More Leads Online Podcast Episode 018

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Dave Sage 1
Dave Sage 2
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Dave Sage 1
Dave Sage 2
Google Podcasts
YouTube Link

Dave Sage

Nathan Young (00:00):

Hey everybody. This is Nathan Young founder of more leads online. And your host of the home service leaders podcast. Today, I’m actually here with Dave Sage who recently joined the Morley’s online team at is our head of sales and marketing. We’re super excited to have him on the team he’s already, he basically has just walked in and really taken that portion of our company and made it better practically overnight. We’re all super hyped to have him, everyone on the Morley’s online team. And as we’ve been talking, I’ve been really excited because of Dave’s background and because of the experiences that he has to be like, Hey man, you should come and you should join me as the cohost of the more leads online and home service leaders podcast. Like let’s put this thing together. Let’s actually get more than just Nathan talking at people for an hour. Let’s bring Dave in. So Dave, welcome to the show.

Dave Sage (00:55):

Happy to be here. I’m not sure you’re going to want to have me on the podcast after this is over.

Nathan Young (01:02):

We’ll do the one episode where I intro you and then we’ll like at the end, we’ll be like, so anyway, I bought that idea. No, you’ll be awesome. Tell us, like, not just that more leads online, but tell us before you got to the team here, how has your career progressed? Tell us how you got here. So

Dave Sage (01:19):

As it pertains to home services or trades businesses or companies, most recently I’ve worked in solar. I’m in residential sales for three different companies here in Colorado. And prior to that, I’ve got to go back quite a ways to college high school days. I did construction in the summers. I did landscaping worked at golf courses, that sort of thing. Um, before the solar gigs, I worked for a company that retrofitted electric motors on the commercial side in commercial refrigeration, um, cold storage HPAC. So I was mostly a sales guy doing that, but I also grabbed my tool belt and uh, stuff and jump on airplanes and go across the country for different projects. And I do installations and stuff like that. So I had some time in between there where I was in finance and uh, in tech as well. And, uh, but that’s how I got here. Um, I’m sort of a sales guy by trade, I guess you would say with some background in home services and turning wrenches.

Nathan Young (02:26):

Yeah. Awesome. That’s definitely what spearheaded our conversation as we were looking for someone to be the head of sales and marketing, because, and part of that is kind of funny because like, you actually didn’t really have any familiarity with like, like we do web design and SEO, local SEO is our emphasis and we do paid ads. Like you didn’t really have very much familiarity with all of those things when we started talking, right. Not

Dave Sage (02:50):

At all. It’s been a interesting learning curve and it still is an interesting learning curve, albeit quite enjoyable. I’m having a lot of with it and I think sales are sales and it’s, for me, it’s about developing relationships. Obviously got to have good product knowledge and that’s coming and I’m sure that’s always going to be coming.

Nathan Young (03:10):

Yeah. Well, I can tell you, like, as someone who has been in the industry for a long time, and I know you and I have this conversation all the time, which is, I feel like I have to relearn my whole job every like 90 to 120 days. I’m like, oh, Google did this thing. And then the new WC three rules came out and then the, oh, ADA compliance is something now. And so anyway, like, and it’s all playing into each other anyway, the job sort of changes staying up with web design trends and SEO trends and stuff like that. I think Google rolled out a paid search update and LSA update this morning in my inbox that I haven’t even opened yet. So, uh, the, just the amount of reading that we have to do, that’s like, oh, here’s this whole new thing along that track. Like, can you give me maybe one to three things that really has sort of caught you off guard so far, you weren’t necessarily expecting as you’ve started to learn more about web design and SEO stuff, as it pertains to home services. I

Dave Sage (04:02):

Think there’s a lot more that goes into it than I’ve ever realized. As far as what goes into a website from a branding perspective, you know, I’ve done websites, I help my son build a blog and so on. And, but from the branding side of things, there’s, there’s way more that goes into it than just throwing some information out there and hoping it works. There’s branding, which is critical there’s specific call to action components to it throughout a website that are very, very important. And I think there’s also the storytelling component of it, which is very important because the whole idea is to get somebody from Google to your site to pick the phone up and call you. So I’d say that’s the first thing. Second thing is there’s more that goes into building a website on the back end. And I think anyone knows when you talk about what has to happen for SEO and marketing purposes, people just don’t realize it.

Dave Sage (04:54):

It’s not just about throwing a website out there and hoping to get found on the top of the list for Denver plumber. Um, there’s a lot that goes into it and there’s time and effort on the back end that goes into that. And it’s not necessarily something that you can throw a few bucks at and hope that it works. It’s a concerted, concentrated effort over time. And hopefully the expense goes down as you get better over time. But that’s something I didn’t probably ever realize or know about a third thing where I don’t know those are the top things that I concentrate on daily. And I’m like, man, there’s, there’s a lot more that goes into this. And maybe the third thing is this is just kind of off the cuff remark. We talked about yellow pages and you know, the guys 20, 30 years ago that we’re talking to that, that that’s what they did.

Dave Sage (05:41):

You know, the analogy there is okay. Every yellow page book that you want to be in is one set of keywords or one particular keyword that is a yellow pages book in a 30 year old analogy. And, um, so the marketing approach today is a lot more in depth and has to be more strategic than, than what it was. If you had a marketing agency 30 years ago, it was yellow pages, maybe a bus stop signs, uh, flyers and, uh, you know, newspaper ads or something like that. And today with everything coming from Google, it’s quite a bit different,

Nathan Young (06:15):

Man. It’s so well said. And I’m glad to hear that those are the things right too. Cause I was like a little curious, like, you know, I was talking to a plumbing company the other day and it’s just like straight up about them. I was so incredibly impressed with their back office operations. They had so many pieces of software that were like integrated together and, you know, I told them, I was like, look, I think you guys are ahead of the curve. Like this stuff that you’re doing, um, you’re contracting your CRM. Like you’re paying attention to a lot of the newest software and they’re growing. I mean, like, and as far as like, they have a fantastic reputation, but they’ve fallen behind a little bit as, uh, on their sort of like front-facing marketing efforts. And we were talking about that and they’re still doing, you know, they’re still papering the neighborhood, as you know, they’re like, they’re sending out like 15,000 mailers.

Learn the 6 things to do before hiring a marketing agency

Nathan Young (07:04):

And I said, well, don’t stop doing that. You know, like, um, don’t, don’t stop doing that. I think that’s a great branding play people, you know, you’re, you’re getting there. But I said, you know, like you’re, you’re not gathering reviews on a consistent basis like you did and now you’re not. And we, we talked about like marketing strategy for them and it took us a couple hours where we were talking about marketing strategy and in the end they definitely wanted something that they could print out and stick on the wall and just be like, this is what we do. And we got to there, you know what I mean? Like that’s literally what we delivered is okay, print this out, put it on the wall. But there were multiple pieces to that even for a company that wanted something that was sewer and drain. No, not even like we’re going to go into the house and do the residential, you know, like clogged sink.

Nathan Young (07:54):

Like they don’t even do that. They’re, they’re more targeted than that. And even for that company, that’s like so targeted. We were talking about where their leads are coming in from. And they’re like, well, definitely we have people call us who are they get the flyer? And then six months later, you know, they remember our names. So they give us a call. We have other plumbers who are not even necessarily like official partners. We have real estate guys who, when they need to sell know, like, so we have some referrals come in from there as long as we keep top of mind for them. And they also were able to pull up a Reddit post where they had the owner, like six years ago, it was still the top result for the question locally, where somebody on a local Reddit board had like asked some questions about sewer and drain guys.

Nathan Young (08:43):

The owner had jumped in and answered the guy’s question really well and then provided a link to his own website. And they’re still getting leads from that. So it’s like, they got, you got partners, you got technically like down, down integration competitors who aren’t really competitors. You’ve got digital SEO stuff. You’ve got reviews and you’ve got Reddit postings, like, so we came up with a thing they could print and put on their wall, but it is complicated. You’d said it so well, like it used to be, get in the book, get maybe some of those flyers, maybe do a billboard, you know, like your, your digital, your agency would handle making the graphics and distribution. Maybe now it’s just more complicated than it used to be. Anyway, that, that, that was a big, long story about this other company. And I, I, again, I just really liked their company.

Nathan Young (09:41):

I was super impressed by their back op operations. But what you said, sort of set me off, like this is more complicated. So what you said was awesome, the three things that caught you were actually headed to Atlanta in August, right? So we’re going to try this thing. Cause so Dave and I have been talking about like sales and marketing strategies and I would love to get feedback from anyone who listens to the show or who sees the inevitable LinkedIn posts, both for Dave and I, we do the home service leader show because we feel so strongly that it’s the most valuable thing that we as a marketing agency focused on the home services can do, right? Like we can’t do anything better. We can’t give all of you guys and girls more value than talking to these leaders, these pillars of the community about what’s going on.

Nathan Young (10:34):

We just had Kate on the podcast. Uh, she leads, explore the trades and like that’s so just like the amount of resources she’s bringing and we’re definitely going to have her back. K if you’re listening, but we’re trying to talk about, you know, how can we do this? How can we do this without being spammy? No one knows that you guys get a thousand BS contact forms a day better than us because we’re filtering them out for our clients. So how do we grow our agency? We want to give incredible value in that the home service leaders podcast is how we do that. We’re headed to the huge convention in Atlanta. And I know I have one or two things that I’m specifically hoping to accomplish. And so, Dave, I don’t know if you’ve thought about this. If you could put out there, just sort of put out into the world or anybody listening, what are two things that you’re like, man, if we could go to Atlanta and we could get that done, that would just really set a fantastic tone. We would love to have that happen.

Dave Sage (11:31):

So for those listening that don’t know what the huge convention is. It’s for power washers and window washers. It’s their biggest convention of the year, you know, and a humorous sign out. I never knew such a convention exists. That’s a pretty specified niche for, uh, companies or businesses, right? So I’d love to see us get our brand and name out there so that when we go back next year, everyone knows who we are and then those guys are great. They did a good job for us. Uh, we talked to them, we didn’t pull the trigger. Didn’t do anything with them, but they had some good advice and good input for us, you know, just so we have a name and a recognition in that community, as you said. And then the second thing is I’d love to have, I’d love to come out of that.

Dave Sage (12:14):

Selfishly as the sales guy at MLO with, um, a bunch of people that we can talk to after the fact moving forward over the next 12 months, that we can help out with their marketing. I mean, there’s, there’s nothing better than pitching something to somebody and engaging with them and having them buy from you and actually having it work. Um, and having them 90 days, 120 days down the road, six months down the road going, man, you guys are awesome. Um, we’ve talked to so many agencies, we’ve talked to so many marketing guys. You talked to my cousin that was going to do social media for us and all and nothing ever worked. And you’re the first company that’s done something for us. That’s actually worked and we’re getting calls, we’re getting results and it’s all tangible. It’s all quantifiable numbers and it’s working. So I, you know, that’s what makes me happy.

Nathan Young (13:09):

Uh, yeah, that would be awesome. I’m I’m going to piggyback exactly on what you just said, but something I want to touch on just a little bit is because of your experience and your expertise, even prior to you joining the team here. Cause we were just talking about this this morning, which is as a sales guy, that’s the hat you wear. That’s the, that’s the division of the company that you lead for us. How important is it as someone who is on the team, who’s representing the brand, just like what you were talking about to know that you’re backed by a team who’s going to represent you well online at the convention, whatever that your marketing guys. I mean like that, cause that’s what we do, right? Like we’re, we’re the marketing team and how often is sort of like the, well, you know, they’re just the marketing guys, right? Like I joke with people all the time about nobody has worse reputations than the home services and the marketing guys. So nobody has the worst reputation than the marketing guys for the HomeStart. We just assume we’re going to get shat on from a terrible height. You know what I mean? But as a sales guy and including your previous experiences, how important is it to you to feel like that you have a strong marketing team to back up the conversations and reputation and relationships that you’re trying to drive?

Dave Sage (14:36):

Well, it’s critical to go off into the weeds a little bit. I think you and I, and everybody has worked in situations where it was just horrible and we sort of woke up and thought, I can’t believe I’m doing this or found ourselves working for somebody gone. I can’t believe this is what I’m doing. And for whatever reason for me, you know, it may have been more often than not a character and integrity issue. And I thought I just got to get out of here, getting back to your question. It’s critical. It’s critical. Number one for anybody’s even, uh, you know, or specifically a sales guy, like you said to know that the company’s got his back and a full support and so on and that, um, I’m not off trying to do something that, uh, no one can understand. No one believes in no one, no one is behind me. So it’s absolutely critical. Um, you know, I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have come on board if I didn’t think that was the case. And I didn’t, if, if I didn’t think there was some commonality and shared values. Um, so who did I answer that one

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Nathan Young (15:42):

Before this show David and I were talking about like, oh man, what if we mess it up now? It’s like, you’ll never worry about messing it up. Our podcast producer. We’ll just cut that part out a hundred percent. Honesty is how we roll. Also when you mess things up, it just makes for the best like stories later. So it’s always fine, man. What a fantastic answer. I have worked with so many people who, I mean, I, there are a lot of marketers that I look up to. I make this joke all the time. I make a lot of jokes that aren’t really jokes. A lot. Marketers are really just operations and disguise. And like, we listened to maybe thousands of calls now, right? Like we are, we’re recording these calls that are coming in and we someone’s quality checking them. I mean like a real person, Mason is listening.

Nathan Young (16:31):

Cerise is listening to these phone calls that our clients are getting and they’re counting the ones that are actually leads. You know, we’re reporting on that and your team, isn’t just like trying to tell you, oh, we ran the thing or we, you know, we built your site in the end. Like that’s what our value is. Like, no, we want to be really part of your team because we know what we’re supporting. We’re supporting your sales arm, we’re supporting your, the rest of your ops. Like we understand that responsibility for every client or for you Dave, like knowing that you have a team, whether it’s this team or any team knowing that wherever you are, if you’re trying to spearhead something in business, like how critical having that, that trust that you have that team behind you is awesome. Yeah. I mean, if I’m

Dave Sage (17:20):

Going to be out there representing something company or product or whatever, it’s, it’s absolutely critical to have that behind you. And we definitely have that.

Nathan Young (17:31):

I’m glad you feel that way. I know we feel that way for every single one of our clients. And hopefully after the history you mentioned, we’ll be able to feel that way about a couple more people. That’s that’s also one of my selfish desires is I love developing the relationships, but for me personally, as a human, nothing develops relationship for me more than getting to go to work together. And so I say, I say things like, man, I wish we had more clients or I want more clients. I don’t even necessarily like in my head, like assure revenue is important. Obviously no one is going to argue with that. Who’s in business. But in my head I’m like, I’m not going to be able to build this relationship with you unless I can get side-by-side and like get into the trenches with you sometimes, literally. And so anyway, I hope that we get to build some new relationships, uh, coming out of the convention and in the coming months, anyway, I’m just really excited to have you as a, as a co-host on the show. And I think we’re going to create some fantastic content and we’re gonna ask some better questions than just me being on here all the time. I’m looking forward to it. Awesome. Anything to wrap before we go and Dave, where can people find you?

Dave Sage (18:41):

So cell phone three oh three, five five oh four one four. Oh, call texts, and then email dave@orleadsonline.com. Um, anything else I don’t, I guess I’m looking forward to seeing who pays attention to this who sees it and uh, what kind of feedback we get. Um, cause this is a, uh, interesting spin on what the podcast has been so far. I think we also have some, as we talked about earlier, we’re, we’re getting the, you’re getting better at doing this quality of what we’re producing is better. And then one last thing that Cerise manic comment to me about, which didn’t mean anything to me, but now does is this is a professionally produced podcast. It’s not two guys sitting there on a FaceTime, you know, talking back and forth and making a recording and putting it out there. This has huge worth to anybody that listens to it, a home services or not. So, um, I I’m excited about where this is going to go over the next year.

Nathan Young (19:42):

Awesome. And everyone knows that was a little bit of a shameless self plug for me too. Dave, where can everybody find you? Oh, one last thing, one last thing, which is where can everybody find you? Something I love about what we do. Something I love about any company that does this. I tell stories about, you know, because I buy home services, I’m a consumer guys. I’m not just a, you know, I have a house, I buy crap. Uh, but so I tell stories about buying all the time from, uh, HVAC guys or whatever. But we have really worked hard to like make texting part of our communication. I mean really to dig into saying, look, you guys don’t want to get on zoom calls. You probably don’t have time. You’re in the trucks. You’re running the things you’re busy, especially right now. No you’re busier than ever.

Nathan Young (20:33):

Let’s make texting really a pillar of our communication. I would love to hear back from anyone who’s listening, how important it is for you, right. To be able to have that sort of texting. I know Dave just dropped his phone number and when he said you can call or text me, like, he really meant that like you can text us. I have our live chat on our website. Like that goes straight to our cell phones, just like texting. And so we’ve really dug into this idea of texting and we’re sort of pushing this out there to the home services community, the clients that we take care of and the people that we’re talking to that texting is really important. And to make that available, I’d love to hear some feedback on that, but it really is something we take very seriously as like a, it seems silly as to be something you take seriously, quote unquote, but it’s really important to us to make texting a really primary form of communication. We just feel like it’s the easiest way to do things. So if you feel like that is true, let us know if you feel like that is not true. We would really like to know because we put a lot of work.

Nathan Young (21:36):

So anyway, that’s, that’s my final thing. And we’ll wrap Dave, I’m looking forward to having another conversation you with, uh, another guest in the room.

Dave Sage (21:46):

Sounds good. Thanks for taking the time.

Nathan Young (21:48):

Awesome man. All right guys, on behalf of the more leads online in the home service leaders podcast, thanks so much for listening. We’ll catch you next time.

Dave Sage

Dave Sage

More Leads Online

Dave Sage is the head of sales and marketing at More Leads Online and also has extensive experience in the solar industry.

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