The Local Growth Formula | Ross McDaniel

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Ross McDaniel, founder of Fencepost. Ross is a growth strategist who has spent the last decade helping brands excel. Passionate about community development, he's the brains behind Fencepost and the local growth formula. Ross connects first-rate home service businesses with awesome potential customers. And according to Ross, all it takes is four simple ingredients for any local business to witness predictable, profitable growth. His mission? To help local businesses flourish, and in the process develop thriving communities. Ross, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Ross McDaniel: David, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. David McBee: So Ross, before we dive into the local growth formula, which I know you regularly apply to the home services industry, would you say that the ingredients are effective for any local business and maybe even national brands with a local presence? Ross McDaniel: Yeah, I think that's actually the beauty of the formula. I mean, it's not a super novel concept, and when we get into the formula itself, I know first principles is a cliche now, but it truly is. These are four ingredients that are executed at the enterprise level and the Fortune 500 level. And well, if you can execute those there, why shouldn't we also be able to execute those here at the grassroots level in our local communities? David McBee: I always say local follows national's lead, so I think we're going to be on the same page. Why don't you just tell us about the local growth formula? Take it away. Ross McDaniel: Yeah. So, the local growth formula really consists of four main ingredients, right? First one, we've got visibility. And this is a no-brainer, people have to know your business exists. A lot of times people just think of like, "You hang your shingle, and you have your big sign out front. And well, there we have it, we are visible." And that's just not true. People are finding you through all sorts of different mediums, and one of the first and foremost mediums that they're finding you through is search. So, we got to be visible in the places that people are looking for you. Second, competency. This one truly is the simplest of them all, or so you think, and that is you've got to be good at what you do, and beyond that, you have to be as good or better than the competition. And so you got to be competent. Visibility, competency, and then number three would be social proof. People have to be willing to, after they use your product or service, go tell the world about their experience with you. And they need to do that in a very publicly visible format, otherwise it's truly of no value to you. So, we have to make sure that we're good at what we're doing and we're visible, and then we offer people an easy medium to actually go and leave you a great review, a five star review, hopefully. The last one is referral, and it kind of piggybacks off of social proof. We want those people that left you great reviews to actually go out and sell for you. And we see some of the best companies in the world spend $0 on marketing because they've got just this rabid fan base. I think Chic-fil-A, they are spending some dollars on marketing, but that's a great example of they could never spend another cent and they would still keep growing year after year after year. So, that's the local growth formula in a nutshell. David McBee: All right. So, as agencies and marketers are listening to this, I can already tell some of them are like, "Well, I don't have control over some of those things, especially the competency of the business that I'm working with." What do you say to that? Ross McDaniel: Yeah, this is actually one, when I was developing it, it was kind of one of those things where, "Well, wait, this is the formula, but as a agency owner, how do I actually come in and affect that?" And I think that's where we've kind of got... Over the last five, six years, everybody has had an intense surge towards automation and scale and things of that nature. Well, I think we can have those, but we can also come back to the level of personal touch and almost consulting aspect of our agency life by speaking into more than just our ad dollars and our copy and our email campaigns, and if you're in print, whatever you're designing. I think we actually get to speak into how people are answering the phones. When they're answering the phones, what are they doing with the lead that they just fielded? If it's a customer they already have, what sorts of upsells are they offering? Are they even fielding it with a hello and a goodbye and a cheerful smile and a pleasant demeanor? I think those are all things that as agency owners, we take for granted because we're marketers and we're people first, at least most of us. A lot of these business owners, particularly in the home service niche, they just know how to slap some roofs up and manage some contractors. They don't actually know the ins and outs of a, business, and b, people. And so we get to come speak into that. Because yes, we are marketers, many of us are digital marketers, but more than that, we're consumer behaviorists. We help people understand how to interact with people, and help those people we're interacting with arrive at driving the most value. That's my spiel. David McBee: Your spiel sounds like it makes perfect sense, but let me challenge you just a little bit. How do you get paid for that, right? You can't just be magnanimously helping your business to be better at their job when you're trying to market them. Ross McDaniel: Yeah. That's a great question. I think becoming obsessed with lead quality is a big differentiator. I don't know that there's a... We're not out selling the cold customer call playbook or the ultimate sales script, that's not what we're out selling. It's certainly an add-on, we have those scripts and those playbooks readily available. But what we are doing is we're helping you by putting in the systems to measure the results, to actually measure the output, so that the contrast between, before, in our case, Fencepost, our call to close rate was abysmal. But now because we have our call recordings, because we know which leads are coming from which medium, because we know that just because a customer is calling and looking for a competitor, doesn't mean they're not a hot lead, we're converting more and we're closing more. So, I think it's twofold. One, it's an add-on to say, "Hey, we actually come in, we're obsessed with lead quality, and we'll track all that for you." And then B, "Hey, if you do track this, you may lose some people in the process, but you'll figure out where some really great opportunities for more business are." So, it's a business retention tool as well. Did that answer your question? David McBee: Kind of. Do you actually charge for the education of the local growth formula? Is that part of the billing? Ross McDaniel: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Great question. So, what we do charge is... I mean, like many people, we use WhatConverts. We charge a flat retainer. And so in that flat retainer, we're roping in WhatConverts, you can swap that out for CallRail or anything else. And we're actually coming in and pulling those from our Facebook instant forms, from anything we get on site. And we're compiling all those together and we're going in and evaluating each of the leads that come through. And so, yes, we are charging. We couldn't do that without our... It's a pretty generous management fee. We wouldn't be able to go in and be that obsessed with lead quality. So, in that regard, yes, we're absolutely charging for it. David McBee: Your transparency is delightful, so thank you. Ross McDaniel: Cool. David McBee: All right, one more question. Do you have a favorite book or a podcast that you feel has helped you become successful? Ross McDaniel: I used the cliche earlier, first principles, I'm really all about that. And I think the cornerstone of marketing as a whole is copy and telling great stories. Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller is my absolute favorite. It's who I recommend all of the guys that come underneath me. That's what I would recommend to anybody out there looking to get their start. David McBee: I love it when someone knows the answer to that question right off the top of their head and they're super passionate about the answer. Ross McDaniel: Yeah, absolutely. David McBee: All right. So, what is the best way for folks to connect with you if they want to reach out? Ross McDaniel: Yeah, I think there's two ways. One, head on over to Fencepost.co, check us out at our website there. And then two, the Ross McDaniel on Twitter, so @therossmcdaniel on Twitter. That's my primary social handle there. David McBee: Perfect. Well, thank you very much for being my guest today. I really appreciate you. Ross McDaniel: David, thanks so much. This has truly been a delight. David McBee: And thank you guys for watching. Simpli.fy TV is sponsored by Simpli.fy, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit Simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee. Be awesome. And we'll see you next time.