Financing Made Friendly: Training CSRs to Offer Options ServiceTitan | Ep 234|Toolbox for the Trades

Hello contractors and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. My name is Jackie Aubel and today I am chatting with Erica Leonor, the Director of Business Development at Good Leap. Erica and I talked about all things financing, how to get your team on board, and how it benefits your business and your customers. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Erica Leonor, you are the Director of Business Development at Good Leap. Today you and I are going to be talking about the power of financing and helping your techs and CSRs be proactive about financing. Welcome to Toolbox for the Trades.

Woo. This is so awesome. Thank you Jackie. I am so excited to chat with you.

We are going to kick things off with an icebreaker which is actually regarding a bit of famous media that you and I are both giant fans of. So Anyone watching on YouTube, they probably see right now that you have an impressive collection of swords behind you. And all of those swords are based on Lord of the Rings. I want to know who's your favorite Lord of the Rings character and why?

Oh my goodness. Well, I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours. So I wish that you could see the entire background because I do have probably 10 or 15 different Lord of the Rings weapons on here. A big fan since I was just little. Love the books, love the movies, just love the messaging and the heroism and all the things that Lord of the Rings brings to. So for a long time my favorite character was like I love Aragorn. Don't get me wrong, I love all the characters. But I always like connected like going to battle and everything. As I get older, I'm more Samwise Gamgee, you know, just wanting to have second breakfast, wanting to have my garden, like wanting to stay in my hobbit hole. So you know, there. But there's characters for everyone that you can relate to. So who's yours?

I will always love Eowyn. I think she's always. I've always got a soft spot in my heart for her. So for anyone who's not as big of a nerds as me and Eric, Eowyn is a horse maiden of Rohan and she is very much wants to be a fighter with the big boys. Wants to go to battle to defend her king and her country and she ends up killing the king had. Oh, I had his name on the tip of my head and then I got nervous that I would forget it and so I naturally forgot it because of nerves. The King of Angmar, The Night King of Angmar. Is that how it's the witch King, Yeah, the Witch King of Angmar, of Agmar, Angmark. He's the head of the Nazgul, the scary, like rogue people that follow that follow Frodo around. If you guys watch the movies, I'm assuming everyone's watched the movies, he's the guy that stabs Frodo in the first one and she's just a total badass. But Sam, I think, is arguably kind of the real protagonist of Lord of the Rings. Like, he's someone who takes up responsibility even when it's not convenient, but he's like a good, loyal friend. And the fact that he's not impacted by the Ring, I think is so interesting. So whenever I revisit the series, I, or as I've revisited the series as an older person, I've really taken a liking to Sam, who is just fantastic.

And, you know, it's so relatable to life. I know we're not in a fantasy world with magic and orcs and everything, but we have our own orcs to battle, you know, in our lives anyway. And so I could get all cheesy on this here, but we won't go too deep.

But it is interesting how you can take these stories that happen and these like, made up, creative, like make believe worlds and still compare them to your everyday work and the kind of and the reason why you do what you do here on planet Earth. Which is what we're going to get into today.

Exactly. And so let's use our quote from Bilbo. I think we're going on another adventure and we'll talk about our experience.

Oh my gosh. With financing, with that kind of segue, Erica, you should have your own podcast. Just saying. All right, so tell me, let's. Let's start from the beginning. How did you get into the trades? Where did your journey begin?

Yeah, so, you know, I, as I think about it, like, if you're talking specifically like H Vac, I could go into that. But when I look back on life, I remember when I was little, you know, we lived in a really small town. My dad grew up as a dairy farmer. I remember in our home, I was trying to think about what was my first experience with H Vac with like heating and air conditioning. And we had this huge, like, big heater that took coal and we had to drive two hours once a month to go and fill up a big pickup truck with coal and bring it back to our small town. And we would have to load all this, like, coal, like, you know, for Christmas. Like if you're not a. You get a bucket of coal and you would put it in this heater so it would keep our house warm. And so that's what I did to keep our house warm. Me and my brothers, we'd have to go fill up the bucket of coal and dump it in this big old heater to keep. Keep the house warm. And I was like, oh, I guess that's where I started from is. Is filling up this old coal heater. But then, you know, as. As I got older and everything, I. I kind of had a weird way of getting into the trades. You know, I. I studied anthropology, which is the study of people and cultures. I traveled the world. I've lived in 20 different countries. You know, I've just really loved learning about different cultures and religions and languages and people and all the things. And I've had such an exciting, like, travel life, and I have no regrets on that. But then kind of what happened is, you know, I came back to United States and, you know, I'm like, maybe I need to get a big girl job. So I got involved in the trades doing coaching and training, and then got involved with the women in H VAC group and started learning and meeting a lot of people in the industry. And eventually that led to Good Leap.

So it's really interesting that you have such an interest in learning about different cultures and people and religions and ways of being, because you have this passion for training and for curriculum development, which has kind of led you into the position of where you're at with Good Leap. So tell me about this passion you have for training and curriculum development.

Yeah. You know, what's really interesting is that regardless of where you are in the world or who you're talking to, if you think about it, most people have similar values. You know, we value family, we value stability. You know, we. We want to progress in life. We want to do good, we want to be happy. And so a lot of things, like, we all value the same. But what's interesting is how people communicate and the different ways that people communicate and what's acceptable type of communication. And so specifically thinking in, like, customer service. There's a very particular way that you communicate in customer service. Right. Very professional type of language and things like that versus, you know, maybe you're in other countries. And it's just like customer service is just very different. And so I love seeing, like, how everybody speaks and the language and the words they use and then adapting it to be effective communicators. And, you know, there's that quote that is really popular. That people love by George Bernard Shaw. And it's. He says the biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. Oh, yeah, I love that one because it's. It's so true. David Holt was the first person, if anybody knows David Holt, that showed me that quote. And I was like, yeah, that. That's very true. Sometimes we think we're maybe right now I'm saying something, and somebody's, like, taking it the wrong way. You know what I mean? Like, working on being very effective communicators is something that I really enjoy learning.

That's awesome. So how did that passion lead you to your current role at Good Leap?

Well, Good Leap has been super fun to get into. You know, I had my first baby, who, by the way, is named Arwen from Lord of the Rings. And so I took a little bit of time off, and I just loved being a new mom and taking care of my little girl. And I had a couple of really good friends at Good Leap who I had known from, you know, previous events and conferences, and just really awesome people. And I'll give them a shout out. Rob Nolan, Seth Ure. And they called me when they heard that I, you know, might be looking for work. And they're like, you should come join us. And I was like, I would love to, but I just had a baby. I want to be a mom for right now. And they're like, okay, great. Well, how about you talk to our vice president, Eric Howarth, and we'll see what happens. I'm like, sure. One of the things that caught my attention about Good Leap is how these three gentlemen consistently stayed in touch with me. I got a phone call every month from a vice president of Goodleap saying, hey, you ready to come to work? Like, let me know, just to check into me, how's being a mom doing? And how. How are things? And it just meant a lot to me. That was like, I wasn't even an employee at Good Leap or anything, but just that constant, like, check in stood out to me of, this would be a great place to work and these kind of people who genuinely care and are interested and want to work with me, that really does mean a lot. And so I remember the day that I picked up the phone and I called him. I was like, I'm ready. And we got the ball rolling. So, you know, that for me, is just huge on Good Leaps culture. I was very, very excited to work on this team.

That's awesome. So we've already said Good Leap. I think like, 12 times already in the, you know, few minutes that we've been recording. For those that aren't familiar with Good Leap, tell me, what do you guys do?

So we are financing and payment solutions for homeowners. And so we like to work with contractors who then in turn work with homeowners to afford home improvement upgrades. And so this is H vac, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage doors, you know, all of these things that we do in home improvement, and we provide a way to help make those type of upgrades affordable.

Let's pivot into financing, because Good Leap is a service titan partner. So when you and I first spoke, you shared that CSRs and techs can't just wait for a homeowner to ask about financing, that they need to be proactive about it. In your opinion, what are some good proactive strategies that CSRs and techs can use to bridge this conversation?

Yeah, I think one of the biggest things is just starting with a mindset. A lot of times homeowners don't necessarily think of monthly payments for upgrades. Like, if I'm going to buy new heating and air conditioning system, maybe financing it isn't something that I was even aware was a possibility. And we run into that quite often. You know, homeowners think of getting loans for cars and houses and boats and stuff like that, but then we think we're going to get subscriptions for Netflix and our gym and things like that. But, you know, it doesn't really resonate necessarily with home improvement. And so I think just having that mindset of, hey, people probably don't know that this is even an option. So let's just make it part of our language of saying, hey, just by the way, we offer low monthly payment options through one of our lenders called Good Leap. If you're interested in applying, you know, just even something so simple and basic like that that you want to make sure, like, you know, the contractor's not the lender, but you work with Good Leap to, to lend that out so that you could afford whatever it is that you need to get.

So essentially assuming that they don't know what they don't know.

Exactly.

So in that case, do you recommend that contractors should be priming their customers for this at all stages of their customer journey? Like, should the CSRs be trained to bring this up during, you know, initial intake calls? Should it be in your marketing materials? The tech should be trained on talking points of it as well?

I think so, absolutely. It can become part of your culture as a contractor of, you know, whatever it is that we offer as a service, you know, whatever it is that we sell, you know, garage doors or whatever, that we have this as an option, that it doesn't have to be a huge sticker shock. Like, for example, my garage door busted a few weeks ago, and I, like, opened the door and I went to take my daughter to preschool and I came back and it wouldn't open.

Oh.

So, you know, I called my husband. I'm like, hey, can you come check this out? You know, did something happen? He goes down there, he's YouTubing it, you know, doing what he does. And next thing you know, he's like, erica, let's be honest. Like, we don't know what we're doing. Like, this is garage doors. We have no clue. Let's call someone. And there's a great company in Utah that we're good friends with. And so I called him up and they were like, yeah, we'll be out there in a couple hours. They took wonderful care of us. But, you know, for me, I was like, there's. There's no way I could have fixed that. There's no way. And I was happy to pay for it. But a lot of people do get sticker shop with these kind of things. Repairs, replacements, you know, installations, upgrades. Sometimes if you get hit with a. Whatever the ticket is, you might not want to move forward with it. And so being able to say, hey, this could be as low as X amount of dollars every month, it makes it a lot more easier for a homeowner to make that decision to move forward.

I'm glad that you shared that experience that you had, because when we were kind of planning this interview, you shared a couple stats with me, and one of the ones that I think really hits home for me and the story you just said, which is when we looked at customers implementing multiple options with good, better, best, and financing technician closed the most expensive option 32% of the time. So it sounds like when you add financing into the mix, it really helps kind of ease that sticker shock and empowers the homeowner to make the decision that they feel is going to be the best for them long term.

Yeah, you know, people. People will pay for the best for, like, what they can afford. And people do want the best. And a lot of times, like, we don't know what we want until we know what we can have. And so for me, like, for example, every time we've had people into my house, okay, like, finishing our basement, we know throughout my life we've had different contractors in our home, there has only been one of them that ever talked to me about indoor air quality. Right. Wow. Really? And that's the number one reason why people don't buy indoor air quality is because it doesn't get talked about. And for me, I was, like, kind of shocked that people don't talk about. Erica, you can actually get really good things for your home, comfortable things, cleaner things, instead of just maybe putting a band aid on something. And I think that is a really cool thing to think about. Of, you know, when. When you're offering these type of home improvement solutions to people, of, hey, you can have cleaner air or cleaner water or, hey, there's this cool new thing, like technology is creating all sorts of stuff that makes living in your house really comfortable. And if we're not talking about it, for one, then if we can't make it affordable with home or with financing, you know, nobody's going to buy anything like that. And so for me, I want the best. And sometimes, you know, the best is a little bit more expensive, like my Lululemon. Okay. I know those leggings aren't cheap, you.

Guys, but, you know, they last forever.

They do. I've had some of them for, like, 10 years.

I know, Me too. It's wild. I know. I can't. I can't say anything. I can't say a bad thing about it.

You're so good. I know, but they're not cheap. And so that's the thing is, like, if I want to get the best, you know, sometimes it is putting it on a loan or a monthly payment option and. And it lets it so I can have the best for myself because that's what I want.

Just to pivot real quickly. You and your husband also have a business together, is that right?

Yeah. So he actually runs a CSR business called Omzi, and we're both instructors for a different company called the CSR Academy, where we love to teach CSRs just how to create great experiences for people over the phone. And what's very interesting about customer experience is it's not more than just like being a glorified secretary anymore, Right? Just answering the phone and booking an appointment like, you are this contact center and service titan. Like, this is gold with service time because you can text, you can call, you can email, you can do all sorts of stuff through ServiceTitan that CSRS can really create a great experience for it. And so, you know, he's been really awesome to build great scorecards and different things to help CSRs grow. In that experience and communication.

So that's awesome. I wanted to mention that, that you have this experience with the CSR Academy with omsi, in just the kind of work that, you know, people in your family do, because I wanted to talk about objections. And in your opinion, what are some ways customer facing employees can prevent objections instead of combating them? Which I believe when we first chatted, you were like, I don't like the term combating objections.

Yeah, you know, a lot of times people are like, well, how do I overcome price? How do I overcome scheduling? How do I overcome all these things? And, well, right here, like, we'll just put a plug. Like, we know financing is a great way to help with, you know, that pricing that people see. But, you know, I love to think about ways to prevent objections from happening. And it's really just in the communication we have up front. And so if you're thinking about it, you know, what could I do to create a good relationship with this person? What can I do to show up as my best self and show empathy and bring that human connection into it and not just treat people like a number? And a lot of times, if I can do those types of things up front, like with the garage door, like, I didn't even budge. I just swiped my credit card, you know what I mean? Like, because they did such a good job. And I was like, well, you did what I couldn't do. And so. And I know not everyone's like that. You know, I know people truly do have concerns about things. But if you do a good job up front of, you know, just being that cheerful, having good enthusiasm and asking good questions, making sure you're on a first name basis with people and a great way to show empathy and, you know, those types of things, just really reassuring people that, you know, we'll take good care of you, like, you've called the right place, those type of things. And that type of language is a great way for people to just feel confident that, you know, hey, this person's taking ownership. I don't want to have to have the hassle of collaring 15 different contractors to compare pennies. Like, yeah, I'll just take care of the person who really values me as a person and doesn't just want my business. So I'm going to just give like a little thing right now for everybody to do that. I have seen, based off of just certain language and communication, just be a game changer. Jackie, for you personally, have you ever had somebody like your insurance company sends you a Christmas card or something. And it says, thank you for your business.

My dentist is very good at sending me birthday cards and holiday cards. Yes, I love that.

Okay. And you see this a lot of times where it can be on emails or cards or things like that, but people always say, thank you for your business. But if you think about that phrase specifically, thank you for your business, what are you really saying?

Thanks for choosing us.

Thanks for choosing us. But what is business?

Your money.

Thanks for your money. Yeah.

Yeah.

And so a lot of times, you know, we don't really realize how it could come across of thanks for your business. Like, thanks for your money. Like, yeah, I'm sure you love my money. Right. How I like to change it is we say things like, thanks for your partnership, you know, between a contractor and a homeowner. Thanks for partnering with us and taking care of your home. You know, you're bringing more of this, like, humanity back into it instead of just write me the check. And so I encourage people like, change all your holiday cards just like, hey, thanks for choosing us, like you said, or thanks for trusting us and taking that business part out of it. They're going to give you their b. Your business. Right. But that's not what they want. Want a relationship with their contractors. Because there's so many bad experiences of people getting ripped off by people. So.

Yeah. And I mean, for so many people, their home is their most. Is the. Is the largest purchase they're ever going to make in their life. It's like, it's so much of their investment is tied up into their home. So having that trust, having that confidence in their contractor is really going to put them at ease, especially when they're making such a large purchase. And in your answer, that was kind of the thread that I was seeing is like, in a way to prevent objections, showing up with confidence in that, being personable, sharing your name, creating a connection, providing the customer with education, but also just an underlying confidence that you called the right place. We're here to take care of you.

Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of those things where, you know, you might have that value as a person, as a company, but are you saying that we can't just leave it up for people to assume, like, oh, they'll take good care of me. Like, we need to actually say the words of, hey, I'm here to take good care of you. Like, I'm a service professional. Like, I'm an expert at this. I know what I'm doing. You're in great hands. We can't just Assume people will automatically think that about us. And so, you know, from CSRs to technicians, if we're using that kind of language, people are going to start thinking of that. And companies that will say things like, hey, you know what, we're a five star company, we love giving five star service. They're more likely to get a five star review because they're saying five stars. You know, they're, they're putting that language into to customers minds of this is the kind of company we are and this is the service we offer. We don't want to be scared or being too cheesy about that kind of stuff. That's, that's not what it is. It's articulating your values as a company, as a contractor and like how you're going to take care of people.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think this is all really excellent advice and we've heard versions of this echoed throughout the years on this show. Given your experience with training though, I'm curious, what are some other ways that owner's operators can help their team get more comfortable with financing conversations? Because at the end of the day, I've heard this before a lot, like, especially when people, when it comes to the good, better, best presenting before companies implement that, they may have noticed that technicians or CSR sometimes assume things about money. They bring their own ideas and assumptions about money to conversations with homeowners. And I'm curious, like, how do you think owners and operators can help their team get more comfortable with having some of these conversations that may feel uncomfortable to them?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, a lot of people don't like to talk about money in general, right? Like the second you have to drop a price on somebody, like everyone gets a little nervous. Even If I'm a CSR and I've got to say it's an $89 diagnostic, right? Like just talking about that price, it usually just gives people feeling a little bit of anxiety. And, and so the first thing that I like to say is, you know, especially for technicians is if they don't believe in the price, they probably don't because guess what, they're going to do it themselves. Like they would never pay somebody to do what they're going to do because they can do it themselves. And so it does start with understanding why things are priced the way that they are, you know, in your business. And I think what's really important is when you are implementing a new process, right? Like, hey, we're going to give good, better, best options or you know, we're, we're going to start even just doing financing. Like, maybe you've never offered financing before. I've noticed that you can't just have your Tuesday morning meetings and say, okay, here's what we're going to do, and then expect everyone to do it. Right.

Like, it's not just going to happen, unfortunately. Right, Unfortunately.

For some reason, people just don't jump on to change so quickly.

Oh, who knew?

I know, right. And so, you know, just making sure, like, you're being consistent. Like, if you have your Tuesday morning meetings and you're going to start talking about using financing or whatever process it is you want to implement. Introduce the idea. Yeah. Set an expectation. But realize, like, people probably aren't just going to do it right away. You know, you're going to have some people, but then do it again the next week. Like, hey, you guys, remember, what's this process? Or what are we trying to do here? What's the goal of this? What's the why behind why we're doing this? And then the next week. And I, I personally think people need like three to four weeks to even just get used to this idea and start practicing it a little bit before they're actually going to be confident doing it. And so, you know, practicing that, I know people hate the role play, but you got to get all the, the wiggles out of your words. You know what I mean? Sure. So, you know, just practicing that, that can really help. But people get scared of change sometimes for some reason. And so just, just easing it in for a few weeks, that can be really powerful to just not expect people to automatically, like, understand everything about financing, which you don't have to because, you know, you work with Good Leap or whoever it is that can be the expert in that field to help. But, you know, you want to make sure that you have the talking points down.

Yeah. It's essentially you have to manage the change, you have to implement good change management, and you have to keep that repetition going and work with folks that, you know are taking some time to adapt to a new strategy or a new process.

Absolutely.

Actually, on the service side of things, we've seen that financing applications for Service work jumped 37% from 2023 to 2024, which is wild. And overall, we see that customers who use integrated financing see 12% higher close rates and 13% higher average ticket sizes. So. So in case anyone doesn't know, I mean, regardless of whether or not you use Service Titan or use Good Leap, Service Titan does have integrated financing baked into our platform, which I'LL link to in the show notes if you guys want to learn more about that. Erica, this has been a really, really interesting and I think great conversation and a much needed one. I want to talk, I want to take a complete pivot. I want to do a totally 180. You recently beat cancer, which. Congratulations. Thank you. I want to hear a little bit how this experience changed your outlook on life, work, personal, whatever you want to share.

You know, it's, it's kind of crazy. Like you never think when you're young, you know, that this kind of stuff would ever happen. And it really did come kind of out of the blue. And you know what, what I was very grateful for is, you know, the team at Good Leap who is like, we got you, Erica. Like, we're going to be here to support you, which I was very grateful for because I think I'd only been with Good Leap for maybe six or seven months before I got diagnosed. And, you know, a lot of people might worry about, you know, how are they going to be able to work through this. And you know, I, I did and I did as much as I could and I was just so grateful for the support, just such a great team, but also this, the support of like, family from friends from this industry. Like, I can't tell you the flowers that I would get from people that I was like, oh my gosh, like, I worked with you two years ago and you saw a post, you know what I mean? Like, it was just, it was so interesting and special to me to see how kind people are, you know what I mean? And we get so wrapped up in just like the day to day hustle and getting things done that, you know, there's so many good people out there in this world and people have struggles that, you know, aren't seen a lot of times. And it just reminds me just to do good, like make that phone call, send that text message, you know. One of my favorite quotes is never suppress a generous thought. Like if you have a thought to do something nice for somebody. Like that thought didn't just come from, from nowhere, right? Like, if it's something, hey, you know what, let me just go buy a Starbucks for somebody, you know, and, and that thought came from somewhere. And so I try to kind of live by that, of if something comes to mind that's within my power to do, I want to be able to try and do that. So cancer's taught me a lot of that. It's also taught me a lot of like, empathy. Just when you go through something hard yourself, or maybe you watch. Like, I know you and many other people have had to watch people you love go through difficult things. And, you know, it just changes your perspective on having grace for people and a little bit more patience for things and just recognizing we're all human, you know, doing the best we can with what we know. And when we know better, we can do better.

So, yeah, I think, wonderful, wonderful message. And again, thanks for opening up a bit about it. And congrats again. Cancer is a. It's affected my family directly and it sucks. Erica, this has been a great conversation. Is there anything we should have talked about that we didn't get a chance to or anything else you want to share?

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much. It's just so much fun for me to. To be invited to come on and you know, Jackie, you do such a wonderful job with these podcasts and these shows and just the constant value and content and. And the people that you're bringing on. Like, just thank you for adding so much value to this industry. And I hope that's what people got out of this today. If it's just one little golden nugget, let us know what that little golden nugget was for you today. So thank you.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Erica. It was great to get to know you and to geek out with with you on financing, Lord of the Rings and all that good stuff. Stuff.

Well, it won't be the end. I'm sure we'll talk more, so.

I'm sure we will. We're going to find each other at conferences now and, like, really get into it. Thank you so much, Erica.