Facility Management Marketing Podcast

Amplifying Your Facility Management Business through Bold Messaging and Effective Writing

• Javier Lozano, Jr. - Facility Management Marketing & Sales Expert • Episode 186

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Ever wondered why your facility management business isn't capturing the right audience? Today, we're unlocking the power of bold messaging and compelling copywriting. Join us as we delve into the art of capturing attention by simplifying language, speaking the way a third to fifth grader would, in order to connect with potential clients, including those new to the industry. We emphasize the importance of portraying your company as a trusted, innovative leader using real words that resonate with everyday people.

Ready to elevate your business communication to the next level? We're spilling effective writing techniques that can amplify your message. Get the scoop on using active verbs, trimming unnecessary words, and substituting lengthy words for shorter, punchier counterparts. We'll discuss the charm of a choppy writing style that mirrors natural speech, and walk you through examples of how simplicity can boost your copy's momentum. Stay ahead of the curve by subscribing to relevant email lists for the latest marketing trends and strategies. This episode is all about equipping you with the know-how to make your facility management business reach greater heights through bold messaging and effective writing!

Speaker 1:

So you're probably asking yourself how to successfully grow a facility management company in today's digital age while still remaining profitable. You know that marketing should probably be in the mix, but you may not know the best approach, the new strategies or which digital platform is market on. So how do you use marketing to grow your effort business today? That is a question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Haver Lozano Jr and welcome to the Facility Management Marketing Podcast related to it. And they feel it and they understand it and they laugh at it and they're like that was hysterical when you said this and like when you wrote me this, this made me want to do that. Like copy is great and I'm gonna tell you right now like you need to find ways to embrace it. Especially if you're not a big time copyrighted, if you're like I still enjoy it, you need to find ways to embrace it. You need to read books about copy to help you get better at copywriting. Like there's so much that you can gain and learn. Like, to be quite frank, like I've read a ton of copywriting books. I probably need to go back and reread them again so that I try to relearn some of these things again and get them like oh yeah, I forgot about that, because there are some elements that I sometimes miss and forget. So, anyways, with that, I want to give you a lesson here about what bold messaging means. Okay, so everyone has their own kind of thought process of what bold messaging is. You know, the word bold could be like a slippery slope. It could mean a number of different things. It could mean something that's being like, you know, someone's being sassy. It can be very in your face, okay. It can be very provocative and it can also be very forceful. And if you think about this, like when people say, oh man, this person is bold, that's what people usually think about. They think of like sassy in your face, provocative, forceful. Like my company that I started to call Boulder Media Solutions. It's about B-O-L-D-E-R, not like the city, but like bold, okay, and I did it in a provocative kind of way, like not like being mean or arrogant, but more like pushing the edge, okay, and so other ways on how you can look at bold are just really like it's just a form of confident, and that's kind of how. Another way I look at Boulder Media Solutions is like having this confident feel about your company, about yourself, and so you've got to be bold when it comes to running a business. You've got to be bold because it takes a lot of courage to start a business. It takes a lot of you know, confidence to really like, know how to run it. But you have to be bold in these different areas to be successful with it as well too. And so, excuse me, companies want their message to feel like it's coming from a trusted, innovative leader in the market. Okay, and so they want to sound like they're good at what they do, and they, you know, they basically know what they're talking about. And so when you are trying to position yourself using bold approach, you got to think differently.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so most B2B writing, most facility services writing, most property management writing like this goes like just understand, like this is a lot. Is anything about bold? It's typically going to be long-winded sentences with complicated explanations and a bunch of just shitty ass jargon that just sucks out the oomph of any cool ideas and they really just make the bold concept like eh, and so the idea here is that and I see this all the time with facility websites they use all these long words and like service channels is a great example. They don't. They do an amazing job with their website and their copy. They use real words that real people use and it really makes sense and it's easy to understand. It's not long-winded, it's not complicated explanations.

Speaker 1:

And you might be saying, like, well, have your like. Facilities management is complicated and we need to like know what we're talking about. You're right, you do, but you don't have to use that in your copy. You can use very just, normal writing and really you want to learn how to write at a third to fifth grade level. And if you're wondering, why the fuck would I ever write at that level? Because then everyone can consume it and understand it. And so again, you're like but I'm not marketing to everybody. I understand, but you're marketing to the lowest common denominator.

Speaker 1:

So what if you're marketing to someone that's new into the industry, that just kind of fell into becoming a facility manager, and they've been tasked to find somebody who are company or something, to basically handle the HVAC or the plumbing or handyman things and they don't know where the fuck to start? And if you're using all this jargon and all this long winded sentences and all this complicated explanation, they're going to be turned off and they're going to be scared and they're going to be like what the hell did I do? What did I get myself into? You have to understand that there is a world of buyers that are new to the industry and they're just learning it and they just fell into it because, I kid you not when I say this, and you're probably one of those people most people that are facility managers didn't go to college to be a facility manager. They kind of just fell into it. They're like yeah, I was doing this and I was working at this retail store and then, next to you know, this kind of came up and then now I'm a facility manager and I'm like, how did that happen? And they're like I had no fucking clue. And I'm like how did you learn it? Like baptism by fire, like it was. That was the conversation. And so you've got to understand you get a level with people at a level they are like oh, I get it. Oh, that makes sense, okay.

Speaker 1:

So when you're writing, you want to be very focused, you'll be very direct, and so here's some simple tips. You want to start your sentences with very active verbs, so get to the point really quickly. All right, don't put a bunch of filler words. You know don't do any of that stuff, so you want to remove any unnecessary words. So long sentences sounds and you know, just sounds complicated.

Speaker 1:

So a slogan that I took from someone called Dave he uses this thing called choppy copy and I have been doing that for a long time. But when he said that, I'm like, oh, that makes complete sense. You want to write your copy choppy, like you would normally talk to people, and some people are like well, I want to sound educated. Yes, you want to sound educated, and you also want to sound like everyone, how everyone else talks. Because I can tell you right now the way most people talk is like this where they say a few words and then pause and there's a period there and they stop there and they continue to say this and the next, you know, they want to go walk their dog and then their dog went upstairs. They talk like that, they talk in choppy. Okay, that's how people talk and so you need to write that way. When you write that way, it makes your sentences very powerful because they're quick, they're straight to the point, you're removing all these active verbs, you're making it not lengthily.

Speaker 1:

And then the last piece number three is that you want to swap out big words with little ones. So short words are more direct and long words are just kind of they're. They could be sometimes scary, like you might be thinking like, but this is a great word to use. Now I understand. Like facility management is a long fucking word, like I totally get that you have to use that word because that is your industry, or facility manager is a long word, but like you can also say FM, you could also find other ways and how you can, you know, change what you're trying to say. Okay, so just think about that.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to give you an example. Now I know this is not directly for facility management, but just kind of, like you know again, remove a few words, our platform or our service or our software, and get what I'm saying. So our platform is purpose built to accelerate the identification, diagnosis and resolution of issues across complex IT environments. I don't know what the fuck that is. Okay so, but if you want to this, find, see and fix issues quickly across your own IT landscape, that makes sense. I think of it like this Our facility services company is purpose built to accelerate the identification, diagnosis and resolution of issues across complex facilities, across all countries or across all states. That's really complicated. Instead, if you said find, see and fix issues quickly across your facilities all over the country, that's pretty easy. Or across your facility's landscape, that's pretty direct. Do you see what I'm saying here? So, really, like you want to use direct, simple language that adds momentum, that gets people to read. It's just punchy, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Speaker 1:

And then practice these tips so that as you get better at writing, it becomes a natural process of how you write. Okay, like this is just how you do things and that's exactly what I do. Like, when I'm writing stuff and I've had people say, like that's not grammatically correct, I go, I understand. They're like well, aren't you going to change it? No, because this is how people talk and they're like but we don't want to sell it, we're ignorant. We're not ignorant, we're trying to relate. Okay, when you relate with people, you don't sound ignorant. You sound like someone that gets it, that understands. Okay, when you don't relate with people, you sound like someone that's trying to be above someone else. And no one loves those people. They hate them. People do not like others. They're trying to be better than somebody else. And so when you can level with someone at their level and they're like, oh, I totally get this, this makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Now, that was really easy to learn and what helped me to understand how to write like this and communicate better at this was literally teaching kids and you're like, wait, what? So if you don't know my background, I used to teach martial arts as a profession. I taught for like almost 30 years, a long time and so I taught for a long time and I'm sorry, let me phrase that I did martial arts for almost 30 years. I taught for like almost 25 years. That sounds better. There we go Still quarter of a decade or quarter of a century. That's a long time.

Speaker 1:

But when you're teaching kids, trying to teach martial arts and concepts that are very difficult, you're like Kavir you're just teaching kids how to kick and punch. Yes, I understand, but then there's also concepts behind those kicks and punches and why they're doing it, how they're doing it, why it's not going to be effective, how they're executing it, why they need to do this and what position they need to be, and then how their body supposed to be positioned, how should he stand and where should they be looking? Where should the knee be pointing, where should their toes be going? Where should the hands be facing? There's a lot of moving parts, literally and figuratively.

Speaker 1:

But when you understand that and you learn how to like, try to teach something and you break it down to a child, you have to use real words, and so being a parent is one of the toughest things, and if you're a parent, you get this, especially at this age where my kids are like dad, what does this mean? And I'm like I look at them like I know what this means, but how do I explain this? So I, literally I'm like Alexa, what does this mean? And then they give me the definition and then I put it into like a situation, like you know how, whenever your grandma used to do this and like oh, yeah, yeah, and then, like you know, she would do that, like yeah, yeah, that's what that means, like oh, that makes sense, and so that's that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to get down to the level of your audience, or they get it, and if you can write at that level, almost anyone's gonna be able to understand what you're doing, you know, so it's, I mean it's.

Speaker 1:

It's hard, like my kids sometimes ask me like that what do you do for work? And then you, they know I do marketing and I like, well, I just try to help people Make better decisions on why they should buy Our wraps to wrap their vehicles. They're like oh, that's cool, do you like doing that? I'm like, yeah, it's pretty cool. Like, how do you do it? I go Well, we send an email and we have like a website and we post things on on on Facebook like, oh Cool, can I see it? And they see it. And they're like oh, that's kind of me, but you've got to level your things down. What you're saying and when you do that and you and you learn how to like Teach this stuff to younger people, it helps.

Speaker 1:

I mean, a great, probably, exercise for you to do is Explain your facility or property management services to someone that's outside of the industry and be like do you understand this? And then be like fuck, no, I don't get it. And the others and you know, yeah, so you know I've gone to the point where I basically just say, like, when people ask like what I do, like I basically help people put stickers on their cars, like we put giant stickers on giant vehicles to market their business and people are like, oh, that makes complete sense. That's a very easy to understand. Yeah, it is big stickers, big cars, market your brand, that's it. And if you can make it that simple for you, for everybody else, they're gonna get it Okay.

Speaker 1:

So, anyways, I hope this is helpful. I know this is kind of a shorty, but these are great tips to improve your writing and, at the end of the day, you should be writing daily. You should be writing posts. It's not to be long copy, it could be short copy, it can be anything, but get used to be writing on a regular basis, get used to communicating on a regular basis, get used to getting direct, that boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and not getting too long-winded. All right, so, other than that, hope you guys enjoyed this podcast.

Speaker 1:

Three things are always asked. Number one Please give us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple podcast. To please share this podcast with somebody else. That's how our podcast has been growing is because of you sharing with other people. And then, number three Please connect with me on LinkedIn. Send me a you know, quick Dm. Tell me what podcast episode you've been enjoying. Tell me, like, what you would like to hear next. Okay. So my podcast is always evolving because I listen to my audience like that's a good topic, I love that. Or people say like, hey, I'm really enjoying you diving into these things. Okay, that tells me I need to have more episodes like that, okay, so, anyways, my podcast is dynamic and I do this for a reason. So, anyways, if you could do those three things, it'd be great. Other than that, have a great day.

Speaker 1:

All right, guys, thanks for taking a listen to our facility management marketing podcast secrets. This is your host, javier Lozano Jr. One other ask I've got for you guys is to subscribe to our email list. You can go to boulder media solutions dot com slash email and that way you can get updates on some marketing trends that I'm seeing, some strategies that I'm executing and, more importantly, I'll be actually launching some webinars and training that's gonna help your company use marketing strategies to essentially grow your business. We'll be doing some training, offering some courses, that sort of stuff, so you can always unsubscribe to that email list. It's no big deal, it's not gonna hurt my feelings. This is more for facility managers, I'm sure, facility management companies that want to grow their business by using marketing. All right, guys, thanks a lot. Have a great one you.

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Javier Lozano, Jr.

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