In 2026, good work is no longer good enough. Every single contractor claims quality work. Every contractor says they're honest. Every contractor thinks that should be enough to win jobs. But here's the reality. It's not. Hey, it's Brad here. And before we get into the show, I want to tell you about today's sponsor, Next Insurance. You know, a lot of us contractors spend so much time keeping the jobs moving that we push off the boring stuff to the back burner. And insurance is usually at the top of that list until the day you really wish you had it. A customer slips on a job site. A tool breaks right in the middle of critical work. a supplier screws up again and leaves you holding the bill, you can lose thousands overnight. And most folks only realize they need insurance when something's already gone sideways. That's why I really like what Next Insurance is doing. They've made business insurance ridiculously simple. You just answer a few questions online and Next tells you exactly what coverage your business needs and you're insured in minutes. No sitting on hold. No paperwork, no call us back later nonsense. Next is built for builders, contractors, tradespeople, or anyone running their own shop. And here's the kicker. Their policies start as low as $29 a month, and you get your certificate of insurance instantly, which means you never have to delay a job because you're waiting on insurance. Protect what you've built and keep your business moving with confidence. Get covered in minutes at nextinsurance. com forward slash hammer. Now let's get back to the show. Hey, welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Brad Hebner. And in this episode, I'm breaking down three things that will actually make your contracting business stand out in 2026. I'm going to talk about why good work isn't enough anymore, what branding actually means, and no, it's not logos, and why video is no longer optional if you want better clients and better margins. Listen, if you're tired of price shoppers explaining yourself over and over or feeling like you're constantly justifying your numbers, this episode is for you. In 2026, good work is no longer good enough. Every single contractor claims quality work. Every contractor says they're honest. Every contractor thinks that should be enough to win jobs. But here's the reality. It's not. Homeowners today make decisions before you ever show up. And if you look, sound, and explain things like everyone else, you're going to get lumped in with everyone else. Now let's jump into this episode. I'm ready to get started. All right, so number one thing we're gonna talk about here. We're gonna be talking about the good work, why good work is no longer enough, okay? We're gonna be talking about why good work is no longer enough. Here's the reality. Good work is the baseline, okay? It's the baseline. It's not a differentiator. It is what people expect. You don't go to a restaurant and say, man, I hope the food is warm. I hope the food is good. It's the baseline of your expectation. You don't go buy a brand new vehicle and hope the wheels don't fall off when you're driving home from the dealership. It's the baseline. It's the expectation that you have already. So saying we do good work, it doesn't mean anything. You should be doing good work. It's the bare minimum to be in business. You should be doing good work. And if you're hanging your hat on that, like it's some prideful thing that you do, you're just saying what we're good at is being average. That's what separates us from everyone else. Being average, doing the bare minimum, which is doing good work. Now, everybody does this. I talk to contractors all the time and everyone thinks this and it's fundamentally wrong. You like to compare yourself to the chuck in the truck down the road. who drives a piece of crap truck and has low prices and does crappy work. That's what you like to compare yourself to. And yes, if you compare yourself to the worst of the worst and you're average, you're going to stand out. That's true, you will, because you're using the worst possible comparison point. But if you look at contractors across your city, across your area, there's probably a half a dozen or several dozen who do the exact same thing, who can do it just as good as you. And when you compare yourself to them, you may actually be putting yourself below them because if they're doing just a few extra things than you, then they're going to stand out more than you. Okay, so good work does not, it is not a talking point. It is expected. So when I see slogans that say things like, You know, we do good work and you can expect good work from us. I don't get it. Like, there's nothing there. You're just like everyone else. All right. Everyone says quality work. Everyone says they're honest. Everyone says we treat customers right. The reality of it is that most people who say those things are completely full of shit. I'm just saying it. Most of you think that what you do actually is above and beyond. And the reality of it is, is that it's below par. I'd see people every day. I see people making videos on their social media page about something they say about, you know, we're really good at communicating. One of the things that we take pride in at ABC Construction is we're really, really good at communicating. And then you go and you look at their website and it is so piss poorly done. There's no information on there that makes any sense or that is helpful. It's a direct contradiction to what they say. We're really good at communicating. I go to their website and it's poorly communicated. We're really good at being honest. And I go look at your reviews and there's a bunch of negative reviews about how you rip people off. Most contractors use these words like buzzwords because they think it makes them stand out. The reality of it is it doesn't. And people see right through that. It's so blatantly obvious. These guys that I'm talking about, they live in their own world and they really don't like go outside of the world. They just think that they're good and they're doing what they need to be doing and they get some business from it and that's good enough. And hey, we just keep doing it. And they use these talking points. Guys, it doesn't matter anymore. Customers are very savvy now. There's so much information out there on social media and on the internet. People are very educated buyers now. A decade ago, you can get away with a lot of crap because people weren't educated. They didn't know. They couldn't look you up on social media. They couldn't look at reviews. They couldn't learn anything else about you except, you know, maybe a website if you had one and the Better Business Bureau. Like that was the only way they could find out information about you. Now people can see right through your bull crap. Just because you hire a slick marketing company and they build you a really nice website. And you pay for Facebook ads and you do all these things for, you know, you spend money to make yourself look good. But then you deliver a big pile of crap on the back end. It's not going to take long for people to see right through that. All right. So if you're saying quality work, honest, you know, we treat our customers right. If that's your pitch for what you do, you are invisible. People don't believe that stuff anymore. They really don't. They really don't believe that if you say that stuff. The real decision that customers make on who they hire happens before you ever show up to do the estimate. I've talked about this until I'm blue in the face. And people, they just, I don't know what it is. They don't believe me. You know, I have no idea. People make their buying decision before you show up. They've reached out, they've done their research. They said, we really like this company. At that point, when they call you, And they say, hey, we want to get an estimate. And then you go out there and do an estimate. At that point, they've already made the decision that they want to hire you. From that point forward, it's whether or not you screw it up. So they're looking for red flags from that point on. So think of it this way. You've already gotten the job. Now it's do you screw it up on the back end? Okay, that's how most people buy today. They've already done the research. They've already social proofed you. They've already looked at the reviews. They've already gone to your website. And if you don't have any of those things, you are seriously behind the power curve. Like you're way, way, way, way, way behind. Customers are smart today. Okay. So what do clients make decisions on? They make decisions based on clarity, confidence, and how safe the decision feels. Now we call that. certainty of achievement. So if I hire you as a contractor, how certain am I that I'm going to achieve the results I'm looking for? How certain am I that you're going to show up on time? How certain am I that I'm going to get quality work? How certain am I that at the end product is exactly what I envision, right? Certainty of achievement. It's the same thing as how, you know, how. safe the decision makes or how safe the decision feels for them. Contractors lose jobs, not because they're bad, but because they look the same, because they sound the same, because they explain things the same. Now think about this for a second. Let's say you go to buy a new car and you go to a dealership and everyone already thinks car salesmen are shady, right? That's the stigma. So you go to buy a new car and you talk to the salesman and sure enough, he checks all the boxes of being a shady salesman. And he says certain things to you, right? He's using a certain language, certain questions. And after a 30 minute conversation, you're just like, man, I really don't like this guy. I'm getting out of here. So you go to a different dealership and you walk into a different dealership. And in the first five minutes, the salesman is saying the exact same things. as the previous place you went. He's using the same language. He's saying the same things. He's treating you the same way. What are you going to do with that salesman? You're going to say to yourself, here's another shady salesman. Golly, is everybody this shady? I'm getting the hell out of here. You go to a third dealership and you walk in and instantly the experience is different. You know, the way they greet you at the door. They offer you a drink or something or snacks. You know, there's music playing, whatever it is. Like all these, it's a different environment. You can sense it. You can feel it the second you walk in there and the salesman comes up and they have a conversation with you that is completely different than the other two salesmen you had. It's such a drastic difference that you instantly pick up like, oh, this is going to be good. This company is probably where I'm going to buy a car from. There's still pricing, logistic things they got to figure out. But I already feel good about this dealership because the salesman is talking, acting differently. That is the exact same thing you have to do in your business. When you say the same things and you do the same things and you sound the same as everyone else, you get lumped in with everyone else. Okay. Standing out. in 2026 means that you manage expectations better than your competitors. If you can anticipate and you know what the challenges, what the expectations, what the concerns are that the customers have, and you can address those in marketing, on your website, in video, and you're explaining all these things, then you are managing the expectation of the customer. way better than the competitors are. So that's one aspect of it. Explaining problems better than the competition. If you tell the people, this is what you can expect, this is what happens if we do this, and you're actually informing them, that's going to make you stand out. And making clients feel informed instead of confused is how you're going to win clients over in 2026. Here's the ego hit for you guys. Nobody cares how smart you are. They do not care. And I see contractors constantly going on sales calls and they think the way to sell them is by puking knowledge all over them, by making themselves, the contractor, sound so smart, so intelligent, so experienced that the customer is going to say, man, this guy knows everything. We have to hire them. I can tell you right now that is the biggest turnoff that people... will have if you do that. Stop puking all over your customers. They don't care about your ego. They don't care about your awards. They don't care how long you've been in business. They don't care about things that you've done and how amazing you are. They do not care. The old adage of, quote, sell yourself is where people have gotten in trouble. You don't sell yourself by talking more. You can sell yourself by asking the right questions. That's two totally different sales tactics. Okay. When you talk more and you use technical language because you think it makes you sound smart, what you're actually doing is making the customer confused and making them feel dumb. Nobody wants to admit they're dumb. Right? So here's an example. Let's say I... I'm getting a TV theater, home theater put in. I want a home theater put in. And I'm a, you know, I'm a expert on all of the technology, electronics and stuff. And we're talking about different types of TVs that you may want. And I'm using language like, I'm assuming you want a QLED screen, right? You don't want the old, you know, whatever. And I don't know off the top of my head. I'm not an expert. And you're using language like, oh, you want to go with this because this is way better than the other one. You know, I'm sure you know that already. Like, you know, and you're using, they don't know. They don't have a freaking clue, but you're making them feel stupid. And so then when you ask them a question, they'll just be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. We want the QLED. Yeah, yeah. That's what we want because they don't want to look stupid in front of you. So that's, that's you trying to make yourself look smart. And what you're actually doing is making the customer feel dumb. And that's how you lose clients, by the way. So here's the hard truth. If price is the main thing. that they talk to you about, you failed before the estimate was even done. If you show up to do an estimate and they're talking to you about price, you've already failed. You didn't do a good job on the pre-qualification process to learn about how to ask questions and do it right and provide the right amount of value. If they're talking about price, you screwed up. You should have already covered that. You should have already shown enough value. At that point, it should just be, what are the details about what's being done? Not about what's the price. So let's talk about the second thing here, branding. Now, branding is not about logos. Yes, it includes logos, but it's not just about logos and vehicle wraps. Branding is how you position yourself in the industry, in your market, okay? So branding is not about your logo. It's not about your truck wrap or the colors of your website. It's not about those things. Branding is what people expect before they call you. And you're like, well, Brad, how are... What do you mean? What do they expect before they call me? Because all of the information that lives in the internet and in the world should tell people what your position is in the marketplace. So your brand as a whole should answer who you're for, who you're not for, what problem you solve, and how your process is different. So here's a simple way of that. If you don't have on your website what your process is for getting an estimate and for doing projects, if you don't have on your website, here is our three-step process. Here is our five-step process. Here's how we make the process easy for you. Here is what to expect when you work with ABC Construction. If you don't have a section on your website, usually it's around like the form where they fill out the contact form or somewhere like that. If you don't have on there, here is our process. then you've lost. You haven't shown them what your process is. People don't know. They go to your website and it's like, we're the best. We build, you know, we remodel kitchens. Call us today for a free estimate. That's all your website says. I go to the competitor of yours and it's on their website. They have pictures. They say, you know, we work with homeowners to bring their dreams to life. This is our easy three-step process. You know, here's a portfolio. Here's what other projects have cost. Here is our blog that says, you know, there's all kinds of articles on the 10 things that you need to know before you remodel your kitchen. And here's three things to avoid in your next remodel. And here's why, you know, blah, blah, blah may not be a good choice for your kitchen, right? Here's the new colors of 2026 that everyone's raving about. When you have articles and things like that on your website, It makes you the expert. Contractor A, we're the best. We do good work. Fill out a form. Get a free estimate. Contractor B, here's all this information that you should know before you hire a contractor. And here's our easy process that we do so you know what to expect when you call us. You tell me, which one would you hire? The answer is obviously B. If you said A, it's because you're A and you don't want to admit it, right? That's the difference. That's what we're talking about. How does your brand answer that? If you don't define your brand, the market defines you. Now, this is a big topic here, and I'm not going to get into it. But one of the biggest things that contractors, the decisions they make that's wrong is they want to do everything. They want to be like a general contractor. By the way, general contractor does not mean by definition that you can generally do everything. That's not really what a general contractor is. The general contractor means that you are generally hiring other people to do a project. So you can be a general contractor that only does kitchen remodels. You can be a general contractor that does home builds. You can be a general contractor that does ADUs, right? Like you can do different things within a general contractor's license. It doesn't mean that you should be doing everything. So when you say one call does it all, you've immediately shot yourself in the foot. Nobody wants to call one person that gets it all done because they're looking for experts. Now, you can be a general contractor who specializes in kitchen remodels and because they can reach out to you, that one call makes that happen. So you make it easy for them. But the whole idea of like one call, we do everything. We do everything from the foundation to the roof. You guys have seen that, right? There's all these simple things of like, we do everything. The worst decision you can make as a contractor. You need to niche down. If you do everything, you're just making your life so much more difficult and you're not defining where you're at in the marketplace. And because of that, people won't hire you. If you needed a brain surgery, you had a brain tumor and you needed a surgery to remove it. Are you going to go to a brain surgeon or are you going to go to a generalist surgeon? You're going to have a guy who normally does gallbladder removals and you're going to have him do your brain surgery. Hell no, you're not. You're going to the brain surgeon that is the best that you can afford and that is the best, well-known or has the most experience. That's it. That's a specialist. You're trying to be the generalist surgeon. You're not trying to be a specialist. You have to be a specialist. You have to define who your market is. And if you don't, the market defines you. If you define yourself as just another contractor, then that's what you'll be, just another contractor, right? The one call does it all guy is just another contractor. It's just like everyone else. Strong brands are clear, not clever. Clever is not the same as clear. Clear is this is who we serve. This is what we do. This is why we're different. 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 and get off the 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 it 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 the 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. Clever is... You know, I had an unofficial slogan when I early on, when I was doing my business. I didn't put it in print, but I would like if I went to a B &I meeting or was talking to people, I would say this. My unofficial slogan was, we finished what your husband started. Right. It's funny. It's clever. It's humorous. People would get a laugh out of it. But really, I would the reason why I would never put that in like an official position was because it wasn't good. Like it's not that's not a good, good thing to say. You shouldn't be saying that. In a closed area with 20 people that I know, it's probably okay, you know, but you don't want to do stuff like that. You don't want to try to be clever. You want to be clear. There's a big difference. And simple beats fancy every time. I can't tell you how many people want to go over the top with their logos and stuff and they want to have... you know, three, five different colors and crazy things and all this. No, make it simple. Try to keep it as simple as possible. Look at Coca-Cola. I mean, their logo and their brand is as simple as it can possibly be. Amazon, the smiley face, you know, arrow, whatever. That's simple. There's nothing complex about it. Google, if you look at all the top companies in the world, they all have very simple logos, simple branding, simple, precise, clear message about what they do. You need to do that in your business. Here's a one sentence brand test. Very simple brand test. You would fill in the blanks. We are the contractor for blank who want blank without blank. We are the contractor for blank who want blank without blank. So an example of that would be. We are the contractor for busy professionals who want luxury kitchens without all the hassles of dealing with, you know, poor contractors or whatever. That's just an example. We are the contractor for busy professionals who want luxury kitchens without complex process. That's a simple way, like brand test. If you can't, you know, say that sentence about what you do, then you're lost. You don't have a brand. You have a, we'll do whatever it takes to put food on the table. That's not a brand, by the way. It's just not. All right. So you can't do that. Most contractors avoid this simply because they don't want to exclude anyone. Again, this is a scarcity mindset. This is a mindset problem. They don't want to exclude anyone. Brad, the more things I do, the more opportunity I have, the more work I get. Wrong. It's wrong. They think being broad means more work. That's what I just said. And it actually attracts price shoppers, by the way. When you have a title like affordable landscaping, who do you think is going to call you? You think the multimillionaire who lives in the gated community is going to call you because the title of your company is affordable lawn care? They're not calling you. They don't care about affordable. Affordable lawn care screams, we do crappy work at a cheap price. That's what that means. If you have the word affordable or low price or anything that has to do with pricing in your name of your business, I would recommend you change the name of your business immediately. And if you simply do that, you'll probably see an instant shift in the customer, the caliber of customers that are calling you. It's just stupid, by the way, having that. Clear positioning. When you have clear positioning, it repels bad clients. It attracts better ones and it makes pricing easier to defend. Although you really shouldn't be defending pricing, but whenever you throw out a high number, people are going to be like, yeah, that's what I expected. You know, based on your website, based on your reviews, based on everything I saw about you, I figured it was going to be pretty expensive, but we wanted to give it a shot anyways. That's what a brand does for you. A brand tells the world, you know, this is our position. This is why you should hire us and expect to have, you know, expect to pay premium prices. That's where you want to be. That's branding, by the way. So let's talk about the last part here. Number three, segment three, about why video is no longer optional. Okay, now this was going to throw a bunch of you for a loop. You're going to tell me I'm stupid and don't know what I'm talking about. And you've been in business for 20 years and you only work off referrals and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the crap I hear, see every day in the comments I get on my social media, you know, all this stuff. By the way, all the hate comments that I get, I think is amusing. If you're doing it because you think it's going to like dig at me or it doesn't, I think it's all amusing. So keep doing it. I like to get a good laugh. In 2026, video is trust at scale. Video equals trust. Video equals trust. That should be the mantra for 2026. Video equals trust. And it equals trust at scale. Video replaces long explanations. It replaces repeated objections. It replaces constant justification of price. When you put video out there and you put out good video, which that's a whole other topic. We're not going to get into that. It's much better for you to pick up your phone and just start recording. Even if the sound quality is terrible, the lighting quality and you sound nervous, that's far better than not doing it. It is like just start doing it. And after 100 videos, you will be 10 times better than your first video. And after 500 videos, you'll be 10 times better than your 100th video. Repetition here is where it's going to help you. You can do video, like I said, to help, you know, it replaces long explanations, repeated objections, constant justification of price. Homeowners, this is key here. Listen, guys, homeowners want to see how you think. You've probably never heard that before. Homeowners want to know how you think. They want to know who you are as a person. Are you a good person or are you a bad person? They want to know that. They don't want to hire a piece of crap of a human being because they're $5,000 cheaper. Contrary to what you may believe, most homeowners are not price sensitive. They're only price sensitive after they vetted you as a person. And if they have two people that they feel like will do the exact same, remember when I said earlier, certainty of achievement, if they have two contractors that feel like they're going to have the same certainty of achievement, the same experience, and one happens to be cheaper than the other, that's where potentially they may go with a cheaper contractor if they believe that everything else across the board is equal. Your job as a contractor, if you're more expensive, is to provide more value. And show it to the point to where they realize like, oh, he charges more simply because he's better than the other contractor. I feel like if we pay the extra $5,000, we're going to get a much better experience, a much better guarantee of outcome. That's the difference. Okay. They want to see how you think. Are you truly just money hungry and you screw people, right? Secretly behind the doors, your closet, you know. politician, you have a certain side of politics that you follow on and, or maybe not even behind the goers, maybe you're very blunt and vocal about it. There's a guy I follow on Facebook. I get friend requests all the time from contractors and I usually accept them, but then I'll see their stuff pop up on my feed. And a lot of times I'll see, you know, comments on their feed that their customers have access to. And it's anti-political stuff. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle. It's just anti-political. This president did this and this president did that. And this, you know, these people think this and this and how stupid they are. And they're bashing, you know, politics on their platform that their customers have access to. If you don't think your clients are coming to your social media and vetting you, you are sadly mistaken. When I was hiring for a operations assistant, the last month or so I've been hiring, going through resumes, going through applications. The very first thing I would do is go to is to go to Facebook and look at them. That's it. I would skim their resume, make sure they at least had the skills that would fit. And then the next step was to go to their Facebook and try to find their profile. Some of them didn't have profiles, which is probably smart. But if I go to your profile and you're making political posts, if you're saying things that, you know, maybe are unethical or, you know, go against my beliefs on certain things, they never got a call from me. They never got a call back. Now you can, you know, some people might say, well, that's discrimination. A hundred percent of discrimination. It's my business. I'm not going to hire someone that's going to come into my business and cause all kinds of chaos. Your homeowners are not going to hire someone that come into their house and cause chaos. I don't know why this is so hard for some people to understand. People want people in their house they can trust. By the way, people like people like them. Going back to like how you define yourself and your brand, people like people like them. Again, it doesn't matter what side of the aisle on, but let's just say you're a very staunch Republican. You're a strong Republican conservative, right? If I'm looking for a kitchenery model and I go online and I look for, I have a couple different contractors that I'm looking for. One of them is apolitical, meaning they don't post anything political. There's nothing controversial. They just look like a good business. And then I have another contractor that I'm interested in and they're anti-conservative. or anti-Republican, and they're posting crap about why Republicans suck and all this. If you don't think that that's going to affect my decision, you're sadly mistaken. You live in a make-believe world. It will 100% because I don't want somebody in my house working on my kitchen who has a different viewpoint. And I'm talking about radical. I'm not talking about they're just slightly different. I mean, they're posting rhetoric and extreme stuff. Like, no, that person is not coming into my house. I don't care if they're the best. If that contractor would have just kept his mouth shut and not posted anything political, I would not know, nor would I have anything to go against. I may hire that contractor. Guys, your clients are vetting you. They're vetting you everywhere. I cannot tell you how many times a client would call me. Sometimes it was on the phone call. Sometimes it was during the estimate. Sometimes after we started the job. They would come up and they would say, hey, I saw that you go to this church. I saw that you were in the Marines. I saw that you went on mission trips. I saw that you do competitive shooting. The only place they would get that information was on my website because I had on my website about us. And I had that in my bio. I had those things in my bio on the website. That's the only place they could get that information. And so that told me. that people were reading about me. Now, why would someone who needs, you know, a bathroom remodel, why would they be reading my about me section? Because it's only about quality. Remember, that's what most contractors think. It's only about quality. No, it's not. They want to know who the hell is coming into my house. And if I can read your about you, that gives me that information. You see how that works? They are vetting you. I promise you they're vetting you. So when you do video, they get to see how you think. They get to hear how you explain problems and they get to decide if they trust you. I've had several clients, one in particular that called me. I had never heard from her, didn't know she existed, had no idea who she was. She called me up. She's like, Brad, we have two bathrooms we want to get remodeled. And I'm like, awesome. You know, love to talk to you about it. She goes, yeah, we've been following. I've been following you for several months. I watch all your videos. When I go live, I would go live often. I watch, you know, I watch your lives. We knew that we wanted to hire you when it was time for us to remodel our bathrooms. Do you think I sold that job? I did. Obviously I did. Do you think price was their main concern? No. They had been literally stalking me for several months, checking me out, seeing how they could trust me. And they made the decision before they made the phone call that they were going to hire me. That is exactly what we're talking about here. When you have zero content, zero website, zero anything branding related, people have no idea about you or who you are. And you're losing all of those customers. You have to start doing video so people can see who you are. And video, by the way, video isn't about going viral. It's about pre-selling. See, all of this stuff I'm telling you guys is actually a marketing and sales tool built in. And it's pre-selling. If someone goes online, looks for a contractor near me, they see a bunch of reviews, that five-star review. They go to my website. It's very professional, very thought out, very informational. They go to my social media. They see all the videos. All of these things are value stacks that you're doing. And it's also pre-selling. Just like the client that called me, she was pre-sold before she called me. That is the type of business that you want. And here are some tips for you. The best videos are simple. They're very simple. They're very direct. And they're very short on a phone. And they're talking to one ideal client. Now, if you don't follow me on TikTok, I recommend you go follow me on TikTok because that's where I post most of my short form videos. And you'll get examples of like being direct and being short, you know, usually under 60 seconds. It's usually one talking point. Not always, but usually. And then you can sprinkle in some that are five minutes long,10 minutes long, whatever. But like you have a variation of the different types of videos. High impact video topics you can talk about or like why our estimates aren't the cheapest. That may seem controversial. You may be like, I don't want to put that out there because if they know I'm more expensive, they'll never call me in the first place. Wrong. If you put out stuff that is educational, it actually goes, oh, that makes sense. Now I understand why they're more expensive. And I like that. What usually goes wrong on remodels or whatever it is you do. Here's the top five things that go wrong on these projects. Here's three things you want to avoid on your landscaping project. Here's the top seven products that I would never put in any of my kitchen remodels. Things like that is informational. I had one blog post that was, what's the difference between framed, semi-frameless, and frameless shower doors? It may seem like a very simple thing, but it was a question that was asked all the time. I had a blog post that explained it. By the way, when you create these things, the videos, the blog posts, those are assets that you can use. So if I'm on a phone call with someone and like, oh, you know, I think we want to do, what do they call that? The frameless shower door, but we're not really sure what the difference is. Can you tell us? I could say, you know, I can geek out on you for 30 minutes. That's not a problem. But I actually wrote a blog post about this exact topic. If it's okay with you, I can just email it over to you when we get off the phone. Oh yeah, that'd be great. Thanks, Brad. Now I don't have to spend 10 minutes talking about the difference on a phone call. And now when they click on it, they go to my website, they read the blog, and guess what? There's 10 other,15,20 other blogs about different various things. They click on it, and then they click on the next one, then they click on the next one. And guess what I've done? I've become the source of information, which makes me, you guess it, the expert. I've answered all the questions. This is how you manage expectations, by the way. So, you know, another one, what to know before hiring a contractor. These can be even lead magnets. You can have a PDF. It says, get our free PDF, the seven things you should know before you hire a contractor. By the way, odd numbers always work best. I know as contractors, we like things to be symmetrical, but odd works better. Don't say six things, eight things. 10 is okay, but it's better to have, you know, three, five, seven, nine,11, because it's an odd number to get your attention. The seven things you should know before hiring a contractor. The five things that can eat up all of your budget before you start. Whatever. Those topics do really well. If a client says, I watched your videos, I feel like I already know you. Your sales job just got 10 times easier, right? That's what I was saying earlier. The client called me. I've watched all your videos. I already know your process and who you are. We want you to do the job. That is exactly what happened. I did not have to sell that client at all. They were already sold. All I had to do was put the numbers on paper and give it to them. That's what you want, okay? No video equals no leverage. No leverage equals more explaining, more discussing, more discounting, more stress. Because you're doing all of the selling in person or on the phone when I've done all of the pre-selling ahead of time with videos and content. This is a must, guys. I don't care if you don't want to be on camera. I have several clients. And they'll get a kick out of this. I have several clients that we've had this conversation. Guys, you need to be making video. You need to be making video. They're like, I don't want to be on camera. I hate it. I hate social media. I'm like, I get it. But do you want to be successful or not? And through, you know, months and months of telling them, finally, they go, okay, fine. I'll start making some content. I'll start making videos. I'll start doing this and this. And then after they start doing it, they'd actually, they see some results from it. And then they're like, well, you were right. I should have done it earlier. Guys, I was doing video. I don't know the exact year I started making videos, but it was definitely like maybe 2012-ish timeframe,2013. Like I was making videos and going live on Facebook before most contractors in my area even were on Facebook, before they even had a business Facebook page. I've always been an early adopter to technology. That's why the last podcast, two podcasts ago about the five moves you need to make in 2026, those are things I've learned from being early adopters. AI is super powerful. Social media, especially short form video is super powerful. So you have to start doing those things. All right. Well, let me close this out here. So in 2026, good work is already assumed. So you can't hang your hat on that. Branding creates clarity. Video creates trust. Contractors who win control the narrative. They set expectations early and they don't rely on hope and referrals alone. You have to do these things, guys. You have to create a strong brand. You have to start making videos. And you have to understand that good work is the bare minimum to show up. You can't hang your hat on that. Those are the three things that you need to get right in 2026 to make your business stand out amongst all your competitors. So listen, here's a challenge for you. All I want you to do is make one short form video and put it on social somewhere. I don't care if it's Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, wherever. Instagram, just make one 60 second or less video, okay? and put it on social media. And then I want you to comment either on the podcast you listen to or YouTube or shoot me a message. Somehow just comment and say, I did it. I made a video. And if you send me the link somehow, I'll go watch it and I'll comment on your video. You can figure out a way to send me the link or tell me where it's at. I will go do that for you. I'll give you a like and a comment to help with your algorithm. But I really just want to see you doing it because I want to see you succeed. So my challenge to you is just to go make one video. Don't do 34 takes. Don't spend four hours doing it. Here's a quick little tip. You get three tries. You never record more than three tries at one thing because after three, the quality diminishes. You don't get better the more you do. It gets worse the more you do. So no more than three attempts. Pick the best one out of the three and send it. Don't worry about how good it's edited. Don't worry about if you have a 4K camera. Don't worry about if you have good lighting or good mic. Just record a video and send it. If you do that, you will start the process in 2026 to start recording videos. And then you just keep going and don't stop. All right. You just keep going. Don't stop. That's my challenge to you. After you record that video, shoot me a message and tell me you did it. I want to know. I truly want to know. So guys, that's the end of this episode. I really appreciate you listening and hanging out with me. If you get any value out of any of my episodes, any of the podcasts, my ask for you is to go leave a review. I don't care if it's iTunes, Apple, whatever your, you know, YouTube, whatever platform you're on, leave a review for me. Or you can just leave a comment if there's no place to leave a review. But that's the highest form of flattery for me is to leave a review. And I don't even care if it's a crappy review. I just want to leave a review. I want to hear from you. All right. I appreciate it. Here's to a prosperous 2026. Get after it. You know where to find me on all the socials and here. Remember, until next time, profit is not a dirty word.
