Hi, I'm Howie Metz. I'm the previous owner of Quality First Plumbing and Heating in the Denver area. I sold that company in '22.
And, internet marketing. It's a pretty cool subject. Not an expert, but I got my taste of it. I worked with several over the years. I started with one company, and nine hundred dollars a month was pretty out of reach for me. But we did it, and then I learned what internet marketing was all about.
So after that time, I moved to a larger company. I had a larger budget. And I was one of the very... one of very many small fish in a very, very big ocean. And they were pretty successful in making me feel that way.
I was... it was tough getting leads. And one of the biggest problems was I found I was competing with myself. And when you compete with yourself, ultimately the winner is the internet marketing company, because they were representing many other like companies in my market.
And my market's very competitive. There's approximately 2.8 million people in the Denver metro area, including Boulder. And those clients had lots of choices. And "pick me" was one of the hardest things we had to come about.
And then I met Stephen about ten years ago—maybe a little bit more—at an event I went to. Didn't know that he was a local guy. And we hit it off pretty much right away. I know his wife, and I had more sense of being important. I was listened to, I was heard, and my objectives were met.
It wasn't just making the phones ring, which is what internet marketing companies do. It was how to take those and convert them into customers. And focusing in on the avatar. And those of you listening to this have probably heard that term before. My client is anybody with a toilet and a water heater. That's pretty much everyone.
Our services comprised of residential, commercial, and industrial. And we found that pretty much all of them found their service provider—their plumber, HVAC tech, electrician—they look on the internet. And being findable was a big deal.
And Stephen took me under his wing and taught me a lot of things I didn't know I needed to know about internet marketing. And it's so vast. And it got to the point where there were things I really didn't want to know, except that it was working.
And once it started working, my company scaled. In about two years, we doubled in size. For the opportunity to serve the client that we were looking for by enhancing our customer service department and really nailing down how to convert an inquiring person into a paying customer was really the stepping stone in the success that we found in using Wit.
You know, everybody goes through the situations where they feel a certain degree of comfort. I stayed with my internet marketing company so long because there was a degree of comfort there, familiarity. It was... you know, I knew my success rep or my sales rep. I knew them, I was comfortable with them, and I actually trusted them.
Until I started looking a little bit further and making that leap. It's the same way a lot of people feel—and my wife says it the best—"Why did you wait so long?" Well, hindsight's 20/20.
And when I finally did make the change, I realized I was finding a place I trusted more and finding a relationship that actually wanted me to succeed, rather than just being, again, one of those clients in a customer base.
And you know, the perks were pretty nice. The wining and the dining and the traveling and all that. And when we were talking about it, my wife asked if I was paying for all of this. And I said, "Yeah, I am." Maybe not stroking the check for it, not coming out of pocket for it directly, but who's paying for it? And as it turns out, it was us.
I'd rather that money go to the success of the business and building the company, and I can go on the trips myself when I decided to do that. So, while that was nice, it was completely unnecessary, and it created a fake sense of caring.
