Marketing is About Making Alliances

RCS Influencer Charles Antis says that marketing is taking care of and being understood by your community.  

Editor’s note: Watch the video to see and hear what Charles Antis has to say about the importance of marketing for his business. You can read the transcript below the video, but we recommend seeing it for yourself.    

Karen Edwards: How important is your marketing plan for your business, Charles? 

Charles Antis: When I was a roofing company just starting in a couple million marketing to me was sales; sales and marketing were the same. Marketing to me was just trying to get in front of the customer. I didn't understand how to differentiate the two. Where today marketing is, "Hey. Look at us." And sales is, "Will you sign this contract?" It's a little bit different, but marketing back then was putting a picture inside the proposal because my competitor didn't and maybe they would recognize me and pause on me. Marketing was tied into sales. Marketing was doing great customer care because if I really do good customer care, they'll remember us. We'll buzz, our glow will last and we'll get invited back. But somewhere along the line I learned that marketing was often [inaudible 00:00:49] and sometimes marketing is in your trade associations, it's in your roofing associations. 

Marketing is making alliances, but it's making alliances to be heard. And so I guess when I look at your question, which was how important is our marketing plan, for me, it's the most important thing because marketing is you being heard. The most important thing is that you're understood, not only by the customers, but by the community so that they're okay with you having that shop there. And also most importantly, marketing has to echo inside as well as outside so it has to be aligned with your team. And so the messaging from marketing, if you really want to be successful, why not tie it into a good component? Why not say, "Hey. We exist in the world," as Antis does, "To keep families safe and dry." There's a marketing message that we pay to put out there. On our logo it says, "30 years keeping families safe and dry." 

And when we sponsor an event, they put that logo there and that's good marketing because there's a good component. Now if you dig a little deeper in Antis, you'll see that we also donate all the roofs for local Habitat for Humanity and [inaudible 00:02:07] people last 11 and a half years. And we also donate the roofing for the local Ronald McDonald houses in Orange County and in LA and this is part of our marketing plan too and that's when it gets really special when you get it to cause. I would like to go deeper and say, "If you really want to be heard, make it matter today." Because as we've talked before on this, Karen, Antis has donated the roofs for Habitat and we've donated meals of love and other things for Ronald McDonald house for a long time. But today in today's world, there's new fears. 

People hear the world differently. People exist differently, wherever you sit. They look at the world differently, but we all notice some of the pains in the world. So Antis's gives today in addition to Ronald McDonald House, in addition to Habitat for Humanity, we donate 7,000 feet of space every couple of weeks for blood drives. We're going to have our 24th blood drive next week. We've raised almost 18,000 life-saving units of blood. That is fantastic marketing because this costs us something to donate the space, but we're talked about by not only American Red Cross, but we're also talked about by these corporations that sit on the board that are billion dollar corporations. We're also talked about on the news, channel five news Henry DiCarlo says, "Hey. Come to Antis and donate blood." This is brilliant marketing. It's the best marketing we've ever done. 

We also created the California love drop where we actually deliver meals and PPE to frontline health heroes. And you know why we do that? Well, I told you earlier, Karen, we did one earlier this week and the doctors came after working a double and the chaplains told us that when they bring our meals back to the staff who've worked a double because they're all working doubles because they're short staffed, when they take off their mask, they all have scabs. It's not just some Lifetime article, they all have bad skin. And so we brought ice rollers. We brought ice rollers for their skin. And the moment when you see these nurses from St Jude's receive these gifts and [inaudible 00:00:04:18], that is exactly great marketing because it's really solving a real-life problem today when the world needs it the most. 

So if you really want to be heard, and that's what marketing is, where I started with, really want to be heard, do good in the world. And that's how Antis is marketing plan. And if you look at me, I spend most of my time not running jobs. I can run good jobs, not selling jobs, I can sell well, but I spend my time doing good in the world because that is the best marketing that we could ever bring our brand. 

Karen Edwards: Wow. Well said- 

Charles Antis: That was a long answer. 

Karen Edwards: But you know what? You touched on so many points in there that it's so true and our contractors and the rest of the Roofers Coffee Shop community is always thankful to hear your insights. So thank you, Charles. 

Charles Antis is the founder and CEO of Antis Roofing & Waterproofing. See his full bio here.