Rebecca Mayo – Boost Your Roofing Business - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Rebecca Mayo, director of partnerships for gFour Marketing. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on the road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. So fasten your seat belts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip. Hello everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here at rooferscoffeeshop.com and you are listening to a Roofing Road Trip podcast. I am so excited. I have my friend Rebecca Mayo here from G4 Marketing. Hello, how are you? 

Rebecca Mayo: Hello, Megan. Thank you so much for having me today. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yay. I'm so glad you're here. Okay, so let's dive right in and have you just tell us a little bit about you and the history of G4. 

Rebecca Mayo: Absolutely. Well, I am Becca, obviously. I am the director of partnerships here at G four Marketing. So excited to connect with everyone today and share a little bit more, first and foremost, about the importance of having a referral program for your business. But a little bit about me is I have been in this industry almost 10 years now, which is wild to think about. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. 

Rebecca Mayo: I've seen it all different times. But yeah, it's been a really fun ride and the best part is getting to have those conversations with pros about their businesses. So very, very fortunate to be here. G4 Marketing, just a little bit about us at a high level. The thing that we do best is we help roofers and home pros unleash the power of their customers. So basically what we aim to do is take your existing customer and turn them into what we like to call a raving fan so that they go back out into their communities and advocate and evangelize your business for you. So I can't wait to talk more about it. 

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. 

Rebecca Mayo: It's a great time of year to think about this, so just excited to dive in. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, I love that, the raving fan idea. I think that is my favorite way of marketing is just making friends and telling your friends about things you like and things you're excited about. And absolutely, I think that's such a good way to market a business. So G4 Marketing has been helping home improvement businesses since 2009. Can you explain how your experience as home improvement entrepreneurs gives you an edge when working with roofing contractors specifically? 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, absolutely. So one of my favorite parts about G4 Marketing is obviously that we've been around since 2009, but we've really dialed it into what we relate to as a perfect science. So this is a scientific proven way to separate yourself and your business from all of the competitors in your market doing the exact same thing. So especially over the last couple of years, it's just this industry in itself has really grown, I would say since the pandemic especially we've seen, I personally have seen the roofing industry in particular just expand to new levels of business we've never seen before. 

So the competition is higher than ever and what we aim to do is really help our pros and help our customers, A, prioritize the customer experience because we want to make sure that we are leaving the best possible taste in the customer's mouth so that they turn around and refer your business to their friends and family without a question. So it's really putting themselves in the mind of the buyer and the client and saying, what can we do to make sure that we are building a fence around this customer so that they keep coming back to us for more business? 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. And you all really know the market really well and like it said in the question, like home improvement entrepreneurs, that's really what you are is helping and helping other entrepreneurs and roofing contractors. And I love what you said about it being a proven process, a scientific process. That is really cool. This is an offline question or online question, but different from what we prepared. Can you tell us a little bit about the proven process and how you all have studied it and what it looks like? 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, absolutely. So it really boils down to acting as the backend marketing leg of our businesses and our customers. So for example, we have pros come to us all the time saying we realize the importance of consistency, brand reputation and making sure that we are leaving an exceptional taste in our customer's mouths. 

Either they just don't have time to do it because of bandwidth and the team structure. It's like they want to focus on bringing in new business. So often that's the first thing that gets pushed to the wayside. So that's where we can come in and really operate on the back end of these businesses, making sure that we are consistent and we are actively putting out those thank you notes, those referral requests, asking the client for five star review, which as we all know, reviews are incredibly important, not just for reputation, but just in general for businesses right now by the way that people make buying decisions. 

So people put a lot of trust in us to help them move the needle when it comes to growth. But back to your question about it being a science, it's interesting because over the past 20 plus years, we have really proven the value just by the success of our customers, helping them increase that profitability when it comes to spending and operational efficiency. It's been great because with the cost of leads being what they are right now, we've really helped our customers lower the margin of spend as well when it comes to that because a referral is a great way to generate net new leads without having to increase your margin and they convert at over a higher 50% conversion rate. So lots of factors go into that proven science, but it's been really cool to hear the success of our clients over the past... I mean, company-wide 20 years, but even just since I've been here at G4. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow. I love that you mentioned thank you notes as well. I think that that's a lost art. So I love that you guys are helping contractors bring that back and to keep that movement alive. I think as someone that I don't own a home, but I live in a home. If someone were working in my home and gave me a thank you card and a little referral letter after the great work, I feel that what a great impression that gives. Love it. 

Rebecca Mayo: Absolutely. And you know what's funny, Megan, is I was just having a conversation this morning with one of our other partners about the importance of thanking the customer and just how far that goes. I mean, to your point, it's such a lost art that so many businesses, A, either forget to do or they don't prioritize. And what's very interesting is in the way that people make buying decisions now, it is a lot about feeling and evoking that positive... Not just positive word of mouth, but positive feeling because they'll remember how they felt working with your business as well. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, totally. It's that age-old saying, you don't always remember a person that said hi and leaves. You remember how people make you feel. You don't remember what they say to you, you remember how they make you feel. Yeah, it's great. Okay, so I love that you said secret back office marketing team. That's what G4 is. I love that. And you did mention a lot of competition in roofing right now. How does G4 help them stand out? I know through building stronger relationships with customers and generating those five star reviews, how do you get people to leave those five star reviews? 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, great question. So when it comes to helping separate our clients from everybody else, essentially in their markets doing the exact same thing, this is where I would say we really shine. And it's back to the proven process. It's a system that we help our pros set up on the backend of the business to essentially drive that positive word of mouth that will lead to more referrals, repeat business and basically cements that long-term business success by creating a cycle of ongoing business. So when it comes to the review side, we obviously want to help our pros build that credibility and positive reputation in their market. Like we talked about before, the competition is more than I've ever seen it before, especially in roofing. I feel like there's so many roofing companies popping up and it's really hard to differentiate yourself from your competition if you're not doing something unique and different that's going to set yourself apart. 

So when it comes to prioritizing the customer experience, that's something that I would personally recommend taking a look. If anyone's listening to this right now, take a look at your business and say, what am I doing to make my client feel exceptional about choosing me to do business with? And then how am I going to build a fence around this customer so that they keep coming back to me either for a repair or a new roof years from now? What are we doing specifically as a business to do that? And my best piece of advice is if you're not doing anything, you don't have to start huge. And I think that's a misconception is a lot of people think that you have to go all in or none or nothing. And so I recommend take a look and just make small changes that are going to yield big wins for your business when it comes to having a referral program in place and also making an effort to ask for those five star reviews. Because technically one in three jobs should yield a five star review for you if you're doing it right. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that's so true. I love that idea of looking at the whole process from soup to nuts of where you touch the customer and what that experience is like for them. It's kind of like that undercover boss show. 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Megan Ellsworth: And just seeing what their experience is and seeing where you can make improvements. And that's the best kind of marketing, like you said, is when you give such a great experience that they're a mega fan or a raving fan, like you said. That's great. 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, I tell people all the time I say, the catchphrase is we're going to help you supercharge your customers to turn them into raving fans. So the more raving fans that we can help your business create, the more success you're going to see and the more referrals you're going to get. So it's really a win-win situation. 

Megan Ellsworth: Are there certain pain points that you see often that need some TLC in the customer experience? 

Rebecca Mayo: Absolutely. Yeah. I think a lot of the time people get frustrated when they're not being followed up with or communicated with. So dialing it back to the micro details, I think having some type of quality control activity is really helpful, making sure you're checking in with your customer on a frequent basis during the job to make sure that they're feeling good about things. But ultimately, I think the most important piece is thanking your customer and making an effort and priority to do that. Because that's going to yield that referral. Some interesting statistics I was talking to somebody about yesterday is 58% of referrals are going to do business with you within one year of the job completion. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, it's really amazing. So if you're zooming out looking at like 2025, for example, thinking, how am I going to grow my business from point A to point B by the end of this year? Referral programs are a great way to do that without, like I said before, increasing your spend on net new leads that may or may not convert. A referral will convert at over 50%. So if you're looking for ways to think outside the box of ways you may not have prior, it's a great, great program to implement. 

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. So how do you all help contractors set up a referral program? 

Rebecca Mayo: Great question. So this is seemingly obvious, but sometimes it's not as obvious if you're ingrained in your day-to-day business. So what I would recommend is working with somebody that can help take that load, lighten the load for you basically, because we aim to give our customers time back in their day so that they can focus on closing new business. We know that oftentimes we want people spending time out in the field selling new jobs and not doing back-end office activity. So that's where we can help. 

When it comes to actually implementing a referral program, what I recommend is taking a look at your CRM. Depending on what CRM you're using, a lot of people don't do this and I think it's a missed opportunity, but I recommend taking a look at your current CRM, going through it with your team and saying, who have we sold to in the past year or three years? Who have we potentially done work for in the past that we have just let fall off the radar? And also taking a look at your leads that may or may not have followed up with you and say, okay, we have a list of leads, how can we rehash them? 

Megan Ellsworth: Got it. 

Rebecca Mayo: So what I like to tell people is think of the four Rs and the four Rs for your program, referrals, reactivating customers, rehashing lost leads and then getting those five-star reviews at the end. 

Megan Ellsworth: Got it. Do you ever have, for a referral program, some sort of incentive... Do you recommend having some sort of incentive, like a gift card or something like that or   is it not needed? 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, absolutely. That is part of G4's program. We do have the opportunity to help you with referral rewards, which is one of the offerings that we can help with. Obviously it's fully customizable, which is great. A lot of roofers really like that too because it helps highlight the brand and we can customize everything to the company's brand and voice. So it seems like it is actually being produced by our customer, but really nobody has to know we are the ones on the back end implementing all of this for them. When a customer, for example, gets a done for you premium box with our client's brand and logo and gifting, it's really incredible. And to the client, it looks like it's coming from our pro, but really we are the ones taking the work off of their plate. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. You're like little marketing elves. 

Rebecca Mayo: Yes, exactly. Think of us as... Yes, exactly. 

Megan Ellsworth: I love that. Well, that's really cool. I mean, who doesn't love getting a little gift box with some swag? Love that, especially after you have this big construction job, you've been a little uprooted, maybe. Getting a new roof, a little gift box, that's just great. Who wouldn't give a five-star review after that? 

Rebecca Mayo: Absolutely. And the cool thing too is a lot of our customers do different types of work. So a lot of our clients will do roofing, but then they'll also do some siding and exterior and gutters and it's really nice because we can encompass all of their services and just go after that repeat customer to make sure, like I said before, build a fence around the customer so that they keep coming back to you. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, exactly. Maybe they get their siding done and then two years later, oh, we need a new roof or   so on and so forth. Bringing that person back. That's great. So how do you all play with automation in your marketing strategy for roofing contractors? 

Rebecca Mayo: Yes, great question. And that is a perfect segue back to helping to increase operational efficiency for our pros. So the cool thing about G4, not to get too salesy on anybody, but the cool thing about us is that we do connect directly to their CRM. So how it works is we connect to the CRM. Once the jobs are completed, they close out. Typically, we'll pull a weekly report from the CRM and then we will activate the process for them. But it's also customizable, right? 

Because sometimes we have pros who have customers that maybe they don't want a gift sent to them for whatever reason or   the experience wasn't perfect. So we don't want to ask for a referral or a review if it's not a stellar experience for the client. So it does give the pro autonomy in their decision making on which customers they want through the queue and which ones they would prefer not to communicate with. But most of the time it's a positive experience and then it just gets even better. I like to call it the cherry on top of the sundae when they receive the done for you box and thank you gift and thank you notes and things like that. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. That's really cool. I love that you all automate into the CRM and that you all worry about that. It's not the contractor being like, oh, do you have the login? Blah, blah. You all know that stuff, because sometimes losing passwords left and right, that's name of my game. 

Rebecca Mayo: I like to discuss, the way I like to describe it to people is consider us an extension of your team. Truly. I know we say backend office or back office marketing program, but truly we act and operate as an extension of our pros team. So we'll work with you, we'll hold your hand through the process. Our team is exceptional. We have such a great client experience team that's willing and ready to help at any moment. So it's just a great experience for our pros who thankfully we've created a lot of raving fans from it too. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yay. Yay. Okay. So let's just kind of summarize some of this. So how does G4 marketing help roofing contractors overcome marketing challenges to achieve long-term success? So we've talked about the give back and integrating with them and referrals and reviews. How does this work five years down the line? 

Rebecca Mayo: Absolutely. So one of the things, especially in the roofing segment that we have found is incredibly helpful based on the feedback we've received, is helping our pros save time. Like we mentioned before, we're going to help save so much time and also streamline those operational processes on the marketing side to give them that time back. We want to create more time in their day, but also give them a peace of mind knowing that we are running a program behind the scenes that is going to be generating leads for the business leads. 

Leads, from what I have gathered this year in particular, have been a hot topic, more so the cost of leads right now is astronomically high. So what we've done is take a look at our businesses, our clients and say, how can we help you lower that spend, but also maximize your conversion and your return on investment here with your referrals. So long term, it's a great strategy because like I said, it's going to automate itself. I would dare say set it and forget it, although we don't want you to forget it because we want you to continue to update. If you make enhancements to the business and brand changes, things like that. But it really is something that you can rely on G4 to offload from your business day to day. 

Megan Ellsworth: That's great. And it really is saving time and money at the end of the day because like you said, time is money and that's just really cool. I love this idea of G4 Marketing being your backend marketing elves, helping and taking that burden off if you already have a marketing team or you don't have a marketing team and you're just doing it yourself, really taking a burden off. What a great gift you give to all your pros and contractors. Yeah, it's amazing. 

Rebecca Mayo: Yes, literally and figuratively. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yes. Okay. I kind of am going to throw a curveball at you. I would love to know what is a unique marketing trend that you've seen in roofing that you think is pretty cool and people should consider more to use to get referrals and leads and whatnot? 

Rebecca Mayo: Good question. So interestingly enough, in roofing in particular, I would say the thing that I have noticed more than other segments of home improvement is branding carrying a lot of weight when it comes to how their buyers are making decisions to work together with you. So I think in my opinion, if you have a strong brand and you have a strong reputation in your market or community, it's a great way to position yourself as the champion in your market as the obvious choice. I have found, based on conversations I've had with pros over the years, that the stronger the brand, the better the business and the happier the client. 

So it all comes together, I think. But a big part of that, obviously, of having a great brand is the experience that you are giving your customer because word of mouth is either going to elevate the stature of your brand or it can unfortunately hurt the stature of your company. So it's important because people talk and people share either online as we know. If they're hanging out with their friends on a Friday night talking about, hey, who did your roof or who did your new patio enclosure or   who helped you with specific home improvement projects, that experience is going to be discussed. So we want to make sure that we give all of our customers the best possible setup to position themselves as the top choice and also a great choice. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow. I loved that answer because you can see it at IRE too. Industry events, the grooving contractors are really honing in on their brand and it's also part of their personal brand. They're intertwining the two from the business card to what you're wearing to what your salespeople are wearing, everything. That's a really good nugget of wisdom there. So I hope everyone out there was taking notes. That was really good. Thank you. 

Rebecca Mayo: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's something to be said too about having that familiarity and trust. I think having your brand positioned as a strong one in your market is going to breed familiarity and it's also going to breed trust with your customers that do work with you and they're just going to turn around and like I said, recommend you to their friends and family, which all leads back to the consistency piece. So we want to make sure we're constantly asking for the referral and generating those referrals and then making sure we keep that positive word of mouth moving forward. 

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely. Well, Becca, this has been absolutely very informational and amazing, so thank you for your time and chatting with me today. I really appreciate it. 

Rebecca Mayo: Absolutely. I was going to say too, what I always tell people when I'm talking to pros, if you think that this could help you in the slightest way, I recommend just taking 15 to 30 minutes of your time and talking with someone on our team. And the cool thing about that too is sometimes when you're in the business so deep, it's hard to see the gaps of your business. And that's something that our team really prides ourselves on, is helping our pros and people who are interested in talking to us identify those gaps and then help suggest opportunities to fix them or bridge the gap when it comes to the program. So I always recommend taking the time. 

Megan Ellsworth: And everyone can find that information on rooferscoffeeshop.com, on the G4 Marketing directory. And then what's your website? 

Rebecca Mayo: Yes, so our website, you can go to gfourmarketing.com. It's gfourmarketing.com. 

Megan Ellsworth: Amazing. Definitely everyone go check out their directory, their website and if you need any other information about G4, please make sure to reach out to rooferscoffeeshop.com or Becca and we'll get you in touch. Thank you again, this has just been a great episode, so appreciate it. 

Rebecca Mayo: Of course. Happy to help, Megan. Thank you. 

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