Empowering Teams Through Data Mapping | Podcast Ep. 172 | Toolbox for the Trades

Hello, contractors, and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. My name is Jackie Aubel and today I am chatting with Sheena Palacios, the founder of NIFT Business Solutions and official service titan partner. Sheena is a service titan whiz. We spent our time talking about the importance of clean data and how to have a successful software implementation. I hope you find this conversation as thought provoking as I did. Sheena Palacios, you are the owner at NIFT Business Solutions, a service titan partner. Today we're going to be talking about data transformation. Empower your team to make data driven decisions. Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jackie. I'm so thrilled to be here.

I am thrilled to be here as well. I've heard fantastic things about you from our partner team and I am just psyched to dive into data, dive into KPIs, because I know you were the expert here. But before we even get into that, I need to give you an icebreaker, Sheena. I would like to know if you could acquire one skill in an instant, what would it be and why?

I would say that skill would be optimizing AI. AI is definitely the now and it somewhat goes with what we're going to talk about today. But if I had that skill set without having to take the six months or however long it takes to learn it and continuously learn it and master that skill, if I can snap my fingers, it would be optimizing AI because there's just so much that we can do with it. And again, it's not even the future anymore, it's the now.

I 100% agree with you there. I use a project management solution called Hive in my personal work and if I could just snap my fingers and learn that tool from front to end, I would be so happy because I have been living in that knowledge center lately and I just want to be able to figure out automations like can I just, when I do this, can it ping slack? Like that would be so great. But I'm totally with you. I mean, I think anybody who is thinking about growing efficiently and growing intelligently, they need to start adapting AI to their business and to their different workflows.

I agree. That's One of my 2024 goals, is to automate my day to day.

Oh gosh, I would love that. That sounds so nice. Well, Sheena, we're going to get into data and all of this cool stuff with you, but before we even get in there, let's talk a bit about how you got into the trade. So you actually have a really Interesting story as to how you got into the trades. Why don't you tell me?

Well, most people are fortunate enough to say that they were born in the trades. I would like to say that I was built into the trades. So my father had a job opportunity where he was chosen with a bunch of other men from the island of Guam by a local construction company here in Florida. And they brought them out here to do. Well, there's really no way around it. Just cheap labor, I would say.

And.

And my dad then acquired his electrical skills and from there he opened it up to my entire family. So I have three brothers who are H Vac technicians. I have two brothers in laws who are electricians. My husband is a master electrician. And I have numerous of other family members that are working in the trades, both on the field and in the office. So I like to say we were built into the trades because it started with one person. And that one person made an impact in so many lives.

That's really incredible. And so you and your family were in Guam. Your dad was in Guam. He got this opportunity, came to the States, learned the trades, and now it's basically embedded into the fabric of your family. That's super cool.

That's right. I was 18 when I moved out here. So H vac, electrical, plumbing, all of those essentials were. I never had them like at the tip of my fingers. For me, it was a luxury. Like the first time I ever experienced hot water, like a hot water shower, was when I was 18 and I moved out here to the United States. I personally still prefer my cold water showers, but it was just nice to have that option, you know, the sun, central air, the proper plumbing pipes. That's not something that I grew up with. So being in the trades is more than just. It's more of a passion for me, it's a lifestyle. And it's more of returning that appreciation for something that I never had before. Yeah, so that's like the most common entry into being grateful for something.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And by the way, a lot of people are getting on the cold shower bandwagon. I cannot do a full cold shower, but I do to end with 30 seconds of cold because it's supposed to increase my dopamine or whatever, but I don't know. The jury's out. So you have brothers, Brothers in laws. Your father was a contractor, a technician. Where did you find your space in the business? Because we're going to talk about it now. Nift is essentially a business solutions partner that you Work with a bunch of mega trade corporations to help them unify their data, make the most out of their data, streamline things, support with service time. You kind of do a lot of things. So where did you kind of find your niche? Like how were you able to find that?

Well, I started off at a local plumbing company and I was a CSR dispatcher, invoicer, permitting coordinator. It was a very small company, so I did everything in the office with the exception of payroll and I worked my way up there until I hit the ceiling. Then I moved on to a multi trade company where they offered more services, more room for growth and from there I worked my way up to assume executive roles such as payroll director, data analyst. And it wasn't until our company got bought out by a private equity company and I assisted in these mergers and acquisitions. So doing that kind of work, I saw how much effort was put in to onboarding to Service Titan software, implementing, creating workflows and then we would move on to the next. And I saw so much being left on the table as far as end user training transition to success. There was such a need. There was such a need and everyone was working so hard to get, get to a certain point and that's where I said that's, that's kind of going to be my thing, that's where I fit in. That's my puzzle piece is to fill that gap.

That's really incredible. So you grew your career from CSR to working on the mergers and acquisition side. You're watching all of these entities onboard to Service Titan and kind of get their first, I don't know what, 30, 60 days under their belt with Service Titan and you just saw a need for, okay, that some of these big corporations need a lot more support and I'm going to go off on my own and I'm give it to them.

Yes. And I'm very big on boots on the ground, so. And I'm also very big on end user. So end user training, end user feedback and having brothers as technicians and we're at a family event on the weekend and they're like, hey, Service Titan should be able to do this or why can't I do that? It would be so helpful if I didn't have to hit this extra button when I'm in an attic. So that's where I gain like a lot of industry insights from the ground up. And then I work towards bridging the gap with automation and service sites and workflows and best practices and just basically serving the trades that's how I serve the trades.

Yeah, we're going to jump around a bit because I think what you just said goes so nicely into one of the questions I had for you. I love that you're focusing on the end user. As someone who's worked in software her whole career, I know it's one thing to get the decision maker to buy into a platform, it's a whole other thing to get the end users actually using the software. I mean, if I had a dollar for every time some, you know, C suite member or director was like, hey, here's a software, learn how to use it, I would have quite a few dollars. And so I love that you're thinking about the end user in mind. So for any folks right now who are listening, who maybe are just getting ready with Service Titan or are about to onboard, maybe a tuck in into Service Titan or a new company onto Service Titan, what is the you can share AB to ensure a successful onboarding process and then maybe later continued success, three months in, six months in, et cetera.

Gotcha. My advice would be team effort. Get your team on board, your entire team, get them involved with the process. Everyone from the field technicians to the office manager, to whomever's running accounting. If you have a memberships person that solely focuses on that, include them. No gatekeeping. The more you divide and conquer, we all know that Service Titan is a beast of a software and it's ever evolving. So not one single person should be left to carry that burden of knowing every single thing in every single area. It's just, it's impossible.

Yeah, I always suggest to folks that if they are getting started with Service Titan, they should dedicate one person in the office or who's in charge of implementation and in getting everyone on board. But I know you work with companies that tend to be. They're mega corporations, they have hundreds of employees. So I guess that probably wouldn't be the best advice to them. Do you think or what's your take.

On that as far as. Even if you designate the office person to ensure that the training is done by their team in the CSR world and then another team in the dispatch world, you can have your key players. I think that's very crucial rather than just having like all hands, you know, in the cookie jar. When I say team effort, I mean leadership team. People who are able to assist with the training, give continuous feedback, receive feedback from either the field or the office on what the system is doing versus what they would like it to do. So key, key members having key members, but at the end of the day it's the team, whatever team you have. If it's a smaller team, that's, you know, that's what you're going to have to do to make sure you cover all those areas, or if you have a large team, make one person in charge of that area and ensure that it all trickles down.

Yeah, yeah, very interesting. You know, we talk about some of this stuff here and I understand it conceptually. I'm like, yes, that makes sense. And I sometimes get takeaways from this podcast that I want to apply to my own workflows and then I'm. I get sucked right back into the everyday managing webinars and podcasts and Service Titan and which I think just really speaks to how bringing someone like you on board to kind of manage this process can be so beneficial to a corporation that has the resources to do so. Because now it's your job to make sure that Service Titan is being implemented and used in the right ways by the right stakeholders and that they're making the most out of the investment and that people are able to use it the way that it works best for their particular role.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah. Okay, so we're going to talk a bit about data because I know you are very passionate about data data transformation. So when it comes to data, there's literally dozens of KPIs, key performance indicators that I could, if I rattled them all, we would be here until definitely until midnight your time, probably about 9pm my time. So organizations take advantage of ensuring they are able to capture the right data and the right KPIs.

The more fields you populate during configuration, the more data you will have at your fingertips. So something as simple as entering a technician's home address down the line when you go to use technician optimized routes from dispatch that ties into that. So you're able to set yourself up as far as what fields? I would say every field that is going to be valuable to your company, which is everything. Everything from sole thresholds on the job to duration. All of the simplistic little fields that you may just overlook or scan over. Those are the things that you need to be setting up.

Give me some more examples. So we're talking about Service Titan in particular, obviously, because that's your specialty. But what are some other data points that people should make sure that they're capturing?

Like cannot look over something as simple as entering technicians home addresses when creating their profiles impacts different features within the software, such as optimizing Routes when dispatching, also zips and zones and all the little fields that are in each of those business units, job types, general ledgers. Every single mapping and service titan is there for a reason. And the more you fill out within those fields, the more data that you would have to make your decisions.

Got it. So I want to explain for the layman because we do have some listeners here that I know aren't on service titan or maybe aren't as in the weeds as other people are. So business units are essentially, you know, your different service lines. So H vac, electrical, plumbing, for example. And then you were saying, you know, there's fields within fields within fields. So I'm assuming that we just get more and more granular as we go from these are our three services and then how can we break them down even more? So what would a really good one look like? I guess so.

A really good one specifically on a business unit is if you look inside of it, there's divisions and there's trades. So it can be service, but what type of service is it plumbing, is it electrical, is it H Vac and then what division? You can do it off of location or it can be a project area, it can be a commercial, like all those little things. If you set those up, not just setting up a, you know, generalized business unit, but if you optimize those little fields such as trades divisions, that will give you more flexibility and it will get you so granular in your, in.

Your data and just to like give the folks listening at home, because I've said already you work with mega businesses to help with their service titan. What's the general size of businesses that you work with directly?

Usually I work with enterprise businesses so they have anywhere from 1 to 1000 plus employees and it just, they normally have, you know, multiple locations across the country. I also work with medium sized businesses, but I do help smaller companies as well. And I don't like to use that word smaller because I'm a one woman show and I do not consider myself small business because we're all out there, we're making an impact in our community and wherever we're able to help, that's what we're doing. But as far as the businesses that have a certain amount of technicians, I do help them with onboarding as well because they are the ones who need the most handholding so that I can bring them to the front of the line. Because oftentimes it would be you and I as the business owner and it would be left to be you and I, to learn the setup, use the software, still go out into the field, give those estimates, you know, so there's a lot of work in that. So having someone that can kind of bring you to the front of the line and bring you up to speed until you can get your footing within the software and hit the ground running for launch, it's very, very helpful.

Yes, 100%. I am also thinking too, like you're, if you're working, that have 1,000 employees, data, and clean data is more important than ever before because you're not just talking about, you know, one owner that maybe wants to see, okay, what's my average ticket this month? What's my profit margin for this month? You now have stakeholders across multiple locations who are pulling data based on their specific location success, potentially working with companies that are in different parts of the country that may be dealing with different climate issues. I mean, there's many different factors that go into it. And if you don't have clean data, then it's not going to, there's really not much you can do. Right?

Yeah. This is such a cliche lingo, but garbage in, garbage out. If you are not following a certain uniform process, it might not be the best practice or the best process, but if you're doing something one way and another person in the company is, say, booking a job, if I, if, if I'm booking a job one way and someone else is booking it a different way, that metric will be skewed. And at the end of the day, when it comes to your reporting and your data, your data is ultimately a treasure trove to where you can make impactful decisions. Because what's the purpose of having data if it's not anything that can drive you to make decisions for the business and for improvement and growth?

Yeah, 100%. So what, in your opinion, is the most crucial configuration within ServiceTitan?

Again, I'm going to have to fall back on the basic configuration. So filling out all the areas, I know that many folks, when they get onto Service Titan, they see, oh, they have Marketing Pro or they have these Pro products or, hey, check out this cool feature. But again, the most important and crucial configuration is the basic foundation, because you're setting your company up to build upward. So if you don't have really a leg to stand on when it comes to your data and your software, your system, you're going to end up wanting to be one of those companies who, there are several who want to do a full reimplementation. They just, they're like, well, it's easier to just wipe it clean and let's start from scratch. Or they think it's easier, but it's not. It's not easier on the people having to do the actual work to get to build on that data.

Yeah, that makes sense. I want to get into a little bit of your experience working with clients, but before we even get into that, you told me you kind of alluded to this thing. It's your IKEA analogy. Can you tell me what it is and what it means?

Yes. So if you've ever shopped at Ikea, every space is fully set up and it's designed like an inspiration. Like, I go in there with my family and we go to the shower section, we pretend we're showering and we call dibs on, hey, this is my room. And everything looks so perfect and we're like, oh, this is the perfect room for us. So say you love a particular item. People don't realize you have to scan the barcode on that item that you find in that room. You have to go downstairs into their warehouse, find that item, take it home and assemble it at home. So in the case of Service Titan, the platform is designed to be user friendly and easy to navigate with clear instructions and, you know, support resources. But oftentimes, if you don't take the time to understand the software, people only see the end results. But in order to get there, you need to set up your software that way. So that's what I like to say. The IKEA analogy is where it looks beautiful and this is how you can be running your business successfully, like everybody else who's using the software at its best. However, if you don't make the time to use it and learn it as an end user or even have your team train on it, it doesn't have to be the business owner, just the people that you employ, you know, your team. If you set it up correctly, then you're definitely setting your team up for success.

So basically, if you don't go down to the warehouse yourself and if you don't read those instructions from front to back, it's probably not going to look as nice as the staged Service Titan demo.

It's not. And it's, yeah, going to be upsetting. People are going to say, well, it's not doing what it's supposed to do well because you didn't put in that work. So don't expect those results if you didn't take your time to set it up or learn the software.

Yeah, Sheena, I'm curious What do you say to customers who come to you and they're expecting that Ikea showroom, but they are, they just have a bunch of boards on the floor, so to speak. Instructions are crumbled up, tossed into the corner somewhere. What do you say to people that are like, I'm so frustrated. How do I make this look like what I saw in the catalog? Like, how do you get them to get started? Because like we said, it's a beast of a platform. You know, there's a lot to process there. So how do you coach them through that?

Well, I always ask what your top three needs are and then we focus on that. So whatever it may be, they can say it's reporting. Well, what part of reporting job costing? Okay, well, let's break it down. How are you booking your jobs? How are you converting your estimates? Are they creating estimates? So those are the things I do is I ask them what their business process looks like, because I can understand the, I can understand how Service Titan works, but every company works different from there. You can bridge the gap between the two and then once you create those streamlined workflows, you can then automate it within Service Titan. But definitely I ask them what their top three needs are and where their frustrations are and what they want it to look like. Because we're not just giving them a system, we want to give them a transformation. Like, we want to transform your data, we want to transform the way your people are booking calls or the way your technicians are clocking in and out of jobs so that our payroll is correct.

Yeah, that makes sense. So I would like to move now into like the experience you've had working with clients. So tell me about a memorable interaction you've had with a client since starting Niche. And that's N I F T. I.

Had a client who signed up for Service Titan and he tried to do the onboarding alone as the business owner. So he put it off and he found me almost a year later. So he was, he had the software, he never got his team involved. He tried to do it all. And that's what a lot of companies tried to do. They tried to do it all because it's new. So they want to protect their employees until they work out all the kinks without realizing. It goes back to that team effort, divide and conquer. So my role was to identify the key team members on the team and have them champion each area and guide them through that training. So we did hands on practice, continuous support and guidance. We almost didn't make the cut for launch date, but it was due to a previous software company that they used that wasn't giving us the data that was needed. We went in and we pulled those reports piece by piece. We pieced them together, we handed them off and we were able to go live. And four months after going live, they were fully onboarded with all six Pro products. And now they, that same company is using the software better than 90% of like Titans.

Oh, you mean their Titan Advisor score is like, correct?

Yep, their Titan Advisor score is up there and they just onboarded. So imagine going live and launching and the owner tried to do it himself for the first year and he never was able to do it. We got the team involved, he reached out to me, we identified key members who would be crucial in those areas four months later and onboarded to all 6 Pro products. And now they're just championing the software all because of a team.

That's great. I really like that. I completely resonate with wanting to protect your team because it's, it's something new and you don't want to overwhelm them. And that can be one of my shortcomings as a leader is I tend to take on everything because I don't want to stress out my team members. And in actuality, you have to trust that they can handle, you know, new and different things and learn to work together. Because the reality is, is we're just one person. We're not necessarily. We can't just, you know, snap our fingers and make something like Service Titan happen overnight. Unfortunately. Unfortunately. I mean, if we could, if that was, I don't know, then I would be doing this webinar from a mansion and I don't know what's up. What's a very exotic spot? Bali. Bali, Bali podcast. Yeah, if that sounds.

We'd be in Japan right now.

Oh, I love, I've been to Tokyo, I love it. But anyway, this has been really interesting China and I love the insight that you gave here. So kind of going back to our main topic here, how to empower our team to make data driven decisions. You talked about having clean data, making sure that we're adding and being very specific in all of our fields, like going from the business unit level, going from even like our technician address, making sure that data in there is completely clear. So this way when we generate reports, we generate KPIs, we can make smart data informed decisions. What else do you want to talk about in terms of this? Like how can, what are some final takeaways from our listener who for Our listener who's thinking about getting better with their data, really transforming their business through the power of data.

It comes down to understanding. So first one is going to be set up and configuration and then streamlining your processes. That's huge because that process is going to give us that end result. And then from there you can even go one step further and automate those.

Work workflows back into back to the AI and back to our AI. Yes, AI conversation at the top. Oh my gosh, I would love that. So I have a final question for you because I think this is actually really pertinent given that, you know, the COVID boom in home services is over. You know, we saw that big explosion in the industry because everyone was working from home, they were doing more installs. There was like a lot more work being done on people's homes. Now that that time is over, how do you recommend businesses keep growing their business in an efficient way?

If I had to put it in one word, it would be people. It comes down to the people we provide services for, people we employ, people. Our community is about people. And ultimately it's the people within your organization who drive your innovation or they drive innovation. They build strong customer relationships and they are the ones who propel the business forward. So when you prioritize your people, you're investing in the heart and soul of your business and you're setting the stage for sustainable growth and long term success.

Oh, I love it. Oh, so good. So good. Sheena, if anyone listening wants to get in touch with you at Nift Business Solutions and wants to partner with you, you are an official service titan partner. How can they get in touch with you?

They can reach out to me via email, which I know is going to be provided on here, or they can go directly to my website and they have full access to my calendar. They're able to book a discovery call with me. That's the best way. Either email or write on my calendar.

Awesome. And yes, we will be linking your website in the show notes. We can also drop your email in there too. So people feel free to reach out to Sheena. She's been a delight to work with. I can say that myself. Her and I had a bit of a. A mix up when it comes. Well, we didn't have a mix up AT&T and Xfinity had a mix up but we were able to reschedule and it was honestly seamless. It's been delightful to talk with you, Sheena. So thanks again for being a guest on Toolbox for the trades.