Blacktop Banter Guest Appearance

I had the opportunity to site down and talk shop with Marvin Joles, host of “Blacktop Banter”. Marvin is also owner of Wis-Coat, an asphalt maintenance company servicing western Wisconsin and has 20+ years experience in the industry.

If you are a just starting out or a smaller company looking to grow this is a must watch episode. We take a deep dive into how you can establish your company and how to build a solid foundation for growth.

Full Transcript

Marvin:

Everybody welcome back. This is Blacktop Banter again, I’m Marvin, your host as always, this is episode 52. So we’re rolling in here. I’m going to try to get a few of these done before we get the World of Asphalt and things, that way I can release them while we’re out there. And we’re going to try to keep them going through the summer. I have a huge list. I figure at least I can do is do a couple of months and keep some content coming out because all I ever hear is where’s the podcast, we’re out working, we want to listen to it and we don’t have any new ones. So we’re going to try to.

Marvin:

I am really excited about the next one today actually. This guy has taken care of the Blacktop Banter website for a while. And when we did Dubuque I asked him to do that one as well for Dubuque Asphalt Maintenance. So, yeah and we won the best of web award for our website and our presence before I met this guy. And even since then, I have now switched the Wis-Coat website to him, for him to take care of our SEO. And I say website but there’s so much more that goes into it. So with no further ado, I’m going to introduce Jason Scherer at 28 Circles. Jason, you want to introduce yourself too.

Jason:

Hey, Marvin, appreciate it. Yeah, my name’s Jason Scherer, I’m the owner of 28 Circles. We’re a very small boutique marketing company that works exclusively with asphalt and seal coating contractors. A hundred percent of our business is just guys that are putting down asphalt or seal coating.

Marvin:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s where we met in that circle, obviously I’m out there are ways. And if you’re a web guy, which you are, you probably found me pretty quickly and I was like, “Okay, let’s see what we can do with this guy and get some word out there.” And I know we’ve sponsored the podcast in the past and things like that. But now with us getting so involved and me being able to pick your brain now for the last year, I wanted everyone else to get some of that information to because I thought I was doing good to be honest with you. And I think I probably was doing good but I want to do great. That’s the goal is you want to do great.

Marvin:

And I realized that this is not my niche. Dude, I can talk until my mouth falls off here and carry a conversation on greatly and I can put sealer down okay. But I know nothing behind the curtain of SEO or of web marketing, everything. I know, social media marketing and I can create the content that you tell me to create Jason but it’s with what you do to it. So with that being said, you don’t only take care of mine. Like you said, you take care of some other sites and some other companies and they’ve had great results, correct?

Jason:

Yeah, yeah. You do social media really well. I actually, some of the things that you do, I emulate in my own company to try and grow my business as well, too. So, I appreciate what you do there but yeah, we have about 10 clients that we work with primarily SEO and then Google Ads campaigns. And then we’ll also help a little bit on the social media side, that’s not our forte, at least not at this point, it’s something that we’d like to grow into but yeah, I’m excited because I’m helping these companies grow business and they’re getting measurable results, which is the important thing. And they’re mom and pop companies. I’m a mom and pop company and I’m helping them, if you will build their legacy and I’m hoping that they can either sell their company when they’re ready to retire or hand it down. And that’s what I’m hoping to do with my company too, is I have two young boys and I’d like to grow it to something that when they get old enough that and I’m ready to retire, they can take it over.

Marvin:

Yeah. Yeah. So and I think that’s, that’s another way that you connect with us as contractors too, once we realize the size and what you guys are trying to create, what you’re doing as well. And the brand that you’re trying to bring, especially to our industry where there are companies that we see, especially at the expo and things that are just like, they look massive. And they do so much stuff. And if there’s a huge list of everything they do and it’s like, “Okay but I don’t know what half that crap is. Okay and do I really need all that? Do I need this huge expense? Or can we pinpoint a few things, a short list of things we could get really good at and that generate what we need to do/” I know you briefly touched on social media.

Marvin:

It’s tricky. Social media is tricky because you have to have the passion and the idea and the brand that you want to… The culture that your company is when you make that social media to make it different and make it genuine. It’s really hard to do. People have asked me a lot, “Can you do our social media?” “No, I can’t do your social media, you have to do that.” They can do stuff with it it, like Jason can do stuff with mine, right?

Jason:

Yeah.

Marvin:

But you have to create that genuinely. But beyond that, it takes two. I think it takes two because I don’t know what to do with it. The way that you guys use it. And that’s tactical. Mine’s just, dude I make a lot of content. You take it and you induce tactical stuff with it.

Jason:

Yeah. And that’s the thing is, I agree with you that social media is that one to one conversation almost and having the personal touch on it is great. I mean, we can do postings on your behalf and things like that, which is good during the season. So it makes your site look, makes sure your profiles look like they’re active but it’s not going to put that personal touch that you have and it’s not going to to totally connect with your users.

Jason:

And then the other thing is the content that you create, just don’t use it in one spot. I mean, you spent so much time putting it the videos or, or putting it in their post. Don’t just throw it up on Instagram and leave it there for to collect cobwebs. I mean, you do a good job. I mean, we’ve got you on YouTube and your web and Blacktop Banter and you do a great job of taking that content and moving around. There’s other things that we can do with it as well too. But it takes more time to create the content than it does to actually distribute it and get eyes on it.

Marvin:

Right. Right. And-

Jason:

So use it.

Marvin:

Yeah. yeah. That’s the thing is use it. That we just got back from National Pavement expo and the show director Morgan was like, “Well, how’d it go?’ I’m like, “Dude, I have content for months.” Months and months of content over two days of a show and people don’t quite understand how I do that. Well, I search every nook and cranny, especially for the podcast. There’s conversations, there’s interesting stuff about equipment. It’s a lot of stuff that everybody overlooks and that happens with Wis-Coat too. We gave descriptive videos of why this is happening and how we cure it and how you do over time. And that’s what creates the interest in people for us anyways. One thing I wanted to ask you is how you got into this. How did you go down this way? Because I mean, I’m missing hair, like this wasn’t around when we were in school coming up through it. So how did you get into this field and start a career in it?

Jason:

Yeah. It’s so I’ll try and condense the 20 plus year story into 30 seconds. I went to school for graphic arts management, which is the printing industry and got out of school. And I was in the printing world for 12 or 13 years. And the tail end of my career, I was selling printing. So basically business cards, brochures, all that basic door hangers, anything that you’d use to promote your company. And the last couple years, my sales has started declining and I couldn’t figure at why and I started talking to old clients and they actually started using a lot of the online printing companies. And that just opened Pandora’s box, if you will. And so I spent probably the last two years while I was selling printing, researching SEO and Paper Click and at the time social media wasn’t a thing, Facebook didn’t exist. It was Myspace. So-

Marvin:

So no one would really grasp how to monetize it yet or it hadn’t really taken for tuition but I remember seeing banner ads when we were doing AOL and all that stuff. And I can remember that. I don’t really even look at those anymore. I know they’re still there but most of the time, it’s the ads that play in between videos now that people are selling more than likely.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll swing back to that in a second. Those are actually great. But so eventually I ended up going out on my own. I was doing affiliate marketing. So basically creating websites and selling stuff on Amazon and just through other retailers, which works well but my wife was like, “You need to make more money and get a real job.”

Marvin:

I was like, yeah trust me, she’s not the only one to say that. [crosstalk 00:09:32]

Jason:

Yeah. So I actually went and I worked at an agency that specialized working with attorneys. And I was there for five years, worked my way out to lead SEO. And did SEO and then also the operations side of things and ranking an attorney’s website is really difficult just for the simple fact that a car accident case can be worth two, three million dollars. So ultra competitive. So I got thrown into the fire as far as from an SEO standpoint is concerned. And then about two years ago, I just, I liked the company I worked for but hit a ceiling and I wanted to go out and create something my own. And so I started doing research on what I wanted to do in college. I laid driveway sealer back in Missouri, I was the bucket guy.

Jason:

This was 20 plus years ago. I didn’t have a sprayer. So I filled up the five gallon buckets of cold tar and brought them over to the lead. And I learned about cold tar and how it burns really fast. I was wondering, I was like, “Why do those guys wear long sleeve shirts?” Now I know. That’s why I know. So anyways, I just looked at different niches. I didn’t want to go into white collar because I just, it’s not me. I’m from Missouri. I’m kind of, I want to say I’m a redneck. I’m not, but I want to be.

Marvin:

Fair enough. Fair enough.

Jason:

And so I want to grow a mullet but my wife keeps saying no.

Marvin:

Do it, just do it, hide it, hide it, that’s what you do.

Jason:

Hide it, hide it. So I start 28 Circles and I picked asphalt and seal coating contractors and we’ve been really just slowly growing, taking on clients here and there. You and I have talked about it, we’re rolling out a new service that’s more geared toward the guys that are just getting starting out. So I’m super excited about that and I’m sure we can talk about that in a few minutes but that’s my, how I got to doing internet marketing for asphalt and seal coating contractors.

Marvin:

Yeah. It’s crazy, it always is, I guess from point A to point B and it never, it really surprised me first when I would have guests on and there would always be a connection that somehow they were connected to the asphalt industry and we had Koa who’s the slap fight world champion. He was on here. And he does line striping. And we did not even know that until we started talking, going to lead up to the podcast and then I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the story that you were telling me about… I remember you saying that you did it in high school or whatever. And I’m like, “Oh yeah, mainly everybody does or college or whatever.” But yeah the cold tower experience, that’s the first for me to hear from you. But yeah, it’s rough, it definitely is to have that background and then be able to understand your clients now, I would think it probably is a unique thing.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah, there’s a lot of and this is not a knock on anybody, there’s a lot of companies that will do their… They’re what we call generalists. And they’ll work with a plumber, they’ll work with an electrician, lawn care. And so they and they’ll only, they’ll either do it in their market or maybe their state. And I chose the other way to go and be able to focus specifically on a niche. And it helps me because I get to have conversations with you and other people. And I get to really learn about the business side of things and understand the challenges that you have and the challenges that you have are similar to the challenges that my other clients have.

Jason:

Whether it’s just recruiting for employment, things along those lines. It’s just so, it’s great because I can take that information and be like, ‘Oh, Hey this client had this… He has this similar problem and this is what he did to solve it or this is what we did.” Depending on what the situation is. So and honestly, I just love talking to you guys, just the soul of earth man. It’s no holds bars, no filter. And that’s me and that’s why I love working with you guys.

Marvin:

We don’t got time to have a filter. We’ve got six months to get done what we need to get done here. So we’re wide open. We cut straight to the point and like, ‘Hey, let’s do this.” One thing that I do want to comment on is the fact that you and I communicate very well back and forth. It’s not in depth and it doesn’t take up a lot of time but there’s some things where you’ve messaged me and I’d be like, “Ah, it’s not worded like that. I don’t like how that’s worded.” And then you’d be like, “Oh yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah. I understand that.” So it’s not a cookie cutter thing the service that you’re doing, I notice some of these larger ones, there’s a set in stone, this is how we’re going to do, just give it to us.

Marvin:

And they run through it. With us, you you’ve been like, “Well, how do you guys like this worded? What do you think?” You run it by me instead of just doing it and throwing it out there. I get it that there are some contractors that just want to pay somebody to do it and be left alone and whatever they do is fine. They figure they’re covered. But I like to be in depth. My brand is important to me and you’ve done a great job of communicating that back and forth. One thing I’ve noticed some of the larger companies that do what you do and then have a list of 25 other things that they do that I’m never, ever going to need ever, probably, they charge a high premium and who they’re looking for are large, large, large contractors it seems like that wants to pay a large amount and just be done with it and not have to worry about it and do whatever.

Marvin:

You and I have talked many times how the mountain or I always call the mountain but some people call it the ladder or the step or whatever, to go from the, you with a tank in the back of your truck, to a guy that’s on his boat down in the keys and has his general manager calling him and telling him what’s going on, is a steep one. So and it seems like they’re trying to cater to those guys versus down here. We need this, I know we do. So what do contractors need? Let’s say we’re talking about guys like us, so they’ve started out, they might have a truck, one helper and they’re trying to generate more business, have a web presence obviously and seem legitimate, that they have their legitimate company. What do they need? What do contractors need?

Jason:

And a little biased but I think the truth of the matter is, the first thing you, well, you really need a strong website because regardless of how someone finds you, whether it’s through social media or Google or paid ads or TikTok for that matter, which by the way, I love your TikTok. But I think because of what happens if you think about the buyer’s journey, they see you on social media or they search. They’re eventually going to end up at your website because they want to know, especially if you’re… They want to know who they’re buying from, they want to have that trust factor. A lot of us figured about the buyer’s journey. And especially when you’re working with residential customers who may have just moved in the house and they never had their driveway seal coated or they never had a driveway installed, they’re going to, as you know, they’re going to take a little more handholding and having a strong website is where I would say is a great starting point.

Jason:

And then from there start your brand. And the other thing too, that I would say is, maximize the number of leads that you get in. Don’t just send out an estimate and hope and pray, make sure you’ve follow up with them. And the other thing is, is reach out to them on somewhat of a regular basis, whether it’s once a year or once a quarter or once a month, you do the postcard, which I think is great but just to keep your brand in front of those people and to maximize the lifetime value of that customer because either you’re going to need your driveway or parking lot seal coated every two or three years. And if you’re laying asphalt and you do seal coating, well there you go, you can increase the lifetime value of it by selling them every three years to have their parking lot or driveway seal coated.

Marvin:

Yeah. Yeah. We got a video coming out from Steve Brainy. Who’s thankfully started contributing and gave me permission to take his stuff and use it as contributor to Blacktop Banter. And it’s about that same thing, how to explain every three years, this is why you do it. This is why you need to do it. So that’s great content. The one thing I wanted you to touch on asking what do people need and you were like, “Well you need to stay in touch. You need to do this. You need to do that.” You know me, now you and I are friends. You know my life, I go a hundred miles an hour every day. This is all I do. I wake up, put my shoes on, say goodbye to Kelly and the kids and then I’m here.

Marvin:

And it’s either Blacktop Banter, Wis-Coat or Dubuque Asphalt Maintenance until now this time of year, till eight o’clock at night, then I go home and we do it all over again. Thankfully there have been a few things that have been easing that hundred mile an hour I’m about to, I’m proud be at 80. I’ll probably still get a ticket, but I’m about to 80 miles an hour now. And one of those things have been what you provide for us. The other thing has been, our new office assistant has taken some pressure off, [Wis Cheeks 00:19:22] who’s back in the shop right now. He’s taking a lot more of that operations role, seeing how his feet get wet and that’s easing things up on me. So I want to explain how you have eased that up on me because like you said, you want to stay in contact with them. You want to do this, you need to do that. You need to do that, dude I can’t do all that stuff but your service offers a way to do all that.

Jason:

Yeah. And this is, we start talking about this and I think it was October of last year and I spent pretty much most of the winter putting this together. And it’s basically, it’s a done for you marketing service and what we’re doing right now, our official rollout, we’re doing a semi automated follow up sequence so that basically you send out an estimate, you give us the information and we’re going to follow up with that prospect five times. And for four to six times is what we’re going to follow up with them, depending on your messaging and your brand and also what services you’re offering. But it’s another way that we offload that, you don’t have to, if you’re not a dedicated salesperson, you don’t have to sit there on the phone and call these people and be like, “Hey just follow up. See if you have any questions.”

Jason:

We’re doing that for you. And it’s super easy. And the other thing is it’s affordable, it’s not a huge component of your marketing as far as spend is concerned. And as this rolls out and we grow, we’re going to eventually, I would say probably middle of this, you year, we’ll probably start doing a newsletter, a monthly newsletter that we can send out on your behalf, still working out some of the details on that. But just one of those things where you set it and forget it, and we take it from there and you hand us the ball and we run with it. And so we’re going to help you be able to close more sales initially. And then also we’re going to help keep your brand top of mind as far as, hey, Wis-Coat, I get their newsletter, I read it or even if they don’t read it, they just see it in their inbox. That’s enough to remember that. And yeah, that’s enough to-

Marvin:

One of those touches that you’re talking about.

Jason:

Yeah. It’s one of those touches and it’s one of those things that’s great for referrals. I mean, oh, I need my driveway’s seal coat. Oh, Wis-Coat. They, they did a great job for me two years ago. Or because if you’re not doing those touches, they’re like, ah I had it done a couple years ago but I can’t remember who-

Marvin:

I don’t remember who that was.

Jason:

I can’t remember who that was. Marvin or something, I don’t know. That component. And then we just launched it with you but we’re also doing the, we’re calling them reactivation campaigns. And basically every two to three years, you really want to reach out to your past clients and be like, “Hey you know what? X number of years has passed and recommendation is to have your seal coated two, three years or whatever it is in your area.”

Jason:

I see some guys who say four years and just to go out and do a multi-touch with them, give us a list. We take it from there. We send out some messaging and try and get those convert. So it’s really trying to make, the SEO helps bring in leads but we’re trying to really help you maximize the lifetime value of your leads, of your customers and help them, whether it’s their referral service or their someone that you can count on for two or three years.

Marvin:

Yeah. And I think that, that’s where, when we first started talking about this, I admitted that I dropped the ball on that. We get a fair amount of estimates. So as soon as I estimate an area, I’m onto the next calls that came in. I’m not even thinking about if they call me and we get them on a schedule, great. If they didn’t, I don’t even think about it, I was just like, “Well, forget it.” But I knew because I have a friend of the podcast, when the podcast came in Holegate up in Alaska, we had a conversation about how he called back every single client that had wanted an estimate or wanted something. And there was an 80% return. Wow. that he closed them.

Marvin:

And all I could think, well, mine zero because I never called them back or whatever or anything. And what I figured is with your, the basic package that 28 Circles offers, if you get one of them back more than likely it’s going to cover that cost for the month. So if we can do six of them and it’s going to co cover our for six months. And maybe if it’s a big one, it’s that one that’s going to cover our six months or our year of our service that we’re getting.

Jason:

Yeah. I think it’s, we have a price at a no-brainer level. I think one, you close one you’re definitely covered for a month and hopefully you’re pricing yourself well, so that it should cover you for a couple months. And the other thing I’d say too is I know a lot of guys, I talk to, they love the commercial because it’s good money. Well, maybe not good money but it’s a lot of money and it’s easier work. And we’re helping you follow up on that patch job, that it’s something that it’s a filler work. It’s going to rain that afternoon. You can’t put sealer down so we’re going go and patch this hole or whatever it is. So it helps you even with [crosstalk 00:25:20] and also like the filler work.

Marvin:

Yeah. I think it it helps on the commercial jobs too because we have clients that mainly just, they’ll call me, they’ll be explaining like, just come look at it and tell me what it needs. And then we’ll break it down and do whatever. If you’re on their mind, maybe they see it and they’re like, “Hey, I’m going to call them real quick and tell them to get over here and take a look before we go into winter, not just after winter or whatever.” You know what I mean? So I like that idea as well for commercial work. The other thing I wanted to touch on that you provide or did, at least with me, is our Google My Business. You were like, give me that, give me the…

Marvin:

Give me what I need for that. And yeah, I’m not BSing once you’d had that. And you had the reins of Dubuque. Our website was up last year but I didn’t really give you full reign on it. And I was like, “Oh, I’m going to create some content and do whatever.” And we worked a little down there. This year, since I’ve given it to you in the winter, we have more bids then we did jobs last year, then we did doing it down there. So once I started to see that was happening, I was like, “Well, I want to do it with Wis-Coat too.” And we were just talking before this, we’ve rolled out our campaign and there’s already messages coming in and emails and everything else as well. So not BSing totally it is working.

Marvin:

And that price point, I think, is perfect for our listeners. And it might be perfect for a bigger company too, to where just take a look and see, I think that’s the biggest thing. I’m telling you, if you do one small driveway and you charge your minimum, it’s going to cover what the cost is for a month. And there’s not very many things within your business. That’s covered for a month off of the one gig. Maybe your phone bill, maybe this, maybe that but that’s not really generating you more business, like your server is Jason.

Jason:

A couple things, some of it’s entertaining that talking to a lot of guys and they’ll go spend a hundred grand on a used paver and they won’t spend a penny on marketing and it’s like, “Okay. I get it. You’re company’s 40 years old and you have a book of business and that’s fine.” And the thing I’ll say is, for the small guys, you have that, like you said, you have the hill and we’re going to get you up the hill to we have our done for you marketing campaigns. And then further past that we have custom tailored campaigns that are definitely more for the company that has a sales team or is not the owner operator kind of thing. And our goal is to help you grow to that point. I mean and that’s, we want to get you there.

Marvin:

Yeah. And we can cross that bridge when we get there.

Jason:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Marvin:

And that’s the thing I’ve noticed on your site, we have the different tiers. Once you’re done with that first one, obviously if you plateau or you realize, Hey, we need more work, then it’s time to jump up to the next one. If you’re like, man, we’re covered, we need more work or maybe you don’t, maybe your goal isn’t to become… My goal Wis-Coat is not to become a massive giant company like some of my friends have, I’m super proud of them. And they’re proud of what they’ve done. For us that’s not my main goal with Wis-Coat. So maybe I get to the middle tier, “I’m like, perfect, dude, this is created the life that I want.” And we’re good. And everybody here is good but if not, you know how to kick it in gear to send them up even higher on that.

Jason:

Yeah, yeah.

Marvin:

They want to take that more work on. So that’s the unique thing as well, that I don’t know that everybody that once again, presents at the expos or that I get flyers for, that they do that. It’s mainly this, Hey, they is it and we’re going to throw it out there.

Jason:

Yeah. And it’s not and I know some of those companies and I don’t know them personally but they’re good companies but they’re more interested in the and I don’t want to speak for them but I’m just making some guess, that they’re more interested in that seven and a half million to $10 million company that has five crews and that’s more of their sweet spot. And hey, that’s fine. I mean, if you’re there are good for you, if you’re not let’s come back to reality and let’s work together on building you to that point, if that’s your end game.

Marvin:

Yeah. well, what I like to compare it to and this is what I feel when you and I have conversation or do whatever, is those are other companies, if you’re going to get a coffee and you go through McDonald’s and they’re like, well, you have four options. Here you go or what it feels like is our local coffee shop here in Richland Center where I go in and there’s a list. And there’s like, “Hey what do you like? Okay, what, what do you like? How does it feel? Do you like a, like this?” “Sure add the cream, add this, let’s do nonfat.” I don’t do that but in general hold the sugar, which I also don’t hold the sugar. So it’s catered to how you want it, that boutique that mom and pop thing that you’re talking about, that’s the feel is that we’re diagnosing exactly how we like it and what we need as well. Obviously we need coffee but we want to make sure that it fits perfectly for where we are and it’s not a $12 coffee.

Marvin:

It’s a $5 coffee because we’re blue collar. So one thing that I want touch on before I forget is where people can find you and get an idea for it. They can always message me and ask me about my experience with 28 Circles, be fully honest with on how it’s going so far. And I’ll be honest in two years of how it’s going so far or whatever, where can people find out and find what you do?

Jason:

So probably the best one is 28circles.net, you can also use 28circles.com, they both go to the same place. And for the done free marketing component of it, just go to the, it’s called the Asphalt App, initial branding on that, so we’ll see how it goes. But that’s where you can get an overview of what we’ve talked about today. And then Facebook, Facebook@28circlesLLC, I believe, those are probably the two best places where I’m most active, I’m on LinkedIn but I don’t do a lot with it. And I actually probably should start doing more with it, honestly.

Marvin:

Well, we can talk about that. We can talk about that some other time. So you and I can talk about that. But yeah, so I’m going to post those links below too in the description. So we’ll at least get them to the website and then we can go from there and people can call and contact you if they want to about all this. So as we’re winding down and we’re talking about all that stuff, what is one thing that contractors, if they’re saying, “Yes, I want to get to where I can hire Jason to do this.” You obviously need something to work with from the beginning, besides your business name, what can contractors do to start gearing up to towards that, if they’re going to have a service like yours?

Jason:

Yeah. I would say, regardless if you work with me or another company, the best thing you can do is work on your brand. And when I say that, that’s your biggest thing that you can have. And so go out and this is something that you can do, it would probably take you a day, maybe a little bit longer but go out and get your Google My Business profile, actually it’s changed to Google Business profile, I don’t remember. They changed the name, they do it every two years but get my Google My Business profile, own that. Get your Facebook brand, get your Instagram brand, get your LinkedIn, get all your social media properties, go buy your domain name and then buy the .com, the .net, at least those two minimum. I have 28 Circles dot, I think I have eight different versions of it. But make sure you try to own both your.com and .net and you basically start your brand. I mean, that’s huge. And the other one just real quick is start getting reviews. Reviews are huge, whether you like or not get them, just get them.

Marvin:

Just have some, when they get to you at least have some.

Jason:

Yeah. Have some and just start calling your clients and-

Marvin:

Asking them. Yeah.

Jason:

Asking them.

Marvin:

Yeah. Before I did like printed in, we use Joyce now, before I did that, I literally wrote it by hand on the bottom of the handwritten estimates, leave us a review on Google. And maybe I think I got maybe four or five off of that in the first year, whatever.

Jason:

I’d say if you’re getting a 5% response in requests you’re doing good. We can sometimes get you 10 to 15%, but yeah. Reviews are, they’re huge. So those build your brand, work on reviews. That’s where I’d start. And it doesn’t cost you any money, just cost you time.

Marvin:

Cool. Well, before we close out, I brought these back. So these are podcasts that I started doing them near the end of season two. We’re in season three of Blacktop Banter, which there’s no rhyme or reason on what day we start with the season and when it ends or does whatever, maybe we’ll keep the podcast going and forever beyond season three but we’ll see what happens. But I was really enjoying these and I just found them, since we moved. And Jason, you are the Guinea pig.

Jason:

Oh boy, I’m a little nervous on this one.

Marvin:

I’m going to draw one and we’ll see how it goes. All right. Take the one off the top. Okay. If you’re reincarnated as a famous landmark, which one would it be?

Jason:

Oh.

Marvin:

That’s on the spot, that’s why I love them. Because I-

Jason:

That’s a tough one, man. My gut, I’m just going to go with the Statue of Liberty. And I think that’s the pinnacle of the United States to me of it. It’s just like, that’s just-

Marvin:

The opportunity.

Jason:

The opportunity that to me, I think that’s just, it’s probably one of the most notable icons in the world and it represents opportunity. And I think we whether you’re doing marketing or you’re playing [inaudible 00:36:17] , we have a great, great opportunity to build something for ourselves and our communities and our families. And so I feel very blessed to have that opportunity.

Marvin:

Yeah, me too. I think about that a lot as I get older and I didn’t early on. The more world experience I get, I feel the same way, that we’re, even though there’s bad stuff going on or stuff happens, we’re where at odds in this country. We still have the greatest opportunity of anybody I believe in the world to create and create your business in freedom. Cool. I like it, man. All right. That’s it. So if you have questions, you can ask me about my experience with 28 Circles or just go to Jason’s website and get in touch with him. We’re going to have a link I believe, right Jason, that all use. So I’ll put that in the video descriptions everywhere I post it and just click that link and that’ll take you to what we’ve been talking about today and you can look through it and go from there and then contact Jason if you need to. Correct?

Jason:

Correct.

Marvin:

Cool. All right. Thank you very much, sir. I hope it’s all well in there, we are melting snow in Wisconsin. You still have snow there in Colorado.

Jason:

Yeah, we had about four inches two nights ago and it’s melting off. So my Denver guys, he’s itching to go.

Marvin:

Cool, yeah I bet. I bet I got Zach Maleski friend of the podcast, they’re out there in Denver as well. And I know that everybody’s chomping at the bit for the season to get ready to go.

Jason:

All right, well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Marvin.

Marvin:

No worries. Greatly appreciate it. And for myself and for Jason at 28 Circles, we want you to seal it, pave it, stripe it and kill it. Peace.