Do you ever wish your clients could share their ideas about their design-build projects with you more efficiently? If you're generating a high volume of residential design-build leads and you're spending a lot of time qualifying them to get to the ones who are really a good fit for you, you're not alone. Throughout my book and this podcast, we've shared a lot of different ways that you can use your website and sales process to qualify leads before they even talk to you, and in today's episode, I'm excited to share yet another new idea that we haven't talked about before. Today's guest runs a software that makes it really easy for potential customers to record a video walkthrough on their phone and send it to you in a way that's very well-organized and easy to follow-up with. Check out today's episode to hear more about this, plus an interesting conversation about the impact of having a pricing page on your website.
Hey, everyone. Jack Jostes here and welcome to The Landscaper's Guide. This podcast is all about helping you really make your life easier through sales, marketing, and leadership, and sometimes that involves using cool software. Today, I'm excited to interview Jeff Wraley from Groundwork about his software and how it can help you. And hey, if you want even more sales and marketing ideas and you like to eat beef jerky, I'd love to send you The Landscaper's Marketing Toolbox, so go to landscapersguide.com/toolbox, or see our show notes for a link, and we will ship it to you in the mail, so check that out, and let's get into today's interview.
Hey, everyone, welcome to The Landscaper's Guide. Today, I'm excited to interview Jeff Wraley. He's the founder of Groundwork, which is a video-based sales system for landscape design-build contractors and other residential trade businesses. Jeff has a background working in the lawn and landscape industry. He has an engineering degree from Purdue and after college worked in contracting before he got into technology for the trades, and today we're going to talk about one of my favorite topics, which is sales qualification. How can you make sure that you're spending as much time with qualified leads as possible and as little time with unqualified leads. So, Jeff, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah, Jack, thanks for having me.
Jack Jostes:
Jeff, tell us a little bit, people who are new to Groundwork and maybe haven't heard of you, tell us a little bit about your background and some of the work that you've done in the trades.
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah, so as you alluded to, I've done a lot of different things in my career, push a lawnmower in high school, slinging mulch all over the place with my buddies, and ended up going to Purdue University, got a construction engineering degree there, and then got into general contracting on the commercial side of things, building higher education and healthcare structures, huge, huge projects. But my wife's an interior designer, so I always have had a project going around our own, and really honestly enjoy getting my hands dirty with our own projects, so I've worked with a ton of different types of contractors commercially and residentially and just love technology, love the opportunity that technology creates, and have been in and around technology for the trades for a number of years, including on the commercial side, and have been working on this whole Groundwork project for a couple of years now, and yeah, excited about where we're headed.
Jack Jostes:
Well, Jeff, tell us a little bit, what are some of the problems that contractors are facing, whether they're landscape design-build firms, or you work with other contractors use your tool, what are some of the challenges that they're experiencing right now?
What Are Some Of The Problems That Contractors Are Facing?
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah, what we see a lot is just the demand is super, super high, right? That's somewhat brought on by the pandemic initially. I mean, during the pandemic, it was a couple of months of everybody freaking out, of not knowing what was going to happen, and then the flood gate opened, right? It was springtime in May of 2020. A lot of contractors got very overwhelmed with just the flood of demand that hit and that's kind of continued, so that's a huge challenge, right? How do we meet the demand, both from a labor perspective, but from a sales process perspective, which is where we help a little bit. So, that's one thing. I mean, gas prices are high, right? There's concerns about that. There's just all sorts of challenges that contractors run into about keeping their sales teams aligned and focused on the right things, so all those things align. I mean, obviously there's other problems out there in the general landscape of running a contracting business, but those are a lot of things that we hear and why we've brought the product to market that we did.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, you're absolutely right. The pandemic definitely increased demand and demand was already pretty high for a lot of residential home improvement services in general and there was a shortage of labor in the trades all around and it was, in many ways, exacerbated by the pandemic and shutdowns and stimulus things and the labor pool was strained even further. Many people wouldn't think about sales and marketing in that. Many of them are focused on labor. I've always thought marketing when done well is really an operational, it can impact the operations, especially from a sales standpoint, by, like I said at the beginning, delivering more qualified leads and automatically weeding out the ones who can't. Tell us about Groundwork.
Groundwork actually helps the homeowner send the contractor like a video, so tell us, how does that work, and then how does that alleviate some of the pressure from the contractor from a sales standpoint?
How Does Groundwork Work?
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah, I think any time that you give a homeowner a little bit of homework, they're generally more involved in the process. They cross that bar of, "Hey, I'm a little bit more serious about actually getting something done." It wasn't just a whim of a fill out a contact form, it was a little bit more of a considered action, so I think there's part of that dynamic that we help. But generally, the way that the product works overall is we make it very easy for homeowners to submit videos. We launch as a widget or a form on the contractor's website, give the homeowner a differentiated option of how to get started with their project. There's some psychology on how we do this. We make it exciting. Contact forms are not generally exciting, right? But when you engage somebody to share their project, instead of just click a bunch of buttons, it's a little bit of a different aspect to the experience, and so we've seen a lot of success with that.
There's nothing for the homeowner to download. Everything's text-based. After the form's collected, we send a text message automatically to the homeowner and let them know what the next steps are and they go to a web survey where they fill out some information about their project and then we show them exactly what's included in a video and then give them the opportunity to upload that video, so pretty streamlined. This isn't any crazy AIML stuff, it's just what we found is it makes sense, and it's a good way to do it for contractors. It gives them a tool that they don't normally have and it makes it easy for the homeowner so that they have a really nice first impression with the customer as well.
Jack Jostes:
I hope you're enjoying this conversation with Jeff. Hey, I love all of the events that happen in the green industry during the fall because I get to meet people like Jeff. I get to meet my clients in person, I get to meet people like you, who listen to our podcast, and we have some great live and virtual events coming up. On September 14th, I'm doing a recruiting webinar with Team Engine.
They're a really cool software for recruiting, so you can come and join that. We're going to be exhibiting at the NALP ELEVATE Show at booth 1128. We'll be giving away beef jerky and books. We're going to raffle away a Traeger and we've got our third annual Landscaper Summit on October 6th, so check out landscapersguide.com/events to learn more about that, and I hope to see you at one of those. Now, back to the conversation with Jeff.
There's a balance, though, I think in lead generation of the more things you ask people to do, the higher quality of the lead you'll get, but the fewer of them you'll get. What do you see as the balance here and how much information do you really collect with people before having a conversation with them?
How Can You Make Sure That You're Spending As Much Time With Qualified Leads As Possible?
Jeff Wraley:
That's a really good question, and frankly, it's why we keep the first, what we call the "kickoff form" super short. We honestly keep the whole survey, or the "homeowner experience" is what we call it pretty darn short, so the questions are pretty simple, and we let the video do the talking.
A lot of what you're trying to capture when you're asking a bunch of different types of questions of, "What are you looking to get done? Do you want this feature or that feature?" That can become kind of taxing to the homeowner and it feels like you're filling out a form and that's not really a whole lot of joy there, so by doing it the way we do it, and focusing on that video, you get all the information that you need, but it's in a more engaging and you get better information because you get to see the space, you hear the inflection in the homeowner's voice, so we really actually decrease the amount of steps in the process, but the step that we add in is a pretty big ask, to create that video, but we think we do it in a way, and our customers tell you that we do it in a way that is engaging all along the way.
Jack Jostes:
What I'm hearing is you're doing a multi-step form in the sense that the first form is collecting basic contact information and then you're starting to get some additional questions and then a video.
Jeff Wraley:
That's right.
Jack Jostes:
That way, if somebody gets distracted by their kids or whatever, life is happening while they're filling out that form, you're likely to capture that lead, and also not turn them off with so many questions. That's the balance that I was talking about. Sometimes clients come to me and they want so many questions that I always need to just qualify with them, "Hey, we could do this, but you're going to get way fewer responses."
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah. I mean, you nailed it. That's exactly the reasoning of our process is at least get the contact information. If you get slow at some point in the year, you got a phone number, you can call them. That's always a thing, right?
Jack Jostes:
Oh, yeah.
Jeff Wraley:
So, collecting that information is key. I've seen, actually just recently saw a landscaper shared one of the pieces of qualification tool that they were considering, and I was pretty frank with them and said, "I think you're going to get about zero people to go through that."
Jack Jostes:
What were they doing?
Jeff Wraley:
I hesitate to even say. I mean, when I saw it was a PDF that I had to download.
Jack Jostes:
Oh, well I'm so glad that you told me this. I bet this person's listening, but I had somebody, they called me, and I was doing a webinar on recruiting, and they said, "Hey, can I buy the replay for this?" While I was on the phone, I looked at their website, and you had to download a PDF and fax it to them.
Jeff Wraley:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, there you go.
Jack Jostes:
I'm like, "Hey, man. How many of your best employees have a fax machine?" He's like, "I don't think any of them have a fax machine." But they were unaware. They hadn't really thought of the customer experience.
Jeff Wraley:
That's right.
Jack Jostes:
Or in this case, the employee experience of, "Yeah, who's going to download a PDF, let alone fax it to you?"
Jeff Wraley:
Yep. Yeah, the customer experience, we use that term a lot. I mean, honestly, part of our job is to be your outsourced customer experience. I'm sure you think about that way, too, of the way you design the websites, right? It's part of your brand. It's part how you run your sales process, how you run your marketing, how you run your sales process, how you run your crew leads on the job site. That is all a part of your brand. It sounds silly to relate how you have a contact form on your site to your brand, but it's true, right? It's all a part of that customer experience and how customers perceive you.
Jack Jostes:
Well, it absolutely is part of customer experience because whether it's a word of mouth or whether it's a referral or somebody saw your vehicle in front of somebody's house or they find you on Google, this is the first interaction they're having with you. What I like about what you said was that it makes it fun. I mean, a lot of design-build projects are exciting and cool and people are excited to do it and they've probably been planning it and using Pinterest and getting excited about it. I love that your program allows them to make a video because a lot of people haven't invested in a design-build project before and they may never do it again. Sometimes I find that people are asking so many detailed questions that the customer is overwhelmed, they don't know, but in a video they might be able to walk you through and say, "Hey, we're thinking of having a porch here and we wanted a pool here," and whatever.
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah. I think there's one of the other, I wouldn't call it a mistake, but one of the other things that I've seen out there is like, do you want a fire pit? Do you want a this, a that? Getting very granular in some of those requirements. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. A lot of people don't necessarily know what they're looking for. They might have those ideas, right? They say, "Well, I don't know. I was thinking, we might do this over here. Might do that over here." That's the conversation that you have when you get there. If you can have that type of insight into the psyche and even the reasons for considering this option versus that option, man, you're in a really good spot to have a good solid sales conversation with a homeowner at that point.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I don't think that you have to get that granular. I think really what the contractor wants to know is, are you a qualified lead?
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah, exactly.
Jack Jostes:
I typically define that as, are they in the budget ballpark? Are they in at least the range of budget that you would charge? Do they need the services that you offer? Are they compatible with your timeline? Those are really, I think, the three essential things, and I think you can get that from a contact form without getting into, "How many trees do you want?" "I don't know." That's part because they're ultimately hiring you to help dream with them and envision for them. I'm actually in the process of hiring a landscaper and we're-
Jeff Wraley:
Oh, I bet that's interesting for you.
Jack Jostes:
... Well, it's cool, they're actually my client.
Jeff Wraley:
There you go.
Jack Jostes:
I'm learning a lot about their sales process and I was super inspired because they came back to me with this 3D design and it had people in it. It had little people.
Jeff Wraley:
Oh, cool.
The Impact Of Having A Pricing Page On Your Website
Jack Jostes:
They were like, "Jack, here's where you could have a barbecue with your friends," and now, I'm thinking about having my friends over, and now, I'm thinking, "Oh, I guess I would need this many seats," whereas if they had asked me at the beginning, "How many seats will you need?" "I don't know." For our audience, do you have any questions for me or anything before we wrap up?
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah. I think in general, there's a lot of conversation about pricing on website and that qualification process. I haven't listened to enough of your content. I did get your book and did flip through. It's very tactical. I don't know if maybe everybody listening has seen it and read it, but it is very tactical, there's some really good nuggets in there. I imagined it sitting on a contractor shelf with those dogeared notes and stuff, so some good stuff in there, but I may be interested to get your take on pricing on the website.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. Pricing on the website is something I absolutely recommend people do. It's something I do on my own website. I really believe that having pricing serves the customer. It helps educate them, so that way you can again meet with somebody who feels ready to have a conversation with you and so when you as the contractor take the first step and help educate people about price ranges, it creates a good sense of trust with people, so that way they're like, "Hmm. At first, I thought this contractor was really expensive because he has his pricing on his website, but then I called XYZ landscapes and they were about the same range, and then the third company never even got back to me, and now we're on this web." Now, they come back to you, and they have this feeling of trust.
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah. You and I could probably talk for days and days on this stuff, but the other thing that I think that allows you to do is you're established as the guide in the process, right? You have information out there, you're open and honest. It is a relationship-building step to put some of that stuff out there. In a measured way, right? You don't need to get down to the nuts and bolts price of everything, but having some information, people want to know that stuff. Along with some of the services we provide through the software, it's like if you can be the guide and be that person that they trust, whether it be through the relationship that you build, the reactiveness, how responsive you are is huge. All those things add up to building that trust and being that trusted guide in the sales process and people will either shoot you straighter, or they'll buy from you, right? They'll tell you, "Hey, you're out of my range here." That's a good thing. That's no harm, no foul. Or they trust you and you work towards some sort of a solution and that's a sale.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, absolutely. Again, coming back to this whole video tour, imagine if you had a lead that had already read your price ranges and then sent you a video of their project ideas, right? That sounds pretty great.
Jeff Wraley:
If you do your work on the front end, and we've seen this with our customers, that close rate can be up towards 90%. By the time you set foot, you're collecting a deposit check, or even getting started with the work for more simple, straightforward projects, so I mean, there's just a ton of benefit to it, and not to mention the customer wants to do things this way. They don't want to meet with you next Thursday at 10:00 AM. They got stuff to do, right? There's some convenience factor. They don't want to meet with you next Thursday at 10:00 AM when it's just a get-to-know-you thing. But once you prove yourself to them and prove you're responsive, prove you know what you're talking about, give them some ideas of what it's going to cost, hey, it's worth their time then.
Jack Jostes:
Well, Jeff, thanks so much for coming on the show. For people who are curious about what you do, where can we connect with you and learn more?
Jeff Wraley:
Yeah, so the website has a bunch of information on it. The website is hellogroundwork.com, so feel free to check that out. I'm on LinkedIn, Jeff Wraley, it's W-R-A-L-E-Y. We're on Facebook. All of our social handles are Hello Groundwork, so give us a follow. We got a bunch of content out there and would love to chat with anybody. You can book a demo on the site, learn how the product works, all that good stuff. We have a bunch of resources there.
Jack Jostes:
Awesome, Jeff. Well, Jeff Wraley from Groundwork. That's hellogroundwork.com. I'll put a link in our show notes. Check it out, everyone. Jeff, thanks again. We look forward to keeping in touch with you.
Jeff Wraley:
Yep. Appreciate it, Jack. Thanks for having me.
Jack Jostes:
After this interview, I had a follow-up conversation with Jeff and I had him meet with our operations manager at Ramblin Jackson and we really like what Groundwork is doing. It's a little different from the way I'm currently building the contact forms on Ramblin Jackson websites. But if you're a Ramblin Jackson client and you're looking for a way to integrate this, or you'd like to learn more, reach out to us. We can definitely collaborate with you and Groundwork. It's a really cool program. I see it as a great fit, especially for design-build firms or construction companies.
Now, one of the cool things is there are a lot of ways that you can customize your sales process and integrate different technology based on your business needs. I hope this conversation was interesting and inspiring to you and I hope to see you at some of our events. Check them out at landscapersguide.com/events. My name's Jack Jostes and I look forward to talking with you next week on The Landscaper's Guide.