Google search is changing. AI is changing how homeowners find contractors. And the marketing strategies that worked just two years ago aren't enough anymore.
In this episode of Owned and Operated, John Wilson sits down with Service Scalers CEO Sam Preston to break down what's actually working in HVAC marketing in 2026. From AI search and Google Business Profile optimization to Meta, Reddit, Yelp, and content marketing, they discuss where home service companies should be investing and where they're wasting money.
They also dive into rising lead costs, why many HVAC companies are struggling this year, and the marketing playbook operators should follow to stay ahead as search continues to evolve.
Whether you're trying to generate more calls today or prepare your business for the next wave of AI-driven search, this episode is packed with practical strategies you can implement immediately.
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In This Episode:
• Why Google and AI search are changing home service marketing
• The biggest marketing opportunities heading into 2026
• Why Google Business Profile is still the highest ROI channel
• How AI is reshaping SEO and content strategy
• Why Meta and social content are becoming more valuable than ever
• The growing importance of Yelp, Reddit, and other high-authority platforms
• The marketing metrics every contractor should track weekly
• The biggest mistakes HVAC companies are making today
• How to prepare your business for the future of AI-powered search
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🔗 CONNECT
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John Wilson → https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbwilson1/
Sam Preston → https://www.linkedin.com/in/sampreston/ (update if needed)
Owned and Operated → https://www.ownedandoperated.com
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💰 SPONSORS
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Comfort Connect
Turn one installation into years of repeat business with Comfort Connect. Give homeowners flexible payment options, stay connected after the job, and create new recurring revenue opportunities. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4wGXqSX
Yelp
Looking for more qualified leads beyond Google? See how contractors are using Yelp to reach homeowners who are ready to book and diversify their lead generation. Learn more: https://business.yelp.com/campaign/ownedandoperated/
We're talking about the ultimate guide to HPC marketing in 2026.
What's working, what's not working. Things are changing in 2026. There's a lot of competition in the space. You have to be good.
For the most part, there's a lot of companies down year to date. That's why. Like, what do you think of content marketing?
It's more important than ever because this is like the moment to do it.
Because social is driving the bus.
I think it's gonna become more and more important for you to have really good content. Your reviews that you get is going to matter more and more.
Hey, AI search is starting to be real. Socials are a big opportunity. I feel like that's like the summary of our 2026. That and I think that welcome back to owned and operated a top 200 business and entrepreneurship podcast. I'm your host, John Wilson, and on this show, we talk about how to grow your home service company and the things that we're doing and experimenting inside my own home service company in Ohio. Today I'm joined by my good friend Sam Preston, the CEO of Service Scalers. And today we're talking about the ultimate guide to HVAC marketing in 2026. What's working, what's not working. Sam, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me. I'm pumped about this episode. Uh, got some stuff. Excited to talk, excited to get through uh all the different things you can do from a marketing standpoint. And uh yeah, let's do it. Let's get in the nitty-gritty.
Hell yeah. This is continuing our conversation. Uh, we've been calling this series Clicks to calls, uh, where we've really like broken out a ton of different aspects of marketing inside home service. It's really one of the most frequently asked things we get is how do I market more? How do I drive more leads? Like, how do we grow? So this is just a continuation of that series. Um and what we're really trying to answer today is if you were starting an HVAC company today, where would you spend your first marketing dollar? So that's sort of our prompt that we're running from um today. Now, before we get dive too deep into the content, Sam, I gotta I'm gonna bore you for a sec. We are our new, our next breaking five is in September. If you've been listening to the show, we have uh been running a breaking five series of workshops for a while. Now, this one's unique, this one's different, and we're pretty excited. We're bringing tons of operators, far larger than our uh normal Breaking Five group, to Northeast Ohio September 15th through the 18th. And we're really throwing like a mini conference here in Northeast Ohio. So we're gonna be sharing practical systems, leadership lessons, behind the scenes shop tour walkthroughs of Wilson. We're gonna be having awesome speakers join us and share their journey of growing their business. Uh, so make sure you click the link in the description below. We're gonna be talking about it a bunch.
I'm actually going to be there. Uh, I've been told uh that I'm invited and I can come and I can talk about marketing. So uh yeah, I hope I hope this is the catalyst for so many different companies that uh that are looking to grow and don't know how to uh to make that leap.
Yeah, yeah, I I hope so too. And I think we're gonna have uh like some of the speakers that were starting to line up are pretty awesome. It's a bunch of like mid-eight figures and nine-figure entrepreneurs that are like going to be talking about their journey from like 10 to 100 million or you know, wherever they are today. So it's gonna be a really great group.
That's happening.
That's happening. Yeah, I'm pumped. Um, okay, so let's run
this. State of HVAC marketing in 2026. What do we think? How are we doing?
Yeah, I mean, it things are changing in 2026 faster than pretty much any year ever. Uh your CPLs are getting way more expensive uh in LSA and PPC, uh, you know, compared to what it was two years ago, it's it's getting to double.
And that means cost per lead.
Yes, thank you. Your cost per lead, uh, which just means that a couple things. One, it's harder to enter the market now than it was two years ago. Uh, and two, you have to be way better at handling those leads. Uh, they have to be way more valuable. You can't just uh be flippant about your speed to lead or how you handle that phone call. You can't just let something get to uh a missed phone call and uh not give somebody a really good experience because they're just gonna find somebody else. Um, there's a lot of competition in the space. You have to be good. Um and so there's a it's very different from again two years ago and how you would enter the space.
Google keeps getting more expensive and affiliate leads are getting worse. And somehow you're paying more for fewer lower quality leads, and that's pretty much the game right now. So here's something that most operators are missing Yelp. I know what you're thinking, but Yelp is way more than just a restaurant rating app. Last year, over 125 million home service leads were generated on Yelp, and almost 50 million homeowners are searching there every single month. Here's the real kicker though. Their data powers answers across ChatGPT, Google AI, Apple Maps, and Alexa, basically everywhere people are searching before they even know your company name. So instead of fighting over the same expensive Google clicks, you're showing up where customers are actually discovering and deciding who to hire. One company fused service out in the Bay Area, HVAC Plumbing Electrical, does 20 million a year from Yelp alone. They're closing 75% of their Yelp leads, and about 70% of their entire customer base comes from the platform. So if you're serious about leveling up your Legion, go to business.yelp.com slash owned and operated and book a call. Yeah. No, I agree. I think um what I've seen too, it's been pretty interesting. I'm curious how people's uh junes are going, but we're we're actually uh well I'll I'll talk more about this. I've talked about this a few times, but we're doing this like uh project, we're calling it huge. And it's basically uh something that I find really interesting is I'm in all these group chats with all these entrepreneurs, and everyone's just like, hey, how'd your month go? How'd your month go? How'd your month go? And uh like for the most part, uh HVAC has really struggled again in 2026, very similar to how it felt in 2025. Like that's just sort of like what I'm seeing from friends all over the country. Uh, but the reason I bring up my like little like project is we're what we're doing is we're combining service tightened data to get aggregate information from around the country from all these different businesses that we're connecting to. So it's gonna have things like close rate, average ticket, like revenue, like revenue to budget, and uh like per region per market per company. And it's really it's starting to get kind of interesting because we're just like starting to see more information uh as people like start hooking up their their uh CRM. So uh so I basically I agree with you. And then the the other big thing that I'm seeing, just because we're starting to see more data, is HVAC is struggling. Um not like struggling like crazy, but for the most part, there's a lot of companies down year to date. Uh so it's just not having a big banner year. Uh so we'll see how June goes.
The other thing we're seeing in meta right now, which is super interesting, is uh cost per lead is going down, um, while lead volume is going up. Um and so this is interesting mix. I think a couple things what's happening right now is because of the way AI is working and people can just create graphics at an accelerated rate. I think a lot more graphics are getting into the market and we're just testing a lot more, a lot faster, but a lot of people are doing that. Um, and so I think what's happening is we're seeing us significantly more people actually working in uh meta, um, which I think is driving the lead quality down a little bit, but you're getting more leads from Meta. Um and so, which is super interesting. Um, and it'll it'll be interesting to see how this goes. Because it will used to be, I mean, a lot since everyone's using Meta and this, you know, AI generate images, you're starting to see like you're starting to like pick up, like, yeah, that was made by AI kind of uh feeling. Uh, and everyone's using roughly the same thing. Um, and so it'll be interesting to see like how that continues to go. Um, but it's not as simple as like we were just significantly better than uh another company at image generation because everyone's using roughly the same thing. So I think uniqueness, I think videos are still one of those things that um, you know, obviously AI is a part of uh video creation now uh in meta, but I think people still haven't like mastered that. Um, and so I think that is going to become more important as we keep going. Um, and it's also interesting to see how like people are connecting their clots directly into uh Facebook. We are very careful with that because of how Facebook is really quick to suspend accounts, so we really don't want to do that as much. Um so we're being really careful with that. That's interesting. Um, but still, um Yeah, I didn't have socials on here, but that's a good one.
Yeah, I feel like socials is becoming there there's a few, um, at least what I'm noticing. We just had the we just had somebody from Yelp on the show a couple weeks ago, and um she was talking about how Yelp, and what I suspect is Yelp, Thumbtack, Angie's, all those guys, have become the big they're they're like benefiting pretty big, I think, from the sort of AI search boom where they're taking on more lead volume because they're being referred it. Whereas I don't think that Claude or ChatGPT is referring that to Google where historically we would have searched. So it it'll be interesting because I think like my quick take is the Google business profile is still like the maximum thing that you could be doing. Uh, but I think social and all these other lead gen channels are becoming more important because more search volume is going there away from what used to be on Google.
Yes, um, I would 100% agree. Um, mostly because of the domain authority on uh those different sites, think like Reddit and Yelp and things like that. People are like, yeah, when the AI is searching this, they're taking into um consideration like all these different platforms um and pulling that into hey, this is now what we want to show you from an AI perspective. Um, and like stuff like we're starting to see uh Instagram and Facebook posts show up in your Google Business profile. So making sure like your account is connected, which I know we have a whole episode coming up about that. That's interesting. Um like keeping that connected so that you can uh, you know, again, getting more data. So like diving into socials is going to become more important. Like it used to be just like this thing you did for uh just um brand authority, uh, but I think it's actually going to start helping you grow your Google business profile uh and rank better. Um, but also just like how searches are changing, and I think it's going to continue to change. So when we're thinking of like an HVAC company entering the market and wanting to grow, um, I think there's a big opportunity in GBP, um, which is funny because like we've always said that, but like still I think that that is like one of the best places you can start because of how much it's changing. Some of these bigger companies are gonna struggle to be able to change as quickly as it is. So it's just a great place to like go and own. And same with SEO. Um, SEO is wildly different now, and it's gonna be even different more different in 12 months because of the amount of content that's getting pushed right now. Uh, because you can't push out content faster, um, it's becoming compressed. But also, people aren't doing it well. They think they are, but they're not. Um, and so again, there's just like this opportunity to get into SEO right now, whereas 12 months online, I don't know if how I don't know how different it's going to be or how much harder it's going to be because these companies are going to catch up onto the the right actions uh and techniques to show up in there. So I think this is a really unique time to push into both of those um those marketing channels.
All right, so GBP still fundamental, still highest ROI. Totally agreed. Um I think starting to care about some of your other profiles as far as ranking, we haven't personally cared a ton, but I think they're getting dragged into AI search more and more, so I think you should care about them. Um and then photos, post, and responsiveness. I think we've talked about that a lot, but like it's supposed to be we just had uh big reputation on, and it's it's like two photos a week. I don't remember how many posts, and I think you want to respond quickly. Uh but like those do count as far as like how to react. So for SEO, I mean GBP is kind of a big part of SEO, right? Uh but SEO, your take is that Yelp, Angie, all those guys have high like strong SEO, high domain authority, so they're showing up in AI search more, and that makes sense to me. So that would make SEO still worth like pursuing, which I think for a lot of people is a question mark. Like, is is it is it worth it or not? Um yeah, it seems worth it. Now I do I thought I heard that Google was getting rid of like search, like their conventional search. Am I is was I right about that? They're like going to like chat GPT base search.
Yeah, like right now, if you go to like Google to search, you can select the AI overview. Um Google has made the comment that within the next uh by the end of the year, that's gonna be the main mode. Like you you can still go to search, but like their main mode will be the AI overview. Um, I don't know how true that is. I think you know Google has slow played this a little bit compared to other searches, chat, um, or you know, uh perplexity or something like that. But um, yeah, I think that is the near future. Um, so where you would go, hey, I want to I've got a keyword, uh, HVAC near me, and we want to rank for that. That is still obviously going to be true today, 2027, 2028. That's still going to be true. But we're also going to start looking at the queries that chat is the long tail keywords, which is no longer long tail, it's like long, long tail keywords. Um, and like all the ways people are like communicating uh in chat and they're writing query, you know, answers to those questions um in a way that AI can pick up. So we don't we we definitely want our blog style the same, but we want to make sure that there are like quick, like, oh, here's the answer to that one question, uh, and how Google can take that question, answer it. Um, and then obviously hopefully people click on that and go to your site uh to get more information.
Yeah, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. What do you think about Google Ads? Like PPC, like working, not working, 2026.
Yeah, I mean Google Ads is still working. Um, and it's actually one of the things that, you know, LSA continues to the CP uh cost per lead continues to go up. And so we're seeing people use Google Ads to drive that cost per lead down because you have way more control over it. Um, I wonder if uh, you know, and this is just my hypothesis is that Google Ads will become simpler to run. Um maybe like uh like an LSA, um that you know you're running. I can see it completely going away and changing at some point. Again, because the only place Google Ads is happening is within uh the old search. Like that's not happening within uh or as much in your your AI overviews, but that like that will be the place to be.
Well, it's about to have to happen because I know Chat GPT just opened up advertising, right? Right. Right. So like it'll be interesting to see how they do it. Because I mean, my expectation would be however they decide to do it is whatever happens with uh um like Google.
The other one I'm I'm interested in is Reddit ads. Like so far that that's never been like a thing, but I wonder if you're running Reddit ads, um, if that will help you in the AI search. Um I don't think so yet.
Yeah, Reddit is really Reddit's interesting. I I would I would say that like uh this feels ridiculous, but Reddit has become my app of choice as far as like I actually don't have any of the other ones on my phone, but like, and it's just because it shows up so consistently in my search of like this exact question was asked in this Reddit thread, so then I just end up on Reddit. And um no, I agree with you. I I think it's kind of interesting. I made that observation to someone the other day of just like a year ago, I was never on Reddit, and now I'm on Reddit every day because whatever I search sends me to Reddit, which which I think I'm sure there's a lot of bots and stuff on there, but I do think something that I currently believe about Reddit is like a lot of it for the moment is still human. So like it is like someone answered this question, whereas you don't really know if someone answered this question anywhere else on the internet.
Like one of the things I'm looking at doing is like so you go to like a Reddit form, and maybe someone's like looked for uh, hey, does anybody have any uh HVAC companies in this area that they would recommend? Yeah. Um, you can pull that, you know, you go to that URL, you and uh at the very end of it, you hit dot JSON uh and pull on that JSON file down, throw it that into your AI of choice, and then start creating answers to all of those questions, all those uh, you know, things that people are uh talking about, and then throw that on your blog, uh, throw that on your website. So again, when AI is searching for answers to his question, like you have these. Um, and I also have this idea, and obviously, this is you know, please somebody go take this and run with it. We haven't done it yet. But I love the idea of you know on TikTok, you know how you have stitches. So somebody will like say a question and then you'll answer it. And that's just like the style of uh reactions uh type of content. I love this idea where you have a Reddit post, and in your answer to that, you're literally linking back to that Reddit post with it in, and like, hey, I want to answer this question on my blog to this Reddit post, kind of like a stitch, yeah. Uh, and just see how well that performs. Again, haven't done it yet, but someone take that and run with it and
tell me how that goes.
So that's sort of like next one, like content marketing. You feel like becoming more important, less important. Like, what do you think in content marketing?
I think it's it's more important than ever. Again, because this is like the moment to do it. Um is driving the bus. Social is gonna be driving the bus. It is gonna be interesting. As a marketing company, I don't I don't know how we will hand that, handle that. Um, because in the past we really haven't dealt with social socials. Like our whole stick has been like, right we're gonna turn, you know, organic traffic, people that are looking for intent, people that are looking for your services already into uh clients uh or into leads for you. Um but now that's like that's that is a part of the equation. And so we're even looking at like, oh well, how do we get into that game? Um, because it like its whole ecosystem is all driving uh whether you show up in those answers uh and whether you get those leads. So um yeah, it's I think it's gonna become more and more important for you to have really good content, unique content, uh, because everyone is just, oh, I want to just uh show up so I can just throw you know a hundred pages within the next couple weeks. Um but then like Google's reading that and they're indexing it and they're going, well, you literally just copy and pasted this answer from these four blogs. So why do I need to show your content up versus these four blogs? And so what you have to do is you have to make that content unique. Um, and so creating all those questions and then creating your own unique answer to those questions uh so that when Google is reading your content, they're like, oh, this is this is different, this is interesting. Okay, cool. I would show this.
How are you thinking about brand building versus like Legion? Because most of our stuff so far, I guess content marketing would be brand building now. But how are you feeling about that?
Yeah, I think it's gonna be interesting how that goes. Um, I think your brand's gonna matter, your reputation's gonna really matter. Uh, I think we've talked about this a lot, but like your reviews that you get is going to matter more and more. They're going to influence how everyone is marketing. You know, one of the things you can do now is pretty easily find the gap of what's going to resonate with your clients or your, your, your audience. So uh taking your the reviews that are being left on all your competition, all of your uh reviews, the negative, the good, the bad, and finding the specific things people are saying and communicating to you uh about what they like and they don't like, and then leveraging that as your offer, um, I think is. Super interesting. And so I think your brand, the way you look and feel, uh, is going to matter. Uh, and then the copy, uh, how you are creating offers that resonate with your audience is gonna matter. So uh I think brands that are doing that early on now, which like I know you're saying, hey, HVAC has had like kind of a tough summer and it's been like two years of that. Um, but like I think if you don't do those things in two years, you're gonna look back and go, oh man, we really messed that up, um, versus getting in that now and and investing in that now. I think it's gonna be, I think you're gonna be able to take take space. It's kind of like, you know, TikTok didn't exist and then it became a thing, and people were like, oh, well, it's just another app, and suddenly it's a major player in how people are driving traffic and how brands are growing. Um, I think this is kind of that opportunity uh in the same way.
I feel like uh the companies that I know that are struggling the hardest are the ones that their brand budget is greater than 50% of their marketing. Um they're just not driving leads. So I think I would be thoughtful about that as you think about like brand versus lead gen. I think the answer is uh probably some version of both. Um, but I think it should be like 70% leads, 30% brand, or something like that. Uh maybe even greater to leads.
Yeah, I mean, specifically
early on, like you're starting an HVAC company, like you need leads. That's the main thing you need, is phone calls. So that's where I'd be spending.
I'm even talking about big businesses. Like I know guys in the mid-eight figure range that big budget going towards brand every year, and it's just doesn't it's not moving their needle. Yeah. So I don't know what they're gonna do about it, but I think they need to pivot over to more leads.
Well, we were talking about this, like how everyone has like a wrapped truck, and that's just like table stakes now, but like it's no longer no longer made you special. Uh and so I that's it's just going like content now is literally like that doesn't make you special anymore. Like everyone has content. Um, and so continuing to find things that differentiate you is going to be important, but also like just focusing on what is driving you uh leads, uh, and then ultimately getting that review, that five-star review, um is so important. So making sure you have a good review system and making sure that you are um focusing your budget on what actually drives you leads, yeah, uh is more and more important. Um, so yeah, 100%.
Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway uh from this so far has been socials, which I I agree. I think I told you this the other day. I'm finding more and more businesses, and I feel like they're kind of sleepers, but they've blown up out of nowhere, and socials has been the driver. Uh like mid-8 figures, this is a nine-figure business where they're growing like 30% year over year and have been for five years. Meta is their primary channel. Yeah, it's wild. And um, yeah, it's it's a pretty it's pretty interesting to like watch. It's pretty interesting to watch. So I think I think you're right. Socials is becoming the larger uh play every day.
Yeah, I saw this the other day where Meta is now allowing you to pay for organic reach. Um, so it's not an ad. Oh, yeah, what's that? You're not trying to drive leads, you're you're literally just trying to get people to like and engage with your content, trying to build that audience. Um, which obviously, if you're a different type of product, that might like work better. So I haven't seen anyone in the HVAC space yet play around with that. Um would love to know if anybody's doing that. Throw that in the comments.
So that's sort is that sort of like just impression marketing? Like you're just driving more impressions?
Is that yeah. Impressions, likes, um, audiences. Now, the question will be like, how does that influence your your rankings organic uh or organically? Like, does the fact that you have a post that has 10,000 views and you know a thousand likes, like does that actually influence your ability to show up when someone's looking for a good reputable HVAC company near me? I don't know yet. This is such a new um new thing going on. Uh I I gotta imagine it does. Um and so I know you just said, hey, don't spend too much money on your brand, but like that one feels like an interesting test, specifically if you have the budget for it, um, to see how that goes. And again, like Reddit, like those are the type of things that I want to yeah, there's just so many things changing right now, like so many opportunities that you know a couple years ago it's just like, hey, just do your SEO, just do your GPP, just do your LSA, just do your PPC. You'll you'll grow with just these factors. Now there's a lot of opportunities that people haven't even touched and are not thinking about that could influence how you rank on all of those.
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I totally agree.
Um, what are the marketing metrics that you think owners should be paying attention to? Like what should we be watching every week?
I mean, uh, how many phone calls are you getting? How many leads? Uh that's got like that's always that. And then how many of those are turning into uh booked appointments? Um, because ultimately that's the the the two metrics that you know from a marketing standpoint matter. Did you get leads? Did those turn into appointments? And then ultimately, like at the end of it, did you make uh a return off of that? Um and so those are still the three that I would continue to to look at.
Homeowners want your services, but they do need a better way to pay for it. And I'm hearing more and more contractors talking about Comfort Connect. Comfort Connect gives your team access to powerful payment options all in one place. It includes traditional financing, lease-to-own options, and their premiere program, which bundles everything from equipment, maintenance, and covered repairs with ongoing support all wrapped into one predictable monthly payment for the customer. Contractors using the platform are seeing higher close rates, bigger average sales, and stronger long-term customer retention because homeowners stay connected to their brand long after installs. So stop treating financing like an afterthought and start using payment options your customers need as a part of your sales strategy. We um I think I've talked about this on here, the stuff that we look at. If you have the capability, uh so we look at yeah, number of calls, book rate, number of outbound calls, um, and then for every lead channel, we have this like ROI spreadsheet that lets us track number of leads from that channel, how many did we book, how many did we sell, how many canceled. Uh, that's actually kind of an important one. Um, how much revenue came from that, like how much sales, how much revenue? And then oh, I think cost per lead's on there too. But honestly, I don't know that we cared that much about that. And then we have uh ROI at the end. So just like, okay, how much did we spend on this channel? Uh, and then what was ROI? Uh so that that's been the big one for us. I think um I would just be careful on the cost per lead. I've said this on here before, but like cost per lead is a part of the equation, but the most important part of the equation is is the channel profitable? Um cost per lead is only one number. Uh that's like saying one plus one equals or one plus x equals, and you like you're missing a part of the equation, so you gotta have it all. Any dashboards people are like using? We're like uh we're trying to figure out we we start we've been using Google stuff and we started using Claude to build like an automated thing. It connected to Google, which is kind of cool, but I don't know how to like I don't know. I I think there's just a lot. So, anyways, we manually attribute everything and we manually track everything, which is a lot. I think it's two full-time people now. So we're trying to like figure out how to smash it smash it together. Any anything you can think of?
Well, I guess my question to you would be you you guys are using Service Titan. Um is there is that the layer that you are using for attribution, or do you have anything between that to help with attribution?
I don't know. I know we have what converts, but I think that's just for our website and uh I don't know.
Yeah, I mean I think like you're talking about having like a person in there. The only thing is, I think a voca's in the middle. Yeah. Yeah.
Um I think I think like we get a lead from an aggregator, it goes through a voca, it hits service titan. So a voca's in the middle, and I think that's a big part of the attribution process. I'll ask. I'm curious now.
Yeah, you should. I mean, the only other thing I would just really encourage you to do is making sure that that all that data is readable by AI. Yeah. Um and in your system, because ultimately what's going to happen within the next couple of years is you're just going to have that data layer uh with all that information, and you're going to have uh AI agents in there that are telling you what's going on. Um, and so uh you want to make sure that all of it is being read within a database um that is uh all centralized. So whether that information's in your conversion apps or your service titan or your LSA, wherever that is, it's centralized in its own database that can be read uh by AI because you're gonna want to be able to send something in there and go, hey, we are having a way too high of cost per leads with not enough booked appointments, what's going on? Um, and it needs to be able to read that data. Um so making sure that your all of your data lives inside of some sort of AI system uh to be read.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Uh all right, what
are some big common mistakes that you're seeing right now in 2026? My big one, I think, is like overemphasizing branding spend like radio TV. I'm sure there's someone out there that's absolutely killing it, doing it, but I think you got to do a mix. Um, I feel like 6040 or 7030 or something like that's a good mix, a friendly mix.
Yeah, I mean, I think that um big mistakes are obviously just the not worrying about AI search yet, uh, or doing AI or search uh SEO in the same traditional way uh that it's been done is obviously uh a big mistake. Um not doing Google Business Profile uh content, like we see this all the time, where people are losing rank uh and they're like, Well, what's going on? And it's like, you're not posting. Um and you know, that that is posting on your Google business profile or posting in uh your socials. Um, I think those are obviously just like it's it's becoming table stakes that you need to be to do that uh and not just to grow, but to like maintain because other people are doing it. And this is like if you're entering the market, you want to take advantage of this. This is the type of stuff that you can do uh is posting regularly. Um, you know, I think a lot of our clients, um, a lot of our clients have figured out like unique, you know, images matter. Um but um also we we get a lot of clients that are uh still won't give us images, you know, and so they're like, oh, just create your own image. Um and the problem with that is like everything is searchable now. And so like it's not unique content. The more unique, the more real it is, uh, the better.
So like the the big mistake you're saying, you're seeing is like just sitting on your hands. So like, hey, there's change happening and like we're not chasing it.
Yeah, and then and you know, for a lot of clients, like we will they're like, hey, we're not gonna give you images. So we have to go create that. And so your your two choices are AI image or stock image. And uh AI image is uh I think slightly better than stock because it's not used by everybody else. Everyone, yeah. But like the next layer is that like raw, super ugly, poor lighting uh picture of the HVAC system. Uh that's like this is what it looked like, and now this is it. And it's kind of like the uglier, the messier, the more real and gritty it is, the kind of like the better it performs because yeah, it's flooded with AI. Um but yeah, I think that's a it's a mistake. And so we, you know, we let our clients know, hey, like you could get better results if we could get this. Um, and some people are just too busy. And that that makes sense, right? Like something is better than nothing. Um, but I think that that's just one of those things where it should be in your SOPs where your techs are seeing this and they're taking pictures. Um, even if you don't get the job, right? Like your tech's out there looking at problems. Uh, a simple here's a picture of this, and here's a comment about what is breaking. Uh, because then people when people are searching, hey, I have this issue with my HVAC system, Chat GBT, walk me through it. Okay, well, now it's pulling this content from uh John's tech that was out at another site with the same exact HVAC. Um, I don't know the name, it's H-E-I-C Hike. Is that how you say it? Like I hike system, uh, correct me. Uh, and this is the issue that they fixed. Oh, this is it. Oh, okay. Well, like obviously I need to get somebody out here. I'm already looking at the information from uh the Wilson company's uh, you know, uh comments. I'm just gonna have them come and help me out because they've obviously already done this problem.
What do you think? Uh I guess like closing this out the rest of the year sounds like just to summarize, we're gonna be focusing on like, hey, AI search is starting to be real. Google's prepping to look like Chat GPT, so you know we got to optimize for more AI search, even through Google. Um ad spend's gonna potentially get wonky. Socials are a big opportunity, which I agree. Uh take advantage of the fringe uh like things that AI references, so like Reddit, socials, Yelp, Angie's, like make sure your profiles look good, you're getting reviews everywhere, and don't sit on your hands. I feel like that's like the summary of our 2026 marketing.
That and I think that PPC still works, you know. I I think that you still continue to push money in that. Um, you know, it it will change.
I I but I wonder if it'll be more effective inside like a chat GPT search style. It it's gonna be interesting to see a redesigned Google with ads, you know? Like we've we've had the same Google for 20 years. Like it'll be interesting to see a new like what's this gonna look like?
Yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways this could go. Um, I think it's gonna become more real. So someone searches for a, hey, my HVIVAC system uh is breaking. How do I fix this? Okay, so Chad GPT gives you an answer um and says, hey, based off of the, you know, let me let me talk you through something. What's wrong with this? Okay, then my thermostat's you know not working, or you know, it walks you through the processes. Okay, well, then this is the answer. And if you want, you can book a book an appointment with the Wilson company right here in this paid ad, and they'll come check it out for you. But like, because of all this information that's already be g been given, like your tech is gonna be walking in with like photos that the person is taking, like, hey, this is my uh, you know, yeah, I don't know what to call it, you're gonna laugh, but like my thing is frozen over. Okay, I figured it out because I've unscrewed it and get somebody out here. Or obviously, a lot of people aren't gonna jump in their attic to figure out how their HVAC system uh is actually working. Um, so like I I think there's gonna be a lot more like I have an actual issue, the answer is provided. So from from a content or from an ads perspective, we might have to figure out oh, these are the questions people are asking where we want to show up in these ads, and it can't just be like the normal ad. Like it's gonna be this is the actual answer, and we can come fix it. You just book an appointment right here.
Yeah, we we bought a business last week, and it's kind of a another one, it's kind of a funny business, yeah. And uh literally another one. Uh it was our fourth one this year. Yeah, I know, I know. And I I think we're gonna do six this year. Like, I think that's what we're pacing for. We might even do seven. Um so yeah, so we anyways, we bought this one and they were kind of they were kind of a funny one because they were almost the exact opposite. Now, granted, they haven't grown. So, like that's the trade-off is you have you know, no growth at all, zero growth in five years, like same revenue five years. But um what is really interesting is like they've produced strong profit for five years. They spend zero dollars on marketing, which is like again, no growth. So, like there's the trade-off, but they also they're busier than hell. It is kind of wild, and I it's because I I I intellectually know that's not scalable. Like you need at you need like and they haven't scaled, so like no, you know, duh. Uh but it it's just it's funny to watch compared to like what you know is real versus like what you can see in front of your face. Like, I know that this isn't scalable, they know it's but yet at the end of the day, like it's still millions of dollars a year going through this business that like has never marketed once ever, and it's just like printing with a 30-day backlog for service. Like, it's like it's funny. It's funny. So I don't know. I think uh I almost wonder if there's gonna become like a K-shaped like version of home service where like one is like very tech enabled, and like I bet you can start growing nine-figure home service businesses faster than ever. Uh like, hey, you should take 10 years, and now it takes five or three or whatever. And uh so I bet that's going to be real. And I bet there's also businesses that like do absolutely nothing, and they're just like owned by like a boomer and they're just still printing. Uh I don't know. It'll it'll be funny to watch. It'll be funny to watch.
Yeah, I mean, my hot take on all this is that AI is going to create a lot more millionaires, um, and it's going to be harder to actually scale. But like the the Joe that wants to just, you know, run all his business um through um you know AI is going to be able to get to a million dollars, um, but is going to also uh struggle to get past that. Um, which is you know, for people that want to buy businesses and help those people scale it. That's a phenomenal opportunity. Um but yeah, I think I think that is going to create a lot more millionaires. Yeah, I think so too.
Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on today.
My pleasure. Uh I'm excited to see where this goes. You'll have to keep us updated on that that business goes. Don't just leave us hanging.
All right. If you like what you heard, make sure you like and sub. Thanks, y'all.
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