Harnessing the Power of Podcasting for Home Improvement Contractors

Audio Transcription


In this Contractor Click podcast, we're going to talk about what you, the home. Improvement contractor, concrete coating contractor should consider, and you should be running a podcast for your business. And if it's not for your business, it's for you, for your brand. with me, I have a very special guest here.

Someone that's helped us incredibly much, in your concrete success podcast, as well as the contractor click podcast, help us blow up. in a multitude of ways from a creative directing perspective, Mr. Christian how's your day going so far? Hello. Hello. Welcome. I guess contractor click. I, I'm usually behind the camera, but today I'm in front of it.

So how do you feel? How do you feel doing that weird? Actually? I don't, guest on too many podcasts, but, I love you guys. I decided to do it. It's such a treat. And that, Usually happens. It's like the best people aren't always in front of the camera. I like that, especially since you're directing it towards me.

Like seriously, so I want to, commend you and give you kudos for the incredible job that you do. Thank you. Very professional, something that he does very well is capture the video. So if you've seen the videos that we have here on YouTube in our podcast, we don't edit them. they pretty much come raw videos right from you and we go live.

so we're all the cuts that you're seeing there in real time. I'm not sure how many other, individuals do that. but, you've been able to, create something special. So today's topic, it's all about podcasts. We want you to understand the power of podcasting. And look, if you're listening to this or you're watching this video, you're listening, it's the audio version.

Of the same video piece of content. you've seen hundreds or if not thousands, you've done thousands of episodes at this point in time. What makes a good podcast? I think what makes a good podcast is an organic, and this is going to be for making money and pretty much everything is just organic, real people that have a passion for whatever they're doing.

I think that's the main thing. Yeah. So just being real. So you've seen the people that come here and try to be real. Portray certain things. It's too stiff or whatever, right? It's too forced Yeah, so that's, a big thing. being, is organic in real as you can is super important. I think we're in the age of, being real is super important and being disingenuous is really easy to, spot.

Yeah. And the salesman era of, Just, hyping people up is I feel like dying. and I think I've even heard you talk about that. I may have even got that from you guys, but, yeah, I think being real is just the main thing, whatever that is. You're real being yourself, not even real.

Just be yourself. And if you're weird, be weird. I'm weird. I don't think you're weird. I think you're awesome. True. But yeah, not in a bad way, but just be yourself. And if you have different quirky, if you're different, be different. Be yourself, own it. Yeah, that's the secret sauce. We were just talking about the, the secret sauce, you are the secret sauce ultimately.

and within the podcast, okay. So you gotta be yourself, embrace all of who you are, which is what I believe. there's different platforms and what do you, what are your thoughts? Audio versus video. Should you have both? What's your take on video versus audio or both? we're a primary primarily a video studio.

So obviously it's going to be video. even if people aren't watching the full episode, the clips, obviously, and any Client probably of yours and or client of ours knows how important those clips are. So even if people aren't watching the full episode, the clips are super, super important and you can't have the clips without shooting the full episode.

So you might as well just do video if people aren't watching the whole video, which most people aren't sitting through your hour long podcast, staring at it. They're doing stuff in their house. They're listening. Maybe they'll watch, maybe they'll go back. that's at least how I do when I watch podcasts.

I don't know about you. I'm assuming it's similar. It makes it both. Yeah. Yeah. A mix of both you're looking and then you're cooking, whatever, while you're listening. So I think audio is, the main thing, but video is just as important, if not more important, because the clips are, what sells your business.

Yeah. I feel like you get a different sense of trust when you are seeing someone, their face expression, you can't really hide much. the lens is going to capture a lot, the emotion side. It's just more powerful in video. And might as well, just like YouTube is the number one search engine right now.

I didn't even know that. Yeah. Right now. Like it's ridiculous. The amount of content consumed. So that makes video even more important. Even more important. that leads us into topic, topical, structure of the content. Business professionals, home improvement contractors, concrete coating, contractors, concrete contractors.

Why, what can they possibly talk about that people would be interested in? I think, I don't think it matters to somebody like me because I might not be the target audience. I think they need to figure out who their target audience is and then go from there. I think that's one of the main, important things.

So if it's a homeowner. what would they do? what type of topics would you recommend they find if, they're marketing to a homeowner? I'm not entirely, it's not my space. So you might have to, you might have to give me a few, throw me a few on these, but, I don't know. I don't know.

That's a tough, that's a tough question for me to answer. maybe I'll help you out with that. Re rephrase it. Maybe dumb it down a little bit. So for, if I'm targeting a homeowner, And I am, looking to get more high net worth individuals, I could talk about the entire process. Hey, what would it look like to install a beautiful floor?

And I can make the entire episode about a project that might've been difficult to talk about. and especially if I have a video. Showcase some of the project highlights and say, Hey, this is what it was, what the project scope was, and let's just dive in and talk about it. What were some of the things we struggled with?

Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that's it. having videos of what you do, explaining what you do, how you do it, the process, I think the worst thing that you can do is. Just talk about how great you are and you're, what you offer and this and that, I think showing people what you do and what you have to offer in a non salesy way is like one of the most important things you can do no matter what business you are, but especially something like this.

Yeah. And then the other thing is like stories. Like stories are great. I think that having real and raw stories, like people are in search of realness these days, like not everything needs to be positive. Like I would love to be positive on every topic. And be, but then that means I'll be like a clown.

I'll just need to get, there was a funny video. I saw a meme where the guy was. Every time he said something, he was adding either makeup or like the, and, it's funny cause that's how far people take it. It's, they try to avoid dealing with the reality of whatever is going on. Maybe the cost of, the fulfillment is going up, and they're not talking about it.

And why not take an episode to educate the homeowner? Hey, the rising cost of materials and labor. And this is what helps us calculate creating a great experience. And, it helps us build a great business. How do we create the cost? So we talk about the big five, which it comes from the day ask you answer framework, people want to know cost product comparisons, reviews.

Hey, let's review this product. And what was the experience when we installed that product versus this and which one? So when you're educating the audience, if you're doing coatings, that's a great example, but say you're a home builder. Now let's talk about the products used in different projects.

Which one has lasted longer? What's been the feedback from homeowners, consumers. So there's so many ways to, spin this cat and give it a different, right? Does that make sense? Did that example make sense? Totally. Yeah. That'd be valuable. Yeah. And now that you brought it up, it's coming together for me.

Yeah. it's. Stories are huge. cause I think people can find out a little bit about you and how you work and which makes them familiar with you, which probably makes them more likely to buy, or check out your service or check out your page. one of my most recent people that started or two brothers, they started They have a podcast about all about real estate investing and they're giving crazy tips, like crazy tips on their process and how they do things and how they started.

And I think that's, super valuable. Cause like we were just talking about the secret sauce, they're giving it away, but it doesn't, matter to them. It doesn't matter. I could try to do it tomorrow. And if I don't know what I'm doing, I still got to figure a lot of stuff out. So many gaps.

So again, it depends who your target audience is, but I think, you, you hit the nail on the head with a lot. so the one thing I got, it's like giving real value will never hurt you. It will only increase the value and your worth in the other person's act, like whoever it is. there's podcast consumption, which is.

Marketing agency owners, and they're listening into tips so that they can go and do stuff for their clients. And we love that because number one is that helps us with the consumptions and the algorithms. But ultimately if they find that valuable. I know for a fact that business owners, concrete coating, business owners, home improvement contractors, they're going to really find this valuable because they're going to be like, okay, some things are clicking now, like it wasn't explained.

So don't be afraid to give, away the best value. some interesting stats here. 2019, it was less than 300, podcast listeners, 2023 crossed the 400 million mark. And then 2024, we're already at 500 million listeners. Now, what's your favorite platform for podcasts? Favorite platform? YouTube.

YouTube. Yep. I don't want, I don't ever really use po apple Podcasts. I don't use Spotify. I don't actually like Spotify. Yeah. I don't know if I can say that. We might have to, we might have to edit that out really, but, we can't say it. no. I don't know. I'm just joking. that's up to you.

But, no, I use Spotify for music. I love it for music, but I just don't really ever watch podcasts, on it. When Joe Rogan was on there. Yeah. Watched him on YouTube all the time. I grew outta it. I think watching him a little bit too in some ways. Yeah. But I, once he hit Spotify, I never watched it. Even though I have Spotify, I pay for it.

I just, it's just, I don't know why. Interesting. But I know Spotify is a massive platform. Might be the biggest platform now. it is. Right now it's 25% consumption, it seems, and again, you just, you gotta triple check the stats, but it says 2024. Apple Podcast is the second platform at 20%. And then Google Podcasts does not include the YouTube itself.

So video is very powerful. I would highly recommend the video version, almost more than the, the audio version. Yeah. That's why YouTube, that's why I'm on YouTube all the time. That's just me. just because of the power. Now, if you're a home improvement contractor or concrete coating contractor, launching your podcast may seem scary and like intimidating, et cetera, what's equipment wise, what, would you recommend?

Like a startup kit? What, do you need to get this going? if you just want a startup kit. Yes. Two iPhones, a Rodecaster, a couple of Shure mics, or Audio Technica mics, and you can connect it all together and Have a pretty nice little setup if you want like an actual bass setup Yeah, or you can just get a mixer like a Rodecaster get some mics and just record audio if you want Yeah, but the video is huge.

Why two cameras? Why two cameras? So you can have an A and B shot. You could record a guest and you, or you could just have one camera, but having two cameras to cut between. Yeah. I think for clips is, big to be able to cut between you and your guest, but you can always just start with one. You can connect one to the Rodecaster, shoot that, the audio will mix right into the iPhone video.

The good audio from the mics. So really that's one. Yeah, you could even just start with one. Like you don't even need to, that's a good point. but yeah, usually the more shots, the better, but that creates more, that's a little bit more complicated. Oh yeah. this set up, we have how many, one, two, three, four, five, six count.

you're nuts. You're like, what do you call it? Octopus. Yeah, exactly. We actually have Mady in the house doing the video edits on this. So big shout out to Mady. Who decided to give, picked it up like that here. And, not, easily though. She was struggling with it a bit. All right. So podcast, how often, consistency is King.

I would say once a week, I would say once a week. So how are we doing? How would you criticize and critique our podcast? I think you should record more often here, but, I think you guys are pretty consistent on putting shows out. You're pretty, you're here almost every week. Yeah, you're here almost every week.

Sometimes you do two in a day. And then stage them out. I think it's good to have a backup of a couple shows that you can stage out if you want, if you go on vacation or you do something. I think that's cool as long as they're We're working on that. and then another tip for podcasting is don't talk about times and dates.

Yeah, that's it. Unless, you have to, but talking about times and dates dates your show and makes, I think people less likely to want to watch it. Yeah. who's listening to podcasts? I think everybody. Everybody. I think everybody. there, there's probably an actual statistic, but kids, adults, tons of different people.

Yeah. I would recommend if you're a home improvement contractor, ask your clients. Yeah. Hey, I just want to do a quick survey here. And what podcasts do you listen to? ask the best clients and customers, and you'd be surprised what their tail, what they tell you. And then guess what? you can create an episode just to introduce your company, et cetera.

there's so many ways to skin the cat and this is the whole thing is content so powerful nowadays that you get a piece of video now that becomes a blog post or that becomes, you might put that on the homepage and that becomes so much more powerful, than just having it. That's a standalone video, Right. as far as the names and titles of the podcast for home improvement, what would you be thinking about? the catch the catchier and more like controversial, probably the better. really, as bad as that sounds, yeah, something catchy, something fun I think is is cool. One of our shows not related to contractor contracting anything, but it's, called, I Apologize in Advance.

I like that title. Ooh, I like that. It's a fun title. Yeah. there's a few more. You have realtors. Their own podcast or attorneys. We have an attorney called interesting lawyers. Shout out Russ Adler. He's a great guy. He has a great podcast. his is just called interesting lawyers. not crazy catchy of a name, but he has a really good, really good little following doctors.

We have a chiropractor in here. He's starting. He doesn't have a title yet. He just started with us. So we'll get back. We'll circle back on. All right. That's good. some other titles I'm trying to think we have a show called power alpha, which is very, That's good. Very strong. We have menaces, Mike shout out, Michael Johnson, UFC fighter, nicknamed the menace.

So menaces Mike. So as long as you're creative and it's fun, I think that helps a lot. Yeah. No. So did you like the contractor click podcast or your concrete success podcast? What do you think? I like contractor click. Yeah. Yeah. Why? cause it's more. It's a little bit more broad, but not too broad.

Okay. And that's another talk about that. Yeah. Share a little bit more. Yeah. That's another thing. I think people are sometimes scared to, to go to talk about, what's, a specific, give me like a specific contractor, roofing, outdoor living, roofers, plumbers. So if you're a plumber or you're a roofer, that's something very specific, even a subsect of roofing, a specific type of roofing, don't be scared to start a podcast because there's.

Always people that will listen, no matter how small the audience and that can actually benefit you, I think, because the more broad, a lot of the times, just the more, I don't know, do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. And that's the thing with contract or click podcast is we decided to make the pivot, say, okay, we're going to go from your concrete success podcast, because now we're really honing in and serving the home improvement industry as a whole.

And within that, there's a variety of contractors that fall into the place. We're just talking about concrete coatings. Man, we might have someone that does outdoor living. They're not even doing or foundation repair, for example. Nowhere near close to concrete coatings and they really want and need help.

And so that's part of it. It's how do we, but you guys started out as we did concrete. Yeah. And it was pretty good. and that's great. But then you realize you wanted to branch out, but the point is you started out with a very, specific thing you did really well with it, and now you're branching out, even though you're staying specific to contractors.

Yeah. You're not, you didn't just start, you didn't go from concrete to business advice in general, Yeah. And again, this is for me more than any, the listeners, because I'm asking the pro that's the name of the podcast. Ask the pro podcast pro, when rebranding, renaming the podcast. Should you start a new one or should you just rename it?

I said, just rename it. Just rename it. Okay. So we did. Yeah. Just rename it. It's easy. Yeah. Go on your hosting platform. Change the artwork, change the name, change the category. You can do it. If you can do that, why start a new one? Yeah. I want to encourage everyone, 504 million listeners. And, you got pretty much a growing trend of, the consumption of different medias.

40 percent of podcast listeners are in the U S so that's big. If you're a concrete code and contractor, second, here, Sweden, Norway, Australia, and then Canada, Spain afterwards. And then Mexico is still in that top 10 list. Interesting. So what would you recommend to someone on the fence about creating a podcast?

Maybe they're like, I don't know. I've been thinking about it, but should I not? It depends on what you want to do. are you a business? Is it a passion project? How, how refined are your ideas? How long have you thought about it? Do you have anybody else you're doing it with? I think you have to answer those questions.

if you're on the fence, I think if you have a business, it's super valuable. Even if you're not great on camera, I think it's crazy valuable because the clips are organic, but you can also use them as a sales tool. If it's a passion project, I think it's a little bit harder. You might have to plan it.

Plan that out a little bit more, but business wise, I think you can just, I say, just start and then release the episodes. Don't start and then not release the first 10. even if you suck, as long as you don't say anything that can get you in trouble. so how many people come here record and they don't release episodes?

It's not, probably not from here, but it's not that common because people are paying, pay, they're paying, pay for this. So they want to put them out, but no, I've seen it a lot where people record and then they don't want to release. And it's dude, that was a great episode like, yeah, Or they want to add it out. The arms do not add it out. The arms, do not edit out the arms. The, like that is, that's good and organic. And if you edit all that stuff out, then in, Joe Rogan wants to have you on when you're a huge podcaster. You're going to sound like an idiot while you're on his podcast and he doesn't edit that out.

Wow. so that's, one big thing. Don't over edit, be organic. If you mess up, keep it in there unless it's something that's like factually incorrect or that could get you in trouble. Yeah. Legal. Legal. Yeah. Yeah. So planning the episodes. At Contractor Click, we literally don't, we're planning while we're recording the episodes.

You've seen that. but that's why you guys have a good product. Because you don't really put, you don't have a script. Having a script, podcasting. I've seen people do it and they haven't. So people ask you for a prompter here and Yeah, we get asked for a teleprompter a bunch of times. Yeah, it's just not what we do.

Eventually, maybe we'll expand out to a different room where we do that, where we can shoot content with that. But it's not good for a podcast. It's just, it's boring. people want to hear you be real. What about intro and outros? Intro and outros. we were just talking today about having a hook.

So I think that's, a big thing, having a hook. Yeah, same thing with Instagram reels, having a hook on those too. That's big. So focus on the hook, which is something I just learned here. What you say in the first 30 to 45 seconds can get someone to stick around. So you want to sell them on why they should stick around.

So I did make a promise in the beginning of the episode that you were going to learn the importance, what you should be launching a podcast as a home improvement concrete curtain contractor and what it comes with it. And hopefully we're delivering for you. If you like this episode so far, make sure that you like subscribe and share.

To anyone that, might be looking to start their podcast. And if you are interested in digital marketing for your concrete coating and home improvement business, go to contractor that click forward slash start. Now let's, wrap it up here. We talked about, the, names we talk about the setup.

we talked about topics. We talk about being authentic, being probably the main thing. what would you say to someone that's still on the fence on the podcast? They know they need to do it. Just come in just shake my hand and you and I'll convince. Where can they find you? They can find us at one. they can find us at Podcast Junkeez.

They can find us at 100 Plaza Real South Boca Raton That's our address. Yeah website Instagram is Podcast Junkeez Studios, what's your Instagram? My personal, is Christian underscore Parello. You can DM me, call me whatever my number is. 440 477 2215. It's an Ohio number. You got the man's number.

he's right here. give him a ring, mention, contact or click. If you are contacting him, let him know. Hey, I listened to the podcast, whether they're starting out of state, you do consulting, you do whatever it is, you help them out. give you tips and ideas on how you can get your podcast set up.

I believe that this is the year to create more value and add content, to your platforms and valuable content that moves the needle, You mentioned the sales process. Yes, you can have the beautifully done videos of your company and, the storytelling and all of that, but there's something about just getting real and raw in, in a video format, in a podcast where.

Quite literally, sometimes you blank out and you're like, what's next? And people get to see that they get to feel you out in a different way. And if someone gets to consume seven hours of your content, the cell becomes significantly easier. So podcasts is an all brainer if that's the case. So get all the biggest objections that you've gotten from your clients.

It's too expensive, create a podcast for how you come up with pricing and why pricing costs are important to understand you're getting quality service. I want to think about it. Why the investment is such a great time to install a new floor, right? So think about every objection you're getting and then put it together into podcasts.

And the other thing is You can come up with funny stories. Hey, I surprised my spouse with a new floor, right? For whatever gift, if, I need to talk to my wife or talk to my husband or I really want to have the floor, but whatever doesn't matter. Just create a podcast for it. And you're going to see a number one is like more followers on social media too.

It's credibility too. Yeah, credibility. That's a big thing is it gives you credibility you run into other podcasters you cross promote It's its own community to you're getting involved in a whole nother community. That's right Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So if you're listening to this, your concrete success podcast, no more.

It's contractor click podcast. we've rebranded. I want to thank you for listening and tuning in. Hopefully you found this helpful. And the next step is if you're looking to, to grow your following, you're looking to grow your credibility in your marketplace is for you to take action.

Get your podcast going. If you have one. Put it right into the comments so that we can follow you and listening, into where you're at, so that, you can grow your following as well. We're going to give you a shout out. in the stories, give us a tag, instead of Instagram, we're constantly putting all of the content together on Instagram, on Facebook, on TikTok, on YouTube, et cetera.

A lot of it is, most of it is podcast content and we'll share it because it works. So hopefully you found this valuable. We'll see you on the next one. Danny Berrera, over and out.