Speaker 0 00:00:05 Welcome
Speaker 1 00:00:05 To the clear impact podcast brought to you by PGT university. Thanks for joining
Speaker 0 00:00:10 Today. My name is Sherry Conner and I am your host.
Speaker 2 00:00:19 And so empowering our dealers to take a greater control over what their digital footprint is really what, what our goal is to, you know, really keep, you know, agencies on their toes. And know if you're talking to a PGT dealer that, you know, they're there, you're not talking to any other deal. You're talking to somebody who knows a little bit more than you may think. And so you kind of have to, you have to really, you know, give them that respect, right?
Speaker 1 00:00:40 The introduction series on the clear impact podcast continues with another rock star on our marketing team. Today, we meet Josh Soto, Josh and I had so much to discuss. We actually divided our conversation into two episodes in this first half, we learn how Josh landed in a marketing role here at PGT innovations. We also discuss why digital marketing helps our dealers succeed in today's climate and how we are helping them to elevate their online game. Josh, I don't even know what your title is. Tell us a little bit about you. Who are you? What do you do here?
Speaker 2 00:01:12 I am Josh Soto to who I am, but I am a digital marketing specialist here for PGT. I, and so I make the distinction for PGI because it's not just PGT. Um, I, we overlook or we oversee the different brands for PGT. So PGT, CGI, easy breeze, um, echo now, as we're bringing in, you know, anytime I bring a new brands, that's along the lines of, you know, what I, who I am, what I do here.
Speaker 1 00:01:38 That's awesome. How long have you been with PGT?
Speaker 2 00:01:41 I've been with PGI since August, August 3rd was my first day. So I'm just over six months, close to eight now, I guess. Wonderful.
Speaker 1 00:01:49 So you're a little bit ahead of me, which is, uh, which is fun. It's fun to have other new, exciting people that are still like, Oh, I'm so excited to come to work every day and they get to do something new and I get to find my way around. And, uh, what's your favorite thing about working here so far?
Speaker 2 00:02:04 My favorite thing about working here so far is, is a hundred percent without question, the cafeteria being walking distance from my office every morning I go and I get, not every morning, I can't get every morning, but at least once a week, I'll go and get a breakfast sandwich and I loved and all things sandwich related. So, um, that just hits home for me.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 Nice. Okay. Uh, well tell us a little bit about, um, how you found yourself in the spot of digital marketing specialist at PGTs.
Speaker 2 00:02:36 Okay. So this is, this is a bit of a longer story and it's not going to, it's going to sound like it doesn't make any sense, but I promise you, it makes it makes perfect sense. Okay. The way I got into marketing or digital marketing is actually because I'm, as I was transitioning out of the military. So I'm prior military, as I was transitioning out of the military, I signed up for a program to become a personal. And so what I did is I went through that. It was an online based program through ACE. Um, and I became a personal, I got certified to be a personal trainer because it's mainly because I wanted to learn more about fitness, I'm really into fitness. So I just wanted to, you know, expand, like expand my scope of knowledge on that. And so once I did that, I was like, okay, well, what do I do?
Speaker 2 00:03:18 I want business cards. So I designed my logo and I designed business cards and I put them together and I said, wow, this is a lot of fun. Um, and then my wife who has been in marketing since 2000, I think 2010, 2011, um, she was, she had a small business going, she helped me with that. And then I started helping her do some light graphic design and stuff like that, uh, for her clients. And that turned into more of a, a bigger role. Um, I got more involved with the strategy behind it and, uh, eventually started working, you know, writing copy and then building websites. And then from there I just kind of evolved, but it all started because I got my personal trainers license and I designed my, my business card for good people. Fitness was the name of my little brand that I had going. Um, as I fell into that niche, um, working with other small working with my wife to help different small businesses around the country. That's where I started gaining a lot of my more relevant experience within a digital marketing, uh, escape.
Speaker 1 00:04:15 But the other than the cafeteria, what do you love the most about your role here?
Speaker 2 00:04:20 So speaking to my role, I can't talk about how I appreciate my job without mentioning my leadership, my boss, my boss's boss. And they're just, they're absolutely fantastic. And they've really empowered me to kind of step into bigger roles and take on things that I didn't even think that I was equipped for before coming to PGT. I was, I thought very small and being here, I've been able to learn a lot, um, really grow in my trade and have the support system to kind of, to fill in those blanks and, you know, bolster me up. And it's been, it's been pretty incredible so far. So just having the autonomy, having the support to be able to take on new challenges and, um, make a difference, um, for our company and really for our dealer network, which is, you know, a network of small businesses around the country. It's really fulfilling to be able to support that.
Speaker 1 00:05:05 I feel like that about my role too. So we're going to talk for a little bit about the importance of digital marketing, be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the fenestration industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics, you can find out more about
[email protected]. You can also find us on Facebook and LinkedIn, so speak to our dealer audience for a moment about why it's important for them to have their name out in the digital space.
Speaker 2 00:05:40 Sure. So digital marketing is it's very important for all businesses, no matter the size speaking to our dealer network. So I'm going to be speaking on a much smaller on a micro scale here. Um, it's very important because digital marketing, it has effectively lower the barrier of, to really, um, you know, put your name out there, put your business out there. You can make a Facebook page. You can, you know, register your business on Google for nothing. Um, so those are all, you know, easy wins for you as a small business. And it also allows you to speak to the evolving crowd, uh, to your evolving, you know, audience base. So by that, I mean, a lot of our dealers have been in the business for a very, very long time. Um, 20 plus years, you know, I'm on, I talked to dealers who have been, have been business owners longer than anyone here has been working.
Speaker 2 00:06:26 They know, so, and it's a point they like to brag about because it's a, you know, it's a badge of honor, you know, and it's really cool to be able to find people like that. A lot of those relationships and how they got to where they are is there, it's a lot, it's very relationship based. So it's word of mouth and, and growing within, you know, their own community, but in order for them to really grow, you know, and keep on moving, um, they have to be able to speak to the new audiences, you know, that are coming at the new product buyers. And a lot of people are buying through Google, like searching, you know, for, for product in their area, searching for businesses in their area. Um, looking for proof of, you know, social proof, a proof of concept, you know, looking to see what kind of interaction you have. So giving these, these new buyers a place to go and learn about you, um, is, is invaluable. And the fact that it's, you know, very low cost or most times free, um, it's makes it almost like a, it's a no-brainer. So that's, that's what I would argue or that's how I would pitch digital marketing to a small business, right.
Speaker 1 00:07:21 Because if, if I can't find you on Google, I can't find you,
Speaker 2 00:07:25 You don't exist. That's kind of what we've come to as a, as a society. If you're not on Google, then wait, hold on a second. What are you on? And I don't care. Right.
Speaker 1 00:07:33 And I mean, I'm old enough to remember yellow pages and how that's, where you went to look for someone to do a service for you. And then hopefully they had a big enough ad or they put their name in bold or something like that. And they paid a lot for that. A yellow page advertising was very expensive back in the day and that isn't even a thing anymore. So if people who have been in business for 30 years or more, at one time, they relied on that. That's not a thing anymore. So they have to have a new way of reaching their people. How are we, how are you your department, your team, how are you helping our dealers to kind of fit that bill? Because they're really good at their business. They're really good at dealing with customers once they get there, they know how to sell and install the products that we sell. But what do they know about putting together a Facebook ad or what do they know about creating a Google profile? How do we help them with those kinds of things?
Speaker 2 00:08:28 What we do, and specifically for our dealers, we have different programs and stuff like that. It changes from year to year, but we do different things like right now we're on the MDF fund. And, uh, what we'll do is we'll help support, um, dealers by offsetting marketing costs and digital marketing costs and different things like that. So we kind of bridge that gap a little bit and we put them in touch with preferred vendors to make sure you know, that they're not going to be, you know, taken advantage of or anything like that. We could say, Hey, this, this agency we've spoken to, they know what we expect, and they know how to access all of our assets and different things like that. So if you just go with them, you know, that they, they should take care of you pretty well. And so we try to, we try to weed things, you know, we things out that way and make sure that we're supporting our dealers from that space.
Speaker 2 00:09:11 But they're one of the main reasons we do that is, um, and I use the analogy of like owning a car, if you know anything about owning a car or working on a car. Um, you know, before I use a lot of mechanical references, because before I got into digital marketing, I was an aircraft mechanic for five years. Okay. So if you know anything about, you know, uh, how to work your way around a garage, then you know, that changing oil isn't, isn't rocket science, it's very easy, you know, checking your tire pressure is all change. Your spark plugs. You know, you can get a done with, you know, a YouTube video and usually like three tools and you're in, you're in, you're in the money. Um, but if you don't know anything about cars and if you don't know anything about, you know, if you don't have these tools, if you don't have that kind of experience, then a lot of it has to do with, you know, it's very intimidating.
Speaker 2 00:09:54 You don't want to break something, you don't want to do something wrong. And so it's easier just to pass that off to somebody else and just hope for the best that they'll take care of you, that you're in good hands. Um, but much like in owning a car, owning a business, if you don't know how to do these things, if you know how to set up a, you know, a Google profile, which doesn't take much time at all, um, you can go to a, uh, agency and they'll say, yeah, we'll set up for you for X amount of dollars and you think, Oh, that's great. I could be on Google for X amount of dollars. Perfect. And so it's really easy to be taken advantage of. It's a slippery slope for those things, especially when you start getting into, um, different, and I can speak on these more later, but when you get into SEO and you get into different, um, uh, niches of digital marketing, because you throw up, you know, vanity metrics, Oh, your traffic is X high and this, and this look what we did for you give us this money.
Speaker 2 00:10:40 It's like, well, hold on a second, let's take a step back here. So, um, I know the way that we aim to support our dealers is, um, is by a short video series. Um, and we, I hope to build on it. I have it dubbed as, you know, digital one-on-one. And so it's going to be a small series of videos that are on PGT university. And it just gives people like the very high level understanding of digital marketing, you know, what are important, what are good SEO practices? So when I say SEO, I mean, search engine optimization. So you want to make sure that your website is user-friendly. So it's good for people to go on there and they'll want to be on there and they can use it. But also it has to be set up in a way so that when Google crawls it, or when Google, when Google looks at it, they know exactly what it is because Google is not going to send a person to your website and say, Hey, bring them here for this query.
Speaker 2 00:11:28 Um, it gets crawled and depending on how it's presented, that's how it gets ranked. And so we just give you best practices to make sure that you're in the money and it's not anything that crazy. Um, it's just knowing a lot of times just knowing what questions to ask and so empowering our dealers to take a greater control over what their digital footprint is, really what our goal is to, you know, really keep, you know, agencies on their toes. And know if you're talking to a PGT dealer that, you know, they're there, you're not talking
Speaker 0 00:11:54 To any other deal. You're talking to somebody who knows a little bit more than you may think. And so you kind of have to, you have to really give them that respect,
Speaker 1 00:12:00 Right? Just on Facebook, for example, just because people like and follow your page, that doesn't always translate into sales. And, uh, people can spend a lot of time in those spaces. If it doesn't actually translate into the bottom dollar, then you've just wasted all of that time and all of that energy. And nobody really has time to waste or energy to waste. So I think that's amazing that we're helping people do that. I might take some of those classes. You're always welcome to, that'd be, that'd be fun, but I'm not as versed in SEO. And some of those things as I would like to be. So I'll definitely be taking advantage of those classes once you get them on there. Excellent. Yeah. Tune in next week. As we continue our conversation with Josh Soto,
Speaker 1 00:12:50 PGT a university is the customer education team for an entire family of brands. We began with the original, easy breeze, ports and closure line then became PGT. America's leading brand of impact resistant windows and doors. We then added CGI, CGI WinDoor, Western windows, new South windows and echo windows and doors. We create products built to withstand major storms, keeping people safe, secure, and prepared. Our exceptional brands give you the protection you need without compromising design or functionality. PGT university is here to educate you our listener so that you can be a more informed consumer of window and door products.
