Reply-Driven Email Workshop — Untapped Niches and the Five-Touch Relationship Builder Campaign
Live Webinar with Vanessa Roberts
(Raw transcription; not proofed for grammar or spelling.)
Click here for Google Doc of the transcript.
[0:01] Hey, everybody. Let me know if you can hear me. My GoToWebinar wouldn’t launch. I’m using the in-browser settings, so not only do we have a new interface, but I’m using the web version. Pugani says we can see and hear. So everybody can see — we’re going to talk about untapped niches and the five-touch relationship builder approach. Let me give everybody a second to log in, as if people were struggling half as much as me. I’m gonna give them an extra 60 seconds. I also can’t seem to get my video. It says I have no active cameras. Again, it was trying to connect to my phone, which is strange. But we are here. Let me — I want to say that it’s got Brian’s name here as hosting but it’s me, so everybody can know who they’re chatting with. Hope everybody had a great weekend and we’re ready to get the week started off strong.
📌 Why Untapped Niches — The Roofer Story and Research Approach
[1:25] Vanessa: All right. What I’ve put together for us today is I’ve been doing some research on untapped markets. And the reason is — this weekend I went to visit one of my oldest friends, my husband actually went to high school with him, his name is Neil. And his daughter graduated this year just like my daughter — they grew up together, Neil and Mike grew up together, and Taylor and my daughter Ava grew up together. So we had a fun graduation party this weekend and while we were chit-chatting, we were catching up. Neil works for a roofer. And so I’m sure all of you are familiar with helping roofers find leads. If you haven’t done it yourself, we’ve definitely talked about it a lot. The approach that roofing companies use is they go knocking on doors and they talk to homeowners about how their insurance will cover giving them a new roof if there’s been storm damage, hail damage. So they target areas that have hail damage. And when Neil started at this company 10 years ago, he said it was a blue ocean. Everybody was surprised to hear the news. It was a great windfall that they got this new roof. And he says, now it’s a grind. He said the market is so saturated that as soon as he knocks on the door and somebody opens, they’re like, “Let me guess, you want to sell me a roof.” Or, you know, and he said yeah, it’s either roofs or pine straw, everybody’s getting hit up for it.
[3:05] And so the flip side of that also is everybody targeting roofers, trying to help them generate the business. So in talking to him, it really sparked my idea for today’s training — which is if everybody knows about roofers, that means there’s folks out there who are underserved, we aren’t reaching out to them, we aren’t helping them, the market isn’t saturated, and maybe a not-what-we-would-think-of-as-the-absolute-hottest niche out there, but those folks would be more receptive to our outreach. So I started doing some research and I wanted to look up the four underserved industries that most local marketers overlook, right — who is not getting a million emails a day, who’s not getting a million phone calls a day, that could use our help. A key factor in my research was, of these underserved industries, are they also industries that we are likely to get past the gatekeeper with cold email? Are the emails we send likely to be received by an owner operator or decision maker past the gatekeeper? So the industries we’re gonna talk about today do fit those criteria and they might be a little outside of the box, which is really what we’re going for. Underserved and not a lot of noise coming at them so that you can stand out.
[4:44] And then part two — a five-touch email campaign designed to start a real relationship, not make a sale. That’s a continuation of the approach that we have proven over and over again really works. We were calling it the three-touch call-to-action reply. I have expanded it into a five-touch sequence. Really fits the Small Batch System mold a little bit better. Lets you set up a campaign on Monday, let it run all week long so that we can get more folks from cold into the warm box, right?
📌 Four Underserved Niches — Research Findings
[5:15] Vanessa: So why underserved niches? So a lot of us — there’s the big ones. Dentists, chiropractors, real estate agents, restaurants, the trades, roofers, electricians — you know, everybody knows that the first to pop to mind when you start thinking about how you can help people. And if everybody’s thinking the same thing, it means those inboxes are flooded, right? It doesn’t mean they’re a bad idea, just means everybody’s having the same good idea. The niches we’re covering today are high ticket, focused on owner operated, and wide open because there’s not a lot of competition for their attention and thus for their business.
[6:03] All right, so the first one we found was tree services. Tree services and arborists — these are high-ticket, owner-operated niches. These are the folks that are gonna come out and take a tree out of your yard, trim back a large tree, or de-stump, right? A lot of these businesses rely on immediate need and then word of mouth. So like my neighbor got a tree removed and they spotted a dying tree in my front yard. True story, came in and knocked on my door. However, there’s not a lot of folks reaching out to them to help them find new first-touch clients, right? Yeah, it’s a great approach for them once they have one customer — you’ve got the social proof, they’ve got the endorsement from the neighbor — that is a good approach, it works for them. But they had to get that first job, right? And once they exhaust knocking on every door in a neighborhood, like where do they go next? So all the jobs are high ticket, even their low ticket is still pretty high. They are mostly owner-operated, not big corporations, which means an email address that you get from our daily list gen is probably going to get into, if not his direct attention or her direct attention — not a huge operation with a gatekeeper to shuffle it off.
[8:00] Seasonal demand creates fast feast-or-famine cycles they want to fix, right? So lots of folks start doing landscaping in the spring. When the storms come and trees get knocked down, storm season is big for them, but they need more consistency. And they also are looking for commercial contracts with HOAs, municipalities. So being able to connect them with those kinds of opportunities is really going to resonate with them. So right — their pain points: they rely on storm damage and word of mouth for new business, like we talked about. There’s no predictable lead flow between the busy seasons. They’re always looking for the next connection, right? They lose commercial bids because they’re not top of mind. Folks go to the yellow pages, Google it up, right? And there’s zero marketing beyond the yard sign on the Facebook page. Usually these folks don’t have a large marketing budget and they don’t really know how to get out there and get it. They are arborists, not marketing pros. So if you’ve got a great idea, we can land them, right?
[9:18] All right, so another niche that needs attention — but obviously not top of mind for us as marketers, we had never talked about this — I was very interested to see this pop up in my research: asphalt paving and sealcoating. A high-margin industry where the owners manage the business from their phones and check their emails, right? So paving — why is this a good potential customer: commercial parking lot jobs, $10,000 to $50,000, right? So helping this customer get one new client is a huge value add for them, which makes you hugely valuable for them, right? The owner is the salesperson and checks their own inbox. These are often overlooked by marketing agencies because they’re chasing trendier niches. I had never considered parking lot pavers, right? Never occurred to me, but research has shown me. So sealcoating is a recurring revenue every two to three years per client. So you’re not just getting that initial job for them, you’re helping them stack a recurring revenue. And understanding that aspect of their business is going to build your authority with them.
[10:36] Okay, so our pain points. It’s highly competitive locally, but marketing is unsophisticated, right? Again, it’s word of mouth, etc. They struggle to land commercial contracts with property managers, HOAs, etc. This is where Small Batch could work wonders, right? Because if you are doing business-to-business emails, you are able to market for the pavers to commercial contacts. We could even scrape the lists for you, right? So that’s a real good Venn diagram of opportunity. Seasonal business with dead months they need to fill, and past customers forget about them when it’s time to reseal. So that’s another opportunity to reactivate their existing list. We talk about that a lot — that the first touch that you should do when you’re servicing a local client is to reactivate their list. And you wouldn’t think a commercial paver is going to have that kind of re-engagement opportunity, but they do because they have to reseal their paving.
[11:42] So niche three — commercial cleaning and janitorial. I have seen this a little bit. Mostly it was commercial carpet cleaning. And the reason it was on my radar at all has been because of COVID. The ERTC project with FinTitan — we worked a lot with commercial cleaning businesses, so this was not a shock to me to see that it’s an underserved market. They got really busy during COVID, but the lifetime client value — because once we get a contract, it is a recurring monthly revenue. So helping commercial cleaning services connect with businesses — again, your ability to connect with businesses through Small Batch is powerful. Reaching out to the business and then generating new leads for the business, both using Small Batch. You’ve got it right there in the palm of your hands. And reactivating their existing list — also a great use.
[12:53] So why does it work? We’re talking about a lifetime value. So an initial clean might only be $500 or $600 commercially, right? But when you build in the recurring — you come once a week, every month — we’re talking $2,000 to $5,000 every month recurring, right? Owners fiercely protect their pipeline and monitor emails directly, because they are interacting with clients so consistently. They are very responsive and attentive to their emails. That’s how a lot of the scheduling happens, so that’s a good thing when you’re reaching out to them in a very non-salesy, relationship-building fashion. Very low barrier to entry, lots of competition, but few market well. My husband is a contractor. He uses commercial cleaning services, janitorial services, for when he completes a house. He is the move-in cleaning crew. He has one crew that he’s used for 20 years and is incredibly loyal. But I also know that he is not marketed to by other commercial cleaning services. He uses the service. He is a potential customer. He’s a mark. He is an opportunity for other cleaning companies to market to and they’re not reaching out to him. He’s been a contractor and worked for one of the biggest contractors in Georgia before he started on his own, and in 20 years I haven’t seen any competition roll through. The decision makers at target businesses — office managers, property managers, etc. — are reachable. So helping deliver new communication to the commercial cleaning services is very, very viable.
[15:00] So their pain points: constant client churn from cheaper competitors undercutting them, right? Struggle to get in front of the right decision maker at larger facilities. They rely on word of mouth and have no system for generating new leads, and past clients leave without warning and they have no re-engagement strategy. So re-engagement — obviously, always the first step I like to offer. Hey, let’s reach out to your past clients. Let’s get them working with you again. Letting them know that you have methodologies to get in front of the right decision-maker at these larger facilities — again, business-to-business communication through Small Batch, great. You can even work on requesting word-of-mouth referrals for them on their existing client list. So you can generate that kind of business for them to just help them be more consistent. Because it’s feast or famine a lot of the time — they’re either overbooked or they’re sitting around trying to get crews’ time filled.
[16:04] And the last niche that I found for today are epoxy flooring and garage customizations. OK, so I see these commercials and I want it so bad. It’s where they put the speckled stuff on your garage floor and then they epoxy seal it so you don’t step with a slick wet foot and twist your ankle, which I have absolutely done multiple times. Garage customization — booming home improvement niche. And usually the installer, the business owner, is owner-operator, right? So he’s working it, he’s checking his emails, he’s booking the calls and he’s out there working. So he’s on his phone also, right, and usually is the main salesperson.
[16:55] So why does this work? It again is a high-ticket gig — $3,000 per an average residential garage, right, a two-car garage. Commercial jobs are much, much higher. Larger houses, obviously, much, much higher. Big demand driven by home improvement and garage makeover trends, right? I’ve heard of it. I asked my husband to do it. He said no. Oh, our garage has never been clean enough to even consider it. It’s a small team where the owner handles sales and checks their own email, right, and highly visual service that generates strong referrals when done right. But the pain points — they need a full calendar to keep crews busy and cover overhead. This isn’t a recurring revenue opportunity as much, right? It’s one and done with these projects. A lot of them rely on social media posts and hope for the best, right? But when you put out your information out there on social media, what you’re going to get is somebody who becomes interested in what you’re talking about and then starts researching. They go over to AI, they go over to Google, they check the Yellow Pages if you’re ancient like me, and then they start price-shopping, etc., etc. So the ability to connect with folks and help generate leads without just broadcasting it to the world is powerful. Past customers are a gold mine for referrals, but nobody follows up with them. Again, this is the lowest-hanging golden fruit for us with Small Batch. It’s the perfect scenario. Seasonal slowdowns in colder months leave gaps in the schedule. So you have an opportunity to help keep them more consistently full during the slow months.
[18:36] So what do these niches have in common? They are all high-ticket services with very decent margins, which means the value you can bring with even one customer obviously provides a solid ROI for the business owner, which makes your fee worth it. And then proving it once with one customer that gives them a high margin keeps them happy, keeps them paying you, which creates your recurring revenue. These are owner-operated industries. So the decision maker is who you’re probably gonna land your emails with. They are underserved by traditional marketing agencies. I mean, I would love to see in the comments — has anybody here worked with, thought of, reached out, contacted, requested a list for any of these niches that we’ve talked about today? Nope. Yep, the only one I had ever considered was the commercial cleaning. And again, that was only because of ERTC. And pain points that a local marketer can directly solve. Every one of these industries have at least one, if not three or four, pain points that you are able to identify, relate to, and then solve. Which makes the email campaign really effective, because you’re reaching out not with “oh yeah, I can just help you make more money.” We’re going to target it. We’re going to focus our message so that it resonates and gets better results.
📌 The Five-Touch Relationship Builder — Philosophy and Framework
[20:12] Vanessa: So we know who to reach out to, now how do we talk to them? And again, yeah, we expanded the call to action from three touches to five. Conceptually the three touches worked really, really well. Five has been getting as good or better results when it comes to actual replies. But what it really, really does is it gives us those two extra touches to help move from cold to warm. And again, whenever we’re sending cold emails from Small Batch, remember — the first goal is to identify who’s a warm contact. It’s fantastic if you get a reply and you get a sale and you get a client from your first cold campaign to these contacts, absolutely. But the real value with Small Batch is — say you send 50 emails, these five messages, to your 50 contacts. If 30 of them become warm, slide them over to your warm list, and then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, you get a much larger nurture campaign pot to send. So you’re not sending just 50 emails at a time, you’re sending 300, 400, 500. That’s when the numbers start to grow.
[21:23] Right, so why five touches? Three touches open the door, five touches build a relationship. The extra two emails are not about pushing harder — they’re about showing up consistently and proving you’re someone worth talking to. And also moving your emails from cold to warm. So our philosophy with the five emails is this is not a sales sequence, this is an introduction sequence. Remember, our goal is to go from cold to warm. You’re offering solutions, you’re offering help, you’re solving their problem — you’re in the beginning stages. We’re not pressure sales, we’re not FOMO, we’re not countdown timers, we’re not scarcity. This is a handshake, right? If they’re interested, all they have to do is reply.
[22:08] Our framework is that we have an introduction, the value add, proof of concept, check-in, and a graceful close. We’ve been familiar with the three-touch. This is just slightly expanded, and we’re going to go through the details. Now what I didn’t do was write five emails for all four of these niches. We’re just going over conceptually how we’re going to do the email, right? But we can drill down. So the first email is simple. We’re going to introduce ourselves. We’re going to say what we do in just one sentence and ask if it’s worth a conversation. There’s no pitch, there’s no link, there’s no attachments, right? We’re just seeing who opens the door, right? So “quick question about your business type and city.” So “Hey, quick thought about your tree service in Atlanta.” Hey, John, if you’ve got the first name, absolutely use it. “I help small businesses like yours generate a steady flow of new leads and potential clients. I also help re-engage past customers to keep them coming back. Figured it might be worth a quick conversation. If so, just hit reply.” Okay, in situations like this, if you are spending the time to go in and research the individual businesses, you can oftentimes find a name, especially in these smaller owner-operated companies. You get the About Me section of their webpage. You are able to build out your contact list if you’re using the free daily lists from Small Batch. If you want to make it more customized, you absolutely can augment the data and save it in your contacts or put it on the spreadsheet. And when we do the Done For You email campaigns for you, we will mail merge their first name. So yeah, totally, totally worth it.
[23:50] All right, so our touch two is the value add. Earn the right to stay in their inbox, right? We’re gonna have some authority building. We’re gonna make it relatable. We’re gonna make it feel like it’s not spray and pray. Share something useful — an observation, a trend — something that shows you understand their world without making claims about your own results. This is where a little bit of research into your email content where you can speak their language — we say that a lot. If you are talking to arborists, you can talk about trees. When you’re talking about pavers, do a little research, customize those email addresses so you’re using their words. So it doesn’t feel mail-mergy, AI-driven, etc., etc. We want to sound like we are people who know what we’re doing on how to help these folks get clients. And the best way to make them feel confident that we can help them get clients in their industry is to make them feel like we understand their industry.
[24:59] So it is a long game — you’re playing the long game by taking just a few extra minutes to understand how the industry leaders speak to each other, how they speak to their sales team, how they refer to their own business? Using those kinds of terms in your emails makes the steps further down the road that much easier because they already believe you. So the actual email here: “I’ve been looking at how [industry] businesses in [city] are staying busy between peak seasons. And there’s a pattern with the ones who stay consistently booked. It comes down to how they stay in front of past customers and generate new contacts without relying solely on word of mouth. Happy to share what I’ve been seeing if you’re open to it.” Here, this is not customized to a specific industry, but it is identifying consistency. It does explain that you are delivering re-engagement as well as new. That is an example of value add without being salesy. You’re stating what you can do, how you can bring value without being overly braggadocious or making promises maybe you would struggle to keep. “Oh, I can get you a hundred leads” — et cetera, et cetera. Unless you’re sitting on them, don’t promise them, right? But “I can help you engage with past contacts and I can help you make new ones,” right?
[26:21] So touch three is a proof of concept. Plant a seed, paint a picture of what is possible. You’re not making promises, you’re painting a picture of what a system could look like for them. But make sure you keep it conversational and grounded. We don’t wanna get too technical. We don’t want to go into the weeds. “Most [industry] owners I talk to say the same thing. Business is either slammed or slow, and there’s not much in between. What if there was a simple system that kept new leads coming during your slow stretches and kept your past customers thinking of you first? That’s what I help build.” So using an example of the roofers that are completely overdone — you could reference “we all know that it’s easy to get customers after a huge hailstorm. What do you do when folks aren’t answering the door?” Calling in an example of their pain points. HVAC would be — “it’s easy to fill a calendar in 95-degree Georgia weather” — but when talking to an arborist about the storm season, you know, after a big storm in an area, you could talk to them about downed trees. “I can help you reach out to folks and get seen and check on them after that big storm, but what about when, in the down season, when nobody’s calling?” Right?
[27:58] All right, and email four is a check-in. You’re not escalating, you’re not adding urgency, right? We’re not telling everybody “this is the last chance you’re ever gonna have to get new contacts. This is the last time I’m ever gonna talk to you.” You’re simply being a real person who followed up because you meant what you said. Yeah, I think I deleted the slide by accident. So basically a check-in — like hey, haven’t heard back from you. I wanted to make sure you can retouch on filling the schedule or any of the other pain points. But yeah, just a check-in. And then five, we got a graceful close. Again, this isn’t telling somebody that you’re never gonna see me again. Short, respectful, includes what we’ve all come to understand as the wrong-person pivot. If I’m not talking to the right person, let me know. Removes all of the pressure and it leaves the door open for you to follow up with another email campaign four to six weeks later. And the last email is just “circling back — keeping your schedule full and staying in front of past customers is something that you would like help with. I’m here. If not, no worries.” And here we go — “and if we have the wrong person, feel free to forward this to the right contact and CC me, either way I wish you a great rest of the week.” And when they do that, when they forward it with your information, they are in effect endorsing. And the recipient who they forward it to — maybe they forward it to their office manager — that feels kind of like a directive from the owner. “Hey, I am telling you to talk to this person,” which then makes them a much warmer lead.
[29:51] All right, so five-touch sequence. We’ve got five emails, five touches with one goal — just to start a relationship. Again, this is loading up your funnel of cold emails, moving them into warm status so that you can send larger batches. Up the intensity, up the frequency. Because remember, warm emails — once they’re in the warm bucket, you’ve got a way healthier domain. You’re able to send larger and larger numbers of emails. Even if you are building different downlines — so you’ve got maybe 200 arborists and 300 pavers that have become warm — because they are warm, you can run those multiple campaigns, making a total of 500 emails a day instead of 50, 50, 50, 50. And remember, you’re not selling. You’re just showing up, offering help, and letting them decide. When you get those replies, that is golden. But the opens, the acknowledgments, clicks, replies, etc. — the goal is positively moving them into a warm zone.
📌 Live AI Workshop — Building the Tree Service Email Campaign
[31:04] Vanessa: All right, so everybody — we’re gonna go through and we’re gonna build a campaign for one of those niches. So let me know in the chat what industry would you like for me to build a five-touch email campaign, using their words, their lexicons, their vernacular, of the four we’ve done? Brent knows that we’ve got the root problem. Should we be arborists? Tree service. All right. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Let me get Gemini opened up. Here we go.
[32:43] We had a huge hailstorm a couple of weeks ago. One and a half inch hail balls. Oh my gosh. Cat, should I tell my roofer friend to come to your house? He’s in Georgia with me. All right. So we want to — I’m going to jump over to my old prompt from what I did for real estate. I’m going to start a new chat and we’ll just make some edits. I’m writing a five-touch email campaign to — how should we label them? Tree service and arborist — with the goal of getting a response. I’m offering two main services: lead generation to help them fill their schedule with new appointments and clients, and ongoing customer relationship nurturing to develop long-term customers. So very general prompts that we’re all familiar with. This is how we’ve started all of the other campaigns. It’s just to get us going and then we can make adjustments.
[34:07] So we’re defining the audience and refining the email sequence. All right, “tree service owners and arborists are notoriously busy, often reading emails on their phone while on a job site or between quotes. To get their attention, your email needs to be short, punchy, mobile-friendly, and dead focused on their bottom line — keeping their crews busy and their trucks rolling.” Couldn’t have said it better. “Here’s a five-touch email sequence designed to break through the noise by addressing their immediate needs.” All right, touch one — the value hook, day one. Subject: “Quick question about your crew schedule.” “I know you’re likely out in the field or quoting jobs right now, so I’ll keep this brief. I help tree service companies do two things. One, fill your schedule with high-quality, exclusive local leads so your crews never sit idle. Two, nurture your past clients automatically so they call you back for repeat pruning, healthcare —” I guess trees need healthcare. “— and removals instead of your competitors. Are you currently accepting new tree work in the [city/state] area?” All right, really good. We used industry speak, we kept it punchy. I like a bullet list. I like a number list. I like using bold to draw attention. I think my Gemini is learning all about me. It’s a benefit of using the same AI, right?
[35:28] All right, so now we’ve got touch two — the idle crew problem. The goal is to agitate a specific pain point — the cost of paying a crew when there are no jobs lined up. Subject: “Keep your trucks rolling next week?” “There’s nothing worse than paying a full tree crew to sit on their hands because of a gap in the schedule. We specialize in generating exclusive tree service leads — not shared, watered-down leads from HomeAdvisor or Angie — so you can lock in steady, profitable jobs.” I really like that direct callout because any service provider that has used either of those knows how frustrating that process is. So that’s boom, really.
[36:19] I’m sorry, I’m reading Mason’s question and I got distracted. Great marketing right there — how we’re better than our own competition, marketers. Oh, Mason asks — “in your email to businesses, you said that they could CC back to you. What does CC stand for?” CC in emailing is carbon copy. So if I were to write you an email, Mason, and you replied to me, I would be the recipient. But you could CC — carbon copy — add another person to also get a copy of that email. So if you were to forward my message that I wrote to you to your office manager, and me — that means your office manager would receive an email, and in that email you would be saying “hey office manager, talk to Vanessa, copied on this email.” So I would get a copy of that same email where you were telling your office manager to talk to Vanessa. Does that make sense?
[37:39] Right, sorry. I’ll jump back in. “— so you can lock in steady, profitable jobs.” On the call language — “you have five minutes for a quick phone call this week to see how we can fill those slots, right?” No pressure, just information, and establishing that you know what you’re talking about marketing-wise. Y’all know me, I don’t love “do you have time,” right? I would much rather say “let’s book a call.” I don’t like asking those questions. I much prefer action. “Here is the next step” — not “would you like to take a step with me.” But Google hasn’t learned that about me yet.
[38:14] I see any questions? Okay Mason, perfect. You’re very, very welcome. So touch three — hidden goldmine. Pivot to the second service: customer relationship nurturing by pointing out lost revenue, right? This is the low-hanging fruit, the golden opportunity. The very first thing I think you should do any time you’re offering services with Small Batch. “Most arborists leave thousands of dollars on the table by doing a great job once — like a major removal — and never contacting the homeowner again. Trees grow, storms happen, properties need maintenance. If you aren’t regularly staying in front of your past customers with automated updates, you’re giving away repeat business to the guy with the cheapest flyer. We set up automated relationship nurturing that keeps your name top of mind for your past clients, completely hands-free. Worth a quick look? Just type yes. I’ll send over a two-minute video explaining how this works.” Well, Gemini has volunteered me to make a video. It is always important to check the promises that ChatGPT thinks that you can fulfill. I don’t have a video about the service, but you get the idea.
[39:16] I like how they say “trees grow, storms happen, and properties need maintenance.” Why are we still gonna keep following up with people that we’ve already serviced? Well, here we know — things keep growing and changing. And when they do, we want those customers to think of you, not running to Google or the cheapest flyer. I like that. All right, the one-two punch on day four. “Summarize the full offer clearly, offering bullet points for quick scanning on a phone.” Love this. “Hey, simple idea for [company name]. I’ve reached out a couple of times and I get it — it’s a busy season, you’re focused on managing jobs. But to recap, we help tree services scale by handling the two biggest parts of your business: new business — pushing consistent high-value leads to your pipeline — and repeat business — keeping your existing database warm so they become lifetime customers. If you wanna grow without having to worry about where your next big takedown is coming from, let’s talk. Are you open for a brief chat this Thursday or Friday?” Okay. And we’ve got the cleanup. Again, no pressure, no scarcity, no FOMO, no threats, no ultimatums. But hey, this is an easy, low-friction way to opt in or opt out.
[40:31] “Ironically, this often gets the highest response rate. Closing the loop, moving on. I’m assuming you’re either completely booked out for the season or you aren’t looking to grow.” It’s a little reverse psychology there. “Either way, no worries at all. I won’t clog up your inbox anymore. If things slow down and you want to inject some fresh leads into your schedule or reactivate your old client list, they can call me directly at —.” And on this one, it didn’t give us the wrong person pivot. So I’m gonna make a couple of notes. I’m gonna give it a second version. Let’s see in the chat, in the comments — what did you spot that you really, really liked? What did you see that you didn’t like? So, adjustments.
[41:15] I don’t like asking if they have time for a phone call or conversation. I prefer stating next steps or actions as an inevitability — “when we speak,” “when you call me,” “when you reply,” etc. And for the last email, include a pivot for “if I have reached the wrong person, please forward my message and CC me so I can speak to the correct contact.”
[42:28] All right, is there anything else? Any other adjustments that you think? I do like the tonality. It was professional. Kurti, I agree — friendly, not over the top. Clean cut, right? Not too buttoned up. I think that has come from a lot of the other campaigns we’ve written together. Let’s see. All right. Let’s see what we get from this. No other feedback.
[43:35] All right, so here are our adjustments. “Shifting from permission-seeking language to an assumptive close changes the entire dynamic of the outreach. It positions you as an expert who expects to do business, not a solicitor hoping for a favor.” I agree. Here’s a revised campaign. “I know you’re likely out in the field or quoting jobs right now, so I’ll keep it brief. I help tree service companies do two things — fill your schedule, nurture your past clients automatically. When you reply to let me know if you’re taking on new tree work in Atlanta right now, I’ll map out exactly how much available volume we can route to your trucks.” Yes, I love that energy. What do you think? On a scale of one to five, do you like this approach better? Let me know, because this is my preference. I have anecdotally found it to be more effective, but I want to know what you guys think. Let’s see — five, five, five, five. Okay, so everybody agrees.
[44:38] If you disagree, I would love to hear why you think something else is better, if something else has worked better for you. I don’t know everything — I know what I don’t know. So yeah, if you have any feedback at all about that kind of approach — where we’re not asking, we’re more assuming a yes, not taking it for granted, but “why would you not work with me?” — all right, I want to hear about it. So type it up in the chat. All right, so touch two — the idle crew problem. “The goal is to state the upcoming conversation as a done deal, focusing on the outcome.” Subject: “Keeping your trucks rolling next —.” “There’s nothing worse than paying a full tree crew to sit on their hands because of a gap in the schedule. We specialize in generating exclusive tree service leads — not shared, watered-down leads from HomeAdvisor or Angie — so you can lock in steady, profitable jobs. When we speak on a brief five-minute call this week, I’ll lay out the exact strategy we use to fill those empty slots. Let me know if Wednesday or Thursday works best to connect.” I love it.
[45:32] Okay, hidden gold mine — “use conditional inevitability to drive a quick one-word response.” All we want them to do is be interested enough to reply back. We already know they open the email — that is automatic, the Small Batch CRM measures that automatically. But a reply? Oof, gold. “Most arborists leave thousands of dollars on the table by doing a great job once, like a major removal and never contacting the homeowner again. Trees grow, storms happen and properties need maintenance. If you aren’t regularly staying in front of your past customers with automated updates, you’re giving away repeat business to the guy with the cheapest flyer.” Okay. There was no change there. “Now, when you reply with yes, I’ll drop you —” ooh, I didn’t tell him I didn’t have a video. Let’s assume I have a video, right? “I’ll drop a two-minute video into your inbox explaining how our automated relationship nurturing keeps your name top of mind for past clients, completely hands-free.” What I would change for this is “I’ll share with you our automated sequence that we use to re-activate past tree service clients.” And use the same process — use Gemini to write a 5 to 10 email sequence, customize it to this particular company, right? So that when they reply, I mean, you can whip this up for them as soon as they reply. Like write a campaign, have something ready to present to them, to show them what you’re going to do to help get them results, right? Or make a video.
[47:08] And the touch four, the one-two punch. “I’ve already reached out a couple of times and I get it. It’s a busy season, you’re focused on managing jobs. To recap, we help with new business and repeat business. And when we connect for a quick conversation this Thursday or Friday, I’ll show you how we handle both sides of the equation so you can focus entirely on the production.” This is a little too pushy. I would take out “this Thursday or Friday.” “When we connect for a quick conversation, I’ll show you how we handle —” right. It’s just a fine-tune on that one.
[47:43] And five — we’re gonna get the pivot. “Given opt-out, pivot to the correct decision maker and leave the door open confidently. I’m assuming you’re either completely booked out for the season or I’ve landed in the wrong inbox. If you aren’t the person who handles the growth, marketing, or scheduling for your company, please forward this message to them and CC me on the email so we can connect directly. Otherwise, when you’re ready to inject fresh leads into your schedule or reactivate your old client list, give me a call directly. Here’s my phone number. Safe climbing out there. [Name].” All right.
📌 Q&A — Promising Lead Numbers, Warm List Strategy, and Reactivating Past Clients
[48:17] Vanessa: Mason asks — “promising an amount of business we can get.” Yes, absolutely I recommend that you do not quote numbers. Did you see — maybe I missed it — is there an email here where we quantified the number of leads we could give them? A lot of folks say “I can get you ten leads per week” or “I have a hundred unique leads, unshared, exclusive leads.” When you say that, it should really only be said if you actually do have people who are ready to get on the phone with the person paying you money to get a lead, right? So with that approach, you would need to have already generated business, have a list of people who are actively raising their hand about wanting to get tree service — when you’re promising leads. So if I were able to find 10 people who needed a tree cut down, then in my marketing outreach, I could say “I’ve got 10 leads for you right now if you pay me money.” That’s a slippery slope. The reason HomeAdvisor and Angie can do that is because they are capturing name and email for people who are just searching for tree service, and then they are selling that name and email to all of the tree service people that are willing to pay for them. So that’s why the leads are watered-down and non-exclusive — because they are generated upfront, but then they’re spread out and sold over and over and over and over again.
[50:07] Your approach is — I’m not gonna say I’ve already got somebody on the hook for you. What I’m gonna say is “I will work with you to help generate new business and help re-engage your old business.” The most likely responses you’re gonna get are from their warm list, which is their past clients. So that’s the real power. So I keep calling it the golden opportunity or the low-hanging fruit. Getting their client list and reaching out via email to their list where they’ve got names and emails, and you know what service they’ve already provided that person — you’re able to put together marketing materials, an email campaign to their past customers. And that’s what I would recommend making a mail merge situation. “Hey, I’m writing from Vanessa’s Trees. I know last August we helped you with that tree removal.” Here are our merge fields — date of last service, last service — so that I can write an email to 100 of their clients and pop in that personalizing information. “Hey, Jenny, last August, we were able to take down that tree.” So Vanessa’s Tree Service would be giving you that information to help you customize and personalize that marketing.
[51:27] And then you craft an email campaign around that, following up with them — “just wanted to make sure that you weren’t having any trouble with that removal, you know, it’s time for some maintenance, we’re having a special” — or however you and Vanessa’s tree company etc., your tree company customer, decide they want to approach re-engagement. Are they offering a special discount? Are they asking for referrals? Etc. You work with them to build that email campaign and then you email to their past customer list. And that is the easiest way to start filling up their calendar while you are also working on maybe doing email content outreach to other businesses to help them get a commercial deal, right? So those are the two approaches. But what you’re not gonna do is say “I’ve got 100 leads for you,” right?
📌 Wrap-Up and Upcoming Training Announcement
[52:31] Vanessa: All right, everybody. Well, that’s about our time. I think I’ve got all the questions. All right. Pop in if there’s any other questions, but I will get this recording and email campaign published for you in the members area. Let’s see — “I should probably know this, but does Small Batch provide us leads and campaigns for the FICA tip credit program?” Brent, Small Batch does not specifically give you campaigns. All of the campaigns that are generated for FinTitan and FICA are in the agent portal, the FICA portal, where you access all the recorded training that we do on Wednesdays. The email campaigns are there, and you absolutely, yes, can use the Small Batch System to pull leads with your daily lead list. So yes and no. And since the campaigns are delivered to you as agents exclusively in the agent portal, you can use the Done For You email campaign service. You just simply have to upload your own emails. When you’re filling out the Done For You form, you select the option “I have my own email campaign” and you just pop in the emails that are provided to the agents. The only reason we did it that way is because all of the FinTitan agents are in Small Batch, but not all Small Batch members are agents, right? So the campaigns are not publicly available in the Small Batch course. They are locked behind agent login access in the portal because you had to sign that NDA and agent agreement. Does it make sense? Fantastic.
[54:28] “I can get leads.” Yes, you absolutely can get those leads, yes. You’re very, very welcome. Thanks, Tim and Kat, Mason. See, Mason, if you feel like they wouldn’t know what CC means in the email, you can change how you word it — “reply back to me and tell me who I should talk to.” You can absolutely do that.
[55:06] Let’s see, all right everybody. I’m gonna wrap it up. You should all have an invitation to a training — a special training tomorrow at 2 p.m. with myself and Brian. I posted — let me drop it in the Facebook group real quick. I hear Brian walking around. I am in the Peachtree City office today, Small Batch. All right. So you should all see “The Hidden Lead IQ Advantage” — we’ve got a training tomorrow. Brian and I reviewed this and we’re just like, “oh yeah, no, this is perfect.” It really comes down to knowing not only how to talk to the people you want to get in front of with either lead gen and that means like what we’re doing right now — getting lead gen for like tree services and pavers, etc., getting leads for them — but also referring, getting leads to refer to someone else, like referring leads to Allutionall or FinTitan, etc. The angle, not just what you say, how you say it, when you say it, etc. This takes it to the next level, right? So it is incredibly applicable to Small Batch folks.
[56:39] So I did go ahead and register all Small Batch members for the training tomorrow. We will have a recording. We do have an attendee-only bonus. You know, we love to share with folks who join us live because we have more fun on calls where there’s lots of folks chatting with us. So Brian had me put together a really cool bonus. So that will be — that’s not a purchase bonus, that’s not a bonus with purchase or anything. That is like, just show up and we’re gonna give you a present. So that’s two o’clock tomorrow, and it is very, very topical and relevant to our Small Batch efforts. So I wanted to clarify that. I love it. Thank you so much for everything today, your interactions and your questions, very, very helpful. I’ll get everything published and in the members area. We’ll get the script, we’ll get the slides. We’ll get it all for you. All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Have a fabulous week, fantastic. And hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon and in the Facebook group and on next week’s call. Have a great one. Thanks, everybody. Bye.