Three Branches, Three Brands: Anatomy of a Rebrand

Hello everyone. Welcome to the 21 Hats podcast. [music] I'm your host, Lauren Feldman. This week, special guest Rich Jordan takes us inside a marketing challenge presented by his successful acquisition of home services businesses. Do you keep the legacy names of those businesses to preserve [music] local trust at the cost of running a fragmented, inefficient marketing operation? Do you take the strongest brand you own and [music] roll it out everywhere, even if it may not translate from one community to the next? Or do you wipe the slate clean and create an entirely new brand to unify the whole operation, [music] knowing that it means walking away from money you've already sunk into branding your biggest location. In a conversation with Shawn Busy and Jay Goultz, [music] Rich walks us through how he wrestled with those choices, why he ultimately made the call he did, and what he learned along the way. His takeaways included that there are still people who listen to radio, that an authentic story can compete with private equity, [music] and that it is possible to find a marketing agency that will align its [music] interests with yours. Even in good times, owning and running a business can be a lonely pursuit. Our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not [music] alone in facing challenges. In fact, that's the whole idea behind the 21 Hats community, engaging with other owners to get the kinds of insight [music] only another owner can offer. If you're interested in learning more, you can sign up for the Morning Report [music] newsletter, which offers examples every day of owners solving problems and seizing opportunities. [music] Just search 21 Hats Morning Report to subscribe. Joining me this week on the podcast are Sean Busy, CEO of Kinesis, which [music] is based in Portland, Oregon, and works with small businesses on marketing, culture, and strategy. Jay Goldz, CEO of the Golds Group, whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business, artist frame [music] service, and a home furnishing store, Jason Ho, and Rich Jordan, who is CEO of a home services business with offices in New Jersey and New Hampshire. It's called Well, you'll have to listen to the podcast to find out [music] what it's called. That's kind of the whole point. The episode is titled Three [music] Branches, Three Brands: Anatomy of a Rebrand. Welcome, Sean Jay, and welcome back, Rich, our special guest today. Rich, we had you on uh last year, a little bit more than a year ago, I think, to talk about your experiences leaving the Marines and jumping into the ownership of a plumbing business. Can you start by kind of bringing us up to date? What's happened in the past year that got you thinking about rebranding? >> Yeah, sure. I think a couple things. We sort of in the year leading up to our interview last year, um we had really started to lean into branded activity, like branded marketing, think like mass media, radio, TV, streaming, stuff like that. Like really getting our brand and message out in front of the world. We really started leaning into that at one of my branches in New Hampshire for the year leading up to the interview and and in the year since. And we saw a lot of uh just improvement and growth off of that. You know, it was kind of an experiment at first. Uh a little bit of a leap of faith. >> What What did you learn? What worked >> uh for us? Radio. Radio has worked excellently for us, which I think anytime I tell people that, especially people my age, they're, you know, incredulous at that because a lot of them don't listen to radio. You know, they'd rather listen to Spotify or Apple Podcast or something. But uh the reality is like a lot of the world listens to radio and we've just had tremendous growth off of of our brand uh off of radio. >> Has that growth included younger uh people or are you getting an an older customer that way? >> Uh I would say uh really like your typical like homeowner demographic late 20s through uh 60s. So that was kind of the first part is that we really started to build confidence around okay like we know how to build a brand now. That's something we didn't understand before and now we feel pretty confident in our ability to do that. And then the other the sort of straw that broke the camel's back was this past summer. Um so about 6 months ago I purchased a small plumbing company. Um, and this led to us having our third location and also our third brand because all of my branches were separate brands that had been acquired at some point or another. >> Wait, give us an overview. So, you've got plumbing, electrical, right? >> That's right. And HBAC. Okay, >> Rich, one of the kind of uh mumblings I've been hearing lately in your space and and I don't really operate in B TOC, but I am kind of interested in it is I'm hearing more and more of kind of like questioning of the of the digital only approach. And so you're kind of one of the first people I've heard say, yeah, actually we went on a different path. You know, in a lot of ways it's kind of an old path, right, which is mass media broad-based brand approach. What motivated you to explore the new thing? Was it that things were declining in efficacy or costs were increasing or you just needed more market share? >> Yeah, it's a little bit of all of that. I mean, for one, it's just digital and of, you know, as more and more contractors, you know, become familiar with digital or engage digital advertising agencies. The, you know, it's a it's a it's a bid process. It's an auction. And those those leads just get more and more expensive every [snorts] year. Um, and I think, you know, part of the part of the problem too is, you know, finding customers in that way is so transactional. Most people call it, you know, direct response advertising. I sometimes call it transactional advertising. You know, transactional marketing. >> Um, you know, I'm literally I'm feeding dollars into Google. They're giving me leads back. And you don't really know me from Adam as the customer. And I'm going to send a technician out to your house. I was the one who picked up the phone. I'm the one who got a guy out to you fast and like there's no kind of branding or like you don't know me, you don't like me, you don't trust me. I just happen to be the top ad on Google. In Chicago, there's two companies that are on TV constantly doing exactly what you're doing and they've got their name out there. So, you'd have no reason to go to your computer to look it up because you know this company. So, I think it's a way of putting in front of the line and and getting them to call you first before they even go do a search. And I have the same thing in my business. I think it's huge. >> This is really interesting, Rich, because you know, for a while that digital ecosystem pulled pulled kind of an an interesting move, which is to call it performance marketing. I don't know if you've ever heard that that title, you know, and so it's this idea that the other types of marketing aren't performing, which I find kind of funny. Uh but can you quantify for us uh like in terms of that transactional marketing space maybe what you were paying for a customer you know two years ago versus today or three years ago versus today. >> So that would be like four years ago. I'd say like the the sort of [snorts] napkin math at the time was like you were kind of expecting to spend $100 per customer which was pretty easy to stomach. Now, I mean that, you know, especially when you start factoring in, you know, kind of your conversion rate on these clicks, you know, after, you know, the customer clicks on your ad and then they may or may not call you. If they call you, >> what's your booking rate on that call? >> Uh, if they book with you, what's the cancellation rate after the booking? >> And then ultimately, you know, do you get a tech to that house? So, a after you get through that whole like conversion funnel, a lot of times it's like $400 per customer right now. Wow. Wow. And it was 100 when you first started. >> Yeah. >> Wow. >> I was going to guess 200, but that's a lot. >> I mean, so especially, you know, when you're running, let's say you're running a um garbage disposal repair. I mean, a customer is only going to see that like, you know, 200 maybe $250 in value in in a job like that. And it's hard to charge that. Rich, do you also track what percentage of these customers uh end up being long-term customers as opposed to a one-time purchase? >> So, they certainly skew more towards one time. I'd say like we do a fairly decent job like once we kind of get in front of the customer, put a technician in the home, you know, customers are fairly happy with us and and we tend to retain them. Um or at least that's what we convince ourselves is true. But uh certainly like the customer who's just click clicking on a sponsored ad is a little bit more difficult to retain. They're certainly more difficult to convert. Right? The customer who might be using me for the first time but is familiar with me through you know branded mass media activity. They're much more likely to not b the price. You know they already feel like they know us. They called us out because they wanted us to do the work and they're going to convert. So I think where you really see it is not necessarily on like repeat and retention, but it's definitely on conversion. We definitely see a difference in conversion. >> All right. So you had the straw breaking the camels back three brands in three locations. What happens next? >> Yeah. So I mean I've always been envious of like larger single brand companies, right? like trying to run multiple brands is difficult and and frankly like I I did all that big push and focus and experiment on the branding for my New Hampshire branch and as far as branding goes I completely neglected my other branch just and just focused on New Hampshire and we had success. Um and then and we just did, you know, we just kept doing the transactional marketing, digital marketing for the other branch. And then as we saw success with the branding in New Hampshire, you know, naturally we want to do it everywhere else. But to do it for two or now three brands just felt like a very tall task, especially for a small team where I'm essentially the marketing manager and CMO. Right. Well, it's just it's inefficient in that you can put one ad out and cover all three brands versus having to advertise three different ways to three different customers. All the customers that need plumbing ultimately the electrician ultimately need heating, air conditioning. So, that's one thing you know for sure. These homeowners need all three of those things. >> Exactly. Well, that and then also something as simple as you know the production cost of a radio or a TV spot. You know, if it's different brands, you got to run three different productions. That's expensive. And that's not even talking about just like creative bandwidth and like your ability to have good ideas around marketing and branding, you know, while you're taking a shower. You know, if you're trying to do it for three of them, it's just difficult to do. And if you have one brand that you're just constantly thinking about, I think you you're generally going to have better results. >> Tell us about the um culture side of this, Rich. So I'm kind of curious, you know, what tensions you were trying to solve there if you thought about that from that perspective or maybe tensions that got introduced through this process of changing the brands. >> Brand and culture I think are like closely intertwined. Um especially if you're like doing a good job on the brand and on like you know what I might call like internal marketing amongst the team you know like what are the what are your team's core behaviors? What does this brand stand for? What do we believe and what are our standards? Again, it's just it's not impossible and we and we did do it, but it's harder to do it across three different brands. Like at Sanford, our New Hampshire branch is very robust. Like we have core behaviors that we live and speak every day. You know, you'll randomly over hear guys saying them to each other, you know, in the warehouse. it was just a little bit harder for us to drive that at the at the other branches, you know, things like that, >> shared mantras and shared beliefs. >> You know, I would think that one of the problems is just thinking out loud here, if you have a plumbing problem, it's pretty much an emergency probably. Whereas, if you have an electrical problem, it might be able to wait a week or two or three or five cuz it's probably your house is going to burn down. Maybe you need another outlet somewhere. So, there's probably a little bit of a culture problem in that plumbers need to be more on the spot cuz if the toilet's backed up or if the sink's not working, it's a real problem. Or heating and air conditioning. Your heating goes out in the winter. It's an emergency. So, I would think there's a little bit difference in just the reaction time needed for each one of those businesses. True. >> Uh that is true. I it's probably worth clarifying though that like each of our branches is multi-rade. Like it's not three branches that all have separate trades across the three trades, you know? It's not I don't have like an electrical branch and an HVAC branch. >> When you bought it, that's how you bought it. They had the three things together. >> No, generally we've bought them as either plumbing or >> H. That's what I was talking about. I was talking about in merging those together. I would have thought there a little bit of a difference in mentality of how much of an emergency is this versus you can wait till tomorrow. >> Yeah. No, there definitely is. plumbing. I what I find is that when customers call for plumbing, they're really expecting you to get out to them either today or tomorrow. Electrical for the most part is sort of like vanity projects or like home upgrades. So like lighting, ceiling fans, outlets, things like that. And then occasionally you'll get like a no power call for for electrical, but those are actually pretty rare. Uh electrical systems are pretty robust and pretty reliable, it turns out. And then HVAC can often be an emergency, but uh I'd say is typically skews a little less urgent than plumbing. >> So Rich, you've kind of described why you started thinking about wanting to have one brand uh everywhere. There's an obvious cost to that. I assume that some of these brands may have been fairly wellknown and entrenched in their locations and you would be walking away from that to some extent. How much was that a part of your thinking? [clears throat] >> Yeah. Uh that was I would say that was a big part of our thinking. Um so part of the context is that the real brand equity that we have three brands we are largely responsible for like we we built them into what they are right like we bought them as small companies that were largely not well known in their own markets. Um, and like we built them into what they are, especially in New Hampshire, you know, where we had been doing the 2 years of of branded activity. We had really grown that business. I mean, that branch is twice the size of the ne of my next largest branch at this point. >> Do you know how much money you spent on marketing and branding there? >> You trying to make me cry on on uh on this [laughter] interview? >> Uh, close to a million dollars on branding for that branch. >> Over how long a period? >> Over over about two years. That's a lot. >> Yeah, it's a it's a lot. This seemed like the natural move was to take the name of that large branch that we had built and branded. Um, and just use that name across the other two branches. Um, you know, the name of that branch is Sanford. It's named after the it's the last name of the founder. And that was the plan. That's what we're going to do. And and the whole company was aware of that. and we had and we were just we were getting ready to execute that. As we got closer to finally [snorts] pulling the trigger, I just started feeling this like friction of like, man, like how are we going to like what's the story that we're going to tell in these other two markets, you know? I take Guarantee Plumbing in New Jersey, named after Tom Garren, the founder. I take CNF Plumbing, the um named after the two founders of that business. And then I rename it to another founder, different market that no one knows and it's not my name. What's the story? >> Wait, what about trademark issues? Did you That's a fairly common name. Did you do a thorough trademark thing? Is there are there other Sanford companies out there that could go after you after if you would have changed your name to that? >> Uh, there are none that are sophisticated enough to have trademarks on their name. So, like, but really the uh the real like friction was like, what's the story we're going to tell? Well, you know, we have a sister company in, you know, up in New Hampshire and they're bigger and they kind of have their together. So, we, you know, we decided we're going to change our name to them. It's really hard to like do that and make it not look like some sort of corporate takeover. Um, it's like not really something that anyone can get excited about. um kind of feels like a loss for the other two branches in my opinion, like they didn't make the cut. So, we ended up pivoting away from that. >> How far along did you get before you pivoted away from it? >> I guess we maybe like got to the starting line of a rebrand and then that's when we sort of pivoted away. >> You know what? I think you have very good instincts cuz I got to tell you as someone who's used the same heating air conditioning people for years when they changed their name I did get some anxiety of oh here we go roll up raising prices get rid of my guy that we like for the last 20 years. There is an anxiety level piece to this that I think you were smart to think about cuz it's true. >> Yeah. And I think even uh like no matter what you change your name to, you're still up against that. Um, but if you can if you can meet that objection or that anxiety with a good feel-good story, you can overcome it. But, you know, the uh potential story that I just laid out, I think I think falls flat. At what point, Rich, I'm kind of curious where your brand agency played a role here or didn't play a role. Were they, you know, effectively taking orders from you, you know, where you're saying, "We need to rebrand and we want to rebrand under Stanford." And they're like, "Yes, sir. Let's do it." or did they push back and say, "Hey, you know, there's an opportunity here. Let's examine it." Or did you drive that? >> Yeah, I'm for I'm fortunate that I've got like really like incredible brand agency partners. So, yeah, us getting to the starting line with with them uh was under the pretense that we were going to rebrand everything to Sanford and and how are we going to do this? I assume they had done the work for you on Sanford, the the million dollars that you spent building that brand. >> No, no, I did that all by myself. >> Oh, interesting. >> Probably way too inefficiently [laughter] >> and and and like after having done that, brought them on to uh to help me tackle what I wanted to do with bringing everything under one banner. >> But to Sean's which he has an interesting point, I didn't realize you had a branding agency. Was it all your instinct that said, "Wait, I think I'm making a mistake." Or did they flush that out for you? That's what they do. That's what they're supposed to do. Did they raise any flags while you were doing this to say, "Listen, you ought to think twice about this or otherwise, what the hell do they do?" >> We brought them on. Um, and yeah, like the initial marching order was like, "Hey, we're uh we're rebranding everything to Sanford. Like, let's figure out how to do this." And then like we kind of got in a room and then that's when we really started to like think hard about this and just kind of like reassess our approach. Um, and yeah, c certainly they drove kind of like the initiation of that. Okay, good for them. >> And uh yeah, yeah, very thankful for uh because I think it would have been a mistake. >> Yeah, it's really props to both them and you because it is risky for an agency to push back on a client in that regard, you know, cuz because you just right, you just said it cost us a million dollars, right? [laughter] Like that that's the like hard cost, right? There's the cultural costs, there's the risks, there's tons of other things. It's so easy for an agency to say, "Yeah, we'll we'll make you a nice new pretty logo with the name Sanford on it. No problem." And that that says a lot, I think, about your relationship and and that idea of being partners as opposed to order takers. >> Yeah. And I've definitely we've had some marketing agencies in the past, like we we did have we had a local agency that did uh you know, I joked and said that I did all that spend on my own um under the Sanford name, but we did have like a agency helping us with the media buys and things. previously. Um, and they were a little bit closer to what what you're saying, Sean. They were they were a little bit more of, you know, for for better or worse, like, you know, they they'd let me walk off the end of the cliff. Um, as long as I had a smile on my face while I did it, [laughter] you know. >> Yeah. >> And you paid the check before you got over the cliff. Yeah. So, as the entrepreneur, I have to ask, did those people make their money from the 15% agency fee on the buys, or did you pay them in addition to that, or how did that all work? the the original agency, >> the one that you said yeah, you had that was placing the ads and stuff. >> Yeah, they were um yeah, they were CL your classic advertising agency. They got a uh monthly retainer plus, you know, 15% agency fee on all the media buys. >> That's a really good question Jay has, right? Because I think a lot of a lot of listeners probably don't know the difference between these different types of agencies. you know, an ad agency that makes a commission off of media buys, they generally don't want to push you in the brand direction because it's risky to the relationship. It isn't something that they're making a percentage on usually. They just want to keep the ad machine going versus it sounds like the newer agency is much more of a strategic partner. Is that fair? And they probably charged you for the branding process, not just a percent of the advertising, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. the agency I'm with now is unique um just on on the typical agency model. Uh yeah, I think you're right. I you know, obviously I guess the agency does stand to benefit from like if your business does grow, you know, you're probably going to increase your media buy and they'll get a larger cut of that. But I think it's like it's a marginal benefit >> simply because you're smaller. You're not Coca-Cola. I mean, if you were a gigantic company, 15% would be a zillion dollars. But a smaller company just doesn't even even spending a million dollars over two years, that's not big money. I mean, it's 15% that's not going to make anybody rich. >> Yeah. Exactly. So, I I think they're just they're happy to have you and their other, you know, three dozen clients and everyone's just spending and happy and retained, you know, I think client retention is top of mind for them. My new agency has a has a different model. They actually don't take any agency fee. So I get I basically get that agency fee back from my media buy. So my media buys are 15% cheaper than they would have otherwise been. They don't mark up any of the production costs. So any of the radio spot production, any of the branding, website design, graphic design, all that stuff. You know, another agency would be putting some sort of markup on that. They don't. And then they just take a percent of last year's revenue. >> Wow. Um, and then [clears throat] as my company grows, their fee grows. >> Wow. >> When you first hear that, it can be kind of hard to stomach. You're like, "Oh, [laughter] man. What?" But then, but then you start to do the math on how much your advertising agency you're on the traditional model is taking. >> And if you're spending real dollars on branding and media buys, let's say you're spending 6% of revenue on media buys, you know, and they're taking 15% of that. That's that's about 1% of revenue. >> Yeah. >> And that's before all the production costs that are probably above and beyond that 6% ultimately getting 1% two. They might be getting 40% of your ultimate advertising spend. >> I got to tell you, it doesn't sound bad to me. It sounds like it's a it's an honest approach. They're not pushing you into doing particular ads to get to 15. It's not like they're making the ads. They're getting 15% of something that they really have nothing to do with. This seems like a more honest approach to the whole thing. I mean, nothing's perfect. It's not like you're selling, you know, peanuts by the pound, but it kind of makes sense to me. >> Sean, how common is that arrangement? >> It's super uncommon and it's pretty cool because one of the reasons I left the ad agency I worked at 25 years ago is because they were the typical model and I kept pushing them. I was like, "Hey, we need to charge clients for things like brand work or at the time this crazy idea of building websites." And they were like, "No, Sean, shut up. Just make more ads." And and because they made their money on the number of ads that were run, that was always the answer. It was always more ads, whether that helped the company grow or not. And that's been my complaint about an adcent model ever forever. And it's pretty cool because now you're aligned on the incentives, right? It's like Rich wants to grow. This company benefits by Rich growing. [laughter] They're gonna put things on the table that they think are going to help him grow, not necessarily just what's to their benefit. >> Yeah. And I think in a traditional advertising model, you know, you could, let's say you're you've got some advertising channels that are very coste effect and uh and really like achieving the goals you want, you tell your advertising agency to kill some other channels, focus on this. You know, we're going to reduce our ad spend to 2% of revenue and we're we're really happy about this as a client. You know, this is great. the advertising agency's going to be pissed. >> Yeah, totally. >> You're taking their money, >> right? >> Um this, you know, an agency on this model is happy for you. You know, we're both growing together and we're doing it cost effectively. That's great. >> And and as a quote unquote partner and if you have an off year, okay, they're making less, you're making less. It's they're actually in the game with you. I mean, not bad. And if you have a tremendous year, you can afford to pay them more because you had a tremendous year. So, I give them credit for coming up with that. That's I'm surprised. Mhm. >> Of course, I don't have a ton of um uh visibility into like the advertising space, but they're the only they're the only firm that I've come across with a with a model like that. >> So, Rich, you start talking about putting one brand on all the branches and not a brand that already exists. How long did it take you to get over the million dollars you'd spent uh on like on the one brand you built? >> Still, it still keeps me up at night. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah, I haven't gotten over it yet. >> You know what? It wasn't all lost. You did get those customers out of it and you're going to retain those customers. So, it's not like you threw the money away, so sleep better. It wasn't it wasn't a catastrophic loss. You're you still have those customers. >> Yeah. And I think like there's a there's a risk to changing the name. Um but in my estimation, like it is all execution risk. It's all execution risk. You know, generally like I'm happy to take on execution risk. So, yeah. I mean, we spent the money, we invested, we built a Sanford brand, we, you know, I I think we got ourselves pretty close to like household name status in in the market we're in. And there's no reason that we can't transfer that goodwill to a new name if we execute it properly. >> Okay, I'm dying to hear the punchline here. So, [laughter] >> how did you go about figuring out the the new name? So, you know, we you know, we talked about culture earlier, um, and shared mantras and and and how important this is to to us. Um, so we we have we have 10 core behaviors at Sanford and and across the other branches as well, but certainly like most most embraced at Sanford. And uh, one of them, which funny enough was like was voted the team's uh, top core behavior is seize the high ground, do the right thing even when not easy or profitable. and you know sees the high ground is kind a little bit of a throwback to my military background and and uh has a little bit of that flavor to it. But uh we and I mean of the 10 core behaviors I feel like we lean into that one more than any other one. Of course you know we're dealing with uh dozens of customers every day. um you know, things go ary occasionally, we have to go back out, fix stuff, do stuff for free, refund money, like where another contractor might argue with you and try to nickel and dime and and uh split hairs. Like we really lean into that, sees the high ground. >> It always surprises me that companies don't do that, that you don't lose money once in a while. So, good for you. I'm sure that's a major reason why you're successful. >> I I think so. I think it's a hu I mean I think that um that core behavior and and a few other things that go behind it operationally I think is a huge part of our growth story and our satisfied customer base and in in many ways you know it's one of those things that like you want you want to try to be able to say things that your competition is not willing to say right and for us like one of those things has been we offer a lifetime workmanship guarantee anything we touch. It's like done right or we're going to make it right and like we totally stand behind that. >> Whose lifetime the customers or yours? >> Well, [laughter] yeah. You know, I play pretty fast and loose, Jay. So, I don't know if we want to do it on my lifetime. [laughter] So, like, you know, that's very much tied into the sees the high ground core behavior and certainly something we we uh lean into every day. That all said, now that I've given a quite lengthy prelude here, our new name is High Ground Service Pros and uh it's been really cool. Like I did the reveal of that name to the team about a month ago. Just seeing like sort of like the buy in um from the team around that, you know, the fact that they had been like taking that core behavior so seriously living that and then now [clears throat] seeing it on the side of the truck. It was very cool because, you know, I was worried not just about our customers, but I was also worried about the team and if they're going to if they're going to like it, if they're going to buy into it and the uh the response was resoundingly positive. You know, you really tapped into something that I believe my 116 employees buy into, which is they feel good knowing that we're taking care of customers. Like, I feel great that I took what my grandfather taught my father, who taught me, who I taught them. I feel great about the fact that my employees get it, that they want to take care of customers, and they've been trained to take care of customers and they're proud of that. And I think that's what you've done, and I can see where they would be proud of that name because they get it. I think one of the toughest things as a technician if you're working for the wrong company that you know doesn't lean into that is you know you're standing in a basement with a homeowner with a broken furnace and you know it might have been our fault or maybe we installed it improperly and then you got to tell that customer that it's going to be another $1,500 to fix it. >> Rich, how did that name emerge? Did you have a whole long list of names that you considered? Did you test names? What happened? It was kind of cool how how it happened actually. So we, you know, we decided we were going to entertain this idea that we would change the name and my branding agency came out on site for a full day and was the uh like the creative ad writer, like the copywriter, like sort of more of the sales and operations focused um partner of the two. So they came out, spent the day with us from like 8:00 am to 10 p.m. interviewing me. um you know some of my key leaders, the rest of the team, went out to dinner really like really just immersed for a day and then they left and we stayed in like loose touch for a few weeks and and really was that that creative just kind of like stewing on what he saw while he was here and then he you know classic kind of marketing advertising um like you know pitched me on a few names And actually, you know, I went into that meeting and I was like, I hope these names suck, you know, [laughter] I hope he just I hope he just brings me [clears throat] some some names I can just shoot down. I was like, cuz if we can stick with the Sanford name, that's going to save me like 300 grand on the rebrand. [laughter] And one of the ones that he put in front of me was High Ground. And it basically just like knocked me over. >> You had me at hello. >> Yeah, I bas [laughter] I think I think verbatim. Uh, my response was, "You son of a I can't." [laughter] >> Oh, that's awesome. So cool. >> And no testing, I assumed. You just went with it. >> No, we did. Yep. We just full send. >> Yep. >> What about the legal side of it? Trademark research, that kind of stuff. >> Yeah. So, we uh early on um we did some trademark research. We uh they came up clean. We also got the uh funny enough uh highground.com was available. >> Wow. >> Are you kidding me? >> That's remarkable. [laughter] >> That is incredible. >> Yeah, that's a message from God looking out for you. >> Yeah. My my expectation was that we'd have to do something, you know, call high ground, choose high ground, seize high ground.com. >> I would think high ground service would have been available, but not just the word high ground, though. That's the remarkable part. >> Yeah. really happy with that uh with how that how that went down. Um and uh yeah, so now we we own Highground.com. That website's just recently been built out. >> So what are you doing about the formerly known as Prince? I mean, what are you doing? Are you putting formerly known as what what how are you doing that transition? >> Yeah, so we're so I'm kind of um I'm leaning into my previous experience with some of the acquisitions we've done. We have in the past acquired other local businesses and rolled them into say Sanford for instance in New Hampshire and some of those businesses were well recognized um despite being small like they were well recognized and well branded and and they had been doing radio and TV and so there was a little bit of risk in those brand transitions back then and the way we handled them was to basically quick absorption into you know the Sanford brand um as far as like operationally you know trucks rewrapped technicians in new uniforms and like full absorption um you know for the cultural benefits and for the operational benefits. So the company that we had the success with on this the company's name was Bill Trombley plumbing and heating. So, you know, if you're a longtime customer of Bill Trombley or if you're someone who is familiar with Bill Trombley and wants to use them for the first time, you're probably going to type Bill Trombbley into Google probably. So, I want to make sure that when you do that, you're not met with nothing. So, we left the website up. We left the Google business profiles up. Um, and then on the website, like on the marquee of the website, there's a photo of me and Bill shaking hands and, you know, uh, a little bit of an introduction to the partnership. And then for the first 6 months, we can track like what phone number you called to get to us. So, if you called us from a Bill Trombbley phone number, we would answer the phone as, "Thanks for calling Bill Trombbley. How may I help you?" go through the entire booking flow, book the call, and then on the end say, "Hey, you know, by the way, we're uh really excited to announce we recently partnered with another local business, Sanford, you know, so that we can get a technician out to your home quicker. It may be a Sanford or a Bill Trombbley truck coming out to your home. Is that okay with you?" Oh, yeah. No problem. That sounds good. All right, great. And that's what we did. And then we slowly kind of tapered off and just started answering the phone at Sanford over the course of a year. That worked great. And that's basically exactly what we're planning to do here. >> Where do things stand? H how far along in the process are you? >> So we did we did the internal reveals, you know, just about a month ago and then started really working towards the public launch. We started um introducing the rebrand publicly on social media uh about 10 days ago, roughly two weeks ago. And then just yesterday we did like a full public launch. So, right now there's like billboards up, radio spots live. We did a uh full email blast to the customer list announcing the rebrand. And uh so we're we're basically 36 hours into this rebrand at this point into the public launch. >> Rich, can you tell us what this whole thing is going to cost you? It's uh you know, every rock I turn over is another couple thousand bucks, >> but uh it looks like it's going to be about a half a million dollars to get the whole thing done. >> Wow. [clears throat] So less than you spent on Sanford, >> right? >> Yeah. >> But that's can be amvertised over. It's not like it's a one shot. It's you're going to have to bet from this for the next 10 years. >> Rich, I'm curious about one other aspect of this. Can you estimate do you know to what extent you are competing with private equitybacked businesses in your various markets? >> Yeah, it um it varies by market. So like for instance, the branch where I first got started um which is like uh coastal New Jersey like the Jersey Shore that is uh it's a red ocean down there with PE. like almost pretty much any company. I can't really think of a single company down there that is my size or larger at this point that is not owned by private equity. Um, it was only companies that are smaller than us that are independent, >> which means in about two or three years, you're going to get some people giving you some serious offers, which you probably thought of this that by doing this, you're going to get back those advertising dollars a hundred times because your company's going to be so much more valuable being branded as one big >> if he sells it, but hopefully he won't sell it to private equity. >> No, my point is given that I'm 69, I I I now understand something I never used to think of. You can't do this forever. So, one day someone's going to pay you a fortune for having all these branded things together. >> Yeah. One day after we've achieved all of our aims and and all that, maybe maybe we'll think about it. But I wonder about another aspect of this, Rich, which is I hear that there's some backlash against private equityowned businesses that customers don't necessarily uh love big companies coming in from outside of town and buying up their local favorites. Are you at all concerned and through this process were you at all concerned that by you know adopting this larger brand putting it on all of your uh locations and you know in some ways doing things that look like you're professionalizing your whole operation? Not that it wasn't professional bore, but are you at all concerned that you're giving off a a PE vibe that some customers might think you've been bought by somebody and uh that they're not going to get the care that they got before? >> You know, it's interesting because cuz we had like at Sanford for instance, we had really professionalized that company even under the Sanford name. Um and you know the trucks they had the Sanford name on them but they they looked good. Um they looked good. They look clean. Um, you know, the texts were in nice uniforms. So, like, we kind of I think you could have confused us for private equity then as well, which often happens, you know, a private equity company that's that's masquerading as like a family-owned company because it's got the founders's name on it. And I think part of the friction that I felt, of course, I'm not private equity, but I am someone who acquired the business, right? My I have equity in the business and it is private. And I always there was a little bit of friction for me for for a few years and I I ultimately got over it, but there was definitely friction where I felt like I had to hide behind the brand. Um because like mine my last name's not Sanford and like why does this guy own the company? Um who is this guy? >> What do you mean by hiding behind the brand? Does he mean you didn't want to put your face forward? >> Yeah. Like I was hesitant to tell people that I was the owner, that my name's Rich Jordan and I'm the owner of the company >> versus letting him think a guy named Sanford owns it and he's in a desk somewhere, which is what I would think if I saw a name on a truck. I'd assume there's a guy named Sanford sitting in an office somewhere making sure his guys are going out on time, >> right? Yeah. I mean, you'd like to tell this story of like striving entrepreneur, you know, good story, all that stuff. Um, but people will see you like, oh, he acquired the business. He's like he's an investor, you know. >> He's not a plumber, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So, uh there was a little bit of friction there. I feel like even though we are more pol, you know, to Lawrence question, uh even though we may look more polished, um and certainly uh a more deliberate brand aesthetic. It's my brand now. And it also like it speaks to my background and like what I believe in and and tells the customer a little bit about what we stand for and what they can expect from us. Like for instance, the radio spots that went live on the radio yesterday, they're spoken by me. So like they they are me on the radio talking about what's valuable to us and what we care about and what our values are. So, I think you bring up a good point, Lauren, but I think the fact that we changed the name to something that reflects our values and reflects a little bit of my background um and philosophy, I think negates that. >> If not negates it, it certainly counteracts it. I I there will certainly be some people that'll want to deal with with Mr. Sanford, but to your point, you got a good story to tell now, so I think it will more than make up for it. And I think this is the real like what Lauren just brought up is like this is the real reason why taking the Sanford name and putting it across all three branches just in a big you know kind of like uh big brother takeover um would have been the wrong move because we would not have gained the ability to like lean into the brand and the brand story. I mean basically like what really would differentiate us from private equity other than we just have less cash you know. [laughter] Uh so I think that would have been a big mistake and I and I think we would have we would have looked like private equity entering the market and it would have been difficult for us to convince people otherwise. >> So what you're saying I think if I hear you right is the difference between that putting Sanford on all the locations versus what you did is really a matter of authenticity. It it's your story. So you're rebranding everywhere. It is different, but it's a real story. Does that make sense to you, Sean? >> Yeah. So, I think it's a great move. And honestly, I'd say lean in even harder, man. You know, like in coming years, as there's more and more awareness of what private equity does to price, experience, quality, I think customers are going to start to look more for brands that actually say, "No, we are not owned by private equity." >> Rich, what are we going to talk about when you come back next year? >> Oh, man. Uh, well, hopefully we're not talking about how I blew up my company and brand. >> I don't think so. [laughter] I have to tell you what you've your whole process. Really impressive. Good for you. Great instincts. Everything makes perfect sense. Really, hats off to you. >> I appreciate that. I do. >> All right. My thanks to Sean Busy, Jay Goltz, and Rich Jordan. Thanks for sharing all of you. I do appreciate it. One thing before you go. 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