Marketing and Leads 4 min read
Danny Carpenter on Commercial Floors, Better Lead Forms and AI in Phoenix
The Phoenix contractor built a seven figure first year on paid ads. Now he chases national commercial work and teaches other owners to run their own marketing.
Key takeaways
- Danny says his epoxy business did about $1.1 million in sales in its first 13 months, with close to $100,000 spent on marketing.
- He now puts polished concrete and grind and seal first, because that is where large national commercial projects are.
- Before running ads, he suggests posting about 20 pieces of content so the page looks established.
- His fix for junk leads: three qualifying questions in the lead form and an offer that asks for people ready now.
Danny Carpenter started his epoxy business about four years before this interview. He went in with one strategy: ads.
“We started running advertisements, generating leads, and we would go close them,” he says. “And we would do that every single day, every single week, every single month.”
By his count, the business did about $1.1 million in sales in its first 13 months, and spent almost $100,000 on marketing to get there.
Today his Phoenix company has a different focus, and Danny has a second job: teaching other owners how to do their own marketing.
Why epoxy comes second
Epoxy is now the company’s secondary line. Danny’s crews have done work for large retailers and entertainment venues, and he wants more of it.
“The vision that I have for our company is I want to be doing national … like major, major million square foot projects,” he says. “You’re gonna get that when you focus on the large scale projects, which is gonna be polished concrete, grind and seals, and stuff like that.”
That does not mean polished concrete is always the right answer. Danny explains the difference simply. Polished concrete is still porous, so oil can soak in over time. Epoxy is a coating that seals the surface.
“If you’re a mechanic, you’re not gonna wanna have polished concrete because you’re working with oil every day,” he says. “You’re gonna wanna have a coating that’s gonna stop any oil from soaking in and make it easy to wipe up.”
For homeowners and business owners comparing the two, that is the key question: what will be spilled on this floor?
Teaching owners to run their own ads
Danny started an online community to teach the skill that built his business: generating leads, converting them into customers and doing it predictably.
His reason is a frustration many contractors share. Some agencies, he says, charge $1,000 to $2,000 a month and deliver “tire kicker leads.”
“The marketing agency will never know the audience better than the business owner,” he says. “The business owner knows their customer better than an agency will.”
“The marketing agency will never know the audience better than the business owner.”
If an owner learns to run ads, he argues, the $20,000 to $25,000 a year that would go to an agency can go into the ads instead.
Look established before you advertise
How much organic content should a new company post before running ads? Danny’s answer is practical.
Someone who sees your ad has usually been searching for epoxy already. Before they fill out a form, they will tap through to your page to see if you are legit.
“For a business, I would post 20 different pieces of content immediately if you’re trying to run ads and you don’t have anything yet,” he says. Then start the ads.
Fixing junk leads
When a contractor spends $2,000 a month and gets junk leads, Danny usually sees the same problem: the form only asks for a name and phone number.
He adds friction with three questions:
- Is the project residential or commercial?
- Is it over or under 1,000 square feet?
- How soon do you want it done: as soon as possible, one to two weeks, two to four weeks or more than a month?
That last one is where he thinks most people go wrong. “There’s no urgency,” he says. “I want my time spent with the people who are ready to make a decision.”
He also changes the offer. Instead of a discount, he adds value, for example offering to move a homeowner’s things out of the garage for free for the next five people ready to start.
“You don’t want to discount your pricing. You wanna give more value,” he says.
Letting AI answer the phone
When ads work, the next problem is too many leads. Danny’s answer is an AI agent that texts new leads, books appointments and sends information, so his team can personally follow up with the people who respond.
“A human being that’s gonna work eight hours a day, the AI is gonna work 24,” he says. He also says customers have stopped caring whether the first reply comes from AI.
He credits that system with keeping his company booked out two months.
Content that brings in customers
Danny separates content that gets views from content that gets jobs.
For residential customers, he says, the content that brings in work speaks to real frustrations: an embarrassing garage, a door that stays shut, a car that never makes it inside. Those videos do not get big views. The light, fun posts do, and that reach helps push the lead generating videos too.
He also bets on his own name. He runs his ads through his personal page, even for local floors.
“There’s a hundred different companies in Phoenix, but they want Danny Carpenter to do their floor,” he says. “And that has a lot of power in your local market.”
A fire under the industry
Danny was involved early in the Golden Pour Awards. He says he helped set up the event’s first website and talked through marketing ideas with its founders.
He believes the industry is still “a small fish in a big pond,” and expects the event to change how people work.
“I think this is gonna light a fire underneath this industry,” he says. “People are gonna leave here … they’re gonna learn marketing strategies or they’re gonna learn sales or they’re gonna learn all different tools just from showing up to this event and it’s gonna change the way that they operate.”
Watch on Epoxy Growth Guy
Clips from the interview
See Danny Carpenter tell it in their own words, on Instagram.