Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

#175 - Find The BEST Leads: Modernize VP of Marketing Jamie Smith Breaks Down the Secret to Success

• John Wilson • Season 1 • Episode 175

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Jamie Smith, VP of Marketing at Modernize, joins us to break down the secret to finding the best leads for your home service business.

We tackle the big question: Are lead aggregators worth it? Jamie explains why Modernize isn’t just another lead aggregator but a smarter way to generate high-quality leads using data-driven strategies.

If you want to stop wasting money on bad leads and start closing more jobs, this episode is for you.

Special Thanks to Modernize

We’ve been using Modernize them for our water quality leads, and it’s been smooth sailing from day one.  

If you’re serious about boosting your leads, definitely check them out: https://modernize.com/pros/leads?utm_campaign=owned-podcast

Shoutout to Quick Staffers LLC

Quick Staffers are the staffing agency bringing global talent to the HVAC and plumbing industries. They specialize in placing trained overseas CSRs, fully equipped with the best SOPs and scripts at a fraction of the cost.

Don't miss out. Get $1000 off your first placement here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc16JbSEqySXdOFuFm8JIzPIEgE7AOvBp9NxlLi4ypeGpZ8gQ/viewform

Episode Hosts: 🎤
John Wilson: @WilsonCompanies on X
Jack Carr: @TheHVACJack on X

Episode Guest:
Jamie Smith on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiesmithaustin/

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John Wilson, CEO of Wilson Companies
Jack Carr, CEO of Rapid HVAC

Jamie Smith: Last year we generated over a billion dollars in business for our customers.

It's a lot of thinking about what the consumer is doing and needing. We don't want any requests to go unmatched. We see about 50 million leads a year. 

John Wilson: How much does Modernize spend a month on paid advertising? 

Jamie Smith: Oh,

John Wilson: recently we've been experimenting with lead aggregators and one of the ones I'm most excited about is a company called modernize. So what modernize does is they do direct inbound calls for home improvement. So it's a direct phone call booking, which is way easier to book and has a much higher book rate than an Angie's list or something like that, where you have to recontact them and try to find that.

That customer modernize has a direct connection to our call center. So that's been a huge one. It also has some of the services that we've really struggled to get good leads for water heater replacements, HVAC units, and water damage restoration and water quality. Those ones have been challenging for us to get leads and modernize has been a really great partner for us.

So make sure you check out modernize. com. Welcome back to owned and operated. today on the show, I have Jamie Smith from modernize. Welcome to the show. 

Jamie Smith: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. 

John Wilson: Yeah, this will be fun. this will be a lot of fun. I'm excited to dive into lead eggs and marketing and what, how I should be thinking about this.

so this should be pretty cool. before we get too deep, can you give us a little bit of a background on yourself and maybe a little bit of a background on modernize? So we know more. Level the playing field here. 

Jamie Smith: I have been in home services for about eight years now. technically I've been with modernize those eight years.

my background is in marketing and technology consulting. and had a some interesting sense before that in sports and entertainment. but once I got to this industry, I have been addicted. it was an addiction. I am a homeowner. I understand some of the pain points. It has been really a privilege to work these last eight years on Trying to solve the consumer and homeowner pain points on finding the right home service professional for their work.

and as this industry continues to evolve in the technology as a whole, we talk about AI, etc. It just becomes even more exciting, more puzzles to solve from the consumer standpoint, as well as our lovely and amazing customers. so it's been a huge journey for me personally, a little bit about Modernize.

Modernize, has been around for almost 20 years. We were acquired by Quinn Street. It was a performance marketing organization. They have, everything from insurance, personal loans, credit cards, and now home services, one of the largest, categories for them, excitingly. And that's thanks to, the efforts of my incredible team here at modernize.

We really, are passionate about finding the right consumer for the right home service professional. Our mission is to find and close more jobs for our customers. Period. I'm very, excited about that. Last year we generated over about over a billion dollars in business for our customers.

We have Over 22 different services, that we work on. Everything from exteriors to interiors and now, into services which we call HVAC plumbing, water treatment. electrical is an exciting one for us. So we have lots of different services where we're using our media teams to find those interested consumers and bring them into our customers, who so they can focus more on getting the job done.

John Wilson: I'm, I want to ask what's probably, first I'd like to ask permission to ask a lot of stupid questions. Great. I don't understand as a category. I'm a consumer of it, but I don't understand. Lead aggregation. Like, how do we get the lead? so how do we find 

Jamie Smith: How do you find the lead? 

John Wilson: Like, how is it out there? I, know Angie, specifically It seems like they were really early on SEO, because they're all over everything anytime you search for any service. so is it all just a giant SEO play, or what else does it work here? 

Jamie Smith: That's a great question, because I think, especially as things are changing and evolving, and consumers are changing and evolving, a really good example I love to, sit at the dinner table and chat about is the evolution of tick tock.

So if you think about it, consumers are actually changing their, what way they search using tick tock versus Google, right? That is another type of search where not your business, not now you have to be on SEO. You have to be on Google and you have to optimize for Google, very much what Angie's play is, as well as ours.

now you have to be on TikTok and Instagram and Pinterest. And Snapchat. And then let's talk about all of the huge amount of traffic sites where consumers are looking for answers. We're also there too. We've partnered with, Forbes USA Today, as big distribution channels to educate consumers who are then looking for a contractor.

Our experiences are embedded in some of those pages, and then we drive that traffic to y'all, because again, We are main focus is like the is to find that lead through all of the different methods that a consumer is searching digitally, and that is just changing and evolving and growing. So yes, Angie is really, big on SEO in terms of Google.

every customer we advise also have their own SEO strategies, just like we at modernize dot com have our SEO strategies. What's exciting is all of those leads are coming, not just from SEO. They're coming from everything else that continues to grow. my team has recently, we've seen a lot of growth, about 10 percent growth month over month in.

Chat GPT, perplexity, and clawed queries. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jamie Smith: what? That's crazy. So our job is to make sure we're ahead in making sure we know where the consumer is, generating that lead through those mechanisms when the consumer is raising their hand, and then pushing that to the customer. And ideally, it really helps the customer because it's saving time.

On marketing and it's generating that read hot to you so that again, you can go focus on closing. 

John Wilson: And is that like using that last example or even tick tock? Is that like a form fill or is that a click through or how do they, how does that even work? Hey, contact me. I'm super duper interested in how tankless water heaters work.

Jamie Smith: Yeah. So In the plumbing category, a lot of our products are call oriented products because a lot of consumers are looking for someone right away. So we have products that aren't just form fills. We have calls. We also have what we call widgets would be experiences that educate a consumer. And then it's a button to say, Hey, I actually want to talk to this customer.

We have branded products where we're taking the customer that we're working with and pushing them to your site. Yeah. So all of these things are very, Essentially, they can come in different forms, and all of those forms can be a form, can be a call, can be an inquiry. so it's a lot of thinking about what the consumer is doing and needing.

our experiences will change when a consumer is looking for emergency plumbing services. Most likely, we're going to show a call, we'll show a form. But, the high likelihood of a phone call will happen versus a form. 

John Wilson: What percentage of leads are coming from like a social media platform versus AI 

Jamie Smith: It's interesting. That's changing very rapidly. I don't want to be the, person that's just continually saying that, but I definitely think that is changing. Our team has been really focused on the pie, right? So our pie is really focused on the elements of the different, sorry, the different pieces of how consumers are coming in.

I'd say right now it's a third, and a third. We see a lot of customers that are, consumers that are coming in through, our display advertising, where they were looking for something and then they went to see a health article on Forbes and then they're like, I need to get this done right now.

So we have a lot of that. we have a lot of SEO and a lot of SEM. The average consumer is always going to Google. Google has been the largest traffic source for 10 years and continues to be. We just are seeing some changes. I would say the smaller piece of the pie or what we're talking about around like new mechanisms of Search around A.

I, ring is growing just based on some of the changes that we've seen with Google. so that makes it the smaller pieces, but you could think of it as a third, right? We're always going to find display native networks where consumers have already been searching and then are ready to commit.

We've got social media, which is a huge, platform for us. And then you have your typical SEO and S. E. M. metrics like using Google as the primary. 

John Wilson: How much of that's paid versus organic? social media is going to be almost all paid, right? we're getting impressions, we're getting click throughs.

Jamie Smith: Yes, And I think those algorithms are really tough to battle, right? So I think you're Right. you're dead on 100 percent paid on social 100 percent paid on the native and display. And then depending on, Google and search that can vary. It varies very much based on, what I have, what our team has experienced in, which is different services.

and also the consumer, we have some more savvy or consumers that are searching meticulously through our site, spending pretty like hours on our site. versus those that are like ready to commit and move, move to a customer. 

John Wilson: Yeah, 

Jamie Smith: it definitely depends on the service. We've seen that, high priority services.

shorter duration of time on site, because they really need something done. Whereas consumers that are focused on exterior projects, they need more research to have a very confident conversation with a customer. They're going to be spending a lot more time and thus more SEO. So it really does vary by trade.

but I do think that based on the service and the need and the consumer, that's where you see the variability. 

John Wilson: How much does Modernize spend a month? Unpaid advertising. 

Jamie Smith: The answer is millions. Millions. Yeah. But 

John Wilson: how many millions? Like I was like 20 million or two. Because that's the difference.

Jamie Smith: Yeah. I'm not going to give you the exact answer because that's definitely something I'm not allowed to give you. 

John Wilson: We'll delete. When you tell me, we'll delete that part from the episode. Okay. 

Jamie Smith: but I can tell you that, it's, definitely in the tens of the twenties. and the reason for that is just because we want to make sure that we're investing in the right type of media.

Yeah. so one of the things that we are very passionate in, and again, I don't want this to be a sales pitch, But one of the things that is very important to us as we invest, like we prospect for new customers is we really want customers that are going to provide us performance data. And the reason why we want that performance data is because we want to make sure that we're getting the right media for that customer.

John Wilson: Performance data, Hey, I got 10 leads from you. I closed one, like that type of, okay. And specific to like your leads, right? Like the leads that were, okay. Yeah, 

Jamie Smith: we understand. We're not going to, we're not going to ask for our competitors data. No, we understand that. However, we need a scorecard, right?

We need a scorecard so that we can then go find more of that media. or find less of it. we call that right pricing. and that means that we'll spend more sometimes for really good media for a customer, depending on how they're performing or the flip side is, which is really, another piece to this is that.

Our account management services will come to that customer and say, Hey, we really want to spend more on this media source, but we need the bottom of the funnel to improve. here's what we think could help. So we really do take a consultative approach. But back to your original question on, like, how much do we spend?

It does vary, but we will invest in that, on that customer. especially if they're going to take this next step as a partnership versus, considering us a lead ag. when the more that we can learn and understand the customer's behaviors, the easier it is for us to make more investment on the front end.

so although I can't share, exactly how much we're spending on media and where we're spending, I can promise you that we do make a ton of investments, where we know we should be, because that's the right thing to do for the customer in terms of. long tail, retention.

and then, what, has been really great in some use cases is when we're able to actually, that flywheel effect works where the customer is also improving the bottom of the funnel too. Cause that only makes it even better for the customer in the long run. yeah, so it really does vary, but we do spend a lot and, especially as we're getting into the spring season and consumers are ready to jump in, we will see a bit of a higher amount of cost per month.

Again, I know this doesn't answer your question exactly, but. That's okay, I'll bother you 

John Wilson: once we're not recording. when, I think lead ags in general get, I think they're smaller the business. This is probably more proud, like the smaller, like the, contractor side, this is more relevant, but, lead aggregators get like a bad rap, I think for Hey, they sent us these leads and they're badly, I can go into any Facebook modernize probably gets to avoid all this.

Cause most of the hate goes towards like home advisor. Most of it seems to be like practices on the contractor side, but what are you guys seeing for best practices on working with? a lead aggregator. Like, how can I win the best? How can I set myself up for success here? 

Jamie Smith: Yeah. I really, don't like the word lead ag, but I get it.

John Wilson: give me a different, word. 

Jamie Smith: No, I think it's very important to talk about it because I do think that has been historically what we've been known as, or our home advisor or Angie. and it's because, Just think about the word, like it's a lead ag, right?

It's even got a negative connotation to it. Where, I think it's different for us, is what, I mentioned around that right pricing element. the customer that is willing to partner with us and give us some of the data that we need, you don't have to give us all, but you gotta give us something because you should be thinking about us as Like an employee of yours and, give us that performance.

That's input that scorecard because what we're going to do with it is we're going to get better and the hard count. The challenging times that we have are when we have no visibility to how the performance of that source. is working. We know for a fact that consumers that are coming in, they're coming in and raising their hand.

Some are going to have different types of personas than others. That's a lot of what my team focuses on. What type of consumer, where are they in their buying process? How can we help them get that answer to talk to a consumer, to talk to a customer? The flip side is the minute that the customer provides that information to us is the minute that we can then start to tweak The campaign and understand how to change that performance top of funnel.

and I do think that's very different than what other providers have had in the past. Even for us, Pricing has become such a critical element of success that we now, most of the time we require it to work with us. It's the only way for us to make sure that we can be successful for your business.

and frankly, like it won't work without it. especially as. Sources continue to grow because consumer trends are changing, so it's not. It's not even the fact that we want the data for our own scorecard. It's the fact that we need the data so that because consumer trends are changing so rapidly, we need that data to help make sure that we're performing quickly, fast.

John Wilson: yeah, 

Jamie Smith: so that's the biggest piece of success that we've seen. The partners that will, share that data with us are the ones that we can then really partner with as cliche as that is. maybe, we, become a lead partner. At least that's how I like to say. 

John Wilson: It's fair on on a more, so it sounds like most of the feedback so far is. give a scorecard, give feedback, like tactically, most of the industry has been really, my side of the industry has been very focused on like speed to lead process. In my mind, the feedback is the end of the journey, right?

Hey Jamie, this is what happened a week later. With this cohort of leads that we received from you, our book rate was X, our demo rate was X, and our close rate was X for this amount of money, but even further upstream. Like, how can my side of the equation here improve book rate, improve demo rate?

what are you seeing the best providers do? 

Jamie Smith: Great question. I think a few things, I'll give a little bit of, maybe an insider, some insider information on how we offer it as well. 

John Wilson: Inside baseball. Let's do it. 

Jamie Smith: first and foremost, I think the customer that can give us real time data that appointment set is a clear indicator for us.

so I would say and we start acting within 24 hours if we start to see some changes right away. and that is a that's an S. L. A. Within our business, within my media teams and a service level agreement. So Yeah. In our world, we've got, you need to act within 24 hours. If you start to see a slip in appointment set rate, right?

So that's like a big indicator for us. so the customer that can provide us that data in a real time way, that's great. We understand that some customers cannot do that. so we asked for weekly, at minimum monthly, that would be great. The best case scenario. and, the faster we can get the data, the faster we can react because we have those protocols in place.

I will say that we also have, in our business, we have a calls business, as I mentioned, and some of that data is actually being approved. Thank you. Scored right, like immediately as we contact consumers to provide their intent so that we know immediately if we need to stop something or if we need to push, push harder on a specific source because we're seeing the higher intent.

So we have our internal factors, but we also have the external factors. So I think that's super important to have both. Because then you're able to really match the data, and make quicker decisions when you have a bigger set of data. Our analytics team is constantly looking and matching both our internal and external data.

John Wilson: So let's say, hey, lead partner, I want to, or I received 10 leads from you month to date. I don't remember the onboarding. I wasn't there, but is there, does somebody set hey, I need X amount of leads? Is that a part of the onboarding? 

Jamie Smith: Yes, it varies. Buyers have, they have budgets in mind they want to start with.

John Wilson: We're setting a target of some type. 

Jamie Smith: Oh yeah, we're, there are times where some consumer, some customers have asked us like, Hey, what, do you recommend? but most of the time customers are coming to us with a goal. And it's because you guys have done X in marketing already. And you're trying to supplement it or you're trying to decrease.

Operating expenses. So you're going to go external. 

John Wilson: Okay. So I, come in and I say, Hey, I want 10 leads a month. and you supply them. It totally works. It's amazing. It's the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life and I want more.

Jamie Smith: Yeah. 

John Wilson: How does that work? 

Jamie Smith: Oh, good question. that's a good one. 

John Wilson: I feel like with, and I'm going to contrast this to Angie's because so far the last five minutes, it like this is a totally different experience from working with who I think is the gorilla in the space, which is Angie's list where you just get what you get.

And they have a ton, like they have all the history, they have all, everything in the world that you'd want to know, they can roughly tell you what you'll get, but there's not really a mechanism to make it more, but it sounds like with you guys, there's absolutely mechanisms to make it more. 

Jamie Smith: That's right.

John Wilson: Okay. That's interesting. 

Jamie Smith: Yeah. 

John Wilson: Walk me through that. 

Jamie Smith: So typically our account management services will, first and foremost, understand one, your goals. As it as an organization, and then to, we'll start slow. We always start slow like that is that's probably the second ground rule. The first ground rule is we've got to have some kind of scorecard.

The second ground rule is we'll start slow, right? Just because we don't want to inundate your call centers, and your service teams without understanding performance. That's. at the end of the day, we need to find and win more jobs. So that's one in two. In terms of expansion from that, we'll analyze your, DMA coverage.

So let's say that you're in multiple DMAs. We'll make sure that we're covering the entire DMA. We'll make recommendations on potentially where to expand. maybe you as a business are waiting to expand to another DMA, but are hesitant. We can provide some protections on that based on our data and our.

And our tools to say, Hey. We can expect you to grow in San Antonio. I'm in Austin, we can expect you to grow in San Antonio in about two to three months with this amount of budget, and this amount of leads. Can you serve as San Antonio? So we'll, start to, we'll use that as a big lever.

Because that's a big opportunity. There's always going to be word of mouth, consumers within that specific space that are using your services. And that's typically how we see customers expand. The other way that we can expand is just based on how much you're servicing per week, per month and per day.

If you're thinking about your, call center, let's say, you're operating call center or you have specific service, reps that are on call within specific hours, we can analyze to see how much volume you would get with a few more hours. 

we've had some really successful use cases where, customers have been off on Sundays. We've had them turn on Sundays because consumers at home, they're investigating projects, they need them. And we're able to experiment and turn on Sundays. And again, we have the levers to control that.

So if you wanted to run some experiments, I'd say days are a big thing. Zip codes are a big thing. And then sources. As I was explaining in the flywheel with data, we can add more sources of media, with those performance benchmarks. As long as the flywheel is working and we can get that feedback, we'll add more sources, make sure it's performing to your sales reps.

And then, provide any recommendations to you and then vice versa. so there's, three different ways that we can do it. we can go pretty fast too. We've seen some really incredible use cases where we've had customers say. Hey, you know what? We'll try a new DMA like I've got some, reps that are willing to go out there.

Let's do it. we've seen some, use cases. There's a, a bathrooms customer that wasn't on Sundays. I was hesitant about it, but put in agents just to set appointments on Sundays. it tremendously changed his bottom line. so it really, those are the three different levers I would say to expansion.

And even I think Whether you're using a lead, partner or not, I think that's a really solid way to think about digital marketing, right? Like how you can expand and grow based on leads coming inbound. 

John Wilson: How, do you have access to pull up data for Ohio now? 

Jamie Smith: For Ohio? Yeah.

Sure. I'm curious. Let's do it. Fun. Okay. All right. What, 

John Wilson: what's going on in Youngstown? 

Jamie Smith: Youngstown. Okay. Give me a second here. let's go here. Okay. What are we looking for? 

John Wilson: So do I do this by like job type? 

Jamie Smith: yes. 

John Wilson: What are the job types you guys cover? 

Jamie Smith: For plumbing, we pretty much offer everything, I would say.

Everything from water heaters, to septic, general plumbing, we can do a lot of general plumbing, frankly, it's because the consumer doesn't know what they need. 

John Wilson: yeah. 

Jamie Smith: That's a top one. I'd love to ask some customers about that. We can have a podcast where I can sit with 

John Wilson: I'm right here. Let's do it, Jamie.

Jamie Smith: But yeah, let's 

John Wilson: do water heaters. I want to know. Water heaters in Youngstown. Walk me through it. 

Jamie Smith: What's my 

John Wilson: opportunity look like? 

Jamie Smith: I've never done this before. This is pretty exciting. 

John Wilson: Me either. 

Jamie Smith: But it's true. We've got, so I'm looking at a year of data, just so you guys, and we're just, 

John Wilson: And this is like a number of queries that have touched.

And one of the, one of the, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm making an assumption here, but like one of the benefits of being like a nationwide lead partner Is you get leads from everywhere, but one of the cons is that you might not have a buyer in that market. So like Youngstown specifically, you might be like totally drowning in water heater leads, but no one's buying them.

Is that right? 

Jamie Smith: That's correct. That's correct. You're about to see a screenshot of a lot of green. So what that means is that we have a map and you'll, see some of these dots and it means that we don't have a buyer in Youngstown. so we should definitely start working together.

John Wilson: Youngstown. It's 45 minutes away, but it sounds like there's a lot of water heaters. 

Jamie Smith: And it varies, right? So like my question to you and, how I think about plumbing, like one of the toughest things about what we do is consumers don't know, they don't know what they need. And I was, I'm a consumer and I'm a homeowner and years ago I had no idea that I would need to replace my pipes in my apartment.

But that happened to me, but It was an inquiry on plumbing because you're just like, Hey, there's water on the floor. Like I need my toilet fixed. so it is a challenge like that is a big challenge is we have a lot of opportunity to expand nationally to your point, but then the other challenge is we have some really tough times with getting the right project to a customer transparently because we don't know exactly what that consumer is going to need.

And like I mentioned, It's tough. if you're a consumer and you need help, you're going to call. You're just going to call. 

You'll want something right now. so we talked about speed to lead. That's a tough one. I don't know if you have any feedback there, but I'm always looking for that cause it's tough to digest. 

John Wilson: Yeah. Some of it is just general. What we've noticed with lead partners is they all seem to struggle with that.

Jack Carr: Just answer the phone! Is one of those phrases that's always easier said than done. I know it was hard for me and my business because the phone always rings while you're out in the field trying to get something done or it's 8 p. m. And you're trying to get your kids to bed. I have the solution for you.

I'm extremely excited today to announce quick staffers, your go to solution for building a high performing cost effective customer service team. We are placing CSRs who have been pre trained. On proven home service, SOPs and scripts, the same ones that Wilson and I use in our business for a limited time, we're offering $500 off your initial placement costs.

For the first 10 signups, see link in the description below or head over to quick staffers.com for more information. 

Jamie Smith: Qualifying or like even communicating with the consumer.

John Wilson: We started using modernize specifically for one job type, which was water quality and the benefit. for us was your team was the only team that segregated that one, that water quality from general plumbing.

The way I would think about it, is it fixture based? So is it a faucet? Is it a toilet? Is it a water heater? Is it a water softening piece of equipment? Those are all fixture based problems. Whereas like leak and pipe, obviously more complicated. to create, you could do a pipe leak, but I don't think that would really give anybody much more information than just visiting the home itself, but it is I think the tighter you get down to what type of equipment is it?

That arms the buyer, I guess me in that case, with the information that they need to at least book the call. 

Jamie Smith: Okay. Yeah, no, that's good. I definitely think my experience with how we develop water treatment to be clear. Is the demand was there, right? So it was coming in through plumbing in our, services.

And we kept seeing these indicators of search, and 

John Wilson: Most lead partners don't separate that at all, which to me is dumb because, from, if I don't know exactly what right pricing is. You've referred to it a few times, but Hey, a toilet lead. Like a broken toilet lead to me, as a consumer, is not worth a tremendous amount of money.

at the maximum, I'll get 1, 000, and much more likely I'll get 200 out of that opportunity. So what am I willing to pay for 200? The answer is, not a lot. Water treatment, that might be a 10, 000 opportunity. That's like HVAC, right? In HVAC, Everyone understands exactly how to price an HVAC opportunity.

but for some reason, water quality, despite it being potentially a five figure ticket, is not segregated from most lead partners. For you guys it is, but it's very weird. 

Jamie Smith: And you just explained rate pricing, right? That's part of the, part of it. You nailed it. and I think, That's one of our superpowers is being able to take a request and be able to identify it, to the right job type.

Again, why will affect like we need that information to be able to then segment even further. I don't think that problem will change. I think it'll continue to evolve. One is consumers get more savvy. we've seen so many consumers that want to research more prior to reaching out to y'all.

So that's one. And then number two is, just again, that performance and like we can get, if a, customer wants a 200 job, we can get you a 200 job. We just need to know that you. 

John Wilson: 45 water heaters in Youngstown in the last week or queries. What percentage of 

Jamie Smith: Plumbing requests? It's hard to tell.

It's hard to tell quickly where that is. There's probably a few water heaters in there, but a few more clicks would tell me that. 

John Wilson: So what percentage of requests or queries or whatever become a lead? Like, how does that work? Or is that the lead itself? You had 45 leads. 

Jamie Smith: That's the lead itself. Great. So that's the request coming in, from some type of consumer in Youngstown.

It could be a busy week too.

John Wilson: Okay. 

Jamie Smith: Just like you guys, you have your ups and downs on seasonality. Like I always say this, it's the craziest thing. every year, the last week of December, quiet as a mouse. And then the January 1st, it's like the homeowners have opened up the doors and it's just it's incredible to see it.

So yeah, it just depends. Youngstown probably, maybe it had some storms that could also be a big problem. There's a lot of factors there. 

John Wilson: Yeah. what's a lot, a hundred thousand population zip code or how do we measure it? is this like MSA or zip? 

Jamie Smith: We prefer DNA. We prefer DMA and, there's complexities to that.

I know a lot of, we have a lot of organizations that work in like Los Angeles or Miami or New York and like Los Angeles, you're not going to drive from north to south. But our DNA as the person that is reporting all of my media teams into y'all, we think about it from a standpoint, because most of the media networks, the social media networks, the newsletter networks, a lot of our native networks are all focused on I.P. Ranges to D. M. A. So that's a big thing that we explain to customers is, zip codes are important. we are definitely tracking zip codes, but DMA is where you're going to get more reach. 

John Wilson: How many leads a month don't get bought? 

Jamie Smith: I'd say right now it's probably between 15 to 20 percent.

It definitely varies based on trade. but it's either we haven't found a buyer for them in that specific market. that has been much higher lately. We have a lot of requests coming in the past quarter. I think it's, I think it's a little bit like new buyers. So new consumers coming in high demand is interesting. But I definitely say it's around. 15 to 20 percent 

John Wilson: When you find, is that good or bad? 

Jamie Smith: It's not good.

John Wilson: I don't know. Like maybe the end, maybe your industry KPI is 50%. So like you guys are like killing it, 

Jamie Smith: I always think you're like, we would strive for under, 10%, right? Yeah. That would really be great because that means that more consumers are getting to customers to close the job. Anything that's not getting matched, that means that consumer has to do more work, and that means that one of our customers hasn't won the job.

And they've come to us and they've said, yes, we need to talk to someone and we couldn't match them. So that's definitely something that we're focused on as a business. Like you don't want any requests to go. 

John Wilson: How many requests come in a month? 

Jamie Smith: Across our business? 

John Wilson: I'm just fascinated. 

Jamie Smith: I'll say it's There's quite a few,

John Wilson: Okay. 

Jamie Smith: Millions and millions is what I really want to say. And that's my goal. of course, but I would say we definitely see a large amount of requests dimensionally that we see about 50 million leads a year, last year. So hopefully that can help. 

John Wilson: You said newsletter networks. What does that mean?

Jamie Smith: We've seen a lot of success lately on this. Again, going back to consumer trends. 

John Wilson: Yeah. 

Jamie Smith: I think a lot of people in marketing are like, Email is dead. that's actually not the case. I think a lot of, subscriptions and, focus groups, would subscribe to, something like Newsbrick or, that, you know, There's a female newsletter called the SCIM. That's a big network. 

Substack is a new network that I wouldn't say it's new, but it's, growing in popularity where you can subscribe to a newsletter from an influencer or community member. that's where we're seeing a lot of traction.

Where they'll be engaging with someone that is in home and garden pipe newsletters or they're, influencing around home and garden and they're seeing our, information about windows or, We do a lot of like proactive HVAC marketing right in the head of the summer, getting ahead of, the winter.

We do a lot of preparation in those messages. 

John Wilson: Interesting. 

Jamie Smith: Yeah, it's a big, it's I feel like a broken record saying that consumer is changing. but we definitely seen that we're seeing lots of new networks popping up left and right. as consumers are starting to change their habits, it's, I don't know if you have a personal gmail account, but your gmail account is separated into promotions, tabs and updates.

We have seen, changes and trends and open rates across the board in our own emails. But interestingly enough, we're seeing lots of traction on newsletters and, I think that's because the consumer's mindset is changing. Their behaviors are changing just like the mediums are changing.

John Wilson: That's fascinating. 

Jamie Smith: Yeah. But, I said that for eight years now. So I just feel like it's just going to constantly change. It's just constantly changing, which makes it so hard for businesses. that's why I love this job. I love this job because I get to, to be that liaison for these customers.

I think it's so hard what customers have to do day in and day out. In the bottom of the funnel, like if we're talking about marketing the bottom. Yeah. That's not an easy job So not only that now you have to focus on the top of the funnel so i'm so excited to be able to navigate those challenges for consumers because or for customers, excuse me, because It's just it's always going to change.

Jamie Smith: Always going to be something you got to yeah index properly You got to set up your google business profile.

You're going to set up your profile now You got to be focused on reddit, you know all these different things.

John Wilson: I have an assumption.

Jamie Smith: Okay. 

John Wilson: But we've got Youngstown. I'm gonna have to go mess around with Youngstown, do you end up reselling? I would assume you would, because it's dead inventory, right?

The lead is the inventory and you want to do something. So you resell it to other lead partners, or what do you do with excess leads? 

Jamie Smith: Yeah, and full transparency. We don't want the request to go unanswered. So we will sell that request. We'll, sell it to Angie. We'll sell it to other partners that have someone in their network.

yeah, because that's just not the right thing to do. Again, if we have an interested consumer coming in and looking for help and we can't match them, our experiences will share that with the consumer as well. Hey, sorry, we can't match you, but you should hear from a partner soon. so it's not Okay.

A hidden thing. but it definitely is something that is part of our strategy only because we don't want to lose that consumer trust. so obviously, like you heard my KPIs, we don't want to do that. and, neither does the other partner. but I think it's just one of those things where we have a handshake to share in this event so that we can have a conversation.

Get that consumer's request fulfilled. 

John Wilson: Okay. You guys just launched plumbing last year, right? 

Jamie Smith: We did. 

John Wilson: What's been the win or what's been the loss or both? 

Jamie Smith: Oh, I really like these questions. 

John Wilson: I'm glad I'm keeping you on your toes. 

Jamie Smith: I really like it. I think it's interesting when you don't know the script.

So you can't like really, yeah, try it unscripted. 

Jamie Smith: So I'll start with the bad and then go and then, yeah, that's a good way to do it. 

Jamie Smith: That's how I, that's how I live. so I think the bad, Is we talked a little bit about it, but we definitely are still trying to understand how we can get a consumer's request more clear for a custom.

it's one of those where I think with time, I'm very confident we will figure it out. We've started launching new tools, on modernize. com as well as segmenting out a few of the different categories, like you mentioned with water, water quality, water treatment. so really we're really starting to understand that.

I think the other thing that's really tough about plumbing that we've learned is, which I think plumbers might laugh when I say this. because it's pretty obvious, but it is a very urgent trade that, our background for the last 10 years has been on really heavy, what I call a planned investment.

Jamie Smith: That's correct. Whereas, this has been a little bit of a different swing for us. And I think we're fully, we were prepared for this, but then when you're in, when you're in it and you're seeing these requests come in through calls, it's just a different ball game.

Because you still have your DNA, right? You still have your ethos. I'm like, you want to make sure you get that request to a customer. But our customers are, they have specifics in terms of how they go out to see a job, like to see. So that's been really, tough for us. We've had some really great partners.

You guys like sharing feedback with us to really help iterate. I'm really hoping in the next year, there will be a monumental shift, as we continue to learn and learn from our customers. the, good thing for when. Is we have, as we started to add more plumbing to our services category and our own operated assets.

So we have modernize. com, which is our flagship site, but we also have hundreds of other sites, that we own and operate. Those are starting to add. we're adding plumbing services. We are pretty strategic on where we add things because we want to make sure that we have the right result out the gate.

In the last year, we've been able to add more and more media to plumbing. So now it's really about making sure that we can find the right partner who wants to test with us. And then once we get that, we can start adding more media sources. We're getting more confident on adding those sources. So I'd say, last year when we started, we only had it.

Three to four sources on. we've, tripled that. And that will be at hundreds probably in the next year once we start to get some more partners on board, which I'm excited about. 

John Wilson: This might be like two in the weeds. But when, for the hundreds of other sites, 

Or is it like different than that? 

Jamie Smith: They can be right. Just because we have access to that. And then we are able to use our resources to buy that media effectively. I'm pretty biased, but we have some of the best media buyers. you can find, so we're able to optimize very quickly.

Again, that's a reason why a lot of people partner with us is because you don't have to go in and beat the bidding system of Google. We can do that. So to answer your question, we use those types of sites because that's what the consumer is looking for right then and there. and we have a lot of them, but they all have solid content structure.

Like it's not like we're just duplicating sites left and right. they are with strategy in mind and we'll continue to do that as we start to see different trends, right? Like we saw with water treatment where we were like, we really need to start thinking about this separately. So then we started building out entities of where consumers are searching.

As we look at search trends. and then again, bring them into your phone. 

John Wilson: Do you have HVAC and electric? 

Jamie Smith: We have HVAC, yes. and we are, literally like weeks away from launching electric. 

John Wilson: Man. Can't wait for it to be all green around me. That sounds great.

Jamie Smith: We're getting there. We're getting there. 

John Wilson: That sounds great. cool. I got to ask some super duper nosy questions about lead, partnership, which was fun. Yeah. So from our side, it's like a black box, right? It's okay, I get this lead, but where did it come from? And is it stale? 

Which like, hey, maybe somebody got a lead. And then two weeks ago or two weeks later, they sold it to Angie's. And then Angie sells it to us or whoever. And. It's okay, that lead was stale. And it's yeah, it was stale. It originated two to four weeks ago.

Makes total sense. but yeah, from our side of the city, it's a black box, but I do think what was really interesting, which I agree with, was like the scorecard and like how we think about communicating back and forth. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's interesting. And just a, I suspect.

Larger businesses are going to do this better because on the plumbing HVAC electric side, you talked about urgency. Like our industry is we're like drunk on urgency where you can build a 20 million contractor and not have any idea how to market at all. Like you don't have to do anything interesting, which is crazy, right?

That's why I'm addicted to this industry. 

John Wilson: Yeah. it's like, all you have to do, and especially over the last, like 10 years, all you had to do was pay local service ads money. that's it. put dollar in, get lead out. It was the dumbest thing in the world. And, so it just didn't take any energy.

So now, you can. there, there's companies down in your neck of the woods. so I was listening to a talk from, Jimmy Dale from Baker Brothers. He's in Dallas, not Austin, but they're 110 million. And he was on a show or something at the end of 2023 or like early 2024. And I like Jimmy, he's a cool guy.

But it was like a, it was a comical, like the way he said it, he's yeah, we're actually going to have to start caring about this. And they were like an 80 million business. And they were trying to figure out how to essentially do marketing one Oh one. And it's because population growth was crazy.

Leads were cheap. Demand was high. And it's like this, All these things mixed together and boom, you've got a hundred million dollar business and you barely even thought about it. Like it's ridiculous. So yeah, plumbing HVAC electric is weird because you get, you just live on urgency and you live at the bottom of the funnel.

Okay, I'm going to pay 200 for a lead, but they're going to buy in an hour. 

Jamie Smith: It's one of those where I think as we talk about consumers changing, one big bet that I, that our teams are making is, we talked a little bit about with my community. I think that a lot of companies now are having to quote, like work harder because the consumer's expectations are changing, right?

So you have to, and this is why it's so hard for businesses. Now you have to have reviews, you have to be on Google. You also have to be on their, businesses. You have to be on Yelp. You have to, have an Angie profile. You probably need to have a modernized profile. Like you have to have all of these things because the consumer expectations are changing.

They want someone super qualified. That's going to, that they can trust within 30 seconds. And that, is a dynamic that has been changing, like not just mediums of media that's been changing. That's the dynamic that's changing. And that's why I'm really excited to work with partners. Because we can help them with that.

We're not just a partner that's ah, let's schlep some leads over. We can also tell you how that's performing, and then provide some feedback on that. we have some customers who, in our calls products, where we can listen to the calls and provide some feedback from our agents, right? it is a wild industry that, for so long, there was this thought, there's the thought like, oh, I don't need any.

I don't need to think about marketing costs. I don't need to, I don't need to do anything, but I think the consumer is, pushing for that. yeah, so that's why. Yeah, it's, hard. Sometimes we think about all the costs for lead. It's 200 for the cost for lead. But, I like to encourage people to also think about that under, within their, like their operating expenses, like the amount of effort it is to put into their marketing budgets to produce that when you are going to get a cost from us, one cost for that inquiry. 

John Wilson: I appreciate the information on modernize. I appreciated the behind, inside baseball on, how lead at like partners and this whole industry works. I really just wanted to ask people.

So I really got to, got some questions answered. 

Jamie Smith: Thank you. And thanks for your, feedback too. Like I said, if anyone has any suggestions on plumbing, I can hand them my email, like we're ready to keep growing in these services and categories and I'll let you know when electrical launches.

John Wilson: If people want to learn more about, modernize. How can they get ahold of you guys? 

Jamie Smith: Yeah. Our website, is modernize. com slash pros. That'll give you all the information on our products and services. 

You can call us and we can get a consultation set up right away. 

John Wilson: Thanks so much, Jamie, for coming on. 

Jamie Smith: Thank you.