Investing in Employee Training to Deliver Top Customer Experience

Speaker 1 I've had countless, countless numbers, as I'm sure you've had, employees that have left because the grass is greener. They're chasing that $1, $2, whatever

Speaker 1 per hour.

Speaker 1 They go over to some other organization and they realize that they cannot thrive in chaos, where they can thrive with us in a structured environment and what that means to them and the support that means to them.

Speaker 1 So it's interesting as you begin to put structure around, you know, change, I think, registers in the brain as pain.

Speaker 1 So anytime anytime we have that change, you know, there's this resistance that comes from that.

Speaker 1 But once we get settled into it, right, and we become accustomed to it, now we begin to see the byproduct or the benefit of that structure and we begin to thrive.

Speaker 1 You know, you remove that, you realize, oh my gosh, I'm essentially naked without the support and the structure around.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world-class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring, and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business.

Speaker 2 Now, your host, the Home Service Millionaire, Tommy Mello.

Speaker 2 Hey guys, welcome back to the Home Service Expert. Today, I have a special guest visiting us from Sacramento, California, Sean Weiss.
How's it going today?

Speaker 1 It's going well. How are you doing, Tommy?

Speaker 2 I'm good. Let me just go over some of the things about you.
So Sean's an expert in negotiation, operations management, sales, pricing strategy, and team building.

Speaker 2 He's based in Sacramento, BDR Business Development Resources, profit coach and trainer from 2015 to present.

Speaker 2 And Maki Heating, he was an operations manager from 2010 to 2015.

Speaker 2 Sean Weiss has 12 years of experience in the HVAC and plumbing industries with multiple roles in operation management and sales across the residential, commercial, and industrial markets.

Speaker 2 He has built and grown service installation and service teams from scratch and improved performance in service installation and plumbing operations for each company he has worked for.

Speaker 2 He was named to the 2021 ACHR News Top 40 Under 40 list, an annual list that recognizes the most accomplished young professionals and rising leaders in the HVACR industry. Well, that's quite a lot.

Speaker 2 I'm excited about this because you're right up my alley, man. This is like the stuff I love.
I love delivering value to the listeners.

Speaker 2 just your management experience. It's going to be really good.
So sweet. So tell us a little bit about your history, what's going on up there.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. So for the past seven years, I have been with BDR Business Development Resources, as you alluded to.

Speaker 1 I started out with them just on the coaching side and was doing that for a few years and then had an opportunity to help out on the training side, which has slowly become my passion.

Speaker 1 I love getting in front of sales professionals, technicians, installers, owners, managers, you name it, and really just working with them over the period of a couple days in a training session to see those light bulbs go off.

Speaker 1 So that's pretty much what's been going on, especially as we have been able to transition back to in-person stuff away from, not totally away from virtual, but it's been really cool the past, I'd say the past year getting back out there and getting to see faces in the training.

Speaker 1 So. So yeah, that's been pretty much what's been going on for the past while.

Speaker 2 So your home is California. Is that where you're at right now?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 2 yep here in sacramento yep so i'm not going to go too down a rabbit hole real quick but today i don't know if it was this morning i was looking at some news and uh raising tax rates there possibly and they're actually coming out with a law possibly that if you move you still got to pay those high taxes for 10 years I don't know if you heard that, but I know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, another bit of news coming from the great state of California, right?

Speaker 2 So there's certain areas to do business. It's a little bit easier to do business in.

Speaker 2 You know, one of the things I talk a lot about with coaches and owners and CFOs is how to pay for performance in a way that motivates our, whether it's CSRs, our dispatchers, our technicians, our installers.

Speaker 2 And, you know, some states make it a little bit tricky. What is the best? And I get this question every day, literally, probably the biggest question I ever get.

Speaker 2 is how do you work on compensation programs that motivate sales staff? And I consider CSR as part of the sales staff. So what are the best ways you've seen?

Speaker 1 Well, it's a huge hot topic right now with compensation because I mean, what did we hit? A 7% inflation rate at the end of the year, at the end of 2021, which that's the highest we've seen since 1982.

Speaker 1 You know, so everybody's feeling it right now. And gosh, I mean, in the past couple of days, I've had.

Speaker 1 tons of conversations like like you're alluding to here from owners and just on that structuring and paid compensation what does that look like so so we need to be on top of it and you know one of our recommendations just on straight wage alone is that we need to know what's going on out there and we want to be competitive and we also want to be better than competitive and you know so what i've been working on with with my clients recently is making sure that we're you know at least five to ten dollars an hour at any level a stated rate higher than what what's being posted out there through indeed or you know whatever various job posting channels and in addition to that looking at your benefit compensation you know PTO is another huge one that's coming up and making sure that we're competitive on that.

Speaker 1 And again, with the number of clients I've worked with, we've seen that increase from anywhere from two, three, five additional days from what they were at, you know, at this time last year in 2021 to where they're at now.

Speaker 1 And then when it comes to like your sales professionals, your CSRs, you know, having a good SPIF package, call booking bonus, SPIFs, you know, it doesn't have to be crazy, but, you know, something there for them to have additional income opportunities, SPF's on offering maintenance agreements and selling those.

Speaker 1 And then again, for the sales professionals, we want to make sure that we're looking at our compensation structure. What does that commission structure, commission schedule look like for them?

Speaker 1 And I want everybody to win, right? I want the company to win. I want our customers to win.
And I want our employees to win as well. So I try to figure out what's fair for all of the involved.

Speaker 1 I've been really recently working on graduated commission percentages for sales professionals based upon the type of equipment that we're offering.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 as we increase in higher efficiency, which is a whole nother topic on availability these days, but as we increase in efficiency, we can have better margins that can support an increased percentage of commission.

Speaker 1 Then we look at our add-on options, all those things that we can now take and personalize that system that was designed for the home, for the building, and how can we personalize that system for the occupants, the owners of that home, and now put some additional SPIF compensation, whether it's a flat dollar amount, maybe additional percentage, what have you on those?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a really big topic right now. And I think you're right.
You got to have all the benefits.

Speaker 2 One of the things that I've been hearing a lot of is the benefits that people really don't think about, like a new truck. Yeah.
I think that's been a really big one.

Speaker 2 I've been hearing is I've been broke down the last week. And can you guys get parts? I mean, it's funny this, this day and age.
So there's the compensation programs that motivate people. And then

Speaker 2 what I've learned is to bring in, I'm way more successful. And I learned a lot of this through L Levy, bringing in apprenticeships.

Speaker 2 And it's garage drift, so it's a little bit quicker, but I could train them in four weeks at an apprentice and then four weeks in Phoenix.

Speaker 2 What have you seen out there as far as trying to get somebody already trained or training them from scratch? What's your perspective on that?

Speaker 1 It's the way that everyone's going right now to live in some fantasy world that you think. this experience talent is going to fall in your lap.
And if it does fall in your lap, is it really

Speaker 1 the cultural fit that we want for the organization anyhow? So two things, you know, we're looking at hiring based upon attitude and aptitude. You know, do they have the ability to learn?

Speaker 1 Do they have the drive? And what's their attitude like? Is it a cultural fit for the company? Does it align with our values? Does this individual align with our values?

Speaker 1 Do they support those values that we have as an organization? From there, we can train that. Now, that opens up a whole other can of worms as far as, okay, now that's the route we're going to go.

Speaker 1 What does that structure of training, that schedule look like? Do we have a facility to support that as well? I'm dealing with this with one of my clients in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 1 I mean, Illinois, they might have, I think, I don't even know what the population sign is on this town, but it's maybe a couple hundred at the most.

Speaker 1 And they've got some larger areas outside that they service. So they don't have this huge pool of just population to even pull from.

Speaker 1 So they're really going straight to the high schools and grabbing some of these kids right out of high school.

Speaker 1 and this year we're working on our training facility setting up a training facility that we can basically take these individuals from nothing into a goal of and you you can expedite it a little faster it sounds like on the garage door side but you know in three to six months can i turn out at least a maintenance technician you know

Speaker 1 that's that's growing in knowledge so yeah you know the training facility is huge you know and then you know how can we leverage that as a promotional item as well i've seen it where we've got uh clients that are running, you know, commercials out there, TV commercials, as a means of not only attracting new business, but also attracting new talent.

Speaker 1 Hey, you know, here's what we do. Here's the training programs that we have.
You know, our technicians and installers are going to learn in the lab, you know, not in your home on your piece. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, not getting paid to do. You know, I just came out with a radio commercial and I said, listen, I'm doing something that's never been done before.

Speaker 2 I want to buy your old piece of junk garage door.

Speaker 2 And I'll get you, I'll give you up to $1,000 for it because at my A1 Garage Door University, I'm trying to put on my radio voice, but at my A1 Grand University, we use those doors and we break them and we crack them and we strut them up and we do whatever we can to try to get the technicians to learn.

Speaker 2 So we've definitely turned that into a promotional item as well. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 You know, the more I think about this day and age,

Speaker 2 it literally is bringing out

Speaker 2 so much of the crap that business owners have done these last few decades. Maybe we didn't take as good a care of the employees as we should have.
And

Speaker 2 it's amazing because I've always taught sales. I said, don't hate that word sales.

Speaker 2 And don't worry. You don't have to worry about the prices.
I make the prices. You just got to be able to repeat after me and be able to condone them.
And how do you do that?

Speaker 2 Well, we showed up in a new truck the same day. We still got parts.
We give a lifetime warranty. We sell oranges when everybody else sells apples.

Speaker 2 And I wrote this on the whiteboard the other day, two Thursdays ago. On the top of the whiteboard, I said believe.

Speaker 2 And I said, if you guys don't believe that we're the best company, the best training, the best insurance, the best trucks, the background checks, drug tests, which are given these days, but we'll come out on Christmas night.

Speaker 2 And I said,

Speaker 2 I want to show you guys something. And I pulled up a cost for a Max Life Spring.
It's a trademark spring.

Speaker 2 And literally my cost on it. was over $140 for one spring.

Speaker 2 And I showed them because I just got the prices that morning. And I pull it up on the whiteboard or on the projector.
And I said, Some of you guys have been around when those springs were 30 bucks.

Speaker 2 They're 140 now.

Speaker 2 So we had to change. And it's crazy because people are going, that can't be this much.
I got this. I'm like, literally, I'm four months out on doors.

Speaker 2 Springs, if I get them for $140 and I'm trying to create a 65% or 60%, I got to have those things at like $350, $400 per spring. You know, and people are like, you can't charge that.

Speaker 2 But now they're like, we don't know how to charge that.

Speaker 2 how do we do that that all these mom and pops are drowning they used to tell me i was outrageous but i'm like i have an office a training center brand new trucks brand new ipads i got service type

Speaker 2 so there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast and

Speaker 2 some of them out there are thinking i just can't charge that but they don't have my overhead they don't have a cfo and a coo and they don't have seven trainers and three full-time recruiters so what do you tell those guys because i'm not saying their price needs to be what mine are but they're slowly understanding they're fading away, that they can't keep up.

Speaker 2 I've had 10 companies call me in the last two weeks that want to sell.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
I mean, it's a situation where you evolve or you dissolve. And the problem is, is that a lot of owners don't know where they need to be priced at.
You know, they're not in their numbers.

Speaker 1 So that's what we do is we take them into their numbers. And it is, it's price to where you need to be.
And so for those owners, I look at it and I begin with the end in mind. Where do you want to be?

Speaker 1 Where do you want to be? When this whole thing is said and done, monthly, weekly, daily, yearly, what profit are you looking to get out of this?

Speaker 1 And what do you need for profit for future growth, right? If we want to have that working capital for future growth, what does that look like?

Speaker 1 And if we get those numbers out of a business owner, we can reverse engineer it. We can say

Speaker 1 that. We can play with KPIs after that.
Yeah. I mean, our operating expenses are what they are.
We know what that monthly average is going to be.

Speaker 1 And the only individuals in this organization that can pay those operational bills or those expenses are our revenue producers, our technicians, our installers, right? So

Speaker 1 based upon the pricing, well, and sales, you can get into stuff like that.

Speaker 2 Well, CSRs, I mean,

Speaker 2 the biggest mistake I see in companies is booking rates, and they think they're so good, and they're not.

Speaker 2 That's something that I always talk about revenue generating, but then I go look and I look at their conversion rate, their average ticket.

Speaker 2 I look at their cost proposition, and then I look at their booking rate. And I'm like, you guys are not attending to your Yelp.
You're not even answering Angie.

Speaker 2 The booking booking rate always seems to be. I just was at the wizard of ads, Roy Williams.
And he said, straight up, Tommy, I've never seen a great call center.

Speaker 2 There's one, one of Henry Gratjon does a really good job. And he said, overall, I've not caught one yet that's big, that handles a lot of volume, that's done a great job.

Speaker 2 I mean, and I know a lot of companies, I mean, one hour air, you know, the Benjamin Franklin, all those guys.

Speaker 2 And they're not necessarily turning a wrench selling, but if they don't set it up properly and answer that call.

Speaker 2 But I didn't mean to cut you off.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to let people.

Speaker 1 No, yeah. I mean, we've got to have the opportunity first that we can manage to the opportunity, right? So there's a progression of dominoes that need to be knocked over.

Speaker 1 So yeah, looking at our capacity, what are those calls looking at? What are we doing to fill to capacity? And then once we're filling to capacity, you know, then again, I'm going back to that pricing.

Speaker 1 What do these tickets need to look like? Where do we need to price it?

Speaker 1 Where do our margins need to be in order to overcome what we're expecting for cost of goods, you know, labor, materials, and everything like that to be priced at to give me the gross profit to pay my operational expenses to give me that net at the end.

Speaker 1 And so that's what you've got to get those owners to understand or what we work to get those owners to understand is that the pricing is what the pricing is.

Speaker 1 If you want the end result to be this, here's where we need to be, period. End of story, bottom line.
So we work with our CSRs. We work with the call centers.

Speaker 1 We want to fill that schedule to capacity, get us at least in the door in the opportunity. We're going to manage to that opportunity and the expectations that we have.

Speaker 1 And again, we can go down another whole rabbit hole on billing efficiency and all that stuff from our technicians and things like that when we're under service, making sure that we're, we've got those average tickets coming in.

Speaker 1 But is our maintenance agreement priced where they need to be to give us that profit? And is that labor rate priced accordingly to support it?

Speaker 1 Subsequently, you know, like you mentioned, that price that spring going from what, $30,

Speaker 1 however long ago to now $130, $140. Yeah.
Now, this is a very volatile material and supply market as well.

Speaker 1 So it's a constant, you you know, every day we've got to be on top of this, making sure that our price books are updated accordingly. Or do we need to look at an alternative solution here?

Speaker 1 I've got one company that has one person in office on standby, basically ready to generate customized flat rate prices within a couple minutes of a tech needing a price because they're not trusting their price book because of how volatile the supply chains and material costs are right now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, one of the things that we've had to really learn how to do here these last couple months is try to find out what's at the distribution center and sell what that is, because otherwise we're four months out.

Speaker 2 So we try to find out what's in stock, if it's a common 16 by 7 garage door, and sell that and really get the customer, say, this would look really great and try to get them to go that way because we know that the chance of it falling out in four months is a much higher probability.

Speaker 2 Plus, you know, we're on an accrual accounting system. So we don't count that revenue until it gets fulfilled.
It's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 You know, you mentioned the service agreements, and I've seen in HVAC and plumbing, entire companies make all their living off of service agreements, literally like Leland,

Speaker 2 service champions, or you got Josh Campbell. I watch these guys.
It's an amazing thing that HVAC has become and done with the service agreements. And if it gets 10 years old, as you send a sales.

Speaker 2 guy to go to the tune-up to get a more efficient unit. You know, that model doesn't work in some industries.
You could try to make it work. It's working a little bit for me and garage drugs.

Speaker 2 It's not to the level, but I love that model. Can you explain kind of how that works and how the turnover works?

Speaker 1 Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 So, and I get this question asked of a lot of owners, you know, again, when I'm out doing in-person trading things, you know, what's the one thing, you know, as a plumbing or heating air company, especially heating and air that we could focus on or we should be focused on?

Speaker 1 Hands down, to me, that goes back to the maintenance agreement because how can we tie that customer?

Speaker 1 And gosh, what a what a benefit that you have through a maintenance agreement in a traditional heating and cooling uh scenario where you've got you know a visit for heating a visit for cooling you're in that home twice a year you've got a tech going out there twice a year that has that constant contact with that homeowner and you know now we're provided with these streams of income on you know necessary repairs to keep that system performing as it should and you know maintain life expectancy maintain warranty we've got all the add-ons and everything that we can do to customize that system for that homeowner but then again again, we're going to reach that eventuality where we fulfilled the system's life expectancy and it's time to replace it.

Speaker 1 And the statistics show that at that point, I mean, you probably have an 80 to 90% plus percentage of getting that sale if we own the maintenance agreement for that home.

Speaker 1 So it's crucial in order to keep those customers locked to us.

Speaker 1 Then not only that, but as we're doing a great service for them year in, year out, we're creating, you know, raving fans that are a huge referral source for us too.

Speaker 1 During our business planning process that BDR does each year, we go through and kind of analyze what the value of a maintenance agreement client is over its lifetime based upon additional income opportunities found through the service agreement itself.

Speaker 1 And then those referred sources too. What's our expectation on how many referrals we may get?

Speaker 1 And you start looking at that and the gross profit dollar gains usually are anywhere from like five to ten thousand dollars worth of gross profit to the company each year that they maintain that service agreement from that customer from not only, again, like I said, parts, supplies, materials, things like that, that we sell to the homeowner while we're on those agreements, but then also from the referrals and new equipment sales coming from that source.

Speaker 2 It's crazy. You know, man, we talk about this a lot, but it's, you know, it helps build a budget.
It helps for forecasting.

Speaker 2 And the reason private equity loves those service agreements is you built a wall around those clients or a fence around the clients.

Speaker 2 And you can start to build a predictive model of what you're going to make based on there's a percentage that starts evolving that this many clients on the service agreements are going to get new units each year.

Speaker 2 Especially,

Speaker 2 I got to tell you, a lot of my competition,

Speaker 2 they don't understand how I do my marketing because I spend a lot of money on it. And they say, man, the best marketing ever you get on these Facebook groups is word of mouth.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, of course it is. But you're not going to grow 100% with word of mouth.

Speaker 2 You got to own Google and the four algorithms on Google. You got to understand Bing.
You got to do well with certain types of mailers, service agreements.

Speaker 2 And, you know, you could use TV, billboard, and radio to kind of stimulate Google, really. What it'll do is get more click-through rates and more bookings and higher ticket averages.

Speaker 2 But the old way, I feel sorry for anybody that's got to go against me in garage doors here in the next few years.

Speaker 1 I really do because.

Speaker 2 They don't understand service agreements. They don't understand a maintenance tech.
Now, the reason why an HVAC guy doesn't want to get in my industry is I can tell you, it's way different.

Speaker 2 And I got a buddy of mine who's doing quite a bit of money in garage drawers. They're in the $7 million range.
And he started an HVAC company last summer and he did $7 million in HVAC over the summer.

Speaker 2 And he's like, dude, if you got into HVAC, and I'm like, I'm seeing a garage drawers here. I'm just way too deep into it.
And I'm not saying garage drawers.

Speaker 2 They're both got their own challenges. The ticket just isn't the same size and the service agreements are a little bit harder.
People are like, listen, I use this thing five, 10 times a day.

Speaker 2 And when it breaks again, come fix it. But I don't really think about it.
But the air conditioning is like, I want to be nice. I want to feel good in the summer and be warm in the winter.

Speaker 2 And I'm not, I would never want to compare because I think I can sell service agreements, but you got the filter and you want to check up and make sure the capacitor is doing its job and all the and clean.

Speaker 2 You know, I've seen those little combs. Actually, I bought some because I thought I was going to do it myself and I never have, but because I saw my buddy do it and you cleaned the coils or whatever.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about about

Speaker 2 what goes on at Business Development Resources exactly. Explain the company a little bit.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So we are a coaching and training firm.
So we have

Speaker 1 multiple coaching offerings from what we call a head coach that kind of takes a look at all the functions within the business, you know, like operations, sales, service, install,

Speaker 1 your

Speaker 1 accounting, all that good stuff. And then from there, we actually have specific coaches that kind of dive into specialty markets.

Speaker 1 So we've got specialty coaches concerning the financials that work directly with the bookkeepers, the CFOs, the accounting department.

Speaker 1 And then we also deal specifically with the service department, have specific service coaches. I also do a couple other specialty coaches.

Speaker 1 coaching arms, which is our labor management or essentially our install coaching. So we work directly with install managers to streamline efficiencies on the installation side.

Speaker 1 And then also sales coaching, too. And I work with specific sales managers and their sales team to better their sales process.
So, and then also the training, like I mentioned.

Speaker 2 You know, there's two things if you ever listen to my podcast that I'm obsessed with, and it's sales and marketing. And

Speaker 2 unfortunately, we're so good at sales that it masks other things sometimes.

Speaker 2 And I tell some of my managers, and I'm not complaining, but I'm like, man, it's crazy what we're able to do because I talk a lot about these things.

Speaker 2 And I want to get into this pretty deep here but i have 250 tech i have a little yep right around 250 techs and i've got to see probably a thousand over the years and i'm very fortunate because the first day i meet them during orientation when i meet them i say here's my cell phone number and i want you to call me when you break through a mental block when you when something we get that aha moment and i've had hundreds of calls like this and there's a common theme to a lot of it is they need a methodology they need steps.

Speaker 1 They need order.

Speaker 2 That's the way to get an expected result. And the number two is they're kind of cool.
They're good guys to talk to. I believe them.
They make eye contact. They got voice inflection.

Speaker 2 They kind of got their shoulders pulled back. They listen well.
They've got two ears. They ask very good questions.
They laugh a lot. They smile a lot.
They're very, very generous.

Speaker 2 They play with the dog. They notice things.

Speaker 2 I think that's a beautiful Harley. How often do you get out? Have you ever been to Sturgis? And they get to know the customer for sometimes an hour before they even discuss the issues.

Speaker 2 Now, you know, we do disk profiling. We try to understand who we're selling to.
Cause if you get me in a garage and I got a problem, I'm probably on the phone.

Speaker 2 And I'm just going to say, dude, what does it need? Give me a couple options. I want the best.

Speaker 1 Do it.

Speaker 2 But most people want to get to know and get educated. So I'm just curious, from your point of view, what are some of the mistakes when it comes to service offerings?

Speaker 2 And just what do technicians do wrong? And where do you start with that when you're training them?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. you're absolutely right.
We see it in plumbing and heating air all the time.

Speaker 1 I've even had it with my own technicians that I've worked with, where you've got a technician that's, I mean, has all the technical ability in the world.

Speaker 1 I mean, they're one of the smartest individuals, but they almost come to this disconnect with the homeowners where they're speaking over their head. They're too techie.

Speaker 1 They're not able to make that personal connection like you're describing, right? They don't observe things. It's business, right?

Speaker 1 And I've had them where they complain about my other guys that are just, you know, real personable, and they get in and they're, you know, pet the dog, like you said, or they notice certain things.

Speaker 1 Uh, they're talking about they're actively listening to what the homeowner is saying and talking about solutions or stuff like that, or even just getting into personal conversation.

Speaker 1 And the homeowners are endearing themselves to them.

Speaker 1 And, you know, they're coming back with amazing tickets because the homeowner likes them and trusts them and says, hey, let's go with these recommendations.

Speaker 1 But you've got these real techie guys that can't adjust their mind to have those conversations.

Speaker 1 So that's what I really work on with technicians is it's more so about the soft skills side of things than it is the technical stuff. Homeowners expect us to know what we're talking about.

Speaker 1 That's why they called us, right? They can't do it. They found us on Google, wherever.
They've got a problem. They want us to come out.
They expect the problem to be fixed.

Speaker 1 It's that customer experience. It's everything else that goes into it.

Speaker 1 that really begins to build that trust foundation to where when we come to them with these recommendations based upon conversations we've had, we've now positioned ourselves to gain the acceptance because we've got trust.

Speaker 1 There's a direct correlation between the level of trust and the speed at which a decision is going to be made, as well as sensitivity to price.

Speaker 1 So whether it's service or sales, if I've got little to no trust, There's a high sensitivity to price as well as the potential for a slower decision process here, a period, to where they make a final decision.

Speaker 1 So I'm looking at anything, you know, again, whether it's sales or service, they're really no different.

Speaker 1 When I'm with that homeowner, what are all the things I can do to start building a relationship here? And when we build a relationship, I know trust is a foundational component of any relationship.

Speaker 1 So we've got this relationship built. Now, as I'm coming to them and I'm explaining what I'm seeing, what I'm finding, right?

Speaker 1 Usually what you get from the homeowners is, all right, well, what should we do? What do you recommend? Well, I think this, this, and that. We give an honest answer at that point.

Speaker 1 And boom, here comes acceptance. And that's, that's the real fun part with technicians is technicians feel themselves, I'm a technician, I'm not a salesperson.
And I'll bite on that.

Speaker 1 Okay, you're not a salesperson, but regardless of whatever it is, we're all salespeople, right?

Speaker 2 And sell us human.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
So when we're out there, it's like, okay, now we've got to just.

Speaker 1 you know, get this relationship forged with that homeowner, build that trust and make an honest recommendation no you're not selling me anything you're giving them honestly this is what i'm seeing and i'm you know communicate that to them and that's usually one of the big problems that that the technicians have is they just don't understand what that looks like they oftentimes will

Speaker 1 view the amount of the repair or the amount or how many options they're giving them they'll look at that and go oh my gosh this would be a lot to me this would be expensive for me and out of their own pocket same thing with financing i don't use financing why should i sell it Yeah, right, right.

Speaker 1 But we have a job to do. We have a responsibility to that homeowner to go in there and give an honest assessment of what we're seeing.

Speaker 1 In addition to that, talk about other things that we know we can do, other solutions that we could provide for them that they don't know about.

Speaker 1 The average homeowner knows nothing about, you know, whether it's a garage door, whether it's heating and air, whether it's plumbing on average. They don't really know.

Speaker 1 all that we can do for them on average. You're going to have some exceptions to that rule.

Speaker 1 So we have a responsibility to talk to them about this and explain it to them educate them inform them on how this is going to benefit them and then let them make a decision here you know so once i start working with technicians and kind of open their eyes and then they see the other side of it when the homeowner is actually excited about accepting these options and doing it and you know then they're like oh my gosh oh okay this isn't so bad you know this isn't as scary as i've made it out to be people actually want this stuff They like it.

Speaker 1 They're excited about it. I was working with a client out of Dayton, Ohio, not too long ago.
And

Speaker 1 they were telling me a story. They had gotten a service lead from Facebook Marketplace.
And this homeowner went on. He said, hey, we've got an issue with

Speaker 1 the air handler furnace, whatever it was, above our master bedroom. It's keeping my wife up at night.
I called a company. They came out, gave us a quote.
It was like $3,000.

Speaker 1 We're just looking to get a second opinion. Anybody have recommendations? And Facebook, you know, this chat group suggested this client that I was working with.

Speaker 1 So they send out their technician, Richard, out on this service call. And Richard walks in the front door and he's taking his shoes off at the front door.

Speaker 1 And he looks down right there in the entryway and he sees a little sharper image, ionic, or whatever those things are, the little ionic breeze or whatever it is, you know, sees a little.

Speaker 1 HEPA filter, whatever, air filtration thing. And he asked the homeowner, he says, may I ask what you're using this for? And this is when COVID was, you know, first starting out and it was a big deal.

Speaker 1 He says, well, I knew you were coming in and, you know, I just want to clean the air essentially, you know, around you.

Speaker 1 And the tech goes, okay, well, I'll get in and take a look at your, at your situation going on. But, you know, let me talk to you about some whole home solutions that we have for indoor air quality.

Speaker 1 And the guy said, sure. So anyways, he goes up, does what he does and gives the guy a price quote.
It wound up just coming in less than what the competitor was quoting them.

Speaker 1 And he said, well, in addition to that, you know, we talked to you about this whole home solution. We can do whatever it was and install that.
So the homeowner says, sure, let's do it.

Speaker 1 So the technician sells the repair, sells the accessory, the IAQ product. They go out.
They fix the problem. No noise.
Wife's happy.

Speaker 1 That homeowner went back on Facebook Marketplace and didn't even mention, didn't even mention the repair.

Speaker 1 didn't mention the fact that now his wife's not being woken up by the furnace air handler making noise up in the attic. All he talked about on there was the solution that the technician offered them.

Speaker 1 And, you know, telling techs that story. Hey, look, sometimes it's not necessarily about the repair.
That's what they expect.

Speaker 1 It's about all the other stuff that they don't expect or don't know that they get excited about. Nobody goes and buys a car, truck, a new car, a truck.

Speaker 1 And they're like, oh, Tommy, man, you won't ever believe this. I went and bought a new truck, man.
It came with four tires. It has a steering wheel.
It's got windshield wipers.

Speaker 1 No, they're talking to you like, hey, Tommy, I bought this truck. And, you know, look, it's got heated and cooled seats.
It's got adaptive cruise control. They talk about the options.

Speaker 1 They get excited about the options. And it's the same thing in heating air.
It's the same thing with garage doors.

Speaker 1 In any of those excitable options outside of the fact that when I push a button, the garage door should go up.

Speaker 2 Well, you know, it reminds me, hey, listen, let me show you something pretty cool. I got my door or it's my queue on my phone.
I can open and close the garage door from anywhere in the world.

Speaker 2 And it alerts me when someone opens it. And here's what's really cool.
On the opener, the wall button, I can have it close itself after five minutes.

Speaker 2 So it'll keep some of that cool air in in the summer and that warm air in the winter because the kids leave the garage doors open all the time.

Speaker 2 And there's other features too, is I could have a laser point down on your dashboard of your car so you know where to park. So you never have to worry if you're in far enough.

Speaker 2 You know, the old tennis ball, now we've got lasers that shoot down. And by the way, I noticed you had a few things just if you're like me, my garage door is way worse.

Speaker 2 And I try to, you know, make the, you don't want to go there. But what we did is we put these four by eight systems in and we've got this great storage now in the garage.

Speaker 2 And it's great for all the holiday stuff and the stuff we just don't use, but every once a year. So, those are the things I do agree.
And you're right, I always talk about this.

Speaker 2 Get the customer excited, get them smiling, get them like, listen, do you know that 40% of your home is your curb appeal? The garage door is the smile of your home.

Speaker 2 It's one of the best investments you could ever make. Believe it or not, it's better than the kitchens and bathrooms, according to Remodel magazine.
Last five years in a row. And they're like, Really?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, Yeah, you know, I love owning a home because I made 22% last year. I know it's inflation, but at least I own a home.
And then you never call it financing.

Speaker 2 Hey, Sean, let me ask you, with the beard, everything, you're wearing a t-shirt. It looks like you can use some financing.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 2 you don't say that. You say, hey, listen, you want to see if you qualify for a promotion? And, you know, what Joe Crisara, I don't know if you know who he is.
He,

Speaker 2 when he's building options, he'll be like.

Speaker 2 If you would have told me, like, the worst part is my son sleeps upstairs. His name's Timmy.
And the garage door wakes him up every time I leave for work. Is he'll call the best option.

Speaker 2 He'll call this to keep Timmy safe and asleep when dad leaves option. And I love that little stuff.
And it's interesting to think about because

Speaker 2 you listened and it's kind of like smiling. And you say, listen,

Speaker 2 this is what I would do if I were you. And I always said, if this were my mom's house, because people always say,

Speaker 2 Now, what would you be telling your mom?

Speaker 1 Because this was 10 years ago.

Speaker 2 So I say, listen, this is what I'm going to do for my mom. And here's why.

Speaker 2 And then it's very, I picked certain words. I don't say recommend.
And whenever I replace a part, I said, these parts are shot. They're no good.
They're dangerous. They're not safe.
Let me show you.

Speaker 2 Here's a bad one. If, you know, there's a little bit of grease.
I don't want to get you dirty. But here's a good one.
And then I always use analogies.

Speaker 2 I'm like, have you ever gone down the freeway with your emergency brake on? I haven't. I hope you haven't.
But that's what these rollers are doing to the garage right now. They're not even rolling.

Speaker 2 Look at this. They're skidding along.
That's causing a lot more wear and tear on the bearing place and the springs and the whole system.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 we really need to replace these.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 a lot of people just kind of nonchalant say, Do you want me to replace your rollers? They're starting to wear out. And it's like,

Speaker 2 I look at people, even on the phone, sometimes, even at other companies, and I'm like,

Speaker 2 man, you suck. You know, I guess I'm a little bit of an actor.
If I'm having a bad day, I still got to act good to the customer because I can't be like, hello, yeah,

Speaker 2 it's cold outside today. You know, know? Right.
I don't know how,

Speaker 2 I guess, because I was a server, I was a bus boy, I washed dishes, I worked a lot in restaurants, bartended, everything, that I just learned to be nice to people and just strike up a conversation no matter what.

Speaker 2 And I do think that everybody, if you have kids out there, I recommend they work in a restaurant sometime in their lives as children.

Speaker 1 I came from it too. I came from serving tables at a restaurant.
Absolutely. It teaches you a lot.
It really does.

Speaker 2 And those things look so good when I'm interviewing is

Speaker 2 tell me a little bit about you and we'll have a conversation. And you love the people that say, if you had to tell me something you need to work on, oh, well, I work too much.

Speaker 2 I think I care too much. I always share the same thing in the interviews.
Like, the one thing they need to work on is how good they are.

Speaker 2 This is a huge topic. Let's get into this for a minute.

Speaker 2 Hiring has been an issue for a lot of people right now.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we've got ride-along forms. We've got personality profiles.
We got so many things we do.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we're still getting 20 to 30 texts a month into our program and through the graduation process. My program is not made to make it through.

Speaker 2 I'd rather you fail out than get you out there to where you're not successful.

Speaker 2 What's your advice on that? Because it's a problem that's going around right now with everybody. And like you said, conversation programs are a big deal about that.
But what else?

Speaker 2 What do we got to do to find? great people and make sure we train them accordingly with manuals and KPIs and cadences and checklists.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, we, for one, we've got to always be looking and ready to hire and always, always be recruiting, always be hiring, looking at anywhere we go.

Speaker 1 You know, we go out to a nice restaurant, we go to a restaurant, we get great service, you know, talking to anybody that we can, handing out business cards.

Speaker 1 But yeah, making sure that we've got structure when they're coming in and educating them. on what we can do for them, what career paths we have, what's available to them in our organization here.

Speaker 1 And so, you know, really working on what does that look like for you in your organization? What is the potential for everyone to get to, right? And to fighting that.

Speaker 1 We had one of our other fellow coaches that was walking into with his daughter in to go grab some Panda Express and noticed on the door that there was a little plastic sign there about that they were hiring.

Speaker 1 Not only, I mean, everybody has signs that they're hiring, but it was showing the career path progression.

Speaker 1 if you started at Panda Express, you know, and what that looked like when you went from cook to work in the register to whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 and it stated, you know, the hourly wage and the time spent in there, and then a little testimonial from, you know, the team members.

Speaker 1 So we kind of adopting some of that too, you know, when we're in that interview phase with a prospective candidate here, you know, in this day and age, we're selling the company to them and we're selling the opportunity to them and what that looks like.

Speaker 1 So we need to know in each of our organizations, what does that defined career path look like for somebody when they come here and how long we expect them to be at certain levels?

Speaker 1 What are those stated ranges of pay at any given level? And putting that all out there in the open, making it clear for everybody to know, you know, what that looks like.

Speaker 1 And again,

Speaker 1 beyond the field, you know, we're talking about technicians or installers. What does life look like beyond the field? What opportunities do they have for work?

Speaker 2 You took the words directly out of my mouth. You know, this is, it's crazy that you just said that because I was recently on a podcast with Ben Davis, a pretty successful plumbing company in Idaho.

Speaker 2 And he said, well, you know, Deion Sanders is not going to walk in and play for you. And I said, well, wait a minute here.
He played for Dallas. There was obviously a reason.

Speaker 2 And I said, if you were to try to go after Deion Sanders or, you know, the best of the best from other companies,

Speaker 2 they all are looking for a path to stop working in the attic.

Speaker 2 And then at millennials, they care a lot about, number one, do they get heard? Do they get recognized? And number two, I think there's,

Speaker 2 are you going to continue to develop me?

Speaker 2 And when you got baby boomers, they're just like, pay me more every year, a little bit more, and I'll come in or work. And I hate it.
So, but they want to like work. And it's so important.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I'm going to still some of that. I think I'm going to make an infographic of, because I've got junior tech, tech, senior tech, then you become a lead tech.

Speaker 2 And then you could also go into our virtual product specialist or product specialist role.

Speaker 2 But the cool thing about growing as fast as we are, I tell every group upstairs during my orientation, you guys are lucky to be here right now because we're at this point of the hockey stick where it's almost vertical.

Speaker 2 And I said, I usually say, you know, there's jobs that are being made that don't exist yet for us. And that's what happens.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, I hate saying that because I'm a big fan of work charts and stuff, but there's certain In an assembly line, you know, Henry Ford one day might have said, okay, right here, right here, there's actually a job in between here to make this thing even work more productively.

Speaker 2 And I think that's the best way to describe it. And I love an assembly line because you're a specialist and you get to focus on it and you get to hone your skills and you get way less KPIs.

Speaker 2 Because when everybody's responsible for something, nobody's responsible is what I've learned.

Speaker 2 And I see these companies and they're like, I just can't find talent. And I'm like, well,

Speaker 2 who would want to work for you? I'm like, look at your ad, for example. It looks like, you know, must be, must be, only eligible if, have this, have this.
It's like, do you guys have fun there?

Speaker 2 Why would I want what's your culture like? You know, tell us about your Christmas party, tell us about home ownership, tell us about what do you do? Do you want them to work for you?

Speaker 2 The greatest ads don't mention everything they must have, qualify that later because you never know what you're going to find.

Speaker 2 Of course, the driving record, but there's certain people that I've had drive with other guys because in one year that'll be fine and whatever, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 So I've been able to kind of get around certain things, but ultimately, putting a great ad out there, I look at marketing like this: a great technician for me.

Speaker 2 I have 10 guys that did over a million dollars.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 10 guys this past year.

Speaker 2 My worst guys did less than half of that.

Speaker 2 Why would I not spend more money, more time on marketing for great people? My top CSR

Speaker 2 books 94% of the calls. My worst one is in the 70s.
Why not top grade and find that person? Why go after more leads when you could change the amount of leads with happier customers?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 2 it's a controversial subject for people because they don't want to talk about it. They're like, yeah, you just talk about sales.
You're damn right. And the church does too.

Speaker 2 The church talks about how much money. When I go to church, they say to keep the doors open, they got to pay their bills.
When you met your, are you married?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 2 Do you think that you were involved in sales when you met your wife? A little bit.

Speaker 1 Oh, 100%. I mean, you had to smile.

Speaker 2 You had to ask her. You had to make eye contact.
She's probably like, I wouldn't go out with you if you didn't even make eye contact.

Speaker 2 So I tell people, as much as you don't like the word, you're doing it all day, every day. When you go to your neighbor's house and you meet his kids, you're in everything in sales.

Speaker 2 And it's got a bad connotation because they use cars or something. But I'll tell you this, is when you learn to accept that you are in sales, everybody's in sales.
The CFO got to talk to the bank.

Speaker 2 They got to believe in us. I don't care who you are in some way, shape, or form.

Speaker 2 If you're a librarian, you still got to sell the owner of the bookstore, you know, whatever, the bookstore or the library that you're.

Speaker 1 you're going to be good for that and people are going to buy the books you recommend so right right it's even even to tie in with that i mean mean with new prospective employees like i said we're selling this opportunity to this prospective candidate right and what that looks like i'll even go back even back to business planning and really what is that as an organization what does our vision look like where are we going to be in the next two three five 10 15 years and then when we've got this talent coming in we can show them, you know, here's where we're at.

Speaker 1 Here's where our vision is. And you talked about the assembly line and those positions that come in between the positions, right? That aren't even there yet, but they will be.

Speaker 1 They will be as we grow and develop. So what does that look like from an organizational standpoint? What are those opportunities here? Here's our vision.
Here's where we're going.

Speaker 1 And these are the positions that are going to be coming available. Look at, here's your career path.
Here's what we think an average life of an installer, of a technician is in the field.

Speaker 1 But beyond that, when we talk about this, you're here. We get you to hear.
Then now here's what this organization, here's what the structure of this company is going to look like.

Speaker 1 Here are all the opportunities that are going to be at your feet to move out of that field and move into other facets of the business it's so important for everybody i talk to and i think that's going to be something i really

Speaker 2 just after this weekend and talking about it again is it's not a lot of companies they run a lot leaner so they don't have trainers they don't have like you're either a worker or you're involved csrs or very few in between because they can't afford They can't afford those other roles.

Speaker 2 And I look at it and there's some companies with 15 technicians with three people in the office. And those are crazy odds.
That's three to one.

Speaker 1 Five to one. Five to one.

Speaker 2 I mean, I got to say, I'm trying to hit a two to one, but everybody, because I consider my sales guys that don't do a wrench, I consider those not necessarily, they're not fulfilling it.

Speaker 2 Only the fulfillment people that do the service and finish it.

Speaker 2 So my goal is to get to a two to one and then maybe a three to one.

Speaker 2 You know, they're running so lean.

Speaker 2 It's amazing. I got a buddy that bought a company in South Florida Florida and it was genius.
They've been around 20 some odd years and they do a lot of new construction, but they get so many calls.

Speaker 2 I mean, they have their Google My Business up. They have their local service ads up.
They've been around a long time.

Speaker 2 They put a lot of stickers up and they get 30 to 40 calls booked a day without any marketing because I got to go Greenfield. No one's ever heard of us.
That takes decades, literally.

Speaker 2 So right now we've come up with some ideas, but. I'm going to get into the acquisition model.

Speaker 2 And what's interesting about acquisitions is I was talking to a guy yesterday and a financial guy and he said he used to work at xerox when they were consolidating a lot of companies and he said you go on to their website if you want to partner with us and we basically spell out what you needed to do what software you needed to get on you know for me it's we got to have all these things your trust needs to look like this you need to this chart of accounts your price book needs to look at least the same coding you need to be on service tight you need to be on paylocity you need to but i'm willing to pay a lot more for a company that does those things Even from the website hosting, making it easy to just put it right in.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 And you make them walk, talk, and act like you. It's interesting because I do think we have an opportunity to buy more companies than any other home service company has ever bought.

Speaker 2 And that's what we're trying to work on. And there's the person that can handle buying 100 companies from just a good person in your finance department is night and day.

Speaker 2 Because now you're analyzing a different set of books with different expenses, with different overhead. And you're doing that a lot.
And there's what's called a quality of earnings.

Speaker 2 And you look at these things, but have you ever been involved with a company that's bought another company and trying to get that synergy, that culture to fit?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it can be difficult, right? Because you inherit a lot of that culture that's there.

Speaker 1 Not oftentimes is it the perfect picture, right? Where they have all the systems and everything's in place.

Speaker 1 You know, a lot of times acquisition just happens because opportunities fall in our lap and it makes sense. So yeah, that transition can be a bear.

Speaker 1 I've got one client that's going through it right now on the Indiana, Ohio border.

Speaker 1 And there's a lot of disparity between where pricing is in one branch and pricing is in the other or with the existing company and really working with the team to kind of convey.

Speaker 1 the vision and get them to understand that this is where we need to be.

Speaker 1 So it's a lot of just groundwork education with everybody on the team that they're retaining to really understand rudimentary business functions and practices and things like that.

Speaker 1 And what all goes into it, because not everybody's well versed in this. And so you get technicians that say, oh my gosh, we used to charge, you know, $150 for that.

Speaker 1 Now you're telling me we're going to be charging double that amount. Why? Why are we now? Why are we now at 300 when we used to be at 150?

Speaker 1 And, you know, teach them this is how business works, you know, and they're thinking, oh, well, maybe you gave me a couple dollars an hour raise when you bought the company but still after you pay me you know look at all this profit that you have it's really start break down to these new employees okay well you know we'll call the gross profit here but now here's what this organization comes with all of this extra expense all this operating expense that we have now to support you that maybe you didn't have before

Speaker 2 so it's interesting when you go through it and it's hard because I'm not one of those guys necessarily that want to go through and say you guys all these bills, but I do like to just explain to them the differences between us and um exactly yep it's interesting because a lot of these mom and pops they think they have a lot of happy employees they're overall they're nice people

Speaker 2 but my guys have this crazy thing um victor ranker i don't know if you know he is he's in california that puts on a big show He told me when he was with Leland, he said there was a huge company even back then when he was there, pretty big.

Speaker 2 And he goes, there was so much acknowledgement, so much camaraderie. We had exact lists of what we needed to do.
We knew what we needed to do. There was so much meetings and checkups and ride-alongs.

Speaker 2 And he goes, then I went, somebody offered me quite a bit more money as far as a percentage, but then I lost all that.

Speaker 2 He goes, I got a little bit more money, but I lost my life.

Speaker 2 And it turned out to be, he loved the structure. He loved the accountability.
He loved the fact that, you know, they made him.

Speaker 2 And there's certain people that just, it's weird because we might have made a mistake with hiring them, but it's almost too much for them to like, wait, we got these meetings.

Speaker 2 Every day we need to check in. We got to do our trucks.
We got to do this. This, this, this, this.
But I'm like, if you look at it and you just do it in a sequence, it's like making a bed.

Speaker 1 It's like, it's not that hard. It's exactly it.
And employees don't really realize. Most employees are resistant to structure initially.

Speaker 1 And, you know, where there's lack of structure, there's chaos, right? And, you you know, oh, oh, I used to just, you know, do my own calls or I dispatch myself or I did this, that, and the other.

Speaker 1 And now I have to debrief after each call and all this stuff. And they don't really realize how much benefit that that structure brings them, right?

Speaker 1 And how much it provides us to work together as a team and become better as individuals and organizations to serve our customers.

Speaker 1 You can look at it like, you know, I've got five kids and these kids, I mean, they think that chaos is king, right? And they could run it, right? They've got it all figured out. But it's so funny.

Speaker 1 My wife and I did a science experiment not too long ago and how, from a structure standpoint, they were used to dinner being ready at a certain time.

Speaker 1 And so we took that structure away and we didn't have dinner ready at a specific time. What'd they do? They come out like, hey, where's dinner? You know, it's 5.30.
Is it six o'clock?

Speaker 1 It's time for dinner. You know, oh, well, figure it out on your own.
And they're opposed to it.

Speaker 1 And technicians, installers, anybody in our organizations, when they leave, I've had countless, countless numbers, as I'm sure you've had, employees that have left because the grass is greener, they're chasing that $1, $2, whatever

Speaker 1 per hour.

Speaker 1 They go over to some other organization and they realize that they cannot thrive in chaos, where they can thrive with us in a structured environment and what that means to them and the support that means to them.

Speaker 1 So it's interesting as you begin to put structure around, you know, change, I think, registers in the brain as pain.

Speaker 1 So anytime we have that change, you know, there's this resistance that comes from that.

Speaker 1 But once we get settled into it, right, and we become accustomed to it, now we begin to see the byproduct or the benefit of that structure and we begin to thrive.

Speaker 1 You know, you remove that, you realize, oh my gosh, I'm essentially naked without the support and the structure around.

Speaker 2 As you grow, you need more structure. The manuals become more important.
And,

Speaker 2 you know, I like that changes, pain. You know, we built a culture of change.
And I tell everybody, next month is not going to look like this month.

Speaker 1 different.

Speaker 2 Right, you know, you look at our training program, what it's evolved to, you look at the trips we go on now. I mean, it's, I don't lose good people, it's very, very, very, very rare.

Speaker 2 And I'm just getting started, man. And I'll tell you, it's interesting because

Speaker 2 we did 74 million. Our budget next year is 151.
So that's well over 100% growth. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 there's certain people that work here that the great people they say, you know, we've arrived and we've done it. And trust me, they do everything.

Speaker 2 I'm literally like, I talk at meetings and, and I, I meet and interview people, but I'm not involved really on the day-to-day at all. So cheers to them.
And it's the best team ever. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But I will say that I talk to companies all the time. I talked to one particular company recently, $7 million company.
And it's like, Tommy, I can't do it. I'm falling apart at the seams.

Speaker 2 It's impossible.

Speaker 2 And I just feel like with the numbers I'm talking about, it's got easier and gotten easier and gotten easier.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, man, I'm just, I feel like I'm just getting the hang of this thing. And I feel like every day I walk in, it's a little bit different.

Speaker 2 So it's funny how, but I'll tell you one of the things that Alex Trimozi put in one of his podcasts. He said, I brought on some really expensive high-end people and I had it.
I gave them equity.

Speaker 2 And whether that's fan equity or an equity incentive program, there's many ways to go about it. But he goes, we hit a ceiling.
Okay. And I was like, whatever.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to hire these guys to take a crack at it. He goes, this is a billionaire he's talking to.

Speaker 2 He's going to drew another seven times after we hit the ceiling because we hired the people that could take us to this next level.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 2 And it's crazy because you can't get this type of employee that I'm talking about at 10 million. Not at a $100 million company.

Speaker 2 You can't hire a 10 because if they do, they don't know how to work in that environment. They can't go back to what I used to call firefighting.
They need top graded quickly.

Speaker 2 So, when you get to a certain size, if they're able to build and get the right team, you'll see another, you know, seven to 10 times growth. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And that's what I've realized here over the last few years: is so many people they're stuck because what brought you here can't take you here, right?

Speaker 1 It doesn't rather.

Speaker 2 And sometimes your mentors, sometimes you could outgrow your mentors. I mean, literally, I've had coaches and I love them, but at some point, they've never seen this.

Speaker 2 They've never done anything or even considered a 20 times multiple of EBITDA, which is crazy, which Kettle just got. I mean, it's nuts.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The stuff that's fascinating to me, this kind of stuff that we're doing right now, just these conversations and just these little notes.

Speaker 2 Like the first thing I'm going to do when I get done with this is I'm going to get an infographic made. I'm going to go to my team real quick, send an email, make sure they understand.

Speaker 2 We'll jump on a 15-minute Zoom call. Not maybe not today.
It might be tomorrow. See what my assistant thinks.
And this is the plan. And I'm going to use it because I took value out of this podcast.

Speaker 2 I got a lot of notes. And that's one thing that I think I've done well:

Speaker 2 I'm an implementer. Sometimes it's almost too quick.
Sometimes people are like, dude, you didn't delegate that really well at all. But I want to go, go, go.
And I want to push up.

Speaker 2 What do you think some of the things that hold people back? What are the things that these small businesses just can't get out of their own head and they can't start getting that

Speaker 2 rid of that chaos and the firefighting? And they're just so afraid. of the mundane expected result of good customer service and good sales.
Why is that?

Speaker 1 Well, I think that they, again, kind of just why they get stuck in that rut is it's just they haven't expanded their vision, right? They need to increase their circle.

Speaker 1 Like you said, man, I'm starting to hang out with or individuals that are operating at these levels, you know, and surrounding myselves. And what are they doing, right?

Speaker 1 What is it that you're the sum of the top five people that you hang out with? You know, what does your circle look like? You know, who's speaking into your life?

Speaker 1 And look at coaches, look at mentors out there. And those that are doing what you think right now today may be impossible.
Surround yourself with those individuals. What are they doing?

Speaker 1 What steps did they take to get there?

Speaker 1 Expand your circle, expand your vision. And I'm the same way, right? And I found it for myself where I was like, man, I'm just stuck.
I can't see the forest through the trees here, right?

Speaker 1 And find those individuals that have exceeded beyond that. And what are they doing? What were the things that they did? Subscribing to podcasts like yours is a huge benefit.

Speaker 1 I'm in this year of, for me, is two things, timing and also just educating myself and just learning, learning, learning, learning as much as I can from whoever I can and really paying really close attention to what that circle looks like.

Speaker 1 Who do I have around me? Are they someone that's going to pull me up and take me to that next step? And we have to do that in business. You know, if we can't see it, we don't see a path out.

Speaker 1 There are ways. We all know that.
That's why these organizations exist because they got there, right? And they're not doing it on their own.

Speaker 1 Some of them maybe, but a lot of them, you know, it's through who they have in their circle and who's part of it.

Speaker 2 Well, it could be Nickster, it could be Pantheon. It could be just getting exposed to consultant, like you guys.

Speaker 2 I read this phrase a long time ago, and I put this into my training:

Speaker 2 if you don't get inspired by the circle you hang out with, then you live in a cage.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 2 If somebody wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to do that, Sean?

Speaker 1 You can get at me on email, Sean Weiss at bdrco.com, s-h-a-u-n-w-e-i-s-s at bdrco.com i'd be happy to answer any questions help anybody out that i possibly can also if you're in the heating and air plumbing uh you can check with your local distributor on upcoming trainings and things like that that i have going across the country so yeah love that i love it i i always ask the same question Are there any books, a few books that you really maybe have changed your life?

Speaker 2 It doesn't need to be necessarily self-help or anything, but is there?

Speaker 1 Got it right here. This one right here by Ryan Holiday, who actually is from Sacramento, The Obstacle is the Way.
And really just been mind-blowing to me.

Speaker 1 It's changing my perspective on adversity as it comes to us.

Speaker 2 So this is one that

Speaker 2 I got to read here, Growth Hat.

Speaker 2 I read it in the past, but.

Speaker 2 Skinny little book. It's Ryan Holiday is a shit.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Great author.
He's got a lot of great information. I'll check that one out.

Speaker 1 I haven't seen that one, but just uh changing your mindset changing your mindset and how we process adversity that comes to us and in this day and age i mean especially you know with supply chain disruption and everything i mean there is obstacles we're facing every day how do we leverage that obstacle to go beyond it right and actually use the obstacle in our favor to get us to where we want to go You know, there's, what's his name?

Speaker 2 Jocko Willick. Yeah, I put Wilkinson, but I knew what Wilkinson.
So he,

Speaker 2 I'm going to rephrase this. He says something completely different, but I'm gonna say it in his terms.
So, your suppliers are five months out, good.

Speaker 2 So, your employees didn't come in on time, good.

Speaker 2 And he basically takes all these things. Good.
What are you gonna do about it?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 what changes are you about to make? What adversity are you going to look in the eye and challenge it one-on-one? Or are you going to let it jump all over you?

Speaker 2 You know what I can't stand is, especially with the stupid freaking virus. freaking i said freaking um

Speaker 2 is people have a tendency to go yeah well covid

Speaker 2 yeah you mean your ppp money what excuse do you have that's that you failed what excuse do you have that you didn't hit budget and you know what i'm not going to say i haven't done a lot of stuff but the one thing i won't do is continue to scapegoat because i've heard it too many times well you don't know what it's like in oklahoma you don't know what it's like in milwaukee no one buys doors like they do in phoenix i'm in all these states right so i go yep when I send a guy from Phoenix and he triples your best guy, then what are you going to do?

Speaker 2 Because it's going to happen like it does every single time. And that's my job now is to remove excuses.
That's right. And I say this all the time.
I'll say, Sean, listen,

Speaker 2 you'll come to me with something. You'll say, hey, listen, dude, we're having a hard time getting our Google verified because the COVID and Google's taking forever.

Speaker 2 All right, if I work with you, Sean, and we get it verified,

Speaker 2 what's going to happen? What are you obligated? I will work with you. We'll get through this adversity.
But what's going to happen? Are you going to come back to me and say something else?

Speaker 2 Because listen, I don't embrace, I sound like Taffer, the bar rescue here, but I don't embrace problems. I embrace solutions.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 And I live and die and breathe by numbers. And what's going to happen if we do this? And what can we predict?

Speaker 2 You know, the way that I kind of like to wrap this podcast up is we talked about a lot of cool stuff. And I definitely want to do this again.

Speaker 2 I want you to kind of take a few minutes.

Speaker 2 We might have not touched upon something you might have wanted to make sure the audience knew about, but if there's something that's really going to be stuck with them, something that's going to change their lives or their business or their families' lives, I'll let you kind of give us a good closing thought to finish this up.

Speaker 1 Well, kind of in talking with a lot of this stuff and the changing and not using excuses as a reason, and again, speaking more specific on the heating and air side, you know, with supply chain disruption and maybe our inability to get some of these products that we've been accustomed to getting, certain certain efficiencies, whatever it may be.

Speaker 1 That's been a crutch for I think a lot of organizations in the past is selling off of what the product can do for the homeowner rather than selling what we can do for the homeowner, selling ourselves, selling our unique practices that we do, all the value that we as organizations bring.

Speaker 1 I'm finding a lot of organizations that are up against this right now because what products I sold yesterday, I might not be able to get today. And I'm selling a completely different product.

Speaker 1 And I can't just sell on just the product alone because maybe I've positioned this one in the past to be the best.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter as the installing contractors or as the contractors, we're the ones that make the difference in all of this stuff.

Speaker 1 Homeowners need to understand, and the same can be said for garage doors, heating air, whatever. This is not like buying something off Amazon, buying something that I just plug in and it works, right?

Speaker 1 It all goes back to the install and how that install goes and what we do as an installing contractor to assure the end result so we we're talking about our unique install practices we're talking about everything that we're going to do and we're backing that up with third-party collateral pictures videos you know testimonials whatever it may be we're forcing ourselves as an organization to change off of the boxes or the product itself and the value that it brings because we may not have that high efficiency product so i can't sell on comfort and and energy savings and stuff because it's just unavailable so i have to sell down at this level you kind of alluded to this with garage doors right so now what does that mean when i'm selling that other product that may not be as top end because of availability what are we going to do as an organization to ensure comfort safety security happiness longevity all that good stuff so focus in as an organization on what you bring to the table and change the way you've sold in the past from selling the products, benefits, and and features to more so selling what you as an organization bring to the table and what you do and how you are the difference in all of this.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's well said. I was on my Mojo call this morning, right? We do one every morning, 15 minutes.

Speaker 2 And I said, guys, I don't know what the customer wants. They said, listen, we're having a lot of problems right now when the customer's got three quotes.
We're so much more expensive.

Speaker 2 When it's really a lot similar, and I said, well, here's what I would really try to show you is if it's apples to apples, apples, I got a price beat guarantee, but you never do that.

Speaker 2 What I want you guys to understand is on a hollow back door, at least put a strut on every panel. At least give them a stretch protector and a max life spring.

Speaker 2 We can make it a good door, but no one else is doing this stuff. No one else, our trademark stuff.
No one else can carry our trademark parts. So listen, you want something a little more economical.

Speaker 2 We've got that option for you, and there's no one else that's doing what we're doing. We're putting 14 gauge hinges, not 18 gauge hinges.
We're putting an operator reinforcement bracket.

Speaker 2 We're doing the oversized bottom rubber because the concrete's not level. All these things.
And then you tell them, here's the facts.

Speaker 2 Everybody buys from Home Depot once in their life, but nobody buys twice.

Speaker 2 So you can go there. And I made a lot of mistakes.
I bought the cheapest roof. It's had the same warranty, but just not the right company.
And at least years later, but the fact is.

Speaker 2 Homeowners have known this. You know how many times my technicians call me? They're like, we're $800 more, but they're going with us.

Speaker 1 All day, every day. Yeah, all the time.

Speaker 2 And it's not, listen, you're buying the guy that shows up on time. You're buying the communication.
You're buying the guy that's going to be there two years when you need us.

Speaker 2 And you're also, listen, I'm there. I'm saying hi to your daughter when she's there.
She might be eight years old. You got five kids.
I am never been in prison. I have never been in trouble.

Speaker 2 I don't have drugs. The difference is.
I'm safe around your family. And it's important that you feel that way.
And also, I've been invited to Thanksgiving dinners.

Speaker 2 I've been invited to shoot pool, like go on motorcycle runs. It's amazing because people are like, whoa, dude, let's go fishing.

Speaker 2 And that's the thing is, is people buy from people they like and they trust.

Speaker 1 Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Build relationships, right? The sale is the byproduct of the relationship, right? That's a byproduct. That's going to happen.
I work with salespeople and service technicians, man.

Speaker 1 If you build this relationship, everything else will come, right? And I'm the same way.

Speaker 1 I've been invited to parties and all kinds of different different activities from people I've met on a sales call, right?

Speaker 2 And they just, we hit it off, right?

Speaker 1 Because we built a relationship throughout this process, right? And the sale came that happened out here. It was just a byproduct of building that relationship.

Speaker 1 So focus in and build relationships with homeowners. Good stuff will happen.

Speaker 2 I love this. Lots of good notes.
Customer excited, attentive, active listening, observe things, forecast. I got all kinds of notes.
Listen. Love it.

Speaker 2 You know, when I get into this kind of notes that it was a great podcast. So I really, really appreciate you coming on.
We'll definitely stay in touch.

Speaker 2 And hopefully, if you guys need any help, especially in the HVAC plumbing world, you reach out to Sean. So thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 Thanks, Tommy. Appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 Hey, guys, I just wanted to thank you real quick for listening to the podcast from the bottom of my heart. It means a lot to me.
And I hope you're getting as much as I am out of this podcast.

Speaker 2 Our goal is to enrich your lives and enrich your businesses and your internal customers, which is your staff. And if you get a chance, please, please, please subscribe.

Speaker 2 You're going to find out all the new podcasts. You're going to be able to ask me questions to ask the next guest coming on.
And do me a quick favor, leave a quick review.

Speaker 2 It really helps us out when you like the podcast and you leave a review. Make it four or five sentences.
Tell us how we're doing. And I just wanted to mention real quick, we started a membership.

Speaker 2 It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. You get a ton of inside look at what we're going to do to become a billion dollar company.

Speaker 2 And we're just, we're telling everybody our secrets, basically. And people say, why do you give your secrets away all the time?

Speaker 2 And I'm like, you know, the hardest part about giving away my secrets is actually trying to get people to do them. So we also create a lot of accountability within this program.
So check it out.

Speaker 2 It's homeservicemillionaire.com forward slash club. It's cheap.
It's a monthly payment.

Speaker 2 I'm not making any money on it, to be completely frank with you guys, but I think it will enrich your lives even further. So thank you once once again for listening to the podcast.

Speaker 2 I really appreciate it.