms, your website, your social media voice, your culture, things like that, right? So, So if you don't get that hub correct, you can still build a wheel, right? You can build a wheel. It's just not gonna be very round, right? So if it's not round, what does that actually translate into? And what it translates into is you needing more money to basically promote your own business, okay? So the weaker the brand or the weaker the hub, then that wheel is not round. It's never gonna turn properly. And you can, a lot of companies overcome that by simply spending more money. And we look at it as like, listen, I want my clients to spend the least amount of money possible on their marketing. And you hear a lot of companies, or a lot of guys say, hey, you know, you gotta spend 10% of revenue on advertising if you wanna grow. And you know, listen, that's bullshit. You know, a lot of the people that need to spend 10% or more on their marketing are companies that have really weak brands. So again, the weaker the brand, the more money you're gonna need to spend. Like it sounds, I hate to say it like this because to me it just sounds so painfully obvious, right? Like if you've got a shitty brand, yeah, I'm gonna have to spend a lot more money to market it. Wouldn't it be great, again, if I had a brand that was sticky, that people remembered, I would need to spend less money basically promoting my own company. So there's a direct relationship to how strong of a brand you have. with how much money you'll need to spend to market your business.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hmm. Let's see here. It's a causal relationship between the stickiness of the brand and what you're going to spend. Yeah.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Why do so many people neglect brand building then?
Dan Antonelli: I mean, it's a lot of reasons. Sometimes when they start, they're just not going to the right people that actually understand branding. So maybe they go to a sign company or a wrap company. And those guys, listen, I'm friends with hundreds of sign shops, wrap companies. They are generally amazing at printing and installing. They're just generally not amazing. on branding, right? Because that's a very, very unique skill set. So sometimes it's just, they haven't spoken to the right people in the beginning. And so they get something, they personally like it, which is another challenge, right? They think that they need to like their own brand as far as being the number one thing that proves that it's a good logo. Well, the reality is it almost doesn't really matter whether or not the owner likes or dislikes their own brand. because that's not who the audience is. So that's tough to hear sometimes because guys don't want to listen to that. They want to love their brand. And listen, I want my clients to love their brand too. But ultimately, my target demographic is generally in the home service sector, women. So I'm trying to figure out how to get inside her brain. I'm trying to figure out what will appeal to her, what will make her feel comfortable about who's showing up at her home. Because she's the one generally making the home service purchasing decisions. So looking at it from that perspective, and again too, most people aren't going to tell the owner that come to them, whether it's a marketing agency, whether it's a wrap shop, a printer, a screen printer, like, hey dude, your logo sucks, man. Who's gonna have that conversation? You wanna tell the guy that his logo sucks, or do you wanna cash his check and print the shit that he came to you for? So those are sometimes the two challenges. So I don't wanna say that everyone is doing that, but at the end of the day, A lot of people just don't want to have that conversation. They don't want to tell the owner, hey, you know what? This really isn't good. And they might not even know it. It's gotten to them to where they are at that point. So then to come in and say, hey, dude, you should change your logo. And they're like, oh, but look at how successful I've been with it. And I always say, well, that's great. It's amazing what you've done with what you have. Now let's look at what you could be. and where you could go. Because what's got you here is not gonna get you to where you wanna go at the end of the day. And we've rebranded companies that were, I mean, 40, $50 million in revenue. So why did they rebrand? Why did they say, hey, what we have isn't good enough and we need to make a change? Like Tommy Mell is a great example. We rebranded Tommy when he was 35, $40 million in revenue like three years ago. And I think whatever, he's at 200, 300 now, whatever. But... Why did Tommy say, hey, like we've gotten to 30 million by old benchmarks, like we're killing it, we're crushing it? No, he knew it wasn't gonna take him to where he wanted to go. He knew it also didn't represent the level that he was putting out, the service that he was putting out, the quality he was doing. So, you know, being introspective is hard because that logo that they've used for so long is their warm blanket. And I'm sensitive to that, like I understand that. Like I'm not, I'm not trying to like, like, you know, really trash what they've done previously. All I'm trying to say is, hey, man, like I think it's amazing that you've grown with what you have, right? But imagine where we could go. Because you hear the common complaints, like I can't find anyone to work for me, right? No one wants to work for me. The culture is not good. Like so many things are driven by branding. So when you look at a lot of the owners too, that complain that they can't find anyone that wants to work for them, look at what they present themselves as. and then ask yourself, does this look like a company I would wanna work for? Like Tommy Melwood does not have recruitment problems because it looks like a place that I wanna be a part of. So being introspective sometimes is hard. You gotta look and you gotta say, is this really who we are today? Most instances, it's really not, but I don't want anyone to also think that rebranding is easy, because it's not,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Right.
Dan Antonelli: it's hard. It's freaking hard. Like there's a lot of work that goes into it and that scares a lot of people. But you know what, when you're writing that check to Google for 10 or 15 grand, that's when you gotta start asking yourself, hey, like I'm paying 10, 15 grand every freaking month, man. Like this sucks. Like I hate this check that I gotta write or the credit card that they whack me on. So what if I could do something again that would mean I could spend less overall on my marketing because I was so sticky. and people knew who I was in my community. And again, if you put your logo on the screen and you put your top five competitors next to yours, and they all look the same, I mean, your answer is right there. Like that's the answer.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: All right.
Dan Antonelli: You don't really need me to tell you that. Like you can visually look at it. And if that consumer is being bombarded with the same type of images, day in and day out, they all blend and she remembers none of them. So how do I get it again so that I'm doing something that feels different than what everyone else is doing?
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, and that's I mean, that's a surefire way to succumb to the objection of price, right and race to the bottom. right is that there's no
Dan Antonelli: Mm-hmm.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: distinction or you can have a strong sales process, but the brand only perpetuate your ability to differentiate yourself and get higher ticket for what you're offering
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: better margin, right? I think that there's a lack of understanding just in general, I'll give it like from my side, like people assume that like we can fix it right, because we do digital marketing.
Dan Antonelli: Thank you.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'm like, no, it's not the same. It's very, very different. In fact,
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: but if you reset your computer, there's like a 97% chance it'll work. So with branding like I read in your book I think you said you had like 200 applicants to fill one or two spots right like That's
Dan Antonelli: Okay.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: and of those 200 people It's not like you're just spraying and praying and hoping that they're looking or they're gonna be qualified like those are likely gonna be people With some sort of experience right so it's not just random sampling there 200
Dan Antonelli: Right.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: people that are in the field and of that one or two People I think you said were like actually viable fits right so it's super specialized
Dan Antonelli: Exactly.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so you can't assume that just anyone can do it would be similar to let's say a roofing contractor, you know, that does residential asphalt only being lumped in with somebody who only does torch down, right? Or,
Dan Antonelli: Yeah,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you
Dan Antonelli: yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: know, and assuming that those things are the same when like the installation process and everything about it is going to be wholeheartedly different. And you could lay shingles have no fucking idea how to do torch down, right?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Like that.
Dan Antonelli: And it's like, I can swing a hammer with a nail, but like, I ain't going to be doing my own roof either. You know? So like, when someone's like, Oh, well, I'm, I can do graphic design or I'm really good in Photoshop. Like, okay. But do you understand consumer psychology? Cause that's what you're doing. Like you're designing brands and you have to understand consumer psychology before you can endeavor to do that. Do you have any understanding of that? That's the questions to be asking. Like, so it is a very, very unique skill set. And traditional graphic designers, some of them are well-rounded enough that they could maybe do something like that. But honestly, you have to not only just understand the psychology, you have to understand naming, you have to understand how this vision and this brand is going to live and breathe, not just on a website or on a business card or on a uniform, but how does it actually work on the truck, which is another huge issue. You see so many of these truck wraps that are out there. And sadly, like 90% of them have such a diminished ROI because they're illegible. There's too much crap going on them. I can't read it, I'll never remember it. So like there's so much more involved in the branding that has to be taken into consideration. Again, that just not a lot of people really understand it fully. They may have one piece of it, or maybe they understand one piece of it, but not usually the whole package.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that's a really good point. Um, I think that, and we had talked about this briefly before the show, but For anyone that's out there listening, you obviously want to be concerned with cost and return, right? And what your numbers are and your margin. But like, I think that a lot of people overlook understanding opportunity costs. Right. So if you choose to do this, right, you choose to go to Fiverr to do your SEO or branding versus hiring like a qualified agency that has, you know, years and years of experience and success stories like, yes, you may get your logo, you may get some semblance of SEO, but what are you not getting? What are you losing? from the opportunity of going the other direction by going with that
Dan Antonelli: Right.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: right in a lot of the times like with us we're usually a third or fourth agency right they've had their heartbroken dream shattered
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: misrepresented their position and deliverables and you know it was a dumpster fire all in the name of cost right like it well we couldn't afford it It's sometimes it can be a tough pill to swallow when you're
Dan Antonelli: 100%.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: buying a higher end service. But at the end
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: of the day, there's a reason right why those services are oftentimes going to be more. So opportunity cost, I think that if people focused on that, it like not everything fits into a spreadsheet. And this is something that has been typical contractors for the last almost decade that I've been doing it. And maybe this has been your experience, or maybe not. But if I can't directly attribute where leads coming from how something comes in, it won't fit into a spreadsheet, and there's not a straight line of attribution. Contractors are not very likely to do it or buy into it, right? It's
Dan Antonelli: and
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: a really fucking uphill battle. That's not a knock. It's just it just seems to be a tendency.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And that makes it challenging like to buy into branding if that if you're of that mindset, right? Because it's not like an LSA ad where it's like, Okay, I paid 48 bucks for this lead, and I sold it for $13,000 at 40% gross profit.
Dan Antonelli: Right, right, yeah. And you know, the interesting thing I think about the roofing space is it feels like it's probably five to eight years behind the other home service trades, in terms of understanding brand, right? So you look at HVAC and you look at plumbing and electrical, those companies have been heavily investing in branding, especially over the last five years, I would say, because they understand the relationship. between the vehicle especially, the truck route that's out on the street and how that is affecting ROI, how that is affecting again the branded searches, the number of phone calls and the leads that are coming through that particular source. So what I love about, even Garage Door Services, another company, very similar to Roofing that I think is still about five or six years behind sort of what mainstream HVAC and plumbing are doing. So I look at that as even a greater opportunity then, because you know. there aren't a lot of people in the roofing side that are investing in branding. And we've been doing more and more of them, I'd say over the last year or so, and we've done several. And it's really funny, like I was just driving on Route 95 going through Philly, going down to Delaware, and there's a brand that we created, and we did actually the billboards for them. And I actually, you know, it's not often I get to see my billboards live because they're all over the country, but I actually was driving and, you know, I'm getting hit with all these kind of, you know, billboards for different companies and then mine popped up and it was just it was purple and apple green it was for a company called mung roofing that we did the branding for and Yeah, I mean it really stood out, but you know I'm probably a little biased about it But after a sea of things that all felt the same
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Mm-hmm.
Dan Antonelli: Then I saw that and I was like that felt really different. It felt very memorable And again, colors played such a big role in that too. But I think if you're one of the early adapters of this and really start pushing it in your community, to me you'll have a leg up on a lot of people that are still very complacent, right? And that's the other thing we talk about in the book is the idea of that complacency syndrome, right? Because again, it's very easy to sit back and maybe doing well, you know? You got the money coming in, everything seems like it's working great, I'm not gonna change anything. Why would I ever change anything, right? It's working. But again, it's that same mindset that's very complacent. And there's a lot of big companies that are very complacent, right? And they just, especially PE-owned companies, to me, are historically very complacent, right? So I kinda, on one hand, I like it because it just leaves opportunity for those that aren't. Let them keep doing their same crap, they're spending their eight to 10% on marketing, they think they're making a killing, great. while they're sitting there sort of resting on their laurels, we're gonna come in there, we're gonna start taking pieces of their world basically by just branding better than they are. And I don't care how big they are. Like some of the biggest HVAC companies in the space have some of the worst brands, which sounds like, well, how can that, why did that happen? Well, they spent a lot of money to do that, right? So again, you know, we have so many examples of clients spending less than 5% that are growing double digits, triple digits every year. Well, how are they doing that? Like that's crazy. That runs contrary to what everyone else says you need to be doing. And again, the brand just plays such an important role in that.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, I in the book you had mentioned that you stated an example of a billboard. It was like you take their past customers and put the, you know, happy birthday Lucas. Right. And as a
Dan Antonelli: Yeah,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: picture
Dan Antonelli: yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: of the of the customer, I was like, that's fucking brilliant. Right. Like
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: people will remember that it'll make them feel warm and fuzzy. And it's definitely different. Right. I've never
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: seen anything like that. I've seen a lot of fucking billboards. So.
Dan Antonelli: Yep.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Kudos to you, man. That was that was super dope. I don't brand
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: for me It's like how people are gonna perceive you right and like you said it could be prior to the initial like conversation that you're having with them the door knock and usually should be should be proactive, but I don't know to be funny to like a funny way to say like if you're a single guy and you go to a bar and there's a girl you want to talk to and every fucking guy there's been 40 guys that talk to her in a white t shirt and a pair of jeans and a pair of tennis shoes then you come in with a custom fit suit you got fucking hair like Mike like you're different right and there might be a better opportunity for you to move the conversation forward maybe you start the norm of reciprocity and you buy your drink I don't know
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: That's not my wheelhouse, but it would be markedly different from every other person And that's kind of what you're explaining with what the companies can do just simply by putting some concerted energy into focusing on brand, right?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah. And from the sales process to your point again, how much easier would it be to sell at a higher average ticket if when you rolled up in a beautiful wrap truck and your uniforms dialed in and you got a nice piece of collateral that you hand out to them and your business card is dialed in. You know, what does she think already about you? Like what have you already established? So like you can have the best sales training in the world. And there's some really amazing. people in the space that do sales training. But you could look at the results of people with really poor brands and how hard their jobs are versus guys with really great brands and how easy their jobs are. It's a lot easier to walk into that sale when they already expect something, they already feel something, and they can connect with you. We talk about empathy and creating empathy within the brands and connecting to that customer. I mean, that's another piece of it. So sometimes I feel badly for some of these guys that work in sales and some of these really awful brands I'm like, oh man, your job must be so freaking hard man. It's like, you know, so
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It's tough, but
Dan Antonelli: Yeah
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it be like that sometimes. Good news, there's an opportunity to fix it, okay? So click that link below. No,
Dan Antonelli: Yeah
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so if some, let me ask you this, because we see this all the time, right? We, like I said, we're the third or fourth agency typically because we're very much so at the higher end as far as cost is concerned, investment. So if there's anyone watching this, and hopefully there'll be a couple people watching this, and thank you for those of you that do. What
Dan Antonelli: and
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: would be your advice if they're considering, okay, we've got them where we want them, they're considering investing in brand, right? And maybe they call KickCharge, maybe they call somebody else. What are some things, how should they guide that conversation to know whether or not that they're gonna be working with a quality agency on their branding?
Dan Antonelli: Sure, yeah, I mean, obviously experience plays a really large role, right? So what have they done in this space? What are some of their success stories? Can I speak to some of the people that they've branded and then speak to them about results, right? Because at the end of the day, listen, this is the other thing too, it's like I love to make pretty things, right? I love to make really cool brands that are really dope, as you said, but at the end of the day, like I don't... care how dope it is if it doesn't deliver results, right? So that's the most important aspect of it. So what are the results that you've been able to get? How can you quantify some of those results? And you know, listen, we try to quantify results by sort of just looking at where the company was before the rebrand and where they were maybe six months after or a year after, okay? So how much did the business grow? And again, is it 100% because we rebranded them? No, okay, but. You know, you need great leadership, you need a great sales team, you need great marketing, right? So those are all the things. But like, you almost wanna say too, what is the price to change the culture of your business? What is the price to re-energize your team about the investment you're making in the brand, right? And that's the hidden thing. Like no one comes to kick-start and say, Dan, you know, we want you to create a new brand for us because we really wanna improve our culture. Like no one says that, right? But that's what happens afterwards. So asking those questions and saying, hey, what are some of the results that you've seen after doing this? Look at their portfolio, okay? And I know that you may not be the best qualified to look at the portfolio and to judge whether or not things are done correctly or not correctly, but you get a general sense. Is it legible? Is it disruptive? Or is it the same old recycled clip art that everyone else is using, right? And that's the other piece of it. Will you own the artwork? Is the artwork original? Like, we talked about using Fiverr. Why we don't recommend people ever go to Fiverr because a lot of times the artwork that is sold to you actually belongs to someone else. Ask me how I know.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: in the comments.
Dan Antonelli: So, yeah, so, you know, asking those types of questions, certainly look at their reviews, speak to people that they've worked with. And you know, you have to be willing also to... trust the process. And in as much as we value our clients' opinions on things, at the end of the day, this is what we do. You know, if you came to my house and you said, Dan, like the flashing on your roof is bad and you need to replace it with this, you know, I'm not really qualified to say otherwise, right? So trust the people, provided they have, obviously, the right credentials, and let them do their thing. You know, and I think that that's the challenge sometimes, Owners want to get a lot of people involved in the brand process. They want to ask their buddies. They want to ask everyone on their team. And again, at the end of the day, like who is the target audience? And what did they think is really the most critical question? It's not what you, your buddies, like they're irrelevant, okay? Because they're not the ones making those purchasing decisions. It's generally Mrs. Smith who's making those purchase decisions. And she's already scared shitless about who's showing up at her house. Right. So, so think about how your brand communicates to her. Right. So even like the aggressive brands with a muscled guy and he's holding the hammer. Right. OK. Like, do I really want to introduce that concept to her and make her already feel more apprehensive than she already is? You know, so again, mindset about who we're selling to is so important. So ask those questions. You know, you know, I think it's really important to have. some good case studies that illustrate you understand as a branding agency not only just how to design a logo, but how to integrate it across different channels and make it so that no matter where Mrs. Jones hits your marketing channels, it looks like it's coming from the same company, not like a random thing from one and a random thing from another. Like they all need to synchronize up.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, I mean, I think that's super important. And a lot of times there's an expectation, I think, on the marketing side that like, you know, we like we create the fonts for you. It's like, no, bro, that's part of your branding. They give us give us what you have. Like we're not a branding agency. We're not creating,
Dan Antonelli: Mm-hmm.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: you know, like get like a brand kit right from
Dan Antonelli: Yeah,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: whoever.
Dan Antonelli: and I'm sure you see it on your side too. Like when you have someone that comes to you that has a kick ass brand, and you're going to be designing that website, like you know, you already have great foundation, you already know you can extrapolate that brand into something meaningful on that online presence. So when she comes to that website, like it's recognizable for that particular company. And then I'm sure you get a lot of people that it's generic. Like your designers probably hate working on generic roofing
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Ha ha ha.
Dan Antonelli: company brands and generic roofing websites because it's so hard to brand them, right? It's so hard to make the site look different when there aren't any assets to build off of in their branding. So that's, I mean, listen, that's really challenging for anyone working with a brand. that is somewhat generic is like, how do I make this site look different? Like, how do I extrapolate it so that it literally, you know, would look the same as my two other competitors if I just swapped out the logos and put their logos on it and changed some button colors. Like that's, again, that whole concept of blending and fitting it.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, it's a good point. And I mean, I tell I've told a lot of people like I can I can run Google ads and make you money with I don't care how bad your brand is, it can be AAA roofing and we'll make you money, but it's gonna be super expensive. And what happens is like the higher your cost per acquired lead your cost per acquisition, the less margin you're making, right? So
Dan Antonelli: Right.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ultimately, the less profitable you are. So at the end of the day, I kind of compare the two like if you have like really shitty branding, it's like running a marathon, but doing on like a 15 degree incline. Right?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Like running a marathon
Dan Antonelli: you'll get there,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: kind of fucking
Dan Antonelli: baby. Yeah, yeah,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: sucks as it is, right? But have to do it uphill really
Dan Antonelli: yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: sucks. Right. So like if you if you have strong branding, it's like maybe you're running on a flat surface, maybe running even just a little bit downhill,
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: which makes it a bit easier. Right.
Dan Antonelli: And we had an example of another company that had worked with the brands with 25 of our clients and done their websites in the HVAC space. And the conversion rate on a site that had one of our brands was double of a non kick charge brand. Right. So so we were already converting twice as many leads on a site that had better branding. than the sites that didn't have it. And it wasn't a random sample, like he compared 25 to 25, right? So I think that's a pretty good comparison. And then you look at even the number of branded inbound keyword searches, and the kick-charge brands were generating almost 10x. I think the average was 450 branded keyword searches per month in comparison to about 44. So we're delivering almost 10 times the organic traffic for branded keywords with a better branded company than with a poorly branded one. So even on conversion rates, I think the conversion rates and you know conversion rates, I think the kick-charge brands were converting at about 12%, which I think is pretty high. I think most average, I mean, I think they say if 10 is really good, right? I mean, you would probably know better than me, but, you
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I know nothing.
Dan Antonelli: know. So it was just really interesting when you talk about quantifying, right? So basically what we're saying is... You want to extrapolate the 450 inbound leads with a 12% conversion rate versus 44 inbound leads with a 6% conversion rate. Well, that's essentially 50 more leads a month for your one-time investment in branding, essentially. So, sometimes it just feels crazy why more people don't do it because the numbers obviously really show and demonstrate that it actually works really well when it's done correctly.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, I mean, it makes a lot of sense, right? If you have something that grabs people's attention has a call to action like a truck wrap, right or billboard, right and, and people it piques their interest, they're gonna look it up, right? Now there's your direct keyword search for your company or branded search.
Dan Antonelli: Yep.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, it's, it's smart and don't let all the SEO agencies tell you that you know, all the work Dan's doing as a result of their SEO either, right? Oh, shit.
Dan Antonelli: I'm gonna go to the bathroom.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So let me ask you this. So you've got a company in there, let's say four million in revenue and They acquiesce to the fact that there's a lot of benefit in branding. So we're gonna rebrand But Dan I got all these fucking trucks and polo shirts and I've got door hangers and I've got these yard signs like And I just don't know what to do How do I what's the easiest way for a company to transition into a new brand seamlessly?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, well, first off, the idea that you're going to roll all these things out, like at once, you should probably just get that idea right out of your head because it'll make you crazy trying to do that. Very rarely does that ever happen. So typically the things that we would love to see coordinated, if possible, is your truck wraps hitting the streets. at about the same time as a rebranded website hitting the streets. So that obviously if they see the visual out on the street and then they go to the website, I don't want them seeing the old branding and getting confused and saying is this the same company. So if you can coordinate that, obviously then the uniforms would be nice to roll out at about the same time. Then you start doing some of the other ancillary things like if you're on HVAC, you know, the equipment stickers and things that you leave behind. The brochures. Certainly your social media, graphics, right? You wanna change those, and those are simple things to change like right on day one, right? So those aren't really that complicated. And even at a minimum, like let's say you, you know, you have their website, but you can't redesign it for another six weeks or something. At a minimum, let's get the new logo in the upper left-hand corner, and make sure that at least is represented there. And then you could do a full refresh later on. And then as far as like letting the customers know, why there was a change, how do we communicate that, what's the best mechanism to let them know, hey, this is the same great company, we just rebranded, right? So messaging to those customers, typically we recommend doing those via, at a minimum you're gonna do it email and social, right? Because those are the easiest things to communicate those changes to. And then we also do like to do direct mail. And direct mail would be a letter to all the existing customers, letting them know about the change. Hey, you may start seeing our new vans out and. You know, we want to thank you for your support over the years. Nothing's changed at the team here. And like you sort of go into a little bit about why the change has taken place. Sometimes we make them have or include an offer you made as well, right? You're already getting a piece of mail to them. Sometimes make an offer to celebrate, Hey, we're offering a hundred dollars off a free gutter cleaning or whatever the case may be, you know, so, you know, only like one example I can think of, of literally where a shop and this is a renaming. that they closed up on a Friday and they rolled out like 10 new vans on a Monday and announced everything and the direct mail hit like over the weekend. But it was super stressful for a lot of people.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, I can imagine.
Dan Antonelli: So I almost want to say, you know, it's almost better, you know, get the most important things done first and then recognize that there's going to be a time where your old exists with the new and that's just the way it is. You know, it's not a catastrophe. You know, you can't eradicate, if you're a four million dollar company, you can't eradicate five years worth of your brand like that, so it's just gonna take some time. If you're renaming, it's a little bit more complex, but even on renaming, that is something, again, rolled out properly. It works very well. We'll rename probably 25 to 30 home service companies this year. You know, like I said, in the book, that's probably one of the biggest chapters is on naming because a lot of names aren't really good and very difficult to brand.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: How do you know if you have a good name? Should it just be like, you know, like budget roofing? Like we wanna, you know, it's cheap. People wanna buy it.
Dan Antonelli: Budget roofing would be great if you want to be a low cost operator and probably not making much money. But the key or sort of tips on naming, last name brands, generally very challenging to brand how people remember and assign brand promise to. So if it's Sterns roofing, what does that mean to me? Why would I remember it? I can't associate a visual with it other than the generic roof. So like why would I, why would that ever? you know, be memorable to me. Or if it was worse, it would be MS Roofing. Why would I ever remember MS Roofing? So initial based brands are also really the worst. Last name brands, second worst. And then brands that, again, don't speak to a specific promise are challenging as well. So think about if I knew nothing at all about your company and I only spoke your name, what do I think about? So sometimes some names like, you know, let's imagine your company name was Red Robin Roofing or Robins Roofing. Right, so if you close your eyes and you say Robins Roofing, what do you think about immediately? Like a bird, right? I mean, it's, so if I can associate a visual with a name and then integrate that visual with your name, now I connect the dots for that consumer because they'll remember the picture quicker than they'll remember the words, right? But if I can connect the dots with the visual, it's much easier for that to become sticky. So you see sometimes brands that you know, you know, red Robin or, you know, red, red roofing, you know, anything that like I can put a color in a visual and connect those dots, they're going to be a lot stickier.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Hmm. I like that. That's a really good point. What are your thoughts on? I guess the efficacy of like vanity numbers one eight four new roof How how well or not? Well do those work when it comes to a branding
Dan Antonelli: Um,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: strategy?
Dan Antonelli: you know, it's ironic because probably 50% of all the truck wraps we're doing today don't even have a phone number. So we don't really place a lot of relevance on vanity numbers in that particular instance because the medium itself is generally not considered to be a call to action. It's primarily a brand building exercise. So it's not like. Oh my God, I just saw this roofing company. Oh, I think I'm gonna get a new roof next week, so let me call them right now while I'm driving. Like it doesn't really work that way. It can work sometimes like that. Maybe I see it on my neighbor's driveway. But the idea is if it's branded well, most people are actually gonna Google the name and get the phone number that way. Because it's a lot easier to type in the name and hit enter and Google, and then the phone number pops up. And then I just click call now, right? So, You know, vanity numbers, if they're really easy to remember, if they're branded vanity numbers that reflect back to your name, those can work and it will help people. But you think about the last time you were driving in your car and you saw something and you decided I'm going to call them right now and literally sit there and type in digits on your cell phone. Like, when was the last time you did that? When was the last time you dialed a phone number?
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: minute.
Dan Antonelli: Right?
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.
Dan Antonelli: You know, so it doesn't really work that way. It's more easy to say, hey, Siri, call Robin's Roofing, right? And it's going to show up and- Calling Robin's Roofing. Yeah, see, Siri's calling Robin Roofing. She's already calling it. So that's generally the mechanism for most of the inbound phone calls coming from well-branded companies. So, you know, is it a bad thing? No, it's never a bad thing. It just tends to be something that isn't as- relevant today as it was 10 years ago.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, what I'm going to do, I just want to see what Robin's roofing looks like and see how their brand is given.
Dan Antonelli: I didn't do it. I didn't do Robin's Roof and it just popped in my head though, something. I better look and see what it looks like also.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I love, here we go. All right, Robin's Roofing, there you have it, folks. Robin's
Dan Antonelli: Do they
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Roofing.
Dan Antonelli: have a bird? If not, they should.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: No, it just says Robin's Roofing. Can you see my screen?
Dan Antonelli: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Damn it. Let's see. How about now?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, there it is.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah,
Dan Antonelli: Yep.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: so this is rate this brand on a scale zero to 10.
Dan Antonelli: Um, yeah, I don't think it is a brand. I think it's
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
Dan Antonelli: just a bunch of words that are typed in. So it doesn't even qualify for the actual question.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: let's see if we get a better robin's roofing and if this is you i'm very sorry but this is this is fun this is fun get some engagement um where are they located five star reviews all right the exercise is over um i can't find their website
Dan Antonelli: Do rocks roofing if you want to look at a cool one that we just finished.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: What is it?
Dan Antonelli: R-O-X.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Rop. R-O-X. Where are they?
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: San
Dan Antonelli: They
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Antonio?
Dan Antonelli: are in San Antonio. Yeah. Yeah, now look at some of the pictures. Yeah, I mean, does that look like every other roofing company, or does that look like something completely different?
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: No, it looks different. Definitely looks different. Hmm. Rocks Roofing. Who built this website? Don't say it.
Dan Antonelli: I don't know the answer to that, honestly.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I don't know. Yeah, it's a, all right, so there's people, people gotta hit you up to do some branding, that's all. Rebuild a brand. It'll be fun, it'll be hard, but it'll be fun.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So, rate my brand.
Dan Antonelli: I really like your brand. I
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Aw,
Dan Antonelli: like
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: shucks.
Dan Antonelli: it. Yeah. No, I thought it was cool when I saw it. Yeah. I don't know that you need the A to have the arrow
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Well,
Dan Antonelli: because you have the rock
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: as
Dan Antonelli: ready.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I was reading your book with the red arrows and the blue arrows, I was fucking cackling on the couch. I was like, I fuck. Here's the thing.
Dan Antonelli: I-I-I-
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I'm not a branding expert, right? Self admittedly, it's not my strong suit. So I drew this brand of this logo up rather when I had covid and I was like, it was just it was an idea. And then I
Dan Antonelli: Mm-hmm.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: sent it to a graphic designer. I was like, that's good enough. I don't think I need the air on the air either, but it's going to stay. I'm not
Dan Antonelli: I'm
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: rebranding,
Dan Antonelli: gonna do
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: god
Dan Antonelli: it.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: damn it. This is who I become. Yeah, it's, yeah, fun stuff. Ha ha.
Dan Antonelli: Well, I'll tell you something, you know, when you talk about your own stuff, which is sometimes hard to get past, but we, I renamed this agency in 2017 and we used to be called Graphic Designs and it was Graphic D-Signs and that was the name I gave the company in 1995 and it was 2017 and we were building this new office that we were at and I was like, this name doesn't even make any sense. It's not even who we are. We don't do graphic design. We don't do signs. Why we call this? And so I had to be introspective myself and sort of say all the things I say to clients about comfort and the warm blanket.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: that
Dan Antonelli: And I
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: warm
Dan Antonelli: was like,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: playing.
Dan Antonelli: dude, we have to change the name of our agency. And oh my God, I am so glad that we did. It's been so much better. And it's really funny too because I went through the process myself and then once we knew the name we got the logoton, we got all this swag but we still had to rebuild our website which was a monstrous effort
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah.
Dan Antonelli: and I was wearing the swag and like six months before we went live like I was so excited to get this new brand out there. So yeah like don't ever think it can't happen for you man. It may happen at a certain point.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: At some point we'll chop the fuck in top of the arrow off. We'll see. Oh man. So do you have any questions for me?
Dan Antonelli: Um, I don't think I have any questions for you. Um, I mean, I hear amazing stuff about what you do for your clients. Um, I think it's really awesome what you've been able to build. Um, and I think to your point too, like the idea of working with these brands and, you know, the better the brand, the easier your job is, honestly. I mean, that's really the reality of it. So when you have clients that are lamenting about how much money they're spending. on their LSA and all these other avenues, like that's something that, you know, maybe they'll understand the relationship between what they're doing out on the street and how it affects what's happening online in the digital world. You know, there's a direct relationship between those two things.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Fuck yeah. I love it. This was fun. It's a lot of fun.
Dan Antonelli: Yeah, so
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: So, um.
Dan Antonelli: I'm really sorry. I'm sorry to all the people that I insulted about their rooftop logos and their hammers and the clip art and stuff like that. I'm sorry, like I truly am, but.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Don't apologize for honesty. They'll understand. It's coming from a place of love. Okay?
Dan Antonelli: Yes, it is. It
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah,
Dan Antonelli: is.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I know
Dan Antonelli: That
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: that.
Dan Antonelli: is the coolest thing about what we get to do is, you know, we get to change the lives of a lot of people and that's ultimately what I love about what we do. And even the people that work here, I think that's the part that we're most passionate about is, you know, we get to change the lives of a lot of people. And that's really cool. Like when you see it happen, when you see these owners grow and build and explode, like it's just really, really cool. to be a part of that and know we played a role in that. So, you know, 27 years later or 28 years later, like I'm still jazzed to be able to do that every day and it's fun, so.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: It truly is remarkable. I have one client I started working with. He was at a couple hundred thousand in revenue. This was a few years ago, three years
Dan Antonelli: Yeah,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: ago.
Dan Antonelli: yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: And he's going to do ten million this year. And just
Dan Antonelli: That's awesome.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: watching
Dan Antonelli: Yeah.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: the growth every step of the way is just like the most rewarding thing ever just to be a
Dan Antonelli: And
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: part
Dan Antonelli: that's
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: of
Dan Antonelli: what
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it.
Dan Antonelli: you do for. That's why, that's your why. You know what I mean? That's what I say all the time. Our why is every day we get these messages and we hear from these owners and I go to trade shows and speak and see these people in person and it's just a constant reminder of why we're doing what we're doing. And to me, it's just the coolest thing in the world. I'm doing this for so long. I lettered... my first home service van hand lettered with paint when I was 15 years old and I have a picture of it. And
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: I
Dan Antonelli: it's
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: saw
Dan Antonelli: just,
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: it on Facebook.
Dan Antonelli: yeah. And it's just like bizarre that, you know, whatever, 35 years later, I'm still in that world. So it's pretty cool.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Yeah, that's awesome. I appreciate you being so, uh, so willing to come on and add value to the show and to the audience. And thank you to all you listening. You guys are the real MVPs. Can I get you to commit to a part two sometime in the future? Can I do that now?
Dan Antonelli: Oh, absolutely.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: Oh, look
Dan Antonelli: Absolutely.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: at that. See? See, I put my sales hat on and I asked for the sale. Okay. And then look what happened. He said, yes, sale made. No, but seriously, Dan, thank you very much. It was very great. And I had a lot of fun.
Dan Antonelli: Thanks brother.
Michael Stearns | Ascend Digital Agency: No problem. All right. And then we cut.
