Transforming Your Remodeling Business: Insights from Digital Marketing Guru Dennis Yu

In this episode of the Remodeler Digital Playbook Podcast, Dennis Yu, a digital marketing titan and analytics expert, joins us to share his game-changing strategies.
This episode is packed with practical advice on content creation, ad targeting, and reputation management, tailored for remodeling contractors. Tune in for marketing tips to elevate your local SEO game.

📌 KEY MOMENTS:

- 4:05: The impact of social media on your business’s existing strengths.
- 12:32: Strategies to dominate in SEO.
- 20:58: Golden advice for young business ventures.
- 24:39: Common digital marketing pitfalls for remodelers.
- 31:02: Insights into Dennis Yu’s productivity techniques.

🌟 What You'll Learn:
- ACTIONABLE TIPS for remodeling contractors to boost their digital presence.
- INSIGHTS into Facebook ads and Dennis's unique marketing approach.

💡 As a former Yahoo engineer and the brain behind BlitzMetrics and YourContentFactory, Dennis brings a blend of technical and marketing wisdom.

🔨 Essential listening for remodeling contractors seeking to advance their digital marketing strategies.

🎧 Tune in now to transform your approach to digital marketing!

Check out Dennis Yu’s book 👉 The Definitive Guide to TikTok Advertising: How to Access 1 Billion People in 10 Minutes!

#DigitalMarketingPodcast #DennisYu #SEO #BusinessAdvice #PodcastForContractors #Buzzsprout

Ready to see real results from fellow General Contractors?

→ Step 1: Join our FREE Digital Dominance Club for Remodeling Contractors

→ Step 2: Follow us on Instagram

→ Step 3: Schedule a 1:1 call with Rathna now!

Let's rock your remodeling journey! 🛠️💰

Chapters

• 4:05 The impact of social media on your business’s existing strengths
• 12:32 Strategies to dominate in SEO
• 20:58 Golden advice for young business ventures
• 24:39 Common digital marketing pitfalls for remodelers
• 31:02 Insights into Dennis Yu’s productivity techniques

Transcript

Dennis Yu

Biggest mistake that remodelers make in digital marketing is expecting immediate results. It's like going to the gym, working out for 3 hours really hard and expecting six pack abs. 

Rathna Ramakrishnan

You're listening to the Remodeler Digital Playbook Podcast, a show created to inspire remodeling contractors to achieve success in their remodeling business. I am your host, Rana Ramakrishnan. I'm also the founder of Remodeler Digital, the digital marketing agency for remodeling contractors. And each episode I'll be chatting with remodeling contractors and top experts discussing their proven methods for revenue generation.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

The insights they’ve gained and the keys to remodeling success. And I'll be sharing my knowledge of how I created a seven figure business using digital marketing.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Hi everyone. I'm excited to have world renowned digital marketing guru Dennis Yu on the Remodeler Digital Playbook podcast. Dennis is a trailblazer in the digital marketing realm with a knack for transforming the online presence of any local business, including remodeling contractors. I must say I'm having an absolute fangirl moment with Dennis here as a guest.

Dennis Yu

What an honor, Rathna.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

I have followed Dennis online and implemented his teachings for years, and one of his top strategies that I'm a fan of is the dollar-a-day with Facebook ads. Dennis was also my companion during the pandemic when he hosted Zoom sessions and shared knowledge on digital marketing. Dennis is not only the CEO of BlitzMetrics and The Content Factory. He's also a brilliant digital marketer, a networker, a creator of several courses, a creator of million jobs, an ex-Yahoo Engineer who built Yahoo's analytics. But most of all, what I adore about him is that he's a math genius. The way he looks at data and numbers is what makes him such a fantastic marketer. Welcome, Dennis, and thank you for joining.

Dennis Yu

Welcome, Rathna. Thank you that was so kind of you.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Thank you for joining me. I'm so excited to have you. So tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you get into the field of marketing? What inspired you to become one of the, you know, the digital marketing gurus in the world today?

Dennis Yu

I'm just a kid who's good at math. I enjoyed math. And like other Asians, I kick butt at it. So I competed in math competitions and I found that math and programming and building websites and running ads all kind of were the same kind of mechanical optimization. So I was lucky to find that things like PPC and SEO were a natural byproduct of just being good at math.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yeah, I've heard you say this so many times and my niche agency works with remodeling contractors who are innately math geniuses because of remodeling, you know, so. Yeah. They are also very curious when it comes to digital marketing, which is why I really enjoy working with them. So considering your extensive experience with Facebook's advertising platform, what do you believe is the value of Facebook ads for remodeling contractors?

Many remodeling contractors believe that Facebook’s done and they should not be spending any dime on Facebook. What is your take on it today?

Dennis Yu

Well, as a remodeling contractor, I'd say what percent of your jobs are coming through referrals. How important are your reviews? How often do people look you up before they go to your website or pick up the phone? And if reputation is important and if you care about word of mouth in your city, then it's pretty hard to ignore Facebook. And so it's not that we are advocates of Facebook ads or advertising in general. We're advocates of the idea that Facebook and Google and TikTok and whatnot are really just amplifiers of what's already there. So if people already love you and if you're really well known for remodeling high-end kitchens in, you know, a particular part of town, then that word of mouth will spread. So if you do good work and there's lots of provable examples of that and clients to talk about it and your staff is professional and whatnot, then Facebook is actually really easy. But if you are a new business and you don't have any reputation and you have negative reviews and you overcharge and you have to keep fixing things that are broken, then you're going to say that you don't like Facebook ads and you're going to say Facebook doesn't work and digital marketing and SEO doesn't work. You're right, because digital marketing is an amplifier of what's already working. And what's happened as you know, Rathna, that in the last three years, Facebook has taken away detail targeting. So we used to be able to target people who had homes that had a particular kind of, you know, sub-zero refrigerator in them or more than 5000 square feet or they just moved in in the last year, or they have this kind of roof or they owned this kind of pet, used to do all kinds of crazy clever targeting, which allowed you to do crazy clever advertising. But with that being taken away, you can't use that same creative anymore because there's no targeting that's attached to it. So as a result, you have to rely upon what your technicians are saying. You have to rely upon kind of a behind the scenes, Hey, we're working on a bathroom here. And look at how we're going to, you know, right now it looks like this and it's old and we're going to put in a new sink here and put in a new, old, big Jacuzzi tub. And we're going to just like those like home and garden TV shows, Right? Right. So if you make that kind of content, that's interesting. There's going to be people that maybe right now they're not interested in remodeling, but they remember that and they bookmark that and the wife sees it and they and maybe, you know, they get their I.R.S., you know, tax rebate back or whatever. And in a month or two like, “Hey, who was it that was working on, who is it that made the kitchen that was like that?” “Oh yeah, it was these guys.” Then you're going to find that Facebook has an impact, but Facebook is not the same thing as what you see on Google where someone types in ‘remodeler near me.’ Right. Yeah, of course. Someone's looking for a remodeler right now. But Facebook influences people before they get to that point because, Rathna, what's the average cost per click when someone's looking for kitchen remodeling or, you know, bath with, what is it, $50 now? It's something crazy, isn't it?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

It's,we can get up to $18 to $20.

Dennis Yu

But still, right?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yes.

Dennis Yu

So imagine it's not an either or, but imagine people get a sense of your reputation, of the kind of work that you do so that when they do that search for, you know, average cost to remodel my kitchen or whatever, and they see three or four other contractors, they're going to choose the one that they've kind of more familiar with. Right. And that's all it is. It's that simple. It's not this magic algorithm. Optimize, say the abracadabra words like that's not what it is at all. What we're doing is we're just amplifying reputation. And there's a whole framework on how to do that.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Very cool. So I know content is a big piece of your strategy and you're very big on data-driven content. So you know, you were just talking about showing beautiful bathtubs and remodels. And how do you think a remodeling contractor can use a data-driven content strategy when they're trying to build their online presence, like top three things that they could do easily?

Dennis Yu

Number one is take your cell phone and just capture 15 second videos behind the scenes, just showing as you're driving up to the house, showing the materials, showing the consultation with the client as they're picking out, “Oh I want it to look like this or like that,” showing your team as they're working on it and you know, it's in progress. So you can see like things are kind of, you know, whatever in raw materials state and just capture little moments along the way. And what you'll find is if you capture these little moments, not professionally, don't think like, “Oh you got to hire a videographer, some Hollywood camera guy,” like, no, no just you and your cell phone. Right. Narrate it. Talk about it. Kind of just to explain like what's going on 15 seconds at a time. Then when you put that on Facebook, which includes Instagram, which is part of Facebook, you put it on YouTube shorts, which is videos that are vertical under a minute, you're going to find that one or two of those videos will cause people to comment and they'll say, “Oh what does it cost to have a bathroom like that?” Or “What kind of sink are they using or that's really cool that color?” Or “Do you think you could do that for me?” Or do you know, you're going to find people are going to comment, but only on certain videos. And just if you're a data-driven person, you're going to notice a pattern. And when there's a certain pattern of what you're known for, like maybe you have this the granite countertops, I don't know.I don't know anything about remodeling. Okay. Yeah. Maybe you're really known. You're known for doing, like, luxury remodels where they tear down the house and they make it really nice after, I don't know, whatever it is like you're known for, right? You should tie with your reputation the thing that starts to resonate if you the thing is, if you don't make number one, if you don't make those little 15 second videos, you have no way of even like figuring out which things are resonating. But when you find, number two, when you find those things that are resonating, you put a dollar-a-day against it very, very easy in just that neighborhood. That's it. No need to target by homeowner or high income or married or any of the car they drive. Like no just target in the city. That's it. And then the system is going to optimize for you because it's already started to learn who's engaging on your content. Number three is you run Facebook Lead Ads. So a lead ad is where Facebook natively fills out that form or pre fills the form for you. So your completion rate is tripled, as you know, and then it might be the you know, here's the the budget guide to remodeling your house in 2024 or 15 beautiful kitchens like, “Oh, I'll put in my email address to get this thing with 15 beautiful kitchens,” because people watch you know, it's like food porn. They watch the cooking shows, they watch the home shows. And now you've collected a lead, right? So now you've brought it from Facebook into your email list, into your phone number, into your website, Right? And you do those these three things. And use things like LeadsBridge, use the remarketing pixel, use the conversion API, use the different tools, you know, Rathna will set it up for you of course, user agency, right? Now you've got this thing all the way connected. You have the evidence, the signal of what you do because most people don't have the videos and pictures, so they're not even in the game. So you can't even complain if you've not made the videos because you've not even given the system what it needs. Number two, you have to pay a dollar-a-day. So that means, $7 per piece of content because you're testing it for a week, $7, you're just putting $7 against each piece of content just to try to collect some data, right. To see what's winning. And then you drive leads off of the best performers because people are going once they kind of see who you are, you've developed enough trust and you have what's called a lead magnet, as you know, something that is good enough to collect an email address, to get a quote, to have a free consultation. Let's take a look at your house and see what might be possible. Maybe you work with a real estate agent as a partner on, “Hey, let's figure out what your house is? Oh you're looking to sell your house, maybe if you remodel the kitchen it's going to be worth more.” Right?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Excellent. Well, thank you for sharing that insight. When you think about localized SEO, it is the most common question that remodeling contractors ask me. They all want to be on page one of Google. What can I do? How can I win in the SEO game? How do you become best friends with the Google algorithm? What comes to your mind when you think about those local SEO service based businesses that are serving between a 30 to 50 mile radius and really want to rank on Google search. What do you think they should be focusing their energy on?

Dennis Yu

Local SEO is really simple. First off, because you only have to win in your neighborhood now unless you are in downtown L.A. or Manhattan or some like ultra competitive area, it's actually really easy. If I want to win on, you know, kitchen remodeler near me and I'm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, there's not that many other contractors to beat. I only have to beat people in the area. So if I want to win in local SEO, I have to send the signal that has two parts. One is I have to show that I'm a competent remodeler in the thing that they're looking for, I want to remodel my bathroom. Okay. And B, this is where people miss, I need to show that I have the signal for that, geo, for that particular city. So if I'm in, you know, Denton, Texas, then I need to show, like, here's all the different kinds of bathrooms and homes and kitchens and patios and deck, whatever it is that I've done in Denton, Texas. Right. So you have to send that local signal. If I look at your site and maybe you do have lots of pictures and videos and all the different jobs that you've done, but it doesn't mention the city. If I go look at your reviews on your Google My Business, which is now called Google Business Profile, and I see people are saying like, “Oh working with Mr. Smith was great,” but it doesn't say, “and he came to my home in Irving, Texas,” or whatever it is, “and he fixed my bathroom,” like you have to show the geo and you have to show what you did, right? So what kind of remodeling and what city. And if you're in Dallas, Dallas has many cities Irving, McKinney, Highland Park, you know, Oak Cliff, like you have to show the name of the city. So Google is looking for the signal, the specifics of that particular geo. Because if all the reviews are all five stars, they're a really great contractor. That doesn't carry as much weight. If it has pictures, if it mentions the city, if it mentions details about the job, and like, yeah, I had my kitchen redone and it took them four weeks and it would, you know, here's some of the specifics of what they did to my kitchen. Right. Look at this beautiful stove. Now we have this island in the middle, you know, and that's just way more powerful. And you would think, like, that's a magic thing. But, you know, my friend Darren, runs Whitespark, you know about Whitespark and every year they actually he's my on my podcast tomorrow. Every year they released the local search ranking factors.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yes.

Dennis Yu

And it's come out that the reviews like why should this be a surprise the reviews that actually mention the city and have real pictures and whatnot carry a lot more weight than the other ones.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Surprise! You're talking about reviews on the Google business profile which sits on Google Search? Yeah. And

Dennis Yu

then taking it, so if you have a GMB, Google gives you a free one page website. So don't you think that the website that Google gives you is going to help you in ranking? Of course it is. So fill it out right? Most people don't even fill that out. That just blows my mind. It's free. Why wouldn't you do it?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

What’s your take on stock photos? It's a very common question that.

Dennis Yu

I don't like stock photos. If you're in a competitive space, the more competitive, the more here's the way to be able to tell you go to anybody's website or your own a location service page, for example, you right click on that image and perform a Google image search and you see where else that stock photos being used. It's not that you're going to get dinged on it, but it certainly isn't a mark of trust. Why? Because Google has updated their search quality guidelines based on EEAT, right? Experience, expertise, authority, trust. So the extra E for experience means you have to show your real experience like real photos and pictures. If you show this happy, smiley family in front of the house with the perfect grass, like that's not real. And Google knows it's not real because all you got to do is right click in that search, Google images and you can see 50 other remodeling places. Use that same iStock photo, Getty Images, or whatever it is.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

All right. So even if it's not a pretty picture or, you know, the best, lighting?

Dennis Yu

Real always does better, consumers see right through that fake stuff anyway. Like, I get it. Like if you're in IT and it's hard to describe, like security or whatever, see if the show like one of every race around the conference room celebrating over the chart that's going up, what are we like you've seen those what have ridiculous picture, but when you're in someone's home and you can tell when it's actually someone's home, you can tell if it's a stock art picture and it subconsciously tells people if they see on your website, it's a bunch of stock art. It's telling people, I don’t know if this contractor's real or not? It might be some spammer in India trying to get my information, like how do I know they're going to show up? Is it going to be a real person that shows up or that fake guy smiling stock art happy family with the two kids picture thing.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Right? Right. Yeah. Great point. Yeah. So if you were managing a digital campaign for a remodeling contractor, what metrics would you focus on the most?

Dennis Yu

I care about the number of calls that are at least one minute. Forms are great. That's great. You get traffic, that's great. You rank on keywords, that’s great. Your cost per click is down to $18. All those things are diagnostic metrics. I care about money. I need to see that the contractor is making money and I need to see that that's increasing. And if I know that I get a certain number of, you know, maybe one remodeler, they're doing, you know, $1,000,000 a year, which is $83,000 a month. And their goal for 2024 is $1.3 million a year, let's say. Okay. So they have to make $100,000, $103,000 per month. Well, if I know that one in three phone calls results in a job and the average job is $20,000, then I've got to drive an additional, you know, whatever, two more jobs per month. And that means I got to get six more phone calls. So if I get six more phone calls in order to get six phone calls, it'll be this many clicks or these are many GMB visits or this much like I can back into the math.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yes.

Dennis Yu

Of what I need to do to be able to drive a quality phone call so I can then deliver an estimate. And then the expert, you know, half of the estimates turn into a job, you know, whatever the number is, right? It's very simple math. And it's not only for remodelers, it's for any service companies, it’s for HVAC companies, it's garage door companies. Right. The idea that it goes through some kind of quoting process like the lead, a phone call of a certain length turns into a lead. Then that quote gets accepted and then we complete the job and hopefully we don't refund it or have to, you know, rework it or we have a problem or something like that.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

I have never heard you say that one minute duration of a call. Why do you think that a minute is important?

Dennis Yu

It used to. I mean, the last ten, 15 years we've said one minute too, but it's become especially important now because there's so many spam, AI, robocalls, digital agencies that are calling in saying, “Hey, would you what would you do with an extra ten leads per month,” or whatever? And they're clogging up the actual, you know, line or what, which messes up all the marketing metrics, which of course pisses I mean, what a, pisses off the agency and pisses off the people answering the phone, right, because it ruins their stats. But generally, if the call is at least a minute, it’s probably a quality phone call, because if it's a reschedule, if it's a wrong number, if it's to offer a service that “Hey, do you guys clean chimneys?” “No, that's no, we don't do that.” Right. Oh well, you're going to talk to him for a minute, right? So if they're on the phone for at least a minute.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

It's a truly.

Dennis Yu

You could see through the call rail or through the, you know, Google calls. You can see whether it's legit or not. So I like to look at calls that are at least a minute.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Excellent, excellent tip. I've been speaking lately to a lot of young up-and-coming contractors. They've had other professions they've always had a love for remodeling. And they're trying to get into the remodeling niche. And if you're a very, you know, not age wise, but, you know, a young business that's just getting launched, what do you think are key things, you know, foundational steps that they should prioritize, you know, from a business perspective as well as a digital marketing perspective.

Dennis Yu

When you're small, you don't have the money to waste on branding or on social media or things like that because you're small and you're doing everything you can to try to grow and you face a chicken and egg where you need the money to be able to pay your people, to be able to, you know, do marketing, to do all these other things without money, the wheel doesn't turn. So there's nothing better than making sure that you take care of every single client and document what you're doing, not because you're like legalistic, but because you want to make sure you have this reputation, even if you have fewer reviews than some other guy who has like 500 reviews on their GMB and you have like three reviews because you're small, but if the reviews you have are higher quality and you take really good care of those customers, people are going to choose you over this other company that's been doing it long time and has 500 reviews.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Right?

Dennis Yu

And that turns into content that you can repurpose, that turns into things that you can put on social, not because you want 10,000 followers or some vanity metric, but because you know that's going to send a signal to Google, because Google is going to pick it up. When you take those little videos on your cell phone and you push it to Twitter and you push Instagram Reels and you push it to TikTok. They've got to show the TikTok pieces because they don't want to get in trouble for antitrust. So Google doesn't want to show things from Facebook or TikTok or whatever, but they have to because they have to show that they're balanced in that kind of thing. So use that to your advantage. If you're small, you have to show you have to market a little harder. You have to demonstrate that you go the extra mile.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Awesome. On the flip side, this is a very large contractor that wants to be multi million dollar custom homes. Yeah. In your opinion, what is the value in that contractor having a presence on LinkedIn, building an online profile on LinkedIn.

Dennis Yu

LinkedIn to some degree. I mean, but you know, higher-end custom homes, maybe you'll have more executives. Many people who are higher income are more likely to be on LinkedIn. But I think that's going to be more for referrals. So you're a remodeler. You need to have relationships with the general contractors, with the builders, with the real estate agents, with, you know, when someone moves into a new house, they'll often want to redo it their way because they don't like the way the previous guy had the bathroom with the pink in there in a certain way.Right? So you got to say LinkedIn is great for building those B2B relationships which generate the referrals, especially for higher-end custom homes and all that for sure. But I don't think LinkedIn is as strong for like direct consumer referral.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Got it. So do you think it's worthwhile for a remodeling contractor to have a business page or a profile on LinkedIn? All of it.

Dennis Yu

Yeah, because reputation is important and it will still show up when people Google your name, your LinkedIn, your company name, your personal name shows up.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Excellent. So what are some of the common digital marketing mistakes you see service based businesses make, and what do you think they can do to avoid them?

Dennis Yu

Biggest mistake that remodelers make in digital marketing is expecting immediate results. It's like going to the gym, working out for 3 hours really hard and expecting six pack abs. And of course, you know, the people that sell SEO will say, “Oh well, SEO takes time” and all that. That's true. But there's this round and round that occurs when the underlying home service business doesn't understand what they're getting from their digital marketing company. So if you don't own your own ad accounts and analytics and website, you're in trouble just because you could be held hostage and all that. And I heard all the reasons for why, you know, agencies don't give you access. I imagine you provide full access to your teammates.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

It's very, very important.

Dennis Yu

And don't get me started about nightmares that have happened. When that doesn't happen, that's number one. Number two is I want to hold my agency accountable to performance metrics, not on how many clicks, not how many keywords, not how many followers, but how many phone calls of at least one minute they drove. And then I want to trace those back to the sources. Did it come from PPC? If it was PPC, was it brand or was it non brand? And if it was from Facebook or whatnot, then what was the quality lead? I need to be able to take the phone calls that were at least one minute long move forward. And how many of those were ones that, you know, we did a proposal and they accepted and go back into where those leads came from. So I got to go forwards and backwards from the one minute call.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

The source of the lead. Okay.

Dennis Yu

And you know, if it's whatever CRM that's in, maybe it's like a ServiceTitan or something. ServiceTitan allows you to track these things. Doesn't matter what the system is, but I would always start with where those jobs are being quoted and where the money's being collected. Then trace back from there into Google Analytics, into the ad systems and whatnot. And then the third piece is and agencies don't like it when I mention this, but I love it when clients can come in and they can go click on the change history inside the Google ads and click on the change history inside Facebook ads to see is anyone looking at my ad accounts? And maybe ad accounts are great and no one's touched it for months and they're still improving. I still want to know if nobody's looking at my ad account.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Well we go into our ad accounts almost every week and some of the hires spend every day and we track cost per lead and spend every week, yeah.

Dennis Yu

You know, even if it's set up properly, sometimes, you know, you got to be paying attention. Some weird thing happens, you get a disapproval, some ad goes out of control, the budget gets spent, some weird stuff happens all the time, you know?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yep. Yeah. It's not a set it and forget it kind of a marketing game when you're trying to do ad spend.

Dennis Yu

And the fact, Rathna, you mentioned that is really great because most agencies are scared to death when we bring this topic up. So the fact that you're like, “Yep, we welcome clients to go in any time. We stand behind our work, go in and see. You can see that we are watching.”

Rathna Ramakrishnan

I recently had one of my general contractors bring in a marketing analyst to audit our Google ads and we passed with flying colors. So I am an open book. Happy to have anybody come in and take a look at our work and we're all human. If you find opportunity, I'm happy to take feedback and work on it.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

So, yeah.

Dennis Yu

And if you're a remodelers isn't the same thing, like don't you? Like if you're good at remodeling and you don't do a shoddy job, wouldn't you invite other people to come inspect your work and say like, “Wow, these guys did it. They didn't cut any corners, did a great job.”

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Absolutely. I actually have a contractor who invites leads that are on the fence to one of his client homes to see the quality of the work in person. So very similar what you're proposing. I love it. Yeah. It's brilliant.

Dennis Yu

Because, you know, there's good and bad remodelers. They're ones where, like, it's all crooked and they try to hide it with all the caulk or whatever it is. Like, come on. Right, right. Like you didn't, you didn't cut you didn't cut that properly. Like that clearly is like you need to redo that. Yep.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Is there a favorite AI tool that you use on a daily basis and what do you use it for?

Dennis Yu

I use mainly a combination of Descript and ChatGPT. Descript is a Swiss army knife of processing video and all the tools. Even the WordPress plugins they’re building in AI and even, you know, Infusionsoft and ActiveCampaign and all these guys. Everybody has AI integrate the Vendasta has AI integrated in their stuff, right? So I don't think that there's going to be in a year from now, just like one AI tool that's just an AI tool. I think we will use some of the existing tools that we've been using just because we're creatures of habit and we have a process and those existing tools will have AI in them. I think that's where it's going to have to go because we're moving from Generative AI, which is conversations with the chat bot into action driven bots where we're actually responding to the customer, we're actually doing the work, we're actually manufacturing, we're actually doing the ordering, we're sending out the Ubers. We're all like, the ability to take action is way beyond the “Let's have a clever conversation.” And the integration into operational systems that make that happen, call centers or whatnot, that's really where the magic begins. And that will happen in the next few months.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Wow. Very neat.

Dennis Yu

Even McDonald's is doing testing right now where the order taking is being done by the AI and the food is being made by the AI. I was in Sydney, Australia, at one McDonald's where the food is made with robots. There's no humans in there.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Wow.

Dennis Yu

It's taking the order and it's making the food so they can't screw up your order.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Right? It's just programmed to deliver the recipe, right? Amazing.

Dennis Yu

Yeah, It's not going to replace the remodeler, but it's going to replace a lot of the marketing agencies that serve the remodeling companies.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yeah. So time management is a big issue for a lot of service based business owners. And when I look at your lifestyle of how much you travel and how many stages you speak on and how many time zones you’re in, I'm sure you have some tricks up your sleeve when it comes to time management, do you have any favorite strategies that you're willing to share?

Dennis Yu

I manage less on time and I manage on energy. So manage your energy. I heard Elon Musk say this last year when people say like, how do you decide which things that you decide to do or not do? And he says, I don't look at it by how much time it takes, but I look at how much energy it requires. And so I do everything I can to increase my energy. So because of that, I try to get full night's sleep. I have this WHOOP band and it tells me what time to go to bed and it tells me when to wake up and all of these things. And even though I might work less than most people, I would argue that my impact is higher because I'm always managing my energy level. Because if you ever have a day where, you know, you work 14 hours, you work really hard, but you really didn't get much done.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Right?

Dennis Yu

So it's not you're not a factory worker, it's not how many hours you put in. It's not how many times you hit the hammer. It's when you are a thought, when it's about reputation, when it's about quality. That homeowner, they don't they don't care whether that job took 200 hours or 100 hours. Right? I mean, if you can get it done in less hours and do a better job

Dennis Yu

even better. But it's not like they want you to take twice as long. So don't think of it as like how many hours it took right?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yeah. Great. Great idea. So is this WHOOP band very similar to the Oura Ring?

Dennis Yu

WHOOP and Oura are the same thing, basically. You want a ring or you want to watch if you're already wearing an Apple Watch, you probably don't want another watch. So you get the Oura Ring. But Apple next year, supposedly with the X, the ten year anniversary of the Apple Watch is going to come out with the whole EKG on a wrist. They bought this other company for several billion dollars. It does all of these things, but they've been very slow in releasing this. So that's why I've been wearing these things as I'm waiting for Apple to come out with theres.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

So it tracks your sleep it gives you data on your

Dennis Yu

There's all kinds of, yeah, fitness, but mainly more sleep things that you're going to get out more than like an Apple Watch or something else. Like basically it's WHOOP an Oura until Apple next year comes out with theirs.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Very cool. So please share some fun details about yourself, where you were born, what you like to do for fun. Perhaps a favorite book.

Dennis Yu

Oh, well, I love this book, it's on TikTok. It’s the number one bestselling book and social co authored by Perry Marshall and myself. And we love to have fun. We celebrated my birthday on October 6th in Chicago, where he is. We ate Mexican food together, and I like to eat. That's like my favorite thing to do wherever I go. I've traveled in so many countries. It allows me to eat the craziest sorts of food you've never heard of. And I'm willing, always willing to try. What is this? Don't worry about it. Tastes like chicken. Just eat it. All right, I’ll eat it, it tastes great. What is it? It's rattlesnake. That's okay.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

That's cool. Oh, boy.

Dennis Yu

You know, I've eaten all kinds of weird things but

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yeah, just

Dennis Yu

eat it. Just chew. It tastes like chicken. It tastes like chicken. Yup. Tastes like chicken.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

That's funny. I saw your post from Pakistan, where you were eating some street food, and those pictures looked amazing. So. It

Dennis Yu

was good. I didn't get sick once. I tried everything on the street. I had corn chowder on the street. These other, like, corn things. They have a lot of corn on the street for some reason, but I love it.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

So seasoned corn.

Dennis Yu

Yeah.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

And then what else do you like to do for fun?

Dennis Yu

I like to go to the trampoline park, which I'm going to next so I can play full court basketball.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Wow.

Dennis Yu

So I’ll burn 3000 calories in about 3 hours.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Wow. Your legs must be strong if you're playing at a trampoline park.

Dennis Yu

I've run marathons. I've run two marathons in the last three months. I've lost 54 pounds in the last year.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Wow. Congratulations! That's huge.

Dennis Yu

Yeah, I was huge. I'm you. I'm less huge now.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

You focused on self care and looking after yourself, which is a priority.

Dennis Yu

Yeah. And then business goes better, too. I've seen a lot of people where they've just ruined their health because they're focusing so much on their business. And it's very sad to make that trade off, as you know. But I've seen these folks, some of my friends turn it around where they thought they had to work 16, 18 hours a day because of all these business things. But they were just so tired. They didn't, they didn't see as clearly they weren't working as effectively. They could have delegated more. Right. They didn't hire the right people because they just were just so tired themselves. And now a friend of mine has a $45 million a year business in plumbing, and he's having the time of his life because he's learned how to delegate these other components out. And it's all about people management. You know, it's I look at all the guys who are growing and it's all people management like it doesn't matter. You could be a digital marketer, you could be a pest control company, you could be whatever. It's all a people game.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yep. Who not how. Exactly. You know, I've been tracking your oxygen baths. Can you speak a little bit about that?

Dennis Yu

Oh that's my favorite thing to do. I got a place here in Vegas just so I could do the oxygen baths because I've been flying to Vegas for the last 20 something years to speak at conferences because, you know, the big conventions are here in Vegas. And a friend of mine told me about this place. I'm like, Yeah, whatever. I don't believe any time people make health claims, especially friends of mine that are celebrities, I don't believe anything, you know, because, like, who are you to be trying to give me advice on health? You're a movie actor. You don't know anything about health. Right. But I learned about this cocoon thing. And I've seen friends of mine recover from horrific accidents and terminal cancer where the doctor said, that's it. You have four months left to go, just like wrap up everything you're done. And I've seen people come out the other side. And I said, what is going on here?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Are these hyperbaric chambers or is it just sort of?

Dennis Yu

No, they do have hyperbaric chambers there, but it's an oxygen bath. So you get inside a bath. It's kind of like a Jacuzzi. But the water, the oxygen pressure's high in the water. So it feels almost like you're wrapped in a blanket and you're more buoyant and you float a little bit. But it's not a float tank. But the pressure is so high of the oxygen that it just forces its way into your tissues.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

And how do you feel after?

Dennis Yu

You feel them. Well, I feel amazing. Like I can go there off of just a few hours of sleep. And then when I come out, I feel like I had a full night's sleep. Other people that maybe they have some kind of horrible chronic illness. They come out very tired because when the oxygen comes into their system, the immune system, the mitochondria starts activating and then they start a detox and the toxins come out, they can see, you can see like often a ring around the edge of the bathtub, of which of things that have come out.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Wow.

Dennis Yu

When they're in. And some people will look at this and they'll be ashamed. And I'll say, don't worry, it's not because you're you have like poor hygiene or you didn't shower properly. Those are toxins that are coming out. So people who have cancer. For example, the color will be slightly green. And depending on what they have, it might be like yellow or brown or other kinds of colors.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

It’s interesting. Good old oxygen. Amazing. Yeah.

Dennis Yu

It's just the body healing itself. All it is is just giving oxygen to the body. Whatever the body does, when the immune system’s stronger, it's able to take care of certain issues, then that's between you and your body. But I've done over a thousand of these oxygen baths. I do two or three every day and it's favorite thing to do.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

How long is a bath? An hour. Nice. So it's like super meditation because when you meditate, you get those oxygen levels.

Dennis Yu

Yeah you can do that too. Or like me, I do Zoom calls, I'm answering emails, you know, other people, they sit and watch Netflix. You get your own room so you can relax, you can meditate, like you can do whatever you want with that time.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Amazing. I've been following you on social media and so intrigued by that. So thank you for sharing that.

Dennis Yu

Well you have to try it.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Yes, I'm very intrigued to try it now.

Dennis Yu

And then you got to tell me how it feels. You know, it's like one thing to hear what someone else is doing, but when you get in there and you try it, when you come out, tell me how you feel.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Will do. Yeah. It's so encouraging to hear that it has so much healing that people that are suffering.

Dennis Yu

It's not magic. Right? Right. If you get in a car accident, you're about to die or something, it's not going to save you. But if your immune system is weak, if you're fighting off some kind of condition, if there's something where your body can if a younger Rathna, you know, if a 20-year-old Rathna.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Oh, I'm just 25, what are you talking about, Dennis?.

Dennis Yu

That's all it is. Strengthen your immune system and then your brain, your focus, all of it becomes better.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Your journey has just been amazing to follow, and I'm so inspired by your weight loss and how much you're looking after yourself. Right? Because that’s priority and everything. Yep. Especially people in the home services businesses, you know, they work hard. So yeah, it's just a fantastic message to get across. So finally, Dennis, what's one piece of advice you would give remodeling contractors going into 2024? What can they do for significant impact to get those high quality leads and crush those revenue numbers that the they dream of?

Dennis Yu

You need to Google yourself and make sure that you are Googleable so you could have Rathna and she can do your digital marketing and all that. But either way, you've got to Google yourself and make sure that your business is showing up in the maps. Make sure your name is showing up, make sure your website loads quickly. Make sure you can get a knowledge panel. If you can like Google my name, you'll see a whole knowledge panel pop up, right? All the colored little boxes, right? And because of the way Google is rolling out search generative experience and their kind of response to ChatGPT, you're going to see these colored boxes pop up everywhere. And search is no longer about these ten blue links and trying to be on page one.That was so ten years ago. Now it's about being part of the consolidated answer that Google provides the polls from a variety of sources and images and videos and social media, all of it because people are accustomed to the idea. You ask a question, ChatGPT gives you a consolidated answer, right? So you've got to be able to Google yourself to watch what shows up for your name and for the queries that you want to rank on. And then when you see this happen, you'll remember that we talked about this here that Rathna and I talked about Google results are changing significantly and you've got to be able to Google yourself and see what's popping up, which will then cause you to say, “Well, how come my competitor has a knowledge panel? How come my job is showing up here versus there? How come this other video showing on kitchen remodel or city name?”

Rathna Ramakrishnan

So you're talking about knowledge bound for the general contractor?

Dennis Yu

Yeah, knowledge panels are for anything. It's for your name as a person. It's for your name of a business. It's for the generative search results, which are dynamic knowledge panels, right? Knowledge panels pop. Every time you see those colored little boxes. Those are knowledge panels.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

So human beings, processes, all of it?

Dennis Yu

Any noun that can factually be verified. Anything that you can associate facts with, like a place or a book or a movie or an actor or a person. Like all of these things, a phone number, a picture, those are all objects that are part of what's called the knowledge graph. So Google pulls everything out of the knowledge graph and the items they service in the search results are called knowledge panels. Got it. Not everything in the knowledge graph becomes a knowledge panel.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

I see. Very cool. If somebody is being introduced to you for the very first time from listening to this podcast and is intrigued to learn more. Stay in touch. Where do you recommend they go.

Dennis Yu

Google me and whatever thing that pops up that you want to engage with, you want to connect on LinkedIn or Facebook or YouTube or Twitter. Happy to connect.

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Excellent. I really appreciate your time, Dennis. Thank you for joining me here and sharing all of this wisdom. As soon as the podcast is ready, I would share it with you.

Dennis Yu

And then turn it into a URL so that when I type in Rathna and Dennis, this pops up to the top, right? The mark of how good we are at SEO is when we repurpose content, does it show up when we Google it?

Rathna Ramakrishnan

Fantastic. 

At Remodeler Digital every tip and strategy we discuss on this podcast stems from working exclusively with internet marketing for remodelers. I created Remodeler Digital to share that expertise and to be a part of your success story. Think of us as your digital partners. Always here to lend a hand. Visit remodelerdigital.com and let's build your digital future one strategy at a time. If you would like to generate more leads through your digital marketing efforts, please visit Remodeler digital dot com and check the workshop section for video training and guides on everything from running effective people. Click ads and how to have your website be best friends with the Google algorithm. Also sign up for a 15 minute discovery call with me to run an online snapshot report of your remodeling business.

This has been another successful episode of the Remodel of Digital Playbook. Thanks for listening.