How I generated 43 Million Tiktok Views - with Ashley Mackintosh transcript

Greg (00:01):

The construction industry can be a tough business to crack, from cashflow problems, struggling to find skilled labour and not making enough money for your efforts, leaves many business owners feeling frustrated and burnt out. But when you get the business strategy right, it’s an industry that can be highly satisfying and financially rewarding. I’m here to give you the resources to be able to create a construction business that gives you more time, more freedom, and more money. This is the Develop Your Construction Business podcast, and I’m your host, Greg Wilkes.

 

Greg (00:42):

Would you love to go viral on TikTok and YouTube? Well, my guest today who has an exterior cleaning company, Ashley McIntosh, he’s managed to do that with over 43 million views on TikTok and over 30,000 subscribers on YouTube. It’s an incredible feat for just an exterior cleaning company. We are going to learn all the tactics and tips that Ashley’s got to teach us. Have a listen and see what you can learn. So, really pleased today to welcome a special guest and friend of mine, Ashley McIntosh. Welcome to the show, Ashley.

 

Ashley Mackintosh (01:16):

 

Hey, Greg. Thanks for having me.

 

Greg (01:18):

 

Great to have you on, and I know it was little while ago that I was on your podcast. Must have been, a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago?

 

Ashley Mackintosh (01:24):

 

Oh, yes. My podcast has gone from strength to strength since then. I suppose partly down to you, maybe <laugh>.

 

Greg (01:31):

 

That’s got be it, surely. It’s got to be the best episode. <laugh>.

 

Ashley Mackintosh (01:34):

 

Yes, I’ve just about hit 50,000 downloads on my podcast. So it’s been good.

 

Greg (01:42):

 

We look forward to diving into what you’ve been up to Ashley throughout this podcast. The reason I wanted to get you on today is because I’ve seen an unbelievable transformation in your social media presence over the last two years. It really is, literally unbelievable to see what you’ve managed to achieve. There’s some real credit there for you being able to do that. But just before we jump in and work out how you’ve done that and what you’ve achieved over the last few years, tell us a little bit about yourself, Ashley, what do you do? What’s your business?

 

Ashley Mackintosh (02:14):

 

Well, I’ve been running my own business for over 25 years now. I started at college. When I was at college. I started working with window cleaners that I knew part-time and initially I hadn’t intended to continue with that, but when I finished college, I was earning money, I’d started picking up some of my own customers, so my own business started from there. When I finished college, I kept doing it really <laugh> and never looked back. I’ve just done it ever since. Back then, in the early days, I really focused on window cleaning and building around. But since then I’ve diversified into other aspects of exterior cleaning. I suppose over the years I’ve rebranded myself a few times, but now I like to say that I’m a an exterior cleaning specialist. <laugh> Talk myself up a little bit. Pressure washing, exterior, render cleaning and roof cleaning especially has been quite a new and exciting aspect of what I do as well. So anything really! <laugh>,

 

Greg (03:30):

I think just calling yourself a exterior cleaning specialist is probably a little bit of an understatement for what you’ve actually achieved with your marketing. I would say you are actually a marketing expert too, with what you’ve done. Those are some of the things I want to dive into in the podcast today where I think my listeners are going to get some tremendous value from you, just to see actually what you’ve achieved and maybe get people thinking out of the box a little bit to think, “I might have a service company, but actually what can I do with my marketing to make it explode?”

 

Greg (03:58):

Talking about your social media exploding, Ashley, give us some stats at the moment on what’s going on in your social media because the last time I checked your TikTok, I nearly fell over with what’s going on <laugh>

 

Ashley Mackintosh (04:13):

I’ll have to brush up. I think my TikTok…I had a video on there that just quite unexpectedly exploded. It’s got already 43 million views, <laugh> on my TikTok. There are quite a few videos on there have gone into the millions, so that’s pretty good. I’ve got over 38,000 followers on there. Then my Instagram also has seems to have exploded in the last few weeks, and I was struggling around the 5,000 followers mark, but just in three weeks it’s got up 5,000 followers a week and basically and has hit 20,000 followers just now. So there’s a few reels on there that are over a few million views on there.

 

Greg (04:59):

Wow.

Ashley Mackintosh (05:00):

It’s exciting stuff the way it’s just grown in the last few weeks really. Sometimes these things can be down to chance, whether a video just captures people’s attention for some reason. But I think there are also some techniques you can apply to just push things in that direction as well.

 

Greg (05:24):

A hundred percent. I don’t think we can put it all down to chance. I mean, when I was first talking to you on your podcast, I know a big focus of yours was your YouTube channel and you’ve got yourself up to 31,000 subscribers currently on YouTube. Yeah. But it’s just amazing actually how, although that was your initial focus, the the other channel seemed to be surpassing that, or at least catching up with, with YouTube success. Did you expect that?

 

Ashley Mackintosh (05:48):

Well, I think the way social media has changed and YouTube has changed as well, the focus for a lot of this social media content now is short videos. On YouTube it’s shorts, on Instagram it’s the reels and TikTok is obviously video based. Just trying to capture those moments that are going to inspire or capture the attention of other people out there. I suppose the idea for me at the moment is to, I’ve been focusing a little bit more on those social media aspects and I’m hoping that will translate a little bit into YouTube subscribers as well. Everything supports each other really.

 

Greg (06:33):

Yes, incredible. When you initially started this, Ashley, obviously you’ve had your exterior cleaning business for a while, or it is morphed into that type of business as time’s gone on, what made you start even think about filming yourself <laugh> working and then start putting some content out there like that? Why did you do it?

 

Ashley Mackintosh (06:52):

Well, I suppose what I did at college was a course called Music Technology. I was working in a music studio. I have that kind of little bit of a technical background and a little bit of me in a way, wishes I’d gone into that aspect of things a little bit more <laugh>. I think for my window cleaning business, what I’d started to do was diversify into other aspects of cleaning, and pressure washing especially was the main one that I wanted to promote. I realised, I think my business has grown up at a similar rate or a similar time as technology has developed. At the time, websites were the thing really, to have a good website really reflected well on your business

 

Greg (07:42):

 

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

 

Ashley Mackintosh (07:42):

 

That was the focus for me at the time. I was trying to develop a website and I realised that when I quoted a job for pressure washing and I went there as a “AE Macintosh: The Window Cleaner” but I’m quoting for pressure washing, there’s a slight mindset of the customer there that, “Oh, if you’re a window cleaner and you’re quoting for pressure washing, it’s going to be a cheap, cheerful type service.” I started to realise that really, I wanted to charge more for pressure washing than I was already doing for window cleaning. I wanted to show off my service and the quality of service that I was trying to deliver. And so that’s why I started filming some of the jobs I was doing. Then I could put those videos on my website and people would go to my website and they’d already see the quality of service that I was carrying out.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (08:35):

So that was it, because I was making a few videos, I think I was just ahead of the curve. YouTube was a relatively new thing. There was n there was not a lot of people in my industry making videos like that. So they were just naturally getting a lot of views. There were a few guys doing a similar thing, but it wasn’t swamped like it is now <laugh> I think simply because of that fact that I was one of the few doing it….and I hadn’t intended to grow a YouTube channel at the time, it was just you had to put the video on YouTube in order to then connect it to your website <laugh>. It was for that purpose really. But it really just grew from there.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (09:23):

Then I started making a few more videos to share tips and advice and equipment I was using and why I was using it. That would have a benefit for showing the customers that I was an expert in what I was doing, but also other other people in the industry were benefiting from that as well. That exchange of ideas, which I was finding it useful as well. Actually, I think one of the great things about YouTube is that you’d get people commenting who might say, “Oh, have you tried this? Or You should do it like that.” And sometimes I’d be like, “Well actually, I’ve tried it like that and I didn’t like it, it wasn’t as good” so I stick to the way I do it. But other times you’re like, “oh actually that’s a good idea.” There’s a learning process for me as well. I think people underestimate that. But all this time I’ve been doing YouTube, it’s been a great learning curve for me on the tools as well. <laugh>

 

 

Greg (10:18):

Yes I’m sure it has been! What’s fascinating, just listening to you there, is that sometimes when we are marketing, it’s all right telling people to go for a niche, but when your niche is small, some people don’t want to niche down in that way. They want to be all things to all people. But it’s incredible actually the following you’ve got for having such a tight niche <laugh> because you are very, very niche specific, aren’t you? It’s amazing how, actually having that niche has created those thousands of followers. It’s amazing how many people are actually out there that are looking for exactly what you’re offering.

 

Ashley Mackintosh (10:49):

Yes. There is a marketing perspective that says that you should aim to be an expert in your industry, and if you can put yourself as maybe the number one expert in your industry, that does such a lot for your business and the way customers will view your business. I never really set out with that intention, but I suppose it’s become a little bit like the hat that I try to be the source of an exchanging of ideas, I suppose. I’ve got to the point now where I can really genuinely say, I have got years of experience, I have done things the hard way very often. And I can say that to people out there “I’ve done things the hard way:” I can say with a good degree of confidence, “Look, you should do it like this, because this is the best way.”

 

 

Greg (11:53):

A hundred percent. Obviously, there’s massive benefits when you become an authority in your industry that’s going to come with its own perks, isn’t it? Not just from getting better quality clients, but there’s tons of other perks that you probably get from that. Tell us a little bit about (I know some of your perks with some of the equipment you’ve been getting and testing etc) What were some of the perks you’ve had over the years by being viewed as an expert?

 

Ashley Mackintosh (12:16):

Well there’s this thing where people give you equipment and they want you to test it and show it off on the channel and stuff like that. For a long time, I did that just on the basis of, if I can have the equipment for free, I’ll be happy to make a video of it. I thought as things grew, you start charging a fee for this kind of thing as well. But in the window cleaning industry, I think it is so small that people were reluctant to pay a fee for it. When I started saying “There’s going to be a fee.” Most people were put off by that, to be honest and a bit offended if anything! But they didn’t really see and understand the benefits behind that.

 

 

Greg (13:00):

Mmmhmm <affirmative>.

Ashley Mackintosh (13:02):

I’ve moved away from doing that kind of thing a little bit, but I mean, there have been some companies out there that have been willing to work with me in that way and I’ve done some really good stuff. I’ve even been to Amsterdam or <laugh> to a cleaning show with Unger. I went on the Unger and did that, that was really good. I created some social media content for them doing that. There’s a company who is quite proactive about their video, a company called Spinner Clean and they’ve given me equipment and I’ve actually made promotional videos for them to go on their website and for their promotion. That’s really good because sometimes to be able to really fuss about the video is something I quite enjoy doing. And obviously to get paid for that, it’s great as well. But on YouTube very often, I think it can put people off sometimes if you make a video that’s too elaborate. The general everyday viewer, it’s kind of like, “What’s this? It’s, what’s he trying to do?”

 

 

Greg (14:07):

They think they’re watching a commercial or something <laugh>.

Ashley Mackintosh (14:09):

Yes so I try and tone it down for a lot of my own content, but then when a company comes and says, “Look, we want flash video” I quite like that, I can really get a bit creative. I’ve done a lot of videos for them. A lot of their main products on their website I’ve done the video now.

 

Greg (14:28):

Brilliant.

Ashley Mackintosh (14:28):

I learned a lot actually working with them and their marketing. They had a really good marketing expert with years of experience who’d worked with different companies. She really saw the benefit of what I was doing and the benefit for them. They would get external video production companies to try and make videos for them, but they wouldn’t get the shots or the angles that they wanted really. They knew that I was already doing it. So they started asking me to do promotional videos because they knew that I would know the angles they wanted and the kind of content they wanted. She really appreciated what I was doing and so it was nice to work with them. I learned a lot from her as well about marketing, so that was great.

Greg (15:17):

Fantastic. So obviously you are clearly passionate about making these videos, that’s the passion inside you. As you said, you sometimes wish that that had been the entire route you’d gone down. Tell us a little a bit about your process of making it video. Does it take you a long time to film and edit these videos? You’ve obviously got hundreds on there. How many are you make a week? How long do you probably spend editing and uploading these videos?

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (15:41):

It’s been a learning curve as well. I’ll probably say I’ve learned some lessons the hard way through the whole video making process. At first, I used to spend hours and hours and hours making just one five or six minute video probably. If you’re starting out in this, the first few videos are probably going to be terrible <laugh>. You have to accept that and you have to go through that process and it’s a learning process. If you’re learning your editing suite or whatever you’re doing, you’re learning the best camera angles and stuff like that. You have an idea in your mind and, and you go out and you think, “Oh, I’m gonna film some stuff here.” At first it takes you forever. It slows your day down doing the filming and it takes hours and hours. I’ve spent numerous evenings up until goodness knows what hour, editing. You’re not getting paid for this and you’ve got like spend all day out on the tools, and you’re not getting as much done as you were meant to because you’re filming <laugh> and then you’ve got to come home and edit it. Some videos you spend so long making them and doing them and then you put it out and you think “everyone’s going to love this video!” I’ve spent such a lot of hard work doing it, and they’re the ones that don’t get hardly any views or anything <laugh>. Whereas it’s the ones where I’ve just a spur of the moment I’ve gone, “I’ll just have a little film of this and and shove it out and we’ll see what happens.” They’re the ones that blow up. I think very often it’s because its’ more real, more raw and at the end of the day, that’s what people want to see. They want that insight into your life and what you’re doing and your day’s work. That’s what people really are looking for very often. It’s the ones where you don’t <laugh> put in as much effort, which are the ones that tend to do well.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (17:45):

A perfect example of this is, the video I’ve got now on TikTok that’s hit 43 million views, right? I put up the camera, usually I set my camera to TimeLapse and it automatically timelapses what I’m doing. So over a period of time it will cut that down into (because it’s a long drawn out pressure washing process) it’ll cut that down to a nice little minutes clip. This time I set up the camera and it took a TimeLapse photo instead of a TimeLapse video. So I had 6/700 photos of the me doing this job. Now when you come to edit, that’s a nightmare because you’ve got to put all of those photos into your editing suite <laugh>, and then I had to condense them down so they would actually come into a one minute time lapse. The video is actually a little bit jerky. When I’m looking at it, I’m thinking, “Oh, the quality is not as good as it could have been.” But that’s the video that’s blown up <laugh>. I don’t know if there’s just a slight different character to the video or something that catches people’s eye, whatever it is, it grabs people’s attention that little bit more.

 

 

Greg (19:04):

I guess obviously because you’re passionate about it, you’ve probably got some nice equipment. What does your equipment stack look like when you were out on site? What are you filming with?

Ashley Mackintosh (19:13):

Well, relatively simple really. I just, the latest GoPro and that’s, that’s basically it really. I, I’ve, and I’ve bought stuff in the past that I’ve thought, oh, I should upgrade my equipment or whatever. And, and in the end it’s just like, I just always buy the latest GoPro <laugh>. But I, but I started out with a secondhand GoPro actually that was, you know, not the latest one. It was a, it was a couple of models older. And then as time has gone on, I’ve just gradually, oh, I better buy the latest one <laugh>, you know, I’ve got an interest here, but it, and then I just have a few stands really. So I have stands just like a little tripod, this one’s broken, but it, they just have bendy legs like this and I can prop it up on a wheelie bin or I can wrap it around a gutter piece of guttering or something, or wrap it around the pole that I’m working with to get a slightly different perspective. You can just stand it up on the ground next to you as a, as a tripod. And that’s probably the most useful bit of equipment apart from the actual camera that I have.

 

Greg (20:19):

It’s really good to know because you’ve got ones listening to this that are thinking, oh, I just really wanna give it a go and get some videos out there. I guess that gives ’em a bit of comfort that you don’t have to go out and spend thousands on cameras, just go buy yourself a GoPro or maybe just use your mobile and, and prop it up. I

Ashley Mackintosh (20:33):

Know there are a lot of people out there that say, just use your mobile phone and, and mobile phone cameras are really good these days. But I would say a go a go and get a good GoPro, it is the best thing you’ll, you’ll do. And the experiment. Cuz I, at first with social media, I used to love experimenting with just photos and it’s moved more into video now. Video’s the king really, but I used to love just, it used to be a thing that just used to get me through the day a little bit. I think just bit getting a bit creative with angles of photos and things. And you can stick a GoPro in a bucket of water, you can put a GoPro, just rest it on a window sill and the angles you’ll get. I surprise myself sometimes what it’ll capture, you know, so,

 

Greg (21:18):

Oh, that’s a great proof of advice. So generally throughout the week, have you got a content plan? Do you sit down on Monday and think, right, this is what I’m gonna be filming this week? I suppose you have to do a bit of that for your podcast and things, but what, what’s your, what’s your general process of how you manage to deliver so much content?

Ashley Mackintosh (21:35):

It’s fairly loose, really. So, I mean, mainly I try, do, try and be consistent. I would say that’s the key to it, really. You, you do wanna try and be consistent. So I usually have a job, which I’ll have in mind that I wanna film this job and usually a pressure washing job these days. So I’ll be booking in like one or two pressure washing jobs a week. So I’ll film those and sometimes I’ll, I’ll try and get ahead of myself, so what I’m posting will be a job from a few weeks ago, and then I’ll be building up content so it’s there ready to go. So I’ll film it and then I’ll usually spend a day or two at home editing, doing marketing stuff, things like that. So yeah, I’ll edit it and try and get it out there. And then once, so I, so I’ll aim to do the, the YouTube videos mainly.

 

Ashley Mackintosh (22:30):

And then from those videos that are edited, I can produce what’s called short form content from that long form content <laugh>. So sometimes like with the GoPro is why it’s so good. Sometimes I, I, there’s just a time lapse that I’ve taken on my GoPro, I can literally connect that with my phone, download it directly to my phone, and then I’ve got the, um, the social media content right there to ready to go. And then TikTok has got a really good editing features so you can edit it a bit more in TikTok before it actually goes to the post. So yeah. And then music is key as well. When you’re making a YouTube video, you have to use non copyright music. So YouTube have a video library where you can get music from their video library, which is approved to use on YouTube, but then you have to use different music when you’re then posting it on TikTok. You have to use their music, which they approve. And then again, when you go onto YouTube, sorry, then when you go to Instagram, you have to use their music if it’s approved by them. And it’s always good to pick music as well, that my, my kids are always telling me off for using rubbish music. <laugh>, well, I have this real fight in my head between what’s gonna work well social media wise and what music I like <laugh> and what music I want exposed on my channels kind of thing.

 

Greg (24:06):

So you’re looking for trend in music on these channels, which I think is a good tip for, for those. There’s plenty of apps aren’t there out there that will tell you what, what music’s trending on these platforms. Uh, what about hashtags? Are you doing a lot of hashtag research or is that loose as well?

Ashley Mackintosh (24:19):

Hashtags are really important. So, and the rules keep changing a little bit as well. So that’s the thing with these social media, there, there are some rules which I think apply in a, in a general sense for all social medias, for vloggers and what have you. And then there will be rules that will apply just within your niche, which I find, um, but yeah, with hashtags it used to be as many hashtags as you can possibly squeeze in, but I think now it’s generally about nine, nine hashtags is the optimum <laugh>. And so usually I hashtag things like satisfying things like pressure washing, jet washing, cleaning, TikTok, clean <laugh>. I also like to hashtag AE Macintosh on every piece of content, and that helps the internet to associate all of those bits of content together along with my website to help generate that online presence in general. Yeah. And so I always hashtag a McIntosh, I always hashtag Northampton, which is the area I live in. So if, if people in my area are looking for my service, they’ll hopefully more likely to find a piece of content that I’ve created. Things like that. It

 

Greg (25:36):

Is generating loads of views, you know, millions of views online. Are the views converting into clients? Oh yeah. In as in serviceable clients that you can go out and do a cleaning job for them.

 

Ashley Mackintosh (25:46):

Yeah, so it does. And yeah, so I mean, at first, I think when I first started social media, it, when it was a new thing, it was like, who’s really gonna be looking for a window cleaner or, or a cleaning service on, on Instagram? You know, so I think that still applies now that it’s works well as like, I view it as like my CV in a way of cleaning jobs that I’ve done recently. If someone goes to my website, they might also check out my social media, and if they look down my social media, they’ll see the range of jobs and, and, and tasks that I do. So, so yeah, it works well like that, first of all, as, as you know, content and it’s difficult to really gauge exactly how effective that’s being. Sometimes you don’t really know what a customer is looking at and <laugh>, but more and more often now, I get customers coming to me who have seen a video or a piece of content and they already know the quality job that I’m gonna do. They’ve already maybe even virtually met me through, through a video, and by the time they ring up, they just n want a quote, they just won the price. Yeah. Uh, they virtually already decided in their head that they’re gonna go with. Yeah. So that really can be, yeah, a strong, a strong reason for doing it. Um, but then I think that’s

 

 

Greg (27:12):

The key, isn’t it? It’s that no, like and trust thing, isn’t it? When people are binge watching you online and they feel like they know you and they’ve met you, they’re not gonna go out and look for three to five other quotes. If they’ve, if they’ve done that, they’re thinking, look, this is the guy I want, if his quote’s decent, I’m gonna, I’m gonna use him. So you probably blow out the competition in that way.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (27:28):

Definitely. And now, and now the great thing is that I’ve had subscribers to my channel th that I’ve done jobs for. And so then I’ve filmed the job that I’ve done of theirs and put the video up and they’ve then commented on the video of their job saying, oh, it was such a great job, it was such a pleasure to have Ashley there doing the work for me. And he was such a nice guy and you know, he really looked after me and all this kind of stuff. And so, so for customer reviews, that’s just awesome to have that now on there, which is brilliant. So now as the social media’s blown up, I’m getting, it’s almost like I’m my own worst enemy because I get people, inquiries coming from all over the country, basically people asking me to do jobs in all sorts of strange places. And it’s like, can you do, can you quote for this? And I mean, wherever it’s like, that’s two or three hours away, I can’t, I can’t do it.

 

 

Greg (28:23):

That’s a nice problem to have, isn’t it? <laugh>. Yeah,

Ashley Mackintosh (28:25):

<laugh>.

Greg (28:26):

So it obviously works in bringing clients in and it helps you convert in that sense. But what about the financial benefits of actually getting that many views on TikTok and YouTube? Do you see it eventually replacing your, your serviceable income? Could it ever get to that stage? Or is it just a, just a nice little bonus that’s just ticking along in the background at the moment?

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (28:48):

I think it does make a little bit of money. I f I find if I can be consistent with the YouTube videos, it’ll generate a little bit of revenue, but not really even equivalent to the time and effort I put in to, to actually doing it. I think, I mean, it probably, it probably, yeah, so if I spend, if I spend a day or so doing it, it makes a little bit of revenue, but, um, but yeah, nothing like, nothing like it’s not, it’s not gonna grow to that level where it’s gonna replace my actual job,

Greg (29:26):

<laugh>. Yeah, well it’s good to know that because we, we wanna manage expectations for people. Now obviously you’ve got millions of views that you’ve got online. So if people are listening to this thinking, yeah, I’m just gonna do one video and that’s it, I don’t have to work again, <laugh>, the reality is it’s, yeah, it’s probably not gonna do that, is it? Unless you’ve a huge, huge channel. So, but it obviously has many other benefits financially for you as in building your brand and what we spoke about earlier, which is good.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (29:50):

The value, the marketing value, I think because I, I, I think I try not to spend too much on marketing generally, which is not necessarily a great bit of advice, but, but yeah, I like to do these things my, for myself really. I, I’ve always been a bit like that and I like to, I like to try and have a go and I, I begrudge kind of spending money on marketing a little bit if I think I can do it myself. <laugh>. Yeah. So, so it’s an investment of my own time and effort. Um, but then it pays off in, in jobs that it brings in. But then my daughter has actually just finished her A levels and she’s done a business a level actually. So I’m hoping to get her now involved so that she can do a lot of the marketing content with my close guidance, of course, <laugh>. Cause I can’t, I can’t let go of it too much.

 

 

Greg (30:40):

Nice.

Ashley Mackintosh (30:41):

But yeah, hopefully that will allow her to, to, to help generate some income for herself. And if I can then spend more time on the tools with a couple of other guys that work with me, then, then that whole system can work better.

 

Greg (30:57):

So what tips would you give someone now if they’re listening to this, they’re in construction, let’s imagine they’re carpenter or roofer or something like that, and they’re looking and they think, oh, I’d love to do something similar like that and, you know, put some videos out there. What tips would you give them? Have you got like a top three tips or, or top three don’ts? What would you say?

 

Ashley Mackintosh (31:15):

So I think one of the best things is whatever you do, you’ve got to be consistent. That’s, that’s the main thing. So if you post once a week or twice a week, whatever you can manage, just be consistent at that. I know there’s some window cleaners to make content on maybe Instagram or, you know, the short video content. And it’s literally, they’ve literally held the phone up, put their arm out with the squeegee and squeegee the window. And it will be that every single day. But they’ve got seven, 8,000 subscribers on, on YouTube, on seven, 8,000 followers on Instagram or something just from doing that. But I think that is the thing that they’re promoting <laugh> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So, so they’re getting followers doing it and that’s the niche they’re in. So I think it’s the same thing in, in construction or any industry really.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (32:06):

You just wanna show the thing that you are good at, that you are trying to promote. And I know on YouTube, there’s one in particular that comes to mind called A and e Construction. I think they’re really good at it and they literally, I think they’re in Leicester actually, not too far from me, but literally what they do is they show the jobs they’re doing and how they’re doing it. And it’s that development of maybe a construction project, which is really good, but also little tips and advice are good. So, you know, this is how I’m trying to be patronizing, this is how you’re hammering a nail, but whatever the thing is you’re doing, just any little tips and advice that then appeals to a wider audience, like maybe the DIY audience that, oh, that’s a great little tip. And then you pick up followers from, from doing that. So sometimes it’s just those small little things that you can show. Sometimes it’s bigger projects you can show over a period of time, but yeah, yeah, being consistent with it as well is, is really key. I would say

 

 

Greg (33:09):

That’s, that’s a great tip. And now you’re right what you said there about giving content that’s valuable to people. Now, now some people won’t put that content out because they think, oh well someone who’s gonna do it themselves if I show them how to do this. But the reality is, is we all watch these things and think, oh, I might do it myself, but then can you really be bothered sometimes <laugh>. So you end up calling it the expert anyway to, to come in and do it for you.

 

 

Ashley Mackintosh (33:29):

That’s true. So I like watching, even though I’m not in the industry, I like watching like the woodworking things where someone shows like the woodworking process from a raw bit of wood and then they’ve all been all through the different processes to make it into an object, usable household object, whatever it is. And uh, sometimes that’s just fascinating to see that, isn’t it?

 

 

Greg (33:51):

So stay consistent. Any, any other tips?

Ashley Mackintosh (33:55):

Oh, any other tips? Uh,

Greg (33:58):

Put you on the spot now. So you’ve already, well you’ve already, to be honest, you’ve already given us a few, so you said consistency and you’ve said don’t be obsessed with like camera quality and that sometimes just that raw footage of Yeah, yeah. Can be just, people wanna just see what’s real. You’ve mentioned about the trend in music and the hashtag research, so there’s, you’ve actually

 

Ashley Mackintosh (34:20):

Stuff already actually That’s it. All, all those things really are the great tips. Yeah, I would say <laugh>.

 

Greg (34:25):

Yeah. So what’s your plan, Ashley, over the next 12 months? What’s your goal with your business, your cleaning business and your social media? What were you looking to do?

Ashley Mackintosh (34:35):

So yeah, I think through the YouTube channel and years of people asking me questions and, and trying to answer their questions, the really kind of rewarding thing is that I get people getting in touch with me now who are like, oh, Ashley’s channels really helped me to start a business. I never thought I could do it and that kind of thing, but I’m doing really well now and it’s all, you know, largely thanks to Ashley and, and his channel and things like that. So I found that over the years that I’ve really, and even I’ve had people working with me, you know, personally on the tools and they’ve gone off and started their own businesses and, and now doing really well. I think, yeah, I, I shouldn’t talk so much when I’m working with people cause, cause they pick up too many tips from me and then they go off and start their own businesses and I’ve, I haven’t got anyones to work with me again.

Ashley Mackintosh (35:26):

 

So, um, so yeah, I’ve been trying to kind of condense all of my advice and experience into online training courses so that people can really benefit from that. And through my own podcast as well, I, I’ve interviewed a lot of guys who have wanted to go self-employed. They’ve been in employment and they’ve maybe gone part-time in order to start their own business and they’ve gradually built it up from there and, and they’ve made it work, um, which has been really good. So, so it’s, it’s great to be able to help people like that. So I’ve been moving into this area of coaching and consultancy, helping people to, to do that for themselves and, and giving them the know-how because there’s a lot of things that I would do differently if I was to start my business again. Now with the experience I have, I would do things totally differently and there’s things I’ve done and applied in my business, which I wish I’d done years ago, <laugh>. So it’s, I

 

Greg (36:27):

Think we can all say that <laugh>.

Ashley Mackintosh (36:28):

Yeah, well, exactly. So it’s take it’s taking some of those things and, and putting them into a training course so that people can benefit from that right from the start and, and get off to the best possible start and, and inwardly for the future. So, so a lot of my content for social media, I’ve been making exclusive videos to go on the training courses that aren’t on YouTube. I’ve even taken some of my videos off YouTube and put them just into the training courses so that all the video content will be exclusive to those. Right. And in addition to that, I’ve set up some exclusive discount codes for some of the suppliers in the industry. So the fantastic thing is I’m, you know, really passionate about this, that someone can come to me, they can get great advice, they can get great deals on equipment as well, which I think makes it an absolute no-brainer, really, to help someone out. So Yeah. Yeah. Make their business a success straight from straight from the off, you know.

 

 

Greg (37:27):

So can you give us any success stories, Ashley, of people that have benefited from your coaching and advice?

Ashley Mackintosh (37:33):

I had, I had a guy who I helped in United Arab Emirates, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, there was, so during lockdown, I started doing these one-to-one training sessions over Zoom when Zoom became a thing. And I had people from all over the world getting in touch with me saying, oh yeah, can, can I, can we have a one-to-one training session? I, I did a guy in Australia, actually I did, this guy got in touch with me in United a Arab Emirates and Abudabi he was in, right? And, and, and he’s involved as a construction, a construction contractor in AB Abu Dhabi. He’s building SeaWorld. He, he would literally come off, come off a zoom call with me and go, ah, tha thanks Ashley for all your great help by the way, tomorrow I’m taking a delivery of dolphins, <laugh> <laugh>. Wow. SeaWorld. That was bizarre. So anyway, he wanted to start a cleaning company to clean a lot of these buildings, which he’d been involved in the construction. Mm. So he gets in touch with me a year later and says, oh, thanks Ashley for your help. I made 250 grand last year on my cleaning company and it’s like crazy. Wow. Yeah, so he’s, so he’s been, that’s one of a great success story really from, from one of the people I’ve helped, but he’s global,

 

Greg (38:48):

Global consultant. That’s,

Ashley Mackintosh (38:51):

Well he’s been getting in touch with me again recently because he wants to Yeah. Do things slightly differently again. And he’s after my advice again, so, so it’s been really interesting to hear some of the stories that have come back from people I’ve helped. Yeah, it’s been good. Yeah,

 

Greg (39:05):

That’s, that’s the most rewarding bit isn’t it? What a difference it can make in people’s lives. So yeah, I be obviously, you know, really passionate about that. Ashley, thanks so much for being on today. It is been, uh, really useful if anyone wanted to learn a little bit more about you, what courses you offer and you know, your channels and that, I’ll put obviously the links in, but do you wanna just give us a quick one? Where would they find you?

Ashley Mackintosh (39:24):

Yeah, it’s Ae Macintosh online training. You can go to ae macintosh.com is my website for my cleaning business. And there’s also a page there about train, about the training as well. So go and check it out. There’s a free course you can try for free. And as part of the online courses, I’ve also set up a business support page. So there’s a really nice community of guys on there. There’s over 150, 160 people on there already. It’s relatively new, but yeah, there’s a whole community of people on there, professionals in the industry helping each other out with tips and advice. So you can join that for free as well. And I do my best to answer any questions on there if people have them. But yeah, so you can try the training courses for free and once you do join and pay for a course, you get lifelong access to that course. So the idea is that all the tips and advice on there, if you come across a difficult cleaning problem later down the line and you think, oh, I remember something about this on Ashley’s course, you can go back, refer back to it, find out how to do it if you’ve forgotten and it can help you out with the task you’re doing. So, so all that information is there for you and your business whenever you need it down the line.

 

 

Greg (40:41):

Fantastic. Brilliant. Thanks a lot Ashley. Really appreciate your time today and, uh, wish you all the best with your social media success in your cleaning business.

 

Ashley Mackintosh (40:50):

Thanks for having me. It’s been awesome.

 

Greg (41:01):

If you’d like to work with me, fast track your construction business growth, then reach out on www develop coaching UK.