EP214: Rebranding Your Business: A Journey with Chris Blauch of Blue Mountain Bathrooms

Okay. So Blue Mountain Bathrooms, that's the name of your business. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you guys do bathrooms.

When you started your business, just to be like completely transparent, Chris is one of my clients. I've worked with him. So I know a lot of this information from the back end. So I'm prompting some information here. But... Tell us what your original business name was.

And Block is spelled B-L-A-U-C-H. Yep. Not like B-L-O-C-K. So like most people do, we use our last name. Right. And we started business, whether it's Jones Constructions, Smith Remodeling, Block Building Services, some variation of that with our last name in there. When we start our business and we come up with a name, we don't really think about the long term implications of the name that we pick. And I'm assuming that that was the same for you when you first started.

And that's another thing that a lot of us do is where we don't really know, either we don't know exactly what we want to do or we're trying to capture as much of the market as we can. So we don't specialize. It's just this general, you know, construction or remodeling or building, you know. And so the idea there is, and I did the same thing. The idea is just to, I don't want to limit myself to this one thing. I want to be able to do everything, right? Because that way I'll have more opportunities and more work, right? I'm assuming that's the same thing you were thinking.

Right. Right. And it makes sense. Like if you can do multiple things, why not do them? Right. And we'll get into a little bit later about some of the downsides of that. So fast forward to today with Blue Mountain Bathrooms. How has rebranding your business specifically to bathrooms helped you with marketing and sales? And just from that aspect, like just the marketing and sales aspect, how has that helped you?

So would you say that it's made it easier for people who are looking for bathrooms, bathroom remodels, to see you as the expert in the field?

Right. And I know you do a lot of social media marketing and you're very active in your brand awareness and all that, which definitely helps. But, you know, like you said, it's not someone's not calling you and say, oh, hey, Smith Construction, do you guys do bathroom remodels? Right. Like they're not calling to ask if you even do that service. There's no question. There's no doubt. You are a bathroom remodeling company and you can do that. Now, I'm going to ask a question here that I know people are saying. Does that mean, Chris, that you can't do anything else because you're branded as a bathroom remodeling company?

And that's also your main, I mean, that's the main type of work that you're doing is bathrooms, right? Oh, yeah. Gotcha. So a lot of the, like the kitchens and basements and stuff, those are, sounds like you're saying most of those come from existing bathroom remodeling clients.

Right, right. So you're building the relationship with the bathroom remodel. And then that's obviously opening the doors to other things. And, you know, those clients that you did a bathroom remodel for, their friend wants a kitchen remodel. And they may say, well, I don't, you know, we don't know if he does kitchens, but he did an amazing job on our bathrooms. Just call him and ask. Right. Exactly. you get those kind of referrals too. So, okay. So, you know, we just put the bed it's we've, we've solved the question, the mystery, like just because you. or branded as a specific type of service does not mean that you can't do additional things. Now, let me ask you this. From a operational standpoint, because this isn't really about branding, but I just want to touch base on this. From an operational standpoint, has it made it easier or more difficult to narrow down and niche down to a specific type of service?

So you had you, cause you were doing all kinds of stuff before you were doing. I mean, you were doing electrical, like electrical services. You were doing decks, you were doing commercial remodels. You were doing insurance work. I mean, you were just all over the place with stuff.

Gotcha. Okay. Like I said before, I mean, Chris is one of my clients and I've worked with them for over a year, probably close to two years now. I think it's coming up. When you first came in and you were block building services, what was the driving force that made you even think about rebranding? What brought that to fruition?

So you, for you, it was more of a pain point and a necessity to like figure out something better. Is that fair? Yeah.

Yeah, it makes complete sense. I had the same problem. And I've talked about this before on the podcast, like because I started out as a handyman and we were doing all kinds of stuff, right? And so what I learned quickly was like, you know, one of the things that we did was decks, but I would only do like three or four decks a year. You know, it wasn't like I was doing a ton. And then you have the winter break. you know we would do our last deck maybe in september right and then the next deck wouldn't start up until like may or june you know i remember going out there because i was still working on the tools too and i remember going out there and be like okay now how do you build a deck because it's been six months since I built one, you know, and just going through that process of, oh, that's right. Yeah. Now I remember you got to do this and this and this and this, and then there's no efficiency whatsoever. Right. And then, and there's no standardization, there's no process and you just eat up your profits like crazy. Cause then you realize you forgot some materials you didn't order, you know, and the 18 trips to the store. And it just turns into this, every job you do, you're trying to grind. To make money. And then at the end of the job, you look and there's no money and you just can't figure out why that sounds pretty accurate.

I mean, I did it too. And then again, hiring, like you said, when you try to hire people, you know, most people are good at, you know, one really good skill. And then there's probably two or three other skills that they're competent in. Well, I mean, you can't hire a finished carpenter and then expect him to also be good at tile or, you know. be really good at drywall hanging and finishing or painting or any of these other things that go on. And so you run into that problem where you do have a skill gap. You know, now you got a finished carpenter trying to pretend to be a towel guy and you got a towel guy pretending to be an electrician and electrician pretending to be a painter, right? And everyone's trying to just do things to get stuff done and it just creates chaos. So can you speak a little bit about by rebranding and focusing on one niche? How did that help solve some of these problems that we're talking about?

So it's made it much easier for you to even systematize the production of the work. Yeah. Awesome. So what about from a website perspective? Because if you do general building services on your website, you're going to have pictures of everything, right? Now, because you're Blue Mountain Bathrooms. It's just all bathrooms. Can you talk a little bit about how it's made that easier for, you know, to be able to work with clients? And so when they call you, they're already educated because they have that information on your website. I mean, it's very specific.

So it's, it's allowed potential clients to come to your website and then get a really good idea of what they're, you know, what they may want, whether it's design ideas or, you know, layouts or things like that, because it's, it's so focused on one thing, bathrooms, you can have more of them and it's more specify or more specific rather to those different things. Is that, that's what I hear you saying.

It's almost like a Wikipedia page for bathrooms. Like if you're looking for information on bathrooms, you go to your website and there's all the information, right? There's, and you have blog posts too on there as well, right? And so there's all kinds of information about, you know, what's the best this and what's the best that, and here's how you do this and here's how you do that. It's like, if I want to learn about bathroom remodeling, I can go to your website and be very educated on every ins and outs about bathrooms.

Yeah, I mean, because if you have, if you're a business that does everything, you essentially just have like bullet points, like services we offer, you know, kitchen remodeling, bathroom remodeling, decks, roofing, fence, siding, windows and doors. And it's just like a bullet point. And then you have pictures and it's like, you know, there's 50 pictures on there, but it's of all these different things. If I'm looking for a bathroom, I don't care about everything else. I don't care about decks and windows and roofing and fencing. I care about bathrooms, right? And so now you are the educator or the education spot for all things bathroom. Yep. Okay, let's transition now to something that I think is going to, people are going to have questions. So when was the point, do you remember the specific time where it's like, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to rebrand.

I'm going to throw you under the bus a little bit because it was probably about a six month time period before, like when you first started talking about it until you kind of actually got serious about it.

Right. So what was the, why, you know, that during that period, what was happening in your mind? Like, what were you thinking about?

Was it fear that you were going to lose all of the traction or was there a fear of kind of the unknown of, is this going to work or both? I think

I mean, what finally broke the... I mean, what was the straw? What was the final straw of like, I'm going to do it? You remember?

I remember. Cause weren't you, I think you would even. Even after you had thought about rebranding, didn't you wrap a truck with your old name or was you in the process of doing it?

We were working through designs. You were posting designs and we were talking about that. And then I think we had a conversation. Again, it was like, why go through all that if you're going to rebrand? It was kind of like, you know, shit or get off the pot kind of a moment.

Okay, so obviously not an easy decision. I mean, you had 10 years invested in your old brand. You've kind of came to the realization that you need to rebrand because you do believe that on the backside of that, there's going to be a benefit, right? There's going to be some benefit to that. So you can see that part of it. There's still a lot of unknowns. I mean, we don't know. It could fail. Could fail miserably, right? You could lose all of that traction, but you decide to move forward with it. And do you remember what I told you would happen once you start telling people that you were going to rebrand? You remember the conversation we had?

Talk about that a little bit. Talk about that experience. Because I remember some, even some very specific like B &I moments where, like marketing experts and stuff were telling you was a bad idea. Like just share a little bit about that experience.

I think I could probably go back and search the, uh, the chat, you know, our chats back and forth and messages, but I think there were even some times where like you were having doubts, like because of the outside feedback that you were getting, you're like, I don't know. I don't know, Brad, if this is a good idea or not.

awesome. And so just so people listening, if you're listening and don't see it, Chris is in an area that is known as Blue Mountain, right? Like the location is kind of known as Blue Mountain. And then obviously Pennsylvania, all of the Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch, you know, myths and all that stuff. So you went with a mascot. Your mascot is a Sasquatch, right? Can you describe him just a little bit for the people that are listening, just so they have an idea?

Doesn't he have a name? Big Blue. Big Blue, yeah. Okay. So Big Blue is the Sasquatch. You kind of resembled or modeled them after you a little bit, right? You were the inspiration for them. And then we got Blue Mountain Bathroom. And just for people listening, this is a process, right? You didn't wake up one morning and say, oh, Blue Mountain Bathroom, Sasquatch, that's it, right? So speak a little bit about how that process came about.

Well, we're some close second place options for naming.

Is it just deleted it? Right. Like, like that picks delete the rest.

I remember you sharing some options in the group, you know, for feedback and, you know, some people like some, some people like the others, you know, there's, you always get differences of opinions, but I, I do love the logo. I love the mascot. You know, I love how you put all that together. You've done a lot of work in creating this brand. This is the second part of what, you know, I want to talk about a little bit, but like. It's not just the name of a business. Yes, that's important. And the name does tell people what you do. You do bathrooms, right? That's important. But beyond that, you've created a brand, right? And just like the lady who said she saw the vehicle drive by with the Sasquatch on there. Talk a little bit about, well, let's break this up into two things. First, talk a little bit about the idea of having a mascot because a lot of contractors think mascots are stupid. right like why would you do a mascot so talk a little bit about that Hey, just a quick timeout from the show. If you're a frustrated contractor who's dealing with low profit margins, stuck working on the tools every day, or doing free estimates for people who are never going to hire you in the first place, I invite you to my private contractor community, The Profit Club, where contractors just like you are adding two to three times more profit each year without producing any more jobs and finally getting completely off the tools to never do another free estimate again. So if you're ready to increase your profits, stop doing free estimates. free estimates and get off to tools, then all you have to do is click the link in the show notes to learn more about the profit club and see how I can easily two to three times the cash in your pocket, give you a proven sales process that will convert more jobs with ease and get you off to tools once and for all. And the best part is you can do all of this without having to produce more jobs than you currently are. Click the link to learn more. Now let's get back to the show.

So we got a, we got a cartoonish looking mascot of a Bigfoot, right? What do you say to people who will say, this doesn't look professional like this, This seems very cartoonish and amateurish and childish. Like, what do you say to those people that are listening?

But I mean, I mean, I love that response. But for people who are like disagreeing with that, like what's your experience with, you know, are you taking people laugh at you and think you're not serious or you're not a big, you know, you're not a professional builder, like speak to that a little bit.

I mean, I'm a fan of mascots and we've talked about that. I don't know if, you know, the conversations in the group kind of led to having a mascot. Did you always want to have a mascot or was that something that you were influenced to have?

No, I mean, I'm a big fan of mascots. And there's actually scientific proof that mascots... attract more people. It actually helps your brand. So, I mean, I love your brand. I love what you've done to it. You've tied it into, you know, everything else. So speak to more now on the branding side of what are some things that you've done to turn just the business name into a brand?

Any of it. Yeah, I mean, what have you done to make this a household name, a brand versus just the name of a business?

I love it. You know, something that just popped in mind while you were talking, and I mean, hopefully nobody steals this, but like you can have with the steps, you know, like when you're talking about customer journey, like you can have the big foot steps that are like, here's step one and step two and step three. But another thing that popped in my mind, my brain doesn't turn off talking about this, is you can maybe get some like some little feet, you know, like vinyl or something. And then after the bathroom is done, you could have. like these feet on the ground, like leading to the bathroom or out of the shower or something. And you like leave it like that, you know, when you go home or something, just something to have fun with it and play. But what I love about it is that like you're saying, you're tying it into all aspects of your business and customer journey. I've seen some of your animated videos with Big Blue. You even have some for like your social media. Or you like end every video with a little animated thing. Or is it a beginning or end? I can't remember.

Yeah. And so you really are integrating this into everything. It makes it fun, right? Like you said, people love it. And I mean, I just want to say kudos to you for how much you've integrated this. I think you've executed on the rebranding like perfect. I mean, I know there were some hiccups along the way, but I mean, as far as where you're at today and the direction you're taking it, it's been a perfect execution of what it means to create a brand that is memorable and people enjoy along the process. Yeah,

Yeah. I mean, that's just part of any process, right? You're always going to have some things along the way. So as far as from a brand with the mascot makes it easier to integrate that. Imagine doing what you're doing without a mascot.

Exactly. Yeah. That's, and that's how the brand can play into that. And then having the mascot as different key parts of that is just, you know, it's, it's tying it all into one's kind of immersive experience of what it means to work with blue mountain bathroom. Right. And so like, like right now, I know you've been working on some things. Um, you want to share kind of some of the things you're looking at getting or producing to. to do with the, with the Sasquatch? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, those, you know, leave behinds when you get done, you can leave them in the bathroom, but you're also have looked at like a doll, right? Haven't you looked at? producing like some kind of, um, you know, Sasquatch doll or action figure. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, there's so many ways you can go with it. I mean, There's a lot of different things because you have the mascot. Without the mascot, almost everything you just said is not doable. Yeah,

And I want to throw this out there because I do know your business. Chris is not doing like average stuff. Like Chris is doing very high-end bathroom remodels. Chris is a high-end contractor. And so you have a fun brand, a name with a Sasquatch, which some people would say is cartoonish or childish. And then, but he's also doing high-end remodels. So like that right there breaks that myth of you can't have fun and have a playful type of logo or character and still produce high end work.

You can make any business or brand to be whatever. I mean, I know lots of companies that are very elegant in design, and they don't do very elegant work. You know what I mean? So it's not... It's not a guarantee that if the name of your business is exquisite bathrooms and you have silver and gold, you know, font graphics logo, that doesn't mean that you're going to do good work. Right. And so the myth talking about myths here, the myth of you can't have fun and you can't have a playful type of brand and, you know, image. And by the way, it's very, it's very well done. Like I would encourage anybody listening here to go to his website just to help build up his SEO, but go to his website and look at his logo. It's very well done. It's very professionally done. It's not some chicken scratch. It looks like a three-year-old designed it. It's very well thought out. There's a lot of effort that went into it. It's very well done, but it is fun and playful, right? And people remember that. Talk a little bit about that experience. of rebranding. I'm sure you just, you opened up Canva and you just designed this all yourself, right?

And then, um, you know, that, I mean, you did try to do it yourself.

Well, let me add it together. So, like, you paid for a design. You paid a company to come in and design the graph, the logo, and then, you know, design the vehicle wraps and all that. And then, obviously, you had to pay someone to do the vehicle wraps. And, you know, buy new shirts and hats and uniforms and all that stuff. And then even like update your website, you know, just for the colors and things and then get a little more specific. Do you know, and maybe you don't, and you don't have to share this, but do you know roughly like total amount of money you spend to rebrand completely? I mean, including vehicle wraps, you know, I mean the whole shebang.

And would you say it was worth it?

That's why I was asking, like, it's not cheap. I mean, let's be real. It's not like you're going to rebrand. I mean, unless you just started, you know, a month ago and now you decide to rebrand. Sure. But when you have years and years of a brand place and uniforms and shirts and vehicle wraps and all this stuff already done, you got to redo it. Right. And so it's going to cost you a lot of money. It's going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. But once you start doing it, it's going to definitely pay for itself. How long, once you fully branded, because we did like a, I mean, you did like a transition period, which you should. But how long, like, would you say once you were fully branded that you started to notice people recognizing the brand, the new brand?

So it was about a six month window from, you know, transitioning to where people started recognizing the blue mountain bathroom brand and calling you asking for that brand. Yeah.

But you were still getting calls from the old brand. I mean, people were still calling you wanting work done. You were just like, Oh yeah, that was our old brand. This is our new, our new name basically. Yes.

So it wasn't like work just stopped for six months and then it started picking up. Like you were still, because you kept your phone number. I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to change your phone number. You did change the website name, but then you also forwarded your old website to your new one. People searching for that side note, did you create a separate website or did you just convert the existing one?

But you kept the domain that way. If someone were to type it in and then redirected it to your new.

And then you transitioned all your vehicles because you didn't do them all at once. I mean, you did like one at a time, right, to get them all switched over.

No, it doesn't. I mean, people only care about are you going to remodel their project or do their project, right? There may be some initial confusion for 30 seconds of like, who are you? I thought, oh, okay. And then that's gone, and now it's focused on project.

i mean it wasn't like this major major confusion thing so okay uh we're getting close to the end here on time and so what would you say Chris, as someone who's listening to this and they're like on the fence about rebranding. And I don't mean like, you know, they're wanting to just like change the logo design. I mean, doing like a full name change, right? A full new, basically a whole new brand. What would you say to someone who's on the fence about doing that?

Do you believe that the rebrand contributed to that significantly?

One quick little question on that. With the rebrand, you also niche down, right? One of the reasons why you rebranded was because you were niching down. So the reason for the rebrand was because you were niching down the bathrooms. Speaking just about niching down to one or two, you know, one or maybe two services, what do you say to someone who is, you know, on the fence about, I do eight different services. I do roofing, fencing, decks, you know, windows. And I'm thinking about just specializing in sighting or I'm specializing in decks. What is your experience and what is your recommendation and advice to someone who's thinking about niching down to a specific service?

And you have more bathrooms now than you did whenever you did everything. Oh yeah,

And then with that, it comes easier marketing, easier marketing message, easier processes, you know, easier material ordering, easier estimating. Everything becomes easier because you're only doing one type of service. Yes.

You're like, bring back all of that misery. stress that I had before. All right, Chris, final thoughts. Is there any question or, you know, anything I should have asked you or any piece of advice you want to give to anyone listening to this show?

Awesome. I always like to ask all my guests one question, and that is, what is a book that you're reading or one that you would recommend?

Yeah. Buy back your time by Dan Martell is a great book. It's one that I've given to a lot of clients. But I don't know if you, I guess you didn't get my memo before, Chris, you were supposed to say the contractor blueprint. That's the book you were

I'm just kidding. No, that's a great book. Buy back your time is an excellent book. Um, highly recommend that. So Chris, what, if somebody wants to learn more about your business or have some questions for you, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Awesome. Well, Chris, I appreciate your time. You're very generous with your time and helping others and for proud to see all the success you've had with the rebrand and your business. I love getting to be a fly on the wall and see that happen. So I really appreciate you and coming in here and sharing your experiences with the rebrand. Sure. Thanks for having me. All right, guys, that's the end of the show. Thank you so much for hanging out with us. You know where to find me on the socials. Just search for the Hammer and Grind podcast or go to the show notes. We'll also have Chris's link to his website in the show notes as well. And I appreciate you hanging out with me. Remember, until next time, profit is not a dirty word.