Latest / The Good Builder Podcast / The Daily Dose #289 | Building a brand without the bullshit with Emily Pollard
Transcript
- Aaron Ng (00:56) Good morning and welcome to the Good Builder podcast. Today is going to be a little bit different. It's going to be more prompted towards me asking Aaron questions about marketing. So for my brand, Asmester, and obviously lots of other builders in the same space, lots of marketing companies, as in marketers, channel partners, and Aaron obviously brings a big insight into this that he doesn't always go into or devalues his, his skillset. So you and I obviously met today and we were talking about, okay, what vision do I have for Nesta? What am I aiming to achieve? How do I get my message across to people? Because I'm a very blunt person and I go, let me just tell you what the fuck to do. you know what mean? But how do I get that message across to make it palatable? And for people to engage with us, you know, how do we figure out our core network of people? How do we attract buyers to, to myself as one I'm young and I'm a female. Yeah. know what that looks like in the construction industry. So these are all the, not the struggles we're having, but I guess trying to get ourselves onto a good playing field to get our message across. Yeah. It's, it's a, it's not as tough as you think. I think that's bullshit. But yeah, let's continue. Look, I think that, you know, in this whole space, we talk about a lot. Clients are looking right now, and we talked about it past few episodes, they're looking for more education than ever. So if you can position yourself, I always try and anytime I've done any marketing for anybody, I've always said, try and think of yourself as the authoritative sort of person in that space. Put yourself as an advisor. Think about how you could add value to their day, every day about things they're thinking about. That would be my number one thing in terms of like how you come across and, and, and that sort of thing. I think you can never fake who you are as well. So you've always got to be yourself. I think always comes out of the wash. And this is probably, this is more of a, I think business lesson than marketing lesson. And I think I learned it myself because, I've worked several corporate roles. know this is kind of going off on a tangent And sometimes you be who you aren't and it becomes just too hard. And if you're running your own business like Nesta, I, first of all, I think you've got a wonderful personality and all that. Anyway, I love the way you come across. So for me, you resonate with me, but I think you'll find your people just by being yourself. And if you can do that, then you're always going to have a better relationship in the end because it's too hard to fake it. But on the flip side, education and value, trying to provide that every time you try and do something, think about like, Am I actually going to impact someone's day in a positive way and provide them something that they go, that was interesting. And if you aren't, don't do it. Like don't put anything out there. We're talking about how, how frequently should I post on socials, example, kind of content. I'm like, is it to be daily? What is it? And then we've both obviously come to the conclusion. If it doesn't give value, then don't bother. I think the tricky thing for me is what I find really interesting and like the education that I believe people require, which is very evident is really fucking. boring. Yeah, I literally ran a thing that was like, you know what the most important things are the most boring, get ready to be bored because otherwise you're walking into this blind. Yeah. And that's a series that I want to run, right? And literally, it's boring as shit. It's soil tests and wind classifications and what is a variation? What's a PC item? All of these things that people need to know about to be able to make educated decisions. But I'm trying to figure out how to do it, how to do it in a way that is am I meant to be entertaining? Because like that to me, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, I think we've come to a point where we can recognise within the industry, that education needs to be at the forefront. Yeah, 100%. And you know, I made this little meme the other day that was like, know, love it. What's the girl's name? Anyway, it's this little girl, little girl standing in front of a house on fire. And it was like me and then a display home. I was like, let's set fire to display home marketing. So like, I want to take a stance where I'm like, all right, let's tear up these base price advertising, let's set fire the display home. And let's actually if someone comes to me goes, I want this for this much money. But I'm confident enough in my deliverance to go, you're not going to have that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was very ingrained in sales. So it's hard to turn that tap off. To be like, do I need to objection handle? Do I need to whatever? Or do I just need to be really the force of blunt and honest and transparency? And how do I position that in marketing? You know, my honest opinion, Emily, is I think if you are not, and you probably heard this from a few people, but I've taken it to heart. I forget who ever said it, but I've always been like, if... You put out a piece of content, matter what it is, an ad, a paid ad to get a lead, a piece of social content, a blog, an article, anything. If someone leaves that looking at that sort of stuff or leaves that interaction with you feeling neutral, you haven't done your job. They've either got to hate you or love you. I feel like I'm an easily hateable person. No, but I think you think that Emily, but there is, there is some big players in the property world, right? This is what's really interesting from like a social media. Yeah. Point of view. Have a look at some of them Tom Panos and guys like that. You look at Jack Henderson in the buyer's agency. Yeah. Some people fucking hate him. Yeah. And he acts like a flock. Yeah. He wears this, what is it? Asset rich and raise rents for single moms. Yeah. But he has a personality type. Yeah. For me, I'm like, I don't have the ability to turn on a personality. I just have this personality. Not saying that's what he's doing. Yeah. We look at Graham Holm. Yeah. Look at, you know, you know, fuck the banks. Love it. It's a strong archetype that is created in this world that people resonate to. Do you feel that is how my business and businesses like mine need to have it portrayed? Like, do you think there's going to be a builder come out here with this really strong stance where it's, it's him as the, or her as the focal point? Do you think that could be an interesting play of difference about a company? Yeah, absolutely. I think If you can show that you stand for something, the people that stand for the same thing will always come behind you. Like you will get that support Emily. So I think that anybody that has a strong stance, I don't think you've got to put it on. Like if you're going to put it on, people will eventually see through the bullshit or something will come out and you'll be found out. But if you genuinely like the stance you take Emily, and I know you now very well, pretty well, like I think that. the way you come across everything you believe in, you can still do in quite a classy way, but still in a, a, no, I've been called many things, not really classy. I know, but you're not wearing asset rich headbands and hats and shit like that. I have a hat and it literally says bitch of all trades. That's different. It's not a bright red marker hat, it's pink. But I think, I think Emily, yeah, if you can, um, You've got to be very firm about what you believe in. when you do that, they the values. They know what you're trying to achieve for them as well. When you kind of bland and you kind of like sitting on the fence and you go, we'll you find your perfect home. How? think I'm a really, I think what I struggle with, and I'm sure many businesses do the same. Sometimes I feel like I need to be quite like meek and mild to be palatable. me as a person is very. not that. Yeah, and I think I have a greater level of comfortability because it's your audience. You know what mean? It's not mine. I don't know about that. think you're gonna own them soon, Emily. But do you know what I mean? feedback we've been getting is that we want more Emily. Gosh, but I think it's it's tricky in that space when it's representing my own business and my own company and the concern of how people will take me or the backlash that comes from it. You know, I would, as I said, I want to walk through display homes and say, this is how much it costs and bring air of transparency and light to this industry that I think people not only want, but deserve to have. Will builders all be happy with that? I don't think so. So it's for me, it's this hard space of being like, okay, I need to be liked to some degree. Like that's, that's a loose term, but you know what I mean? From both sides of the party. It's like when people go and say, you know, If I was out here, going fuck builders, you can't trust them. You can't do this. Why would I work in this industry? That's what confuses me about marketing. You know, you have some people just absolutely shit on the industry that they work in all in a rise of their own efforts and their own business. But for me, I actually don't believe that either. think the problem is that clients are uneducated and they don't understand and builders aren't always transparent. They're all key problems. But I'm not, I can't go out there like, marketers have told me to do and say you can't trust these fucking builders come through me and I'll find you one and I'll you know, I'll make sure they don't screw you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That to me feels very gross. Yeah. That is literally what I have been told. And because have a big emotion have a big stance on it. You've got to take a hard stance for people to be attracted to it because they don't like builders. Yeah. They don't like builders. don't build a fucking house. Well then how exactly then how do you create relationships with builders to run your business. You know what I mean? That's what gets me. I like, well, how am I meant to go to builders now and be like, Hey, utilize my service. And I will, you know, we want to collaborate together for this. I've just shit over the entire industry. It's wild. But that's, that's, know, I don't know how much social media you follow and all these kinds of things, but they're often what we see in these businesses being like, I'll walk through this for you and you know, whatever else. It's different of going, encourage you to have your contracts reviewed by solicitor. I encourage you to get an independent inspector. I happily and gleefully tell people that I will say that on our socials and in any group. Definitely learn how to protect yourself. But I'm not going to say. Builders are fucked. Builders are fucked. Well, you know what it comes back to Emily. This is what I think it comes back to when people are pretty clever. Like I think it either comes back to you either have your business and what you do figured out and you've got substance behind what you, provide and you will build as much trust in that. If you've got all that figured out like you have, how you do 135 point, ⁓ check on a builder and, and all the stuff that you help your clients with, will build more trust explaining that through your marketing in a good, educated way, just being yourself then fear mongering. Like I think a lot of marketing, there's a few. triggers you can pull, there's always like, you know, emotional triggers like fear, love, all those sorts of things. And then you've got more rational stuff. But how do you this is what I don't understand. From a rationality point of view. Yeah, some people just don't have that rationality. Yeah. Do you know what That's what I find difficult is what I think is completely rational as to how people would investigate a builder and do all these things. Other people would look at me like, that's not true. Yeah. And you know, that's why they fall for emotional marketing. I get it. For me, I it's a hard stance, right? Because I don't want to be a marketer for builders. Yeah. But then I have to also market my own service. And that's where I think it's really tricky about that's become skewed for me. Do you know what mean? You know, other thing, Emily, like I think people forget about marketing is, and I've learned a lot about it is Like the expectation you put out there, just don't forget that it's the customer that you're going to draw in. Yep. So if you've got a fearful customer and you're drawing them in with builders of fucked come deal with me. Everything's going to be fucked unless you deal with me. You're probably going to get a highly anxious customer and then you're going to be dealing with them. Correct. Having to be told the entire time. remember when I was doing marketing and all those things, same sort of thing. I remember going down the path of, I was like, all right, I'm just going to. get a fuckload of people. So I went to a broker up here on the coast and I was like, can you do $10,000 deposits for like a 750 grand deal? And he's like, yeah, I could make that work. I could shuffle around papers and I could get a loan for anyone who's got 10 grand. So we went out and we got a thousand leads. Yeah, I believe it. And it was a great offer. It was a great hook. It's the same sort of thing. Fearful marketing. You're not going to get a home. We'll get you in one because we can get you in one. 10 grand, we've a fuckload in highly anxious customers that no builder wanted to deal with. Yeah. So marketing, you got to think about from two perspectives that you're wanting to attract. You're wanting to attract as well. It's not just don't worry. I think a lot of people worry about the numbers and the leads and the things like that. But if you've got your, like, I think you figured out your business, really wouldn't have you. You're one of the best in the business. You're one of the most experienced. think you're great. You know what you need to do. If you can. build it through valuable education and legit stuff that's going to add value to a customer. You're going to also save yourself those other problems about how you build. So I guess to your question of irrational people, kind of fuck them. Don't think about them. Don't worry about them. Put your blinkers on. Don't look at them. It's like, feel rational is maybe not the right word. But I think you get the consensus of what I'm trying to understand people who are so emotion led. That's what leads them down the garden path to, you know, disappointment. Yeah. like that's an emotional person as much as it doesn't seem like I am. I I'm a very emotional person. I'm a huge empath as well. seems to be part of the problem for me sometimes. But you know, I, I look at marketing and go, I just wish I didn't have the market. You know what I mean? I just, you know, I set this business up with my brother. He's like, you're going to have to be the face of this. This is going to be your baby or your brand, your, your everything. I'm like, do I have to? I drank her on the podcast. You're fascinating. You're great at what you do, Emily. I'm the kind of person who would rather run an event. Yeah. To be honest. Well, that's a good form of marketing. And I think that's again, another. Good point around how do you go to market? You're asking sort of that Emily. You also got to go to market with the things that you're comfortable with. So if you think, where's your skillset? If you think events and I think they would go extremely well for you. I could see you standing up there and educating heaps of other builders. If that works for you and you can do it in that way and you are that type of business and you want to offer that education and not, know, feel lead people into things. think that's cool Emily. I think the event space makes sense for me in like my personality type and skill set. You know, I was talking, obviously we're opening the office with my girlfriend is a realtor. And like, you know, how cool would it be to run an event, say first time buyer event. whether you're looking to build or buy a new house and you're going to have a broker there and we will talk you through what this process looks like, what we're seeing happen in the market. How can you protect yourselves? You know, what that all looks like or granny flats. Yeah. Will we get many grannies come in? I don't know. Will they all be investors? I don't know. But it would be really cool because, you know, Morton Bay, for example, they have different requirements versus Sunshine Coast or Gold Coast or wherever. Of saying these are the constraints. This is how we can meet the self-assessable planning scheme. This is what the costs look like. You know, what does this, you know, are you looking to buy a house that already has a house on it and then a property that already has a house on it and then build a granny flat or are you looking for a house in secondary? I think. having that personability is often what's missing in marketing. Yeah. That I think events would mash together. You've got to have these fucking pretty pictures and whatever else. But I think the industry or marketing as a whole is often missing that more one-on-one feel of experience that people love, especially different demographics of people as well. Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, I think a lot of it is so skewed to digital and that's probably why you're seeing all these crazy things because it's all about hooking in leads, but you, and I know you know this, but you can't forget also the more leads you get, the more busier you are. Yeah. Shuffling through those leads. Yep. Trying to work out where's is a balance between like, what do actually need? Who do you want to actually attract and do and what kind of business do you want to be? And I think it's also the skillset. Like for me, obviously we do a lot of like the house and land package world. That wasn't my core skillset. I recognize that. You know, my core skill set was always acreage. That's why I loved working for Stroud. The majority of what we did was large scale, ranch, acreage, know, assessing site, HSTP, all of those kinds of things. And for me, I'm like, well, now I need to market that, right? Because, you know, I've determined that, you know, this is the world that we want to sit in. This is my skill set. This is what we can. bring to the party. Yeah. we now have builders coming on that support that. Yeah. And it's, again, for me, what I find difficult is that I don't want to look like a wanker. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like cringe. You look at Alex Hamozi, like if your first year of content doesn't make you just like cringe, you haven't done it right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just embrace the cringe apparently. But I don't know, I just feel like, I don't know how you guys do it, honestly. Anyway, I gotta learn. No, but I think that's it. think, look, everybody is gonna be... Everyone gets fearful about putting things online. Everybody gets smashed. You look at the best sports people to politicians to anybody, someone's gonna say something about you. Plenty of people said stuff about me. I'll put out a post. That was me. I've got an ad running with pay.com.au at the moment, which... every day I'll get some sort of comment about something about me. But you've just got to have thicker skin, you don't worry about it. Like I said, be yourself authenticity. So for businesses, whether it's like mine or you know, within the construction industry, what do you feel is where the needle can move when it comes to marketing? What is the most simplistic version of something that they can enact? Is it paid socials? it you know, making sure their website is on point. it YouTube? What do you feel for a small business who maybe doesn't want to have to spend huge amounts of time, money or resources? What do you feel could help them be able to get specifically in construction? like organic, organic social. If you can do your organic social really well and add value, will blow up and you won't need that much money. And I think you do it very well, Emily. Like I think if you do more of those videos, more of those authentic things, educating people about the boring stuff that you think's boring, but they don't. And if you kind of set the expectation, it's quite funny. Like I love, I like you personally and I like the way you go out. I like, I like the way, like you were saying before we did this pod, you're like, I'm about to go into stuff like so critical, but it's so boring. And I'm like, put it out there. Like, put it out there. Like, Hey, it's Emily. I'm about to talk to you some shit that's real boring, but you need to know it. Like people will go, I know what I'm up for. I know what I'm about to do. It's going to be some boring shit, but it's something that we need. you're authentic, I think the hardest thing is consistency. And I think I'm like a really dopamine driven person, which means if I don't have results straight away, I'm like, Oh, I don't want to do that again. So I think consistency, I think for many business owners as well is one of the hardest things when it comes to marketing is having that consistency when you don't immediately gain traction. Yeah. And you won't. Yeah. 100%. 100%. I agree with that, but maybe it's resilience that I need more of than marketing skills. I'm getting there. know I reckon you need more of Emily? Time. Yeah. Time and maybe some time and some little systems like we kind of went through. Like there are some things that can, that can help you with your marketing, especially your follow-ups and CRMs and things like that. But automation, to be honest with you, I think, I think most, I'll probably finish it off with this. reckon most building or most business owners kind of know who they are. Yeah. They're scared to put it out there. number one, and then they just don't know the systems to use and how to get in front of that customer. And like you're a prime example, like we've been talking a little bit about your marketing and I'm like, to be honest with you, Emily. everything you stand for, what Nesta does, the way you communicate, the information you're putting out there, I can't add you any value to that. But what I can add value is your systems, your posting frequency and what platforms to use and how to target them. But you know what you're doing. Like I think a lot of good business owners and good builders and good people like you know what their business is about. They just need to talk about it more and then have... get some education or have someone that can help them put it on the right channels and in the right paid channels if you're doing that and find people, it'll be no, like you've done 80 % of the work, the 20 % of the platform. I think what I find funny and what resonates with me, so the majority of builders that I follow, I follow a lot of, know, tradies, builders, know, suppliers, whatever else, this high level polish, feel is just like, scroll through. That's fucking boring. But then you see them on site or talk about something interesting or you see the builder there directly explaining something and I'm like, watch this. This is cool. And it's very, as you said, very authentic. And it's not, you know, it's not directly required to get a lead from or to get a client. It's more, as you said, educational and more about who's behind the business rather than, you know, this flashy little something. Yeah. People want to get to know. And I think throughout history that this is the other thing like, I don't think maybe this isn't going to be controversial. I actually don't know how to say this, but like, I don't think brands are as powerful as you think, even brands like Nike and all of that. think they're as powerful as you think it's the people behind them that have brought like LeBron James, Michael Jordan with Nike. They associate with a personality and people are trusting the faces and people that they... and associating and creating a relationship with the brands like that. I know that's a funny kind of example because they're a big shoe brand. But from a builder perspective and any other brand perspective, I think people always have a relationship not with the brand, but the people behind it and what it represents. And I think for me, it's hard when some of my competing market do a very high level approach. Whereas that doesn't resonate with me. That's not what I enjoy. I don't think it's necessarily being deeper. It's just I don't want to. I know that sounds stupid. I just think if I was sitting in first home buyers shoes, who's looking to build a house. What would I need? What would I expect from someone? Do I want to see fancy things that I can't afford? Non transparency of money, like all of that type of stuff. Is that what I would actually benefit from and figuring out how I can bring that to market to be like, you know, this is what we can do for you. But I'm just going to tell you all about and educate you to do it on your own. But if it is too hard or you feel that you could benefit from our service, then come back to me. I think that's the kind of messaging that I want to portray here is that, yes, I can tell you all about building. can explain how to read it, like minimalize risk. I can give you my 135 points of data for you to then break down all of these inclusions yourself and figure out how they stack up. And you can still come back to me regardless, because I will do it all for you anyway. So I think that needs to be my positioning in a way. Yeah. Okay. Because I was smiling at you and just listening because what you just said is the perfect marketing Yeah. You sat back, thought about the customer. So not don't trust these fucking builders. Yeah. You put them in their shoes. Exactly. You went in their shoes, you're thinking about what they need to know. Yeah. And you're going to deliver it to them. That's a simple look. Like you are a good market. I'm just overthinking. it's because same sort of thing. happening in the building, broking industry happens in the marketing industry. They give you all this bullshit, know, 10x this by doing this, blah, blah, blah, by doing that. It doesn't happen. It's all like to do with being authentic, your message, who you serve, what their problem is and putting it out on right platform in front of them. And you got them. Like it's never changed. I was told, so I wanted to like put this video out and it was literally like, I know what, this is a really boring episode from marketing, but that's how I market. Yeah, no, no, no, it's great. And to me, like, I just don't understand it. This is not my forte. And for many people who are listening, this is not their forte. And as much as you say, okay, well, like, I think we've done things wrong from a marketing or it's achieved this or whatever it might be. Without marketing, no one will know about us. So, you know, if your marketing is super high polished and direct, that's fine. If it's all organic, that's also, you know, that's great. without having that, Fair chance you're not gonna have a business, you're not gonna be building a house unless you have a really strong referral network. Yeah. Or a building spec is that you're just on selling. Yeah, you have to have something here to in this age. Yeah, I wish that wasn't the case. I wish I could just put a newspaper advert like it was the 90s. Would love that. But instead, I have to look like it's so different. wanker on a little tripod telling them about you. No, it's good. But yeah, I appreciate the insight. I think as much as you say, you know, well, you know, the transparency and the education, that's all the important thing. The market has to tie into it and you to give credit where credit is due for that. But as you said, with authenticity and with a vision to actually create good. And if that good is just lining your pockets, but not doing a service, then, you know, maybe redefine that. % and have us think about what it's going to do to your business. Yes. Have a think about it. Like I think that's the biggest thing. If you think about the whole construction industry too Emily and for all the builders out there, there is enough people that want to build homes. We actually can't do it. Yes. So the market's there. market's absolutely there. Make sure you're sending the right message to the market in terms of how you operate and who you are and all that sort of thing. Get your right customer. But I don't know Emily like talking to you about marketing and what you're up to when we were doing it before the pod, was like, you got your shit sorted. You know exactly what you need to do. I love the way you go about it and the way you're very educated in how you approach it and you're really trying to dispel myths from both sides of the fences for builders and clients. It'll win in the end. You just need more amplification. reckon you'll take over Australia. You just need to get in front of more eyeballs. I'll just be a dictator. Everyone, everyone being... Nesta, it'll be Emily doing everything. To be honest, that's not what I want at all. Don't get me wrong. I feel the messaging is there about what can happen in this industry and what I believe in, I think could be amplified 100%. But I think for me, the overall experience that I want to achieve is that we can bring some really positive light to this industry with our marketing and with our experience during this because It's actually really great. Yeah. It can be, it can be exceptional to a house and we don't have a choice now. We have to do this. We have to have houses built because you know, immigration aging into houses, like whatever it might be. We have to build houses. So I want to bring hopefully some positivity to that. well. You freaking well Emily. Thanks. Well, I hope that has helped someone out. I appreciate everyone listening to my midlife crisis. You're not, love it. And you know what? I'll leave, I'll leave everyone with one thing. Like in the marketing world, we, everyone does these things called lead magnets. And you know what they are. So for builders out there, a lead magnet is a little document that you might put on your site or something like that. And you draw traffic to them and people download them. get their email addresses and all that sort of thing. Now, why are they called a lead magnet? When you actually think about it, it's because generally there's something they'll get you a lead because you're delivering. something that's magnetic because it's of value. So maybe think less about like do lead magnets. Yeah. Use that same philosophy in all your marketing. And when you're out a social post, am I actually giving value? I'm actually giving value. And that's why lead magnets work. yeah, it's just make sure you're given value and you know, know, your customer, you'd be cool. I think this is too many little like social media girlies that are like, you've got to do a hook. You've got to have X, Y, and Z. And then you've got to, I'm just sitting there going, I That sounds terrible. I get it, but you know, so value. Look, and I'm not trying to spruik the good builder, but we've grown really quickly and we spend hardly any money on anything. We just trying to live a value every day and people go, oh shit That's cool. That's cool. That's great. So we do. I don't know, but think it, I don't have any hooks. I don't have any weird formulas that I put out my social media posts. I just fucking put out stuff that delivers value. think, unfortunately marketing much like some parts of the builder broker space and building space, has been overrun by black magic wizards that know how to do shit that we don't know with their hacks. But yeah, it all comes back to you. Think about a human. Yeah. The basic human need to solve my problem. Yeah. Just do that. Yeah. I love it. Love it. Thank you. Look out for Nesta taking over Australia. Jesus. All right, Emily. Thank you. Well, I hope that was okay for everyone out there. But Emily will be back next Monday. be here. Hopefully don't ask me unless I become a magic marketer and I'm just taking over Instagram. I reckon you will and we'll see how this goes because hopefully it's helpful for someone out there. Excellent. Thank you.