Glossary

Every term you’ll bump into around the hub, in plain language. Throughout the site, the first time a term shows up on a page it links back here — click it and you’ll land on the definition. When in doubt, look it up; nobody expects you to have memorized any of this in week one.

Jump to a section: Marketing strategy and frameworks · Funnel and customer lifecycle · Channels, ads and metrics · Locksmith and industry · Company, tools and process

Marketing strategy and frameworks

Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

A description of the ideal company or account for us to win — e.g. “a regional property-management firm running dozens-to-hundreds of doors across metro Phoenix.” It’s about the organization, not a person. Contrast with the buyer persona.

Buyer persona

A description of the individual human you actually talk to inside an account — their role, what they’re measured on, their daily pains. We give them a name (“Dana the property manager”) to keep messaging human. The ICP is the company; the persona is the person.

Decision-Making Unit (DMU)

The group of people who decide a B2B purchase together. In business, the person who signs the check is rarely the person who uses the product, so we map the whole committee instead of one “decision-maker.” Also called the buying center.

The six DMU roles

The classic roles inside a DMU: Initiator (raises the need), User (lives with it day to day), Influencer (shapes the spec — IT, a consultant, an architect), Decider (says yes and controls budget), Buyer (handles price, terms, the PO), and Gatekeeper (controls access to the others). One person can wear two hats.

Gatekeeper

The person who controls whether you even reach the decision-makers — often a property manager or an exec assistant screening vendors. You earn past a gatekeeper by being credible and useful, not by going around them.

SWOT

A four-box look at a goal: Strengths and Weaknesses (internal — things we control) versus Opportunities and Threats (external — the market). A SWOT everyone agrees with is useless; the value is in honest, specific points.

TOWS

SWOT used to generate moves instead of just listing facts — pairing boxes together (e.g. a Strength + an Opportunity = an “SO” move). It turns the grid into a to-do list.

STP (Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning)

The core strategy sequence: segment the market into distinct groups → target the most attractive one → position yourself in their minds. A good ICP is really the output of doing STP well.

Segment

A distinct group of customers whose needs differ enough to treat differently — e.g. property managers vs. schools vs. banks. Targeting “everyone” means targeting no one.

DAMP test

A quick gut-check on whether a segment is worth pursuing: is it Distinct, Accessible (can we reach it?), Measurable, and Profitable?

Positioning statement

A one-line definition of what you want to stand for, using the template: For [target] who [need], Anderson is the [category] that [benefit]. Unlike [alternative], we [point of difference]. The “Unlike… we…” clause has to create real separation, not just list features.

4 Ps (marketing mix)

The four classic levers: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. A quick way to sanity-check that everything reinforces your position (e.g. premium-for-value pricing shouldn’t fight a “trusted expert” position).

Funnel and customer lifecycle

Marketing funnel

Our mental model for the customer journey, top to bottom: Awareness → Consideration → Conversion → Service → then a fork into Advocacy + Retention. See the Marketing Strategy & Funnel page and the Funnel Map.

Awareness, Consideration, Conversion

The top three funnel stages. Awareness: they don’t know us yet. Consideration / Intent: they’re actively looking right now. Conversion: they’ve reached out and are deciding whether to hire us.

Targeting dial

The idea that most channels aren’t locked to one funnel level — how you run a channel sets the level. The same Meta ad can be mass Awareness (no targeting), Targeted Cold (aimed at property managers), or Retargeting (shown to past site visitors).

Flywheel

Because a finished job loops back to create new awareness (reviews, referrals), our funnel feeds itself instead of ending. The bottom feeds the top — that’s the flywheel.

Advocacy

The outward fork after a job: turning a thrilled customer into reviews, referrals, and testimonials that loop back up the funnel and create awareness for someone new.

Retention

The inward fork after a job: keeping a customer and growing what they buy over time. We map it on a grid of temperature (how active) × awareness (how much of our scope they know).

Lead

A potential customer who has shown interest — a call, a form fill, a click. Marketing’s job is to capture leads; what happens next depends on how warm they are.

Warm vs. cold lead

How aware and ready a lead is. Cold = barely knows us (marketing’s job: reach and educate). Warm/hot = knows us and is mid-decision (increasingly sales’ job — the relationship closes it). The rule of thumb: more aware → more a sales job; less aware → more a marketing job.

Cross-sell and upsell

Cross-sell: selling an additional line to an existing customer (“Did you know we also do access control?”). Upsell: moving them to a higher-value version (“ready for a master-key system?”). Both target customers who already trust us.

Lead-source attribution

Tracking which channel actually produced a booked job, so we know what’s working. CallRail and tracked forms are how we connect a call back to the ad or page that drove it.

KPI

Key Performance Indicator — a number we watch to know if we’re winning. Ours include revenue by business unit, ticket average, lead-source attribution, and campaign ROI.

Share of wallet

Of everything a customer could spend on locksmith/security work, the share that comes to us. Growing it = cross-selling and upselling the accounts we already have.

Channels, ads and metrics

PPC (pay-per-click)

Paid search ads (mostly Google) where we only pay when someone clicks. Catches people at the moment they’re searching for what we do.

SEO

Search Engine Optimization — earning unpaid Google ranking through good pages and content, as opposed to paying for PPC.

Organic vs. paid

Organic = reach we don’t pay for per-click (our own posts, SEO, our Google listing). Paid = ads we buy. We use both.

GBP (Google Business Profile)

Our free Google/Maps business listing — one per shop. Hugely important for a local services business; it’s where reviews, hours, and “near me” visibility live.

Retargeting

Re-showing ads to people who already interacted with us (visited the site, watched a video, abandoned a form). A way to stay in front of warm prospects until they’re ready.

Impressions, reach, engagement

Impressions = how many times something was shown. Reach = how many unique people saw it. Engagement = how many reacted, clicked, or commented. Three different things — don’t mix them up.

CTR (click-through rate)

Of the people who saw an ad or post, the percentage who clicked. A basic read on whether the message landed.

Conversion rate

Of the people who took the first step (clicked, called), the percentage who took the next one we wanted (booked, submitted a form).

CPL and CAC

CPL = cost per lead; CAC = customer acquisition cost. How much we spent to get a lead, or a paying customer. Lower is better, but not at the expense of quality.

ROI

Return on investment — what a campaign or channel earned versus what it cost. Our north-star test for whether marketing spend is worth it.

CTV and OOH

CTV = Connected TV (ads on streaming services). OOH = Out-of-home (billboards, vehicle wraps, yard signs). Both are mass-awareness channels.

QBR (Quarterly Business Review)

A scheduled, in-depth check-in — internally on performance, or with a big account on their relationship with us.

Locksmith and industry

Commercial vs. residential locksmithing

Commercial = businesses, property managers, schools, facilities (our world — ~95% of what we do). Residential = homeowners. Commercial work is bigger, more repeat, and more relationship-driven.

Access control

Electronic access instead of metal keys — keypads, card readers, fobs, mobile credentials, cameras, intercoms, and the software behind them. Our headline growth area (~12% of revenue, growing toward 40%).

Credential (card, fob, mobile)

What a person uses to get through an access-control door instead of a key — a swipe card, a key fob, or a phone-based mobile credential.

Restricted key (restricted keyway)

A patented, high-security key system where we control who’s allowed to cut a copy. Stickier, more valuable work than a basic key — the “upmarket” direction of traditional locksmithing.

Keyway

The shape of the slot a key slides into. A common keyway can be copied at any hardware store; a restricted keyway can’t, which is the point of a restricted key system.

Do Not Duplicate (DND)

A stamp on a key asking that it not be copied. Largely toothless — anyone can ignore it at a key machine — which is why restricted keyways (real patent control) matter more.

Master key system

A keying design where one key opens many doors and others open only some — e.g. a building manager’s master plus individual tenant keys. Higher-value, engineered work.

Rekey

Changing a lock’s pins so old keys no longer work and a new key does — common on tenant turnover. Quick, lower-value work compared with a master key system or access control.

Business unit (BU)

A revenue line of the company we track separately — e.g. core locksmithing, access control, retail/shop, safes. We watch revenue by BU as a KPI.

Ticket average

The average dollar value of a job (“ticket”). The 2026 motto — ticket sales per customer — is about raising this, not just getting more customers.

Recurring revenue (RMR)

Recurring Monthly Revenue — income that bills every month (e.g. a managed/cloud access-control contract) instead of one-time. Turns a single job into an ongoing relationship and raises what the company is worth.

ALOA and SAVTA

The locksmith trade bodies: ALOA (Associated Locksmiths of America) and its safe/vault arm SAVTA. Good to know they exist; you won’t deal with them often.

GSA and bonded

GSA-certified = approved to do government security work to federal standards. Bonded = financially insured against loss on the job. Both are credibility signals, especially for schools, government, and banks.

Company, tools and process

L10 (Level 10 meeting)

The weekly leadership meeting, from the EOS playbook. Garrett is in it Monday 10:00–11:30 — that’s why Monday has a solo block for you.

EOS (Traction)

The Entrepreneurial Operating System (from the book Traction) — the management framework the company runs on. It’s where terms like the L10 and our values structure come from.

ServiceTitan

Our system of record for jobs, customers, dispatch, and invoicing. If a job exists, it’s in ServiceTitan — which also makes it the source for lead-source attribution and reporting.

ClickUp

Where marketing work is coordinated, assigned, and tracked. If you’re doing a task, there’s usually a ClickUp card for it.

Buffer

The tool we use to schedule and publish organic social posts (Facebook + LinkedIn) ahead of time.

Klaviyo

Our email and SMS platform — used for nurture sequences, review requests, and customer messaging.

CallRail

Call-tracking software that ties an inbound phone call back to the ad, page, or campaign that produced it — the backbone of lead-source attribution.

Canva

The design tool we use for social graphics and simple branded assets, with templates set up to keep things on-brand.

Supabase

A database where our content catalog lives. You’ll mostly encounter it indirectly, through the tools that read from it.

WAT (Workflows, Agents, Tools)

How our marketing automation is organized: Workflows (the written SOPs), Agents (the AI decision-makers that run them), and Tools (the scripts that do deterministic work). The idea: AI handles judgment, code handles execution.

Claude and Claude Code

Claude is the AI assistant you’ll use day to day for drafting, research, and checking your work. Claude Code is the terminal-based version that can work directly with our files and tools — you’ll set it up Thursday. The golden rule with both: verify, don’t trust.

NET-30

A payment term meaning the invoice is due 30 days after billing — standard for commercial/B2B accounts.

PO (purchase order)

A formal document a business issues to authorize a purchase. The Buyer in a DMU is usually the one who handles it.

GC (general contractor)

The company running a construction or renovation project. On a build-out, the GC (or the architect) is often an Influencer on what security hardware gets specified.