Good evening, everybody. I'm John Havard. I'm not your normal host. Craig and, Craig and Kevin were busy tonight, but I'm taking over the show for them tonight, and I'm pretty excited about it. So I'm John Havard. I'm the creator of Cowboy Jack educational videos for kids. and the Dad's Gone Mild podcast. Uh, tonight we're live from Moonshine Deck here in Magnolia, Texas, right off of 1488. It's a new, new happening spot out here. They got a real cool turfed area for kids. There's some kids playing paddleball over there. A lot of folks inside over here networking. We're here with the NET networking group tonight. And, uh, my first guest here is, uh, Armando Nino.
Yeah, yeah, Armando Nino.
you wear a couple of hats, don't you, buddy?
I do. I, I do a lot of local marketing, uh, local promotion. And, uh, we own golakeconroe media.com, GLC Media Group, here on the lake area, Lake Conroe, which is just down the road from here. I mean, yeah, we're just a hop, skip, and a jump away, right through Fish Creek. You can get over to Lake Conroe right there, uh, at Papa's. Um, I also am the host of the Texas Ticket Show on Lone Star Community Radio, 104.5 and 106.1 FM. Uh, you can catch our, uh, Texas Ticket podcast.
What do you got? What do you guys get into on that?
Well, we just talk about local events. Fun, good times, the lighter side, the lighter fare.
Y'all had an awesome event this last weekend in Conroe, the Crawfish Festival.
The Crawfish Critic Festival.
I completely missed that one. Some of my favorites were there. What's his name? Not Stalecracker. What's the—
Crawfish. Lots of crawfish.
Yeah, but Grizzy's Hood News was there.
She's my girl. That's right. Yeah, there was a lot of folks. I didn't make it out there, but I Love crawfish. I love the event. I know it was packed house. They sold out, I believe. And, you know, and, and it's hard dealing with large crowds. I, I heard there was some come and go about that, but what a great problem to have, you know, and what a great way to better. I, I think, uh, we should see a lot more out of the Crawfish Critic next year and really looking forward to it. Definitely one I won't miss next year.
Yeah, I'm gonna do my best. I unfortunately, I was out of town and I was just like, I cannot believe I'm missing this, man.
I'll eat myself stupid. But, uh, tell me about, you know, your marketing firm.
Let's Well, we do, uh, with daily contact. So the idea is that, you know, uh, most people want their business to be responsive every day to their marketing strategy. I mean, somehow my marketing should work every single day when I turn the open light on, you know what I mean?
Marketing should be at work. And, and, you know, it's, it's hard to do. All businesses aren't as, I guess, uh, cosmetic as others, you know. If I own a My concrete guy keeps sending me pictures of parking lots.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Not every business has these incredible Instagram-worthy photographs.
If I'm a chef, I can show you a great dish.
Right, but at the same time, your concrete guy, he's doing incredible work. It's just all about perspective and what's popular on social media.
He's showcasing some incredible work and some of the incredible things that he does. And by all means, he's probably an incredible craftsman, But it just doesn't show well on the picture.
And they are. And really, our goals are beyond just, you know, how do you— you know, there's 2 parts that I, I guess, deduced. And that's in my own little mad think tank up on the slab in the lab, you know. And one part is design. And whether it's commercial or a show or an ad or a poster or whatever you made, The design work to do it. The second part is distribution. And so, I mean, if I move just a little bit, I catch the shade. It's not that I don't want to look at you. Yeah, I'm moving my shade over for you now. But the distribution is always the part that most people leave out. You know, they go and get the best ad art, the best ad designs, and then at the end of the day,
it only shows to their group of 500 or their group of 1,000 or whatever their Their— excuse me— their local group is. So the idea of distribution being skipped is just a vital piece. So advice would be to make sure you adhere to both if you really want to have it. I mean, because there's nothing a marketing agency can't do that the business owner can't do. Yeah, especially on daily production.
Yeah, but at the same time, that business owner has to be fully committed to it. It's a daily grind, right?
And so you know, being an entrepreneur and running your business and taking care of the customers coming in the door, or, you know, maybe you're working at their place of business, you know, concrete work or something like that, and being able to be responsive to social media and being, you know, having an active presence on that. I think that's where, you know, marketing firms and things like that come into play because, like you said, like, I run a couple of different Facebook pages and I have, you know, collectively maybe 30,000 followers, something like that. I can post all day and reach probably 20% of my followers throughout those pages, but that's great. I can, I can beat them to death on that. It's reaching that new audience that is your goal, right?
Yeah, always, always new eyes. I mean, my clients say if they pay me to entertain their existing following, that's a waste. Yeah. Wow. No, well, I mean, not a waste. We give them a good professional look and get the appeal right, but I mean, it's It's more closer to the things you could do yourself. I can cut my own grass, but I still hire somebody to do it. Exactly. And that's more along that line. When I think about marketing, that's not what I'm thinking about. I mean, that's courtesy service. Let me appeal to your existing audience. I mean, it's like I got a guy who sells beds and he orders a lifetime warranty on some of the mattresses. I'm like, an infant toddler bed, can
I bring it back when they turn 21 because they don't fit in it anymore? Yeah, it's, you know, I mean, what's that gonna do? You know, I mean, why would you even have that? You know, I don't understand half this process. And you know, most of the people that are on your page appreciate your business, appreciate the product. They love what you did. It was fair, good business. They bought a lifetime warrantied mattress. They're not gonna buy another one. You know why? Because they got a lifetime warranty on the one you already sold them. So guess who's following your page? Your mom, your friends, and the people that bought lifetime warrantied mattresses. So what are
we doing advertising to them? Why is that our focus? So distribution would become the key on that marketing strategy for that guy.
So it's no longer about his ad design so much so as it is more so his distribution. His distribution has to be for other eyes. He's probably not going to find a lot of business in his own house, you know what I mean? And maybe referrals, things like that, but, you know, when you hire marketing companies, seek new eyes, and there's, like I said, there's nothing we can't do that they can't do, but we just do it—
our track record right now shows something around a 10-year difference in the process. Meaning it would take you 10 years to get as many followings, likes, and views and all the things of that nature by yourself than if we did it for you.
Well, because you're professionals. This is what you— your trade, your skill.
And we're beating it up every day. I mean, every day beating it up. I mean, literally beating it up.
Yeah. And so we earned the hunt, you know, and Like I said, it's like cutting your grass. It's not that you couldn't do it. Well, sure you can.
You're in the perfect market for it, right? Like, it's not like people are not moving to Conroe, Texas. We're seeing a population boom like we've never seen before.
We like to see that. I mean, it doesn't do anything but help us, but it also means we get to start fresh with new, new ears, new eyes. And we got— we know we've got new people moving here that have needs and things that they use that they were comfortable with in their past, that hopefully now they're looking to find those same comforts local and here. You know, rather than driving to the liquor store in Katy, Texas, while they live on Lake Conroe, they're probably going to buy local.
Yeah, absolutely. That's a good point. I know a couple of good local liquor stores on Lake Conroe.
I'm just saying, you know, it's nothing like when a liquor store tells you they want people— they want 250,000 views and they're in downtown Montgomery. It's like, well, they don't live here, sir.
Yeah. They're like, well, I'm not paying you unless I get that. Well, then good luck.
I mean, you've got an incredible reach in Boca Raton. in Boca Raton, Florida, but it's not gonna do you any good.
Do you care is my next question. It's a question. You, you made a statement. You see, in marketing, you just give them a question. I got clients in Boca Raton. It's not gonna do you any good, but would you— will that work? Is that gonna be okay? And if they give you a yes, then just go to work, you know, give them Boca Raton, you know, give them what they asked for. But if they listen to logic and some sensibility that, you know, like in Montgomery, 863 people came out to vote at the last mayoral election. So how many people do you think you're going to get to talk about your business there? You know, I mean, do you realize
they tried really hard and put signs everywhere?
For 863 is what you said?
Now times are changing, you know, more people are moving here, you know, I mean, but you're not going to get 250,000 views on your page that matter. You know, you may get them cosmetically and we can certainly do that for you.
Yeah, but you know, kind of like a snow cone stand going viral.
It's great, but who's gonna drive 250, 300 miles for a snow cone?
If you're disabled, a youth, or maybe special needs, or part of a nonprofit, a support group, or something like that, they may. They could drive out from other parts of the state to come out to your snow cone stand to support the cause, but that's different. Yeah, you know, and that's good marketing. It supports your snow cone stand, gets your name out there, and also supports a good cause. I think it's a great way to do business. I think that's a great way to reach out people outside of the realm and bring them in.
But it's true, it's true, it's very true.
But you got to come up with something.
Well, tell folks how we— how they find you. How, how can they get Armando in their lives to, to improve their reach and improve their marketing strategy? Well, we'd love, we'd love to look into it, you know.
And I, I honestly, I just don't think we're a fit for everybody. I really don't. I, I know, um, Professionalism takes companies to a different grade, a mandatory level in some places where an agency is absolutely necessary.
You can't cut that corner. They're not even allowed. The details of operation, the details of their business have requirements that demand a full-service agency at another level in order for a third party to take a hand in their business. But for those that don't have such restraints or are looking for some alternatives, Alternative marketing that really— community, daily production. Not a Scorsese. You know what I mean? I don't make those. You know, I don't. And if we did, you gotta know Scorsese took like 10 years and $20 million to get a job done. So if that's the kind of game plan and financial strategy you're set, we can certainly provide a Scorsese. But it takes $10 million and about
15 to 20 years to produce.
If you've got that time, we're good. we can definitely bring you something on that level of marketing. But if you'd like something that's a daily production, meaning a day-to-day business, I'm open every day, I want that kind of marketing, I need that kind of community impact, golayconroe.com. Or you can go to facebook.com/TXTicket for our show on the podcast. And you can go to facebook.com/GolayConroe, catch us there.
Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time to tell us a little bit about it.
Yeah, glad to be, be here. Glad to be seen. Glad to be to speak, and I appreciate the opportunity.
Yeah, thanks for coming on the Homeowner Show with me.
Outstanding. Thank you. Appreciate it.
All right, and we're back. I got a couple of new fellas here with me. I want to give a quick shout out to Lone Star Appliance Repair LLC. Uh, these guys are sponsoring the show tonight. Amazing people, amazing, amazing service, amazing work. Take care of all your appliance repair needs and all that kind of stuff in the Conroe surrounding areas. You can find them on Facebook, of course, just Lone Star Appliance Repair. They have an amazing Lone Star Texas logo because that's where we are, the best state in the union. But you can also get them at 936-647-2364. That's 936-647-2364. Also email them at dispatchconroe@gmail.com. These guys will take care of your appliances, I promise. I need to call them because I got a couple things going on with mine. Mine are getting a little bit old. So I got Shawn here with me. Shawn, go ahead and introduce
So my name is Shawn Snyder, aka Sasquatch. It's pretty much what everybody calls me out here. I'm the owner of Sasquatch Construction and also the owner of Barndo Builders of Texas. That one's still in the works, but we've rolled out Facebook. marketing and everything on that.
That's step one, is telling everybody you're doing it, right?
Yes, sir. We're kind of still just now in the advertising phase, starting with the legal stuff and everything like that, but we're trying to get out there, start getting the work. I partnered up with Jeff with Best Choice Remodeling.
That's— I don't know if you can see Jeff over there or not. Wave, Jeff.
To kind of bring us both of our skills together And so we're able to work with Sasquatch, we're able to work with Best Choice, and now we've got Barndo Builders to kind of build on.
Very cool. So tell me, so Sasquatch is your existing company right now?
What kind of construction do you guys do?
Um, remodeling mainly. Um, my bread and butter has always been dirt work, but, uh, I've been doing construction for over 20 years, so we can pretty much do anything we That's a—
that's kind of a large range you got there, going from dirt work to remodeling, right?
That's pretty cool. So I mean, one day it could be digging somebody a pond or clearing a new lot, and, uh, the next day you're, you're picking backsplashes with somebody.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, and Jeff, I'm gonna scoot this around to you. So Jeff, tell me, tell me about your, your company.
So, uh, I started, uh, Best Choice. So my dad— I grew up doing this stuff, uh, doing, uh, fixing houses. Um, I started doing it for make-readies, meaning that, uh, when people move out of rental properties, we go in, fix all their stuff that they damaged, clean it out, get it make-ready for it to be rented back out. Yeah, so, um, I always done all the work for myself. I met Sean and, uh, you know, and we just started clicking. And our, um, our skill level from what I can do and what he can do, we can start a project from clearing out land to turnkey ready. And that was the goal, is to create a company that we can do anything and everything you need done at your house.
That's really, that's really cool. And especially like barn doors, like you see all types of ranges of these on the, on the internet, but like The majority of these, I mean, it's incredible what people are doing with these things, right?
Absolutely. So, guys, come on.
So we have a, you know, we have a design process so we can do whatever you want and how you ever want to do it. So yeah, that's the— that was the goal.
And are you got— like, what all are you going to— going to have in the fold? Like, are you guys going to take on full design?
So CAD work and, you know, like layouts and all that?
Yes. I mean, of course you have to farm out some of that stuff, right?
Like, yeah, I mean, obviously we're The engineering reports and stuff like that. We're gonna make sure that we, you know, get all of our drawings drafted by actual engineers so that we know that we're building this structurally sound.
Structurally sound. That's—
So I dabble in real estate on the side, and I'll tell you, a couple of years ago, uh, I sold a barndominium on some property in New Averly, and that thing was built out of an actual pole barn. It served its purpose as a pole barn for like 15 years before they finished it out, and, uh, it was just ridden with, uh, you know, all kinds of issues because it wasn't structurally sound to begin with before they finished it out as a house. But these people, what they were really buying was— it was on about 200 acres of property that was backed up right to the national forest. That's what they really wanted it for, right? So it served their purpose as like a hunting camp. But so anyway, would you be willing to take somebody's existing barn
and turn this into a barndo? You really need to go from the ground up.
No, I mean, if they wanted to take something that's existing and, you know, build on it, then by all means. I mean, my thought on a barn is really just that, you know. I grew up up north, you know, Grandpa passed away, he's got that old barn, everybody's trying to move out to Grandpa's property. Hey, let's take Grandpa's old barn and let's turn that into, you know, so-and-so's house. So obviously taking an old barn and You know, making a house is gonna probably be a little bit more challenging because now we've got to figure out what's structurally sound, what's not structurally sound, and build upon it. But, you know, we're always up for a new challenge.
Yeah, well, that's— I mean, you guys are the right guys for the challenge, right?
I actually just got approached this evening, actually, here. I have a customer that's out here that wants us to build an underground bunker for him, a 10 by 20 underground bunker.
I was like, I don't know that I've ever done anything like that. That sounds absolutely amazing. I don't know how I would go about it, but we're gonna definitely take a whack at it.
Well, where there's a will, there's a way. I actually visited an underground house about 2 weeks ago, uh, out towards Navasota. Fully underground house. I mean, that thing was— to me, that's, that's one of the coolest things. It's just something unique that you don't see every day. So you're flexible. ability to do things that are non-traditional, I think it's going to take you to incredible places.
Well, and what we keep on telling everybody is, look, if you can dream it, we're going to figure it out, we're going to make it happen.
Yeah, that is really cool.
And I mean, here lately we've been getting a lot of calls about contractors coming in and just leaving with money or doing a crap job.
I see that on the internet every day.
The hardest The hard part is going behind somebody and figuring out what they did, what they didn't do, if they did it right. So we've been getting tons of these calls and knocking them out because we have to, we have to figure out what they did wrong.
Yeah, you basically have to do an autopsy of the job to figure out what the heck's going on. Exactly, exactly.
And bid it to where, you know, how it's going to work.
The customer's already spent a bunch of money, you know, and so we are trying to be compassionate and, you know, like This isn't normally what we would charge, you know, but we know that you've been burnt and we want to help you. So we kind of cut our throats a little bit on some of these jobs to kind of help them out because they got, they got screwed over by somebody else.
Yeah, but at the same time, you guys have already established a great trust in the community with— through Sasquatch and Best Choice already. So that's really cool. I mean, I can't I need to follow you guys on Facebook because I can't wait to see that barn, those barn doors going up.
And you're probably going to get it. I mean, what the population boom that we're having in this area is insane. I bet you, you guys will start seeing some mother-in-law suites like real quick.
Yeah, here currently, um, obviously we're just now starting, but we're also looking at trying to find an investor that would be willing to help with capital to go ahead and start doing ready to move in. We go buy property, we build a house, a barndo on it, ready to move in. Yeah, I've got a couple of real estate friends that said we have a waiting list, people that want a barndo, but they don't want to sell their house, move into an apartment, and wait. They would rather just be ready to move in.
Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a huge thing, especially in this real estate market too, having available inventory, because that's, that's something that we've really been lacking for what, the last almost 2 years, is just that available inventory. Like, I could— I can sell my house right now and make really great money, but what am I going to move into? Right, right. And I pose a certain uniqueness too because I have 6 dogs and 2 kids. Like, I can't rent a place.
Right, right, right. You ain't going to an apartment, are you?
No, I wish I could, man. I would have sold that house at the height of the COVID craze. But, um, well, that's really, really cool, man.
I dig it. And, uh, that's so cool, the two of you coming together in that very unique way, taking your skill sets and combining them.
Well, so he, uh, he did some work for a contractor that I was working with, and neither one of us really cared for that contractor. Yeah, but you know, that's neither here nor there. Um, but I found out his wife had a child that was autistic. I have a child that's autistic.
He's very much Christian-based. I'm very much Christian-based. Now, to be honest, we both are just like sailors, but at the same time, our values are geared around a Christian faith. So it was kind of meant to be when we started hanging out and talking. It was like, I feel like I can trust him. And It was vice versa. So we've been just kind of sitting down, collaborating. If we don't got something to do for a day, if we're not hanging out, we're, we're on the phone chit-chatting back and forth.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I, uh, you know, everybody has their own faith and, and all of that stuff, but, uh, I think you'll find within a year or so that this did not happen by happenstance, and there's a, there's a bigger plan. I think you guys are really on to something.
I wish you all the best. I appreciate you guys coming on the show and telling us about you. Yes, sir.
So we've got Sasquatch Construction, Best Choice, and of course we also have Barndo Builders of Texas. Barndo Builders of Texas. I love that name. That's such a cool name. All right, thank you guys so much.
All right, and we'll be right back with our next guest.
