From Enterprise Rent-A-Car to Tiny School Bus Living

I asked Phil to tell me about getting into the local service industry about 15 years ago.

In college his major was international business and he ended up getting an internship at Enterprise Rent-A-Car where he was running a local service business. Think about your local home service business doing a couple million dollars, that was an Enterprise branch. They were serving the local community, people come in rent cars, they try to upsell them different services. He was basically like a CSR or something like that.

He started there when he was 19, was an intern (it was a paid internship so it was good). Then he ended up becoming a management trainee, went through their entire management trainee program, and ended up running his own local service business where he had several different ones.

The biggest one he had had two locations, was doing about $3 or $4 million in revenue. He was paid directly off the bottom line performance. He had a team of 15 people and he was about 25.

That was how he got started learning local service business, how does this all work. Then he ended up going into their corporate office and was selling Fleet Management Services to home service companies. Big hundred million HVAC companies, he would be pitching them on using Enterprise for their Fleet Management Services.

At the same time he started a blog about personal finance, something he was very passionate about (paying off student loans, setting up yourself with budgets). He built a WordPress website, started doing SEO (this was before ChatGPT and anything). He'd write three blog posts every single week, would use MailChimp and build an email list and have affiliates.

He learned about this thing called backlinks. He started getting featured in all of these different platforms sharing his story and then getting linked back into his website. He ended up getting about 30 to 40,000 people a month to his website blog reading, engaging. Really good.

He would go into these meetings with HVAC business owners and be like: hey what are y'all doing for marketing? Then sit down with them: hey I was just featured on Forbes and kind of start talking about Fleet Management Services.

He was at the point in his life where he didn't really like selling Fleet Management Services. He didn't enjoy even renting cars or any of that kind of stuff. He didn't really know what he liked to do.

"So I actually quit my job. I bought a tiny school bus and I made a little tiny home and I decided I'm going to travel around the country and do news interviews and create YouTube videos and content about living the life that you want to live, all tied into my blog, just creating this ecosystem of just fun and doing some cool stuff," Phil said.

All that was fun, it was a great experience. He learned how to do digital marketing through that experience of just doing a bunch of stuff on his own.

The Air Duct Company That Changed Everything

When Phil came back, one of his clients was an air duct cleaning company doing about $3 million in revenue. The owner was like: hey I need a director of digital marketing or a director of business development, maybe you can come and work with me.

At this point Phil was still trying to do some speaking stuff, really do his own thing. But the guy was like: whatever it takes I want you to come work with me, I enjoyed working with you at Enterprise, I think you're going to do great.

Phil went to work there. Within the first two or three months, both his worlds collided: his digital marketing experience plus his local service business at Enterprise. Everything just came to a head and he was like: oh my gosh I could really crush it for this company.

Within the first year the owner went from $3 million to $4 million in revenue, $300,000 to $900,000 in profit. The owner was like: oh my God you're a beast. He starts telling all of his friends and his friends are like: can you take this guy, can we take him to lunch and have him sitting on my manager meetings?

"Then the owner of the duct cleaning company was like: hey you need to go out and start your own company and help other businesses do exactly what you did for my company. And you can call it Flash Consulting because your name is Phil, your wife's name is Ash, combine them into Flash. No, here's your first three companies. And he introduced me to my first three clients and that was five, six years ago," Phil explained.

From 38 Reviews to 1,000 Reviews in One Year

I asked what exactly Phil was doing to take them from $3 million to $4 million in the span of a year.

When he went to work in that business specifically, their whole business (they were in business for 25 years) was built off of B2B partnerships. They literally only had 38 Google reviews and they were doing $3 million a year.

Phil's like: okay, you have this great network of HVAC contractors that are referring you business, but hello, you have people that are just getting referred to you, you have this great reputation. They're doing 30 jobs per day. Their technicians have 15 routes, 30 jobs a day.

"I'm like okay we need to come up with the process to get reviews. Within the first year they went to 1,000 reviews because we set up a good process. They were doing 30 jobs a day, so even if they get like 10% of those, that's like three to four reviews per day," Phil said.

They set up a review process so then they basically just dominated Google business profile. They started building out service area pages so they could dominate the local area. Then a really big one: they created an estimate calculator for their website.

With duct cleaning (similar to lawn care and some other services), it's pretty much the same price for everyone based off a couple quick questions. They built a couple of those questions and then built an estimate calculator which Phil learned from the blog of how to convert website traffic into subscribers or into leads basically.

Those things got them a bunch of leads. But here was the big kicker from a money perspective: that HVAC relationship, they were giving a cut to the HVAC contractors. Every single referral that was coming in, they were giving them 10 to 20% of the job. With residential clients there was no cut.

Phil said: well why don't we just focus on getting these residential clients? And these contractor ones are great but I think we can really crush it with the level of reviews that we can get and this overall dominance in a niche space that people don't really (duct cleaning). That was basically it, that was the game plan.

The Technician Gamification System That Works

I asked why some companies don't ask for reviews: do they not have a process in place, do they not know they're important, what is it?

A lot of the time (especially when they have technicians or people out on the field) is that they don't have the employee buy-in for the importance of it. This was a big issue they had to overcome because in their market most of the workforce barely spoke English.

They set up an automation initially: once an invoice happens they get the text and the email. It was okay but it didn't have the personal touch and the level of service that they would expect.

"We actually got rid of the automation and we created a thing that looks like this with a little QR code. What we did was we told the technicians: hey here's a great way for you to make some extra money. Every review that you get you'll get $10 as long as they mention your name," Phil explained.

On the card they had a little section that said "technician," they would just write their name. At the end when they would present to get the actual invoice they would say: hey I have two things for you. First, do you mind doing the survey just to let me let the ownership know how we're doing? My name is Phil, I'm happy to be able to serve you. And then here's the invoice to pay as well.

Here's the big kicker with the buy-in piece that a lot of people miss: when all the technicians would go and do the thumbprint to clock in and clock out every day, on the board in their clocking station they had all of them with a little truck that had their name on it. Every review that they got, they would basically go on like a scoreboard that they'd move the truck. They would get 10 points for every review (so basically 10 reviews, when they got to 100 they would get a $100 gift card).

Then they'd do two things: they'd put stickers on their trucks (like football helmet stickers). When they got to 10 stickers (like 100 reviews or something), they would get a little plaque thing. Just made a Canva template: 10 star technician. They would put it right above that thing so the wall would be lined with these 10 star technicians.

"One morning this guy came in, he didn't speak any English. I saw him taking a picture and I was like: oh why are you taking a picture, do you not trust that we're moving your stuff or something? And he's like: no I'm sending it to my wife because she's going to be so proud of me. Dude, this is what it's about. It's about getting that buy-in from them, creating excitement around reviews," Phil said.

Now they're up to 4,500 reviews. Their review process is still manual, they don't use automation because they have such a great process.

The $263,000 Email Strategy Using Only 12 Messages

Phil mentioned retargeting as one of their three pillars. I asked about Facebook ads retargeting.

You can do Facebook ads retargeting to bring people back into your funnel. It's a part for some people but it's not their bread and butter. The reason is: yeah you could upload your customer list and run an ad at those people and that is a component to retargeting.

What they found to be the most effective is email and text.

They had a company last year that wasn't emailing before. They sent out 12 emails (one every single month). They had 6,632 people in their database and they generated $263,000 just by sending out those 12 emails.

The beauty of email is that it's guaranteed to get in front of you. It's going to get delivered to the person that you have their email address and you're going to get open rate of 45 to 50% if they already know you.

Then texting you get a 95% open rate. Those ones they use more sparingly, maybe once or twice a year. They'll do a direct offer: hey this is Phil from Flash Consulting, we're going to be in your area next week and we have a $25 off promo, did you want to take advantage of it? Those ones crush.

Ads retargeting: yes. It's a little bit hit or miss. Those things are going to be much better.

The 7-Step Email Framework That Converts

I asked: what is actually in the email, is it fully designed or is it kind of more basic?

They have a seven step email framework. That $263,000: Phil's like okay what do all these emails have in common that we sent out?

Here are the seven parts:

1. Logo and CTA bar: Right when they get on your email they see your logo and then they have a call to action bar right there that says call now, get an estimate, just a general call to action

2. Blog post: You have a blog post that's correlating to that theme (those monthly themes Phil mentioned). That blog post is going to be very educational, whatever it needs to be, that way they can go to your website and learn from that

3. FAQ: Underneath that you have a frequently asked question. Nine times out of 10 they're going to have a question, you're going to answer it right there for them

4. Strong CTA: Then you have a stronger call to action directly for that. A strong call to action that says: get your termite service today

5. Customer testimonial: Under that you have a customer testimonial which is: hey I had termites, now I don't have termites, I'm so happy about this

6. Same CTA: Underneath of that you have that same call to action which is the call now, get estimate framework

7. Repeat: That's the framework

Why Sight Speed Doesn't Matter (And What Does)

I mentioned I've heard mixed opinions on website popups because they slow page speed down.

Phil's response: he doesn't care about sight speed.

"87% of people do their research offline then they decide to go to your website and use you. They don't care if it takes two more seconds to get to you. They want to go to your website and turn into a customer. That whole sight speed thing isn't important for SEO. Sure whatever, but if your Google business profile is there, they read your reviews, they're like: this is the company I want to use. They're going to go to your website and convert. That's what it's about, it's not about all this other stuff," Phil explained.

My Main Takeaway

The biggest lesson from talking to Phil is that 66% of forms only get reached out to one way. When someone fills out a form on your website, you send them an email and a text message right away. Most companies only do one: they'll only get a call or an email or whatever. You want to hit them three ways: text, email, and then a call.

Phil's journey from Enterprise Rent-A-Car to tiny school bus living to agency owner proves that sometimes you need to quit your job, buy a tiny school bus, and travel around the country doing news interviews to figure out what you really want to do. Both his worlds collided: his digital marketing experience plus his local service business at Enterprise. Everything just came to a head. Within the first year: $3 million to $4 million in revenue, $300,000 to $900,000 in profit.

The review gamification system that took them from 38 reviews to 1,000 reviews in one year: technicians get $10 per review as long as they mention your name. Put their name on a little truck, every review they get moves the truck up on a scoreboard (10 points per review). When they get to 100 they get a $100 gift card. Put stickers on their trucks like football helmets. When they get to 10 stickers they get a 10 star technician plaque. One guy took a picture to send to his wife because she's going to be so proud of me. That's what it's about: getting that buy-in, creating excitement around reviews.

The $263,000 email strategy using only 12 messages (one every single month) sent to 6,632 people in their database. The 7-step email framework: logo and CTA bar, blog post correlating to monthly theme, FAQ, strong CTA for that specific service, customer testimonial, same CTA repeated. Email is guaranteed to get delivered, you're going to get 45-50% open rate if they already know you. Texting gets 95% open rate.

The conversion pillar that nobody talks about: they would get tons of leads from the calculator thing and they would all go into an Outlook email. Four CSRs would print out the piece of paper form, stick it on their desk, call the person, they wouldn't answer, put a check next to it that they called them. Imagine you're getting 40-50 leads a day, they're not going back in and calling these people to work leads. You need a lead management process, not just generating leads. You need an estimate follow-up process.

Want to learn more from Phil? Follow him on LinkedIn (Phil Risher). If you're a one to 10 million home service business, visit FlashConsulting.com to discuss your business and get a free marketing audit. Check out the YouTube channel for educational content. Phil is happy to be a resource.

Listen to the full episode to hear more of Phil's insights on why 66% of forms only get one touchpoint, the $263,000 email strategy using 12 messages, the 7-step email framework, and why sight speed doesn't matter if your Google business profile has reviews.