PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Ian Robertson
Welcome back to Inspector Toolbelt Talk. And you know, sometimes we have an episode that we just say, hey, this would be a cool episode. But sometimes we have an episode where multiple people will ask us for a follow up or more information or just specifically request an episode. So today is that kind of episode. We have Jason Bowings with us again, which I’m thrilled about, me and him could talk all day about, just about anything online here. But we mentioned in our last podcast together Google Local Service Ads and how they are just rocking it right now. So Jason, thank you for coming back and being willing to talk about this.

Jason Bowings
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here. And I think this is going to be excellent information for the listeners.

Ian Robertson
You know, it’s funny, because you said on your last podcast, I work for a company already, I do not run Google Ads myself. And still, you did such an amazing job of explaining things last time. I think my phone just blew up until it died. People asking me for your information. You’re a popular dude right now. Everybody wants to know ya.

Jason Bowings
I appreciate that. You know, it’s certainly because home inspectors and other small service businesses are underrepresented in digital marketing. You know, digital companies, they charge a lot to start, they charge management fees, some of them want you to spend X amount, because their fee is based on what you spend. And that’s not conducive to a small business. And most of the home inspectors I’ve worked with in the past were solo or maybe, you know, two or three person companies, which is fairly small. I do work with or have worked with multi-inspector firms. But it’s the same process, just more of it. You know what I mean?

Ian Robertson
Yeah. Well, I guess that’s why we appreciate having you on here, because you bring the big business skill to the small business world. And I think that is a good way to say it. Our industry is underrepresented online. You know, everybody tries to bust into the mark and say, we’re gonna do Google ads for you, but it’s really hard to run a Google ad business with smaller companies like home inspection companies. Even if you’re like five, six inspectors, or you know even more, you need to have a really large ad budget, you need to have a lot of search volume, we were talking about that earlier, there has to be enough people searching for home inspections in your area, a whole bunch of other factors. So to have someone on your level, explain some of this stuff to us is, is really awesome. And I kind of nerd out on it like you do. I think it’s a lot of fun.

Jason Bowings
I try to keep a good balance. Because, you know, I can get into the numbers, I can get into the metrics. And I can dig so far down that I lose the thread. People aren’t listening anymore. They don’t care about that. They just want to know how it can work for their business. But you and I, I held you up just getting this thing recorded because we were talking so much.

Ian Robertson
No, no, not. Like I said, I nerd out on this all the time, we were talking. This was a complete random side point. But we were talking about search volume. So I work in the SEO world, Jason works with Pay Per Click ads, there are two halves of one whole, which is somebody goes online and looks for a service, they’re either going to click on an ad, or they’re going to find someone organically. So we work in two halves of the same whole. Oftentimes, we’ll have clients come to us. Ian, I haven’t had anybody from my website, or Jason, I haven’t anybody hire me from my ads. And we were just talking beforehand, you can change your lure, you can change your fishing pole, you can change all your methods. But if there are no fish in the pond, it doesn’t matter. Because there’s nothing there to catch. We were talking about the incredibly low search volume that’s out there right now. I was just showing a guy in Virginia. And I’m like, here’s the data on your area. Past 30 days, there have literally not been any searches that Google can record, because Google will show you the search volume for certain terms and stuff. In 30 days, there’s not been anybody searching for home inspections in your area. 90 days, it was like…

Jason Bowings
That’s right. And we’re not magic.

Ian Robertson
Yes, seven people. So an ad, or great SEO, none of that’s really going to fix the fact that in some areas, a lot of areas, unfortunately, right now, there’s just not enough search volume. And if there’s seven people searching for home inspections, I’m going to guarantee you six out of those seven are going to be your competitors, seeing why they’re not coming up on Google, where all the work went.

Jason Bowings
Right. It’s true. And home inspection is an industry that is volatile. As far as you know, with the different industries, service industries we’ve worked with, with Google ads. There’s a lot of different factors that affect and let’s face it, macro economics right now affects every industry. So there’s a lot of different factors that go into it. But again, we’re not magic. I can’t make people do searches online. All I can do is present your business same way you do, present your business in the best light when they do, and we try had to take advantage, you know, one thing was back when the inventory would dry up, your competitors don’t go away. So it’s same number of competitors fighting for a smaller number of leads. So the leads would be more expensive. You know, most of our clients understood that. But sometimes clients would be like, hey, my acquisition was $43 for all these months, or $45, or whatever, per job. And now, you know, all of a sudden the acquisition is all the way up to 65. And you have to have the conversation, do you want the lead? Or do you want to let someone else get it, because that’s the price that we’re getting in it, there’s nothing I can do. And there’s not enough leads to really be picky and say, we’ll take a lower bid strategy here and see if we can’t get it for cheaper. Well, you’re just going to miss all of it.

Ian Robertson
So let’s take that into consideration. As we talked about Google, Google Local Service ads, because this is a great program. You may try and say, well, Jason and Ian, they didn’t know what they’re talking about, didn’t work for me. We still can’t make the searches appear. But if there are searches in your area, this is one of the best ways to grab people. So Google Guaranteed Ads, Google Local Service Ads, we’re going to use those terms interchangeably. They’re technically Google Local Service Ads. But colloquially, they’re called Google Guaranteed Ads, because that’s how they first presented themselves. One day, I was online and I go, what’s that little bubble that says Google Guaranteed, and then it went away. And so they were just beta testing it to see how people reacted. So they’re giving it to a small subset of people. And then Google’s like, oh, yeah, that works really, really well. So give us a brief overview, Jason. And then maybe we could do a step by step of how guys can get into this.

Jason Bowings
Sure. So the local service ads themselves have been around for years, maybe six, seven years. I mean, don’t quote me, but they came out not too long after I started in this industry, they appear at the very top of the SERP or search engine results page. So a user types in a phrase or a keyword into Google hits, enter. The next page land on is the SERP or search engine results page, the Google Guarantee are little boxes at the very top, it’s not the same as Google ads, you don’t get, you don’t get all the descriptors and headlines and everything else. But the deal is, is that Google vets these companies to make sure you have all the proper insurances or licenses for the area, and then they’ll show you at the very top of the page, they have a pretty good cost per lead. In the past, I’ve been able to beat the cost per lead. But right now, especially in home inspection, I don’t think we could, I don’t think Google ads would be beating it, sad to say you don’t want to use it as part of that marketing pie that you have. But these local service ads now that they’re available, I think that you would be remiss for not at least trying them. And I think that you’re going to see that these can help carry through some slow times, if there is any search volume at all.

Ian Robertson
Okay, so I have like a litany of questions from both myself and users. Because I’m not using Google Local Service Ads personally right now. So like average dude, out there, just kind of single inspector just randomly in the U.S. somewhere, maybe? How much are they paying for the average lead? 50 bucks, 100?

Jason Bowings
So I have a client right here, he’s in, or not a client, but a friend in Miami. He’s had 12 leads this month. And he’s paid $756. And it looks like he is booked eight of the 12, average cost per lead is coming right in at $63. Now, that’s in contrast to last month. No, last month, I’m sorry, average cost per lead was $63. And then, if I go back for January, let’s see, but this is a busy market. Miami hasn’t faced a lot of the problems that, Miami hasn’t faced a lot of the problems that other markets have. So, sorry, I’m trying to make it cooperate, and it doesn’t want to.

Ian Robertson
That’s okay, I think that kind of answers our question of giving us a ballpark. So plan on spending, at least around that. Now remember, we’re talking about Google Local Service Ads. They’re very different than Google Ads themselves, so to kind of help us make a delineation. We talked last time about the difference between SEO and Google Ads. Now the difference in Google Ads and Google Local Service is Google Ads are, here’s an ad, your business, describes your business, and people can click on it and brings them typically to your website. Google Local Service Ads are more like I hate relating it to them but a better version of Home Advisor. So we would pay home advisor, you send us a direct lead, this person we know is looking for a home inspection. Hate them or love them. I actually did okay with you know, Home Advisor in the earlier days when it was Service Magic and then Home Advisor. And then, now it’s Angie. But this is a way better version of it because it’s Google. So people don’t have to go to Home Advisor and then go through Home Advisor. They find you on Google, and then it gets a direct connect to you. But the advantage is you’re paying for the lead, right? So you can actually contest that lead, like, you get somebody that was looking for a building code enforcer, that’s probably the most common one. You can say, hey, this was a bad lead and get your money back, hypothetically, is that true?

Jason Bowings
And the second most common is calling for a competitor. Yeah. So I was looking while you were talking, I was looking to see a lead, that could be disputed, there’s three buttons, or three dots in the top right hand corner, you can dispute a lead, and they give you about five or six choices as to why you can dispute it, you don’t have that service offering in your listings. You don’t, it’s a competitor, it was a spam or a robo call, duplicate call. So sometimes, you know, in digital marketing, a client will call you, they don’t write down the number or whatever. And they go and do another search. And most people don’t realize whether it’s an ad or not, you know, they’re not really paying attention that, if they see your name, they’re looking for you. They’re gonna click on it. So if it’s a duplicate, you can dispute it as well. I have to say, Google’s, you know, I don’t, I don’t talk Google up very often, they are the best way to, to generate online service leads. But the Google Local Service Ads, they seem to have really given you a lot of options so that you can get a good cost for your, you know, for your, for your services. We use it in the HVAC industry. And we’ve been using it for years, because it’s been available. And we’re seeing right now cost per lead, there’s only $27 for service lead. So, and that’s a good contrast. Previously, it’s or maybe in the summer, my service leads won’t come that cheap for, for HVAC. But if the housing market was to improve your, your cost per leads will go down, mine will go up based on several different factors. But yes, you can dispute anything that you don’t want, I think the the best thing about this system is, it is so easy, you do not have to pay, you don’t have to be savvy on a computer, you don’t have to get Google certified, you do not have to pay someone to set this up or maintain this. The note, most work that goes into this is listening to the call, and if it’s good, you mark it as booked, if it isn’t, you market as disputed, or every so often we have to eat the cost of one. But you go through and toggle the services that you want. So when you’re setting up your profile and your budget, which is very easy, you go to ads.google.com/localservices. Typically, I’ll sign into Google before I do it. But that’s how you find Google Local Service Ads. You can turn them on or off. Go ahead.

Ian Robertson
Hang on one second, because I really want to make sure everybody heard that website address. It’s ads.google.com/local-services. No, sir. I don’t use the hyphen, I get there just by going forward slash local services and then hit enter. Okay, so yeah, I guess there’s a couple different ways that you can you can get there probably.

Jason Bowings
So it’s Google.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, so either way, however you get there, that’s going to be the URL structure that you’re gonna use. So, sorry to interrupt. I want to make sure everybody heard that.

Jason Bowings
No, no.

Ian Robertson
Because that’s where the whole journey, journey’s going to begin. So please, continue.

Jason Bowings
No, thank you. Sure. So when you’re setting it up, you’re gonna have to go through a vetting process. If there’s, if there’s licenses or insurances that are required in your area, you’re going to have to show that you have those. They’re used to be a Google rep that used to come out physically to meet with you. The last, I don’t know, three years or whatever, it’s all been digital, you just, we send our licenses over, we send our insurance paperwork over, you choose your zip code, you show them your webpage, you give them a phone number, and then you choose where you want to advertise, you know how, how much geography you want to advertise in. They let you put a bio in here. So some of the things that are here beat or match price, free estimate, one time guarantee professional service, weekend appointments by request, so you can put a value proposition to try to set your your company apart from other companies, and then you get into the budget section. So it, Google always suggest budgets for you. It has been my standard practice to tell you that we’re not going to spend what Google wants us to. I once had a client that was spending 30,000 a month in their market, and every day I woke up to below budget, you need to spend more, but um..so you set your budget. My advice to you is, set your budget much higher than you plan. Personally at work my budget’s set at $1,500 $1,534 a week. And right now because of low volume, we’re spending about $100, $125 a week, it’s, so we’re not even getting close. Now, the danger of that is, if you set the budget that high, Google has the ability to spend that much. The reason that I set it higher than what I want, is because in my experience of playing with the budget, to see what we could get, I found that Google rewards us because we’re willing to spend more. And I would say that it’s like that across most Google properties, honestly, you won’t find that in documentation. But that’s experience talking. If you’re willing to spend money with Google, they help you out a little bit more.

Ian Robertson
So I guess, I guess for a guy setting up their account, you know, we may have a smaller budget, maybe we have $400 a month, we’re gonna spend $100 a week. So we’re looking and saying, man, if I put $500 a week, what happens if I get all that, they spend all that? My thing is, listen, if you’re getting an 80% close rate out of those, because they’re good, solid, hot leads. Awesome. So the worst case scenario is now you have more work.

Jason Bowings
I’ve managed to talk to a few multi-inspector firms this week. One’s just a friend, and another one had some questions. And I started asking if they use the local service ads, both of them do. And what they were telling me was, both said they had somewhere around a 75, 60 to 75% close rate. Now, I don’t know if that’s the newness, I don’t know, if the local service ads get better and better, as you mark some as booked and dismiss some, maybe the algorithm starts picking up on that and saying, okay, well, they don’t want these kind of leads. And maybe you’ll see a better closed rate. This is relatively new for the home inspection industry. I think, to my knowledge, maybe six months is what it’s been available, if that.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, yeah, I don’t, I don’t even know if it’s been that, I was gonna guess maybe more around four months. Makes sense, because I think they started testing in the, because they test in an industry before they go into it.

Jason Bowings
Yes, as a beta. And when you get a call from local service ads, the phone says, you’re receiving a call from Google. So as a business owner, if you notice it, suddenly you’ve gotten a bunch of these calls, it’s as simple as logging on to that, and looking to see how much you’ve spent. And then you can cut your budget down if you, if you feel like you’re running it, but Ian, kind of like what you said, why would you, if you’re closing these leads, and these leads are solid? If you’re closing these leads, why would you want to shut your budget down? Yeah, I would take, I would take a job with less profit margin than sitting at home, if I’m a home inspector, you know what I’m saying, there has to be a threshold, I’m not going to go out for free, I’m not going to go out for a loss, I’m not going to go out for 10 bucks. But as long as the leads are at $63, this particular friend, I believe, his average home inspection with ancillaries, and everything else is about $465. So if he’s paying $63 for a lead, you know, there’s still $402 on the bone. Of course, there’s overhead and everything else, but I would take that, you know, I would go do that job.

Ian Robertson
And there’s something that we have to remember, too. So we like to talk about lead generation as marketing a lot of times as a broad stroke. It’s one of the pillars of marketing, there’s lead generation, there’s advertising, there’s networking, there’s all different types of marketing, lead generation is unique to it, to itself, you get one lead, but very likely you can market that lead to get more. So every inspection that we perform is a marketing opportunity. I get generally two agents watching me perform an inspection. And then my client watching me perform an inspection. If somebody said, hey, do you want to sit in front of some first time homebuyers and agents and demonstrate an inspection? Heck, yeah, I’d pay money to do that. So this is paid advertising is what I tell people, you get in there, you do a good job, you’re likely going to get at least one or two of those agents referring you for years to come, family members and friends from the client that you just inspected for. So don’t view it as, you know, I got this one end result. I got this one lead. Right, right. What did that one lead turn into? What did the, what did that inspection turn into?

Jason Bowings
That’s not even counting referrals.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, it doesn’t count referrals. It doesn’t count anything else. If we’ve, if we’re not marketing on our inspections, handing out a business card, following up with everybody, talking with everybody, doing an amazing inspection, the lead generation is just going to be a dead end road for us. The other thing is..

Jason Bowings
One thing, one thing before you move on, I’d like to say something. I’ve heard, I’ve worked with a lot of home inspectors. And one of the things that I heard over the years that I really thought was smooth, was a particularly good home inspector I won’t name, used to go up to the realtors and say, I’m sure you already have a solid home inspector. But do you have a solid backup inspector? And the reason that he did that was he disarmed the agent. If you go up to the agent you say, hey, I’m better. I’m the best home inspection, home inspector you’ve ever seen. I’m better than the guy you have, which nobody would do, but if even if your message is that, the agent is going to be defensive, especially if they have a good relationship with their home inspector. But typically, you disarm the agent when you go to them, and you say, I know you have a great home inspector already. I’m sure someone like you does. Do you have a solid backup? What if they get too busy, or what if they go on vacation, and you disarm them. It’s, it’s ingratiating, if you will. And he told me that he picked up, what would end up happening is they would end up using him as a secondary source. And then oftentimes, the relationship between a home inspector and an agent can sour for one reason or another. And then he was the next one to step up and fill that slot, and he didn’t do anything ethically wrong.

Ian Robertson
You know, I guess you have to be careful how you present. I think that’s a fantastic idea. But how you present that. Hey, do you have a home inspector already? Oh, no? Well, how about a solid number two? You just have to be careful how you present it.

Jason Bowings
I think a lot of people enjoy a solid number two, you know what I mean? I’m just guessing here, right? We can take a poll or something.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. But now getting back on track. No, that’s a great idea. And that’s the thing. Marketing is not so direct. And not every lead is closed, directly. And immediately. I think that’s the problem is I’ve had leads that I’ve worked for years, and then eventually turned into something, doesn’t mean I spent all my time on it. But I never said, that lead’s dead and moved on. I always say okay, well, I can follow up on that lead in six months. Let me make a note, something like that. But the point I wanted to make about the cost per leads, we’re seeing around 60 some odd dollars right now. But it’s always going to be as you mentioned before, a product that’s, you know, supply and demand. If there’s a million leads out there, they become cheaper, but right now when there’s less leads..

Jason Bowings
Sure, cost per lead goes down. Yeah.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. Less diamonds on the market, diamonds are gonna be more expensive, and vice versa. So keep that in mind, you may start this up and say, hey, Ian and Jason told me it’s gonna be about this much. But now it’s $120. It’s like, okay, this is not an ad group either for you if you are not listening to this podcast, and charging $199 or $250, for a home inspection. If this doesn’t illustrate why you should raise your prices, I don’t know what else to tell you. Because we should have enough room in our prices to accommodate acquisition costs. That’s part of doing business.

Jason Bowings
Yes, I was gonna say that is a fundamental part of doing business. You know, when you, when you do, I don’t mean to disparage anyone, but I talk bluntly, and I talk, what I think is honestly, oftentimes we have small businesses where the person is great at doing the business, but maybe not a great business owner. It’s not to say that they can’t learn, it’s not to say they can’t get there. But you know, there are times where I have interviewed potential clients, small business clients. And what I’m doing there is a gap analysis, this is where you are, this is where you want to be. And it’s important for me to know both of those, because that would tell me what technique I have to use to help get you there. Now we need to know what kind of timeframe you’re looking at, is it realistic, so that I can set the correct expectations? And I ask questions during that process. What is your acquisition costs right now? What does it cost you to get a home inspection? What is your average home inspection worth to you? I understand what your bare minimum is, you know, the average across the country is 325. So I understand what your what your minimum is, but you offer ancillary. So what do you normally bring down, and it’s disconcerting when business owners are like, I don’t really know, if you’re not on top of your numbers, who is, you know, you’re the business owner. And if you’re a small business owner, I doubt that you have a lot of people in, on the in between, right, between you and the actual bank account. So those are things that you got to focus on, all the marketing in the world won’t help you if you’re not handling your figures right. If you can’t, if you don’t know what it’s costing for an acquisition, if you don’t know what your average cost is, these are important things, and these also influence whether people like marketers want to work with you unless the marketer is desperate. And the last thing you really want is a desperate marketer.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. Desperate out of work doctor and a desperate out of work marketer, the two people you don’t want.

Jason Bowings
That’s right.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, let’s do it.

Jason Bowings
I would like to talk about the service offerings that they give through Google Local Service Ads. And it’s as simple as toggling it on or off. Okay, if you’re going on vacation, there’s a main toggle, you can turn it off or you can turn it on. So the ad doesn’t run. But if you, if you want to focus on certain things, so I can go through the listings here. It says buyer seller inspection, commercial properties, electrical fire safety, fireplace and chimney, foundation, full home inspection, HVAC, mold, home warranty, new construction, plumbing, structural well or septic, wood and insects, water testing, roof, mold, and other. So my advice is to stick with aiming at the full home inspections, that’s where you get the full price. Sell some of these ancillaries if you offer them, upsell them when you’re in the home. But when you’re doing this at $63, like here down in Florida, you know, and other places in the country, they do four points and wind mits, that’s kind of standard or popular. But we wouldn’t want to pay a $63 acquisition fee for wind mitigation when you’re only getting $150 for that wind mitigation, you know what I’m saying? So in this particular county, has almost everything toggled off with the exception of full home inspection, buyer seller inspection, and commercial properties. That way this, this particular home inspector feels that they’re going to get the most bang for their buck. And it’s $63 a lead, I agree with them. I’m totally on board with that.

Ian Robertson
So I have to, I have to really make a point there. I think the mistake that guys make with Google Local Service Ads are the same mistake they make with Google Ads in general. They see those, yeah, I’ll do a foundation inspection, yeah, I do wood destroying insect, yeah, I do new construction. The problem is you’re doing all those keywords, and you’re, you end up, you’re gonna end up with a lot of leads you don’t want. So wood destroying insect, okay, but now, are you going to get a lot of pest treatment leads? Or are you gonna get a call from a little old lady who has a skunk in her attic? New construction, you’re going to be getting a lot of code enforcement leads, mold, you’re gonna get a lot of mold remediation, you’re gonna get a lot of leads that you don’t want, even if you do those services. So ignore them. Because oftentimes, we try to set too wide of a net. And we may even sit there, I haven’t had a lead in three weeks, I gotta turn on the other ones. Well, oh right, now you’re fighting with bad leads istead of no leads, what, I don’t see the advantage of that.

Jason Bowings
The last thing you want to do when revenue flow is slow, is spend revenue on something that’s going to get you a portion of what you’re used to getting or nothing at all, you know, with it, just like you said, with the Google Ads, we don’t spread the net just because things are slow, we stay focused. And that keeps the budget focused. That’s one of the ways that we control the budget is not to throw such a wide net. And how frustrating, you get these calls that you’re paying for, you can’t you can’t dispute it. You have it toggled on, you can’t dispute it. And you paid $63 for it. What would you get for a WDO inspection? What would you get for a deck inspection? What would you get for a well? I do want to touch upon one thing, mold. I’ve seen mold, and now this is from Google Ads and not Google Local Service Ads, but it’s sort of the same mentality. It is very hard to advertise for mold inspection. Because most places where mold is common, you’re fighting mold remediators. A mold inspection gets you what four or $500, typically, a mold remediator gets about 2,500 or more for the remediation. What does that mean? That means they can pay a higher cost per acquisition to get that job than the inspector can because there’s higher revenue attached to it. I’ve only seen mold campaigns work for inspectors in two markets ever. And then in both of those markets, mold remediators came in, drove the cost per click up so high that we just couldn’t, we couldn’t do it, at one point cost per click for mold, for mold inspection, remediate, remediation words taken out of their mold inspection was 26 something. So even if I close, if you close every other click, which is really unheard of, you’re still paying $50. So you’re paying 10%. That’s reasonable, but you don’t close every other click. No matter who you have managed in your ads or anything. It doesn’t work that way. That’s just not the way it does. But I did want to touch upon that. Just because mold, mold’s one of those ones where it’s, that’s a hard one to fight.

Ian Robertson
So it’s the same thing with pest. So I had a guy one time, he’s like, I really want to advertise pest. And I said, okay, there’s these large national companies in his area, and he had one page on his website dedicated to pest. And I’m like, dude, we’re going into a machine gun fight with an unsharpened pencil.

Jason Bowings
A peashooter.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, not even.

Jason Bowings
Yeah.

Ian Robertson
And he’s like, and I explained that same thing to him like, listen, these guys are spending some of them, tens of thousands of dollars a month on ads, marketing, entire websites with dozens, if not hundreds, of different funnels. And you want to, with one page on your website, fight them. I’m like, we can do it. But we’re going to have to change your entire website. And we can do it, but it’s going to take time and money. You know, now home inspections, yeah, if you’re in a market fighting a 100 inspector firm, they can only take up one slot. But I’ve seen, I’ve seen markets where you have like 15, 20 different big pest companies, and they’ll, the life of their client is going to sometimes be tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, because they’re doing mouse and termite and preventative treatment, yearly treatment.

Jason Bowings
And mosquito.

Ian Robertson
Yep. So compete on that for a $400 pest inspection. That’s not a lot, there’s a lot of squeeze and not a lot of juice.

Jason Bowings
Right? Well, just to just to further that point, I worked with a, with a pest company down in Texas, and great person, small company, really, really was, I was really motivated to do a great job for him, I’d worked with other pest companies and done and done very well. But that area down in Texas, and the money just kept going out. And we weren’t getting quality leads, we were generating calls, but they weren’t quality leads. And I wouldn’t say that his market was super saturated. But those guys were willing to pay a lot of money.

Ian Robertson
Crazy money.

Jason Bowings
So if I’m dealing with a pest company, this is what he did. And we’re having problems competing. Imagine how hard it would be to compete if pest is just an ancillary that you’re offering. It’s just not profitable. Most times it’s not going to be profitable. It’s just, it’s gonna end up losing the money. Yeah. So sell it when you’re in the house.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, that’s exactly it, focus on our primary service. Because home inspections, that’s a doable market to be in. Don’t try to go after, like foundations. You mentioned that before in your list. There’s foundation companies out there, and they’re fighting hard. And it’s just big money, like marketing teams of people, and 1000s of dollars a month. If I mean, that’s a lot to keep up with for something that for us is not a quality lead to compare to what they get. But anyways, I have a couple of questions for you, though, because I’m on the Google Guaranteed Google Local Service Ads page. So you kind of gone through, it sounds pretty simple. You sign up kind of like you would for a lot of lead generation companies. You give them your information. They’re gonna ask you for all this stuff. You’re basically telling us turn on full home inspections, and maybe just leave it at that. But I notice on, on their website, they have a section where you can choose between having it say Google Guaranteed, or Google. What is it, Google Screened? What’s the difference?

Jason Bowings
I’ll be honest, I never heard of Google screened. I did not know there was any sort of differentiation. I mean, you have to get screened to run ads, you have to, you have to provide the documentation that your area requires. So there is a screening process. So I’m not sure. And Google’s vernacular a lot of times isn’t really definitive, if you know what I mean, like, I guess, I guess, my guess, and is only a guess, so I apologize to anyone listening, is that the screen sounds like it’s less of a process than the guarantee. If Google’s going to guarantee it, that means they’ve, they’ve kind of went in and out of your business. They know everything. Maybe the screened is, is some sort of lesser and maybe they show you less, I don’t know.

Ian Robertson
And this may have, I may have asked a question that threw you for a loop for a reason that doesn’t have to do with you. I think this is brand new. Because as I’m looking at it. When we did our last podcast just a few weeks ago, this wasn’t here. Google Guarantee is for service based businesses, apparently. So for us home inspectors, whereas Google screened is for..

Jason Bowings
E-commerce.

Ian Robertson
Education, wellness services, and things like that.

Jason Bowings
Okay, okay. Yeah. So yeah, so again, having people in your house, but maybe for, for slightly more personal or different reason, that would make sense. Yeah.

Ian Robertson
So I think this just illustrates the program is still so new, only a few years old. And in Google terms, it’s very, very new. But at the same time, it’s always changing. I did not see this. I meant to ask you today, and apparently it’s that new that we’re not really, and if you’re a service based, service based business, you wouldn’t have known this notice because they just kind of just stick in the category you belong.

Jason Bowings
You know, once you have it, I mean, once you’re set up there, you’re worried about, do I need the leads or don’t I? So we’ve run, you know, electrical and HVAC, but we only have one master electrician, we only have one electrician. So he has a lot of, he has a lot of vacation time. Last year he went to Europe, so he was gone for like three and a half weeks. So I was, I still wanted the HVAC leads, but I shut down as many of the electrical leads as I could. And here’s something, I doubt that this would affect home inspectors, but just in case let me share this. So the only way for me to shut down completely the electrical leads, I turned all the toggles off. But we were still getting general electrical search terms our ad was shown for and we’re getting clicks. We’re just seeing because my only option was to remove electrical as service offering. And then when he came back from vacation, resubmit for the vetting process, I’d had to resubmit my license, resubmit the insurances and everything else. So we just, we took the hit. Ironically, once he was on vacation, and all the toggles were turned off, we started getting a bunch of leads, because that’s Murphy’s Law. But I just wanted people to know, now you again, you do have the option at the very top of your interface, your ad is on, you will receive leads during the time’s you scheduled, you click that and turn it off, and you’re done. You’re not going to be getting leads, so you can turn it off. You’re going out of town, you have enough leads, you can’t service more leads, nobody wants to pay for leads, they can’t service. So I think in a nutshell, this gives the flexibility and the ease of use, where you don’t have to bring other people in, and for people who, for businesses that are struggling, for small businesses are just getting started, this is really, I think, an excellent opportunity. And then for the businesses who have been around for a while, or the businesses who are bigger, larger, they have multi-inspectors, this should be a slice of your pie. You know, the marketing, there is not one marketing lake that will support your business forever. Google Ads is excellent. Sometimes it doesn’t work that well. Google Local Service Ads drives great leads, sometimes it doesn’t drive leads at all, it’s dry. So if you have all of these different slices of the pie, I think of it that way, because that’s how I report it to my superiors, that’s really what makes a healthy marketing profile, is to have all these different things that you’re doing to keep you out there. Maybe build your brand, just a lot, you know, lead generation. There’s a lot of reasons to market. And I think sometimes some business owners get too focused on singular things, they rely on one thing too much, or solely, really, maybe not too much, but solely. And then if that particular channel has a problem, now we’re suffering.

Ian Robertson
Yeah, exactly. And that’s the illustration you used is three legs of a stool. And we won’t get into the whole process, but you can’t just have one leg, your stool is not going to stand up. And you know, it’s funny, as your, as I’m looking at Google Local Services, they actually have a cost estimator. And your numbers are right on. So for instance, I put in my, my address, or my zip code, it told me that my leads are $22 are going to be the average. Okay, that sounds, that sounds cheap. But then I entered in Miami, and it told me it was going to be about $63 exactly was the low number that they gave. So you were right on to the, to the dollar on those. So it depends on where we’re at, how many leads are around, how hot the competition is, a lot of different factors. But in my market apparently 22 bucks will get you a decent lead. That’d be nice.

Jason Bowings
Yeah, and, and I’m telling you if your, if your process on the other end of this, you know, I deal with.. when I was a marketer, I dealt with delivering leads, some people didn’t understand I don’t deliver sales, I didn’t pitch the client, I don’t, I don’t know the prices, I just delivered the leads. So if your process on the other end is, is reliable and good. With the other inspectors that I’ve talked to, they’re closing 60 to 75% of their leads, a 75% close rate, short of referrals, 75% is fantastic. I couldn’t tell you right now another marketing channel, where you would see that kind of close rate. So and this is coming from other inspectors. And again, just like I said on the last one, I’m not trying to be hired on, this is certainly not something you need to hire somebody on. I’m not trying to be hired on. So this is all the information just as plain as I can lay it out. There’s no ulterior motive to it or anything else. But I think that if you, if you, you should add this to your arsenal, even if you’re already set up, set it up. That way when things slow down, or if they slow down, if they’re not currently slowed down in your market, you have something you can toggle on to help offset.

Ian Robertson
Okay, so if I could just review everything that you’ve told us here, number one, go to ads.google.com/localservices. Start. Start the process, you can sign up there, you can also see the approximate cost of your leads using their cost estimator there. You know, I pick the middle number personally, then go through the whole process, choose just full home inspections. And then put your budget super high because you’re never going to hit that. If there’s eight leads in the area, you’re not going to spend two grand in a week because there’s only eight leads, so, and set it high. And then keep track of everything. Have a good script, keep track of everything and the closing.

Jason Bowings
So, hold on, let’s stop right there with the keep track of everything because I didn’t touch that. You have a report in here. It shows all of the leads, it shows the calls, you can listen to the calls. This is very, very handy being able to listen to the calls, not just for the quality lead and be able to market his book and teach Google, but we can all learn something from listening to our calls. In all the years that I trained salespeople, that was the most important thing, was evaluation. And even the best salespeople can get better. You listen to a call, and you say, oh, man, I might have said something different there. Or I should have maybe said something here. I wish I had said that. And that way the next time, you know, but the reporting, you can see only book leads, you can see all your leads, charge leads, you can click on them, and listen to it. It is super important. You don’t get that option with Google Ads.

Ian Robertson
Awesome. So I just want to kind of end this podcast here with just a note that Jason is helping us out with something. Us as in the entire home inspection community, we have the video series. So when it comes out, check Facebook, Jason, will have it on there. We’ll make a little announcement here. Jason, if you remind me, we can make an announcement for you. He’ll show you how to set up the ads, Google ads related to that, he’ll show you how to maintain your Google ads. And that will be another slice of the pie. That’ll go in line with Google Local Service Ads, SEO, and whatever other online marketing that we’re doing. But Jason, as always, you’ve rocked. Thank you so much for being on man.

Jason Bowings
I enjoy it very much. Thank you for having me.

Outro: On behalf of myself, Ian, and the entire ITB team, thank you for listening to this episode of inspector toolbelt talk. We also love hearing your feedback, so please drop us a line at [email protected].

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