Richard Coburger offers satirical advice for contractors during an outbreak: ditch shared devices, send technicians in full protective suits, and sell air-quality products without pressure. He mixes real operational headaches with absurd solutions like having clients tongue-sign digital pads.
What's going on, everybody? It's Richard Coburger here, the blue collar nerd. Now, as I'm sure you're all aware by now, there's some. Some illness going around. The. The canola fever. The canola. Canoa. Cannoli. Cannoli cold. Cannoli cold. I think that's right. That sounds right. Cannoli cold. This is having a big effect on businesses in every sector. So how can we as home service contractors, adjust our businesses to account for this cannoli cold? Well, I mean, if you're coming across this channel, chances are that you're part of a paperless company. And as paperless companies, we have people sign for estimates and invoices on devices, on iPads and tablets. And typically we're having, you know, your technician touch that device and then turn it around to the client, and then the client signs with their finger, and then we move on to the next client and they sign it with their finger. And in times like this, that's going to be a little bit problematic because as we all know, our hands are really great at carrying germs. So a whole bunch of people putting their hands on a single device, that's no good. So we don't want clients signing with their hands. Instead, what I would recommend is simply instructing your client to sign with the tip of their tongue. That way we don't have a bunch of dirty, nasty hands touching the same device. Now, during this outbreak, a lot of people are going to be pretty uneasy about letting strangers into their home. You know, they don't know where those people have been, who they've been in contact with. So for the safety and comfort of your clients, I recommend sending technicians to homes in a full Iron man suit. Now, you gotta be careful because you can freak people out with this. So what I recommend is just tweaking your dispatch text a little bit. So when the technician's heading out to the house, your software probably allows you to automatically send a text message to the client. And I would just tweak that to say something like, please note that your technician will be arriving in a full Iron man suit. This is for your comfort only. And the technician is not showing any signs of illness. That way people don't think like, oh, he's showing up in a full Iron man suit. He must be feeling sick. Now, for all you H Vac people out there, you're probably thinking about indoor air quality products right now. So if you already sell indoor air quality products, of course, keep on selling them. You got to Be careful with this. You don't want to exploit people's fear. You know, just one man's opinion, but I don't feel like that's morally right. So when selling indoor air quality products at a time like this, you know, you want to be very low pressure and very subtle. You don't want to use any fear tactics. For example, you might say, now would you be interested in any indoor air quality products today or would you prefer to perish in the impending Armageddon? Or perhaps you could say, when I was inspecting your unit, I noticed you only had a standard 1 inch filter. When exactly did you stop loving your family? Something like that, you know, very subtle. Now, if you have an Internet based phone system, then most of your office staff can probably just work from home. And if you don't have an Internet based phone system, then, I don't know, maybe you could have your clients record their request on an eight track. Maybe a laserdisc? I don't know. You tell me, grandpa. Now, in order to encourage working from home, I've gone ahead and downgraded all of my office PCs to Windows 95. Oh, and I also replaced all the office chairs with much less comfortable wooden ones. Oh, and I also brushed all the keyboards with Aunt Jemima so they'd be all sticky. Oh, and I also set off the alarm on purpose and I've just kind of been letting it go. Oh, and as you can see, there are many ways in which you can easily adapt your company for these trying times. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't done that already, and I'll talk to you in the next one. Peace.
COVID 19 and my hands are so clean. Disinfecting damn near everything. No need to stress, but you might just invest in a bucket, a button, squirt machine.
So, so stupid. Hey Richard. How was your weekend? Ah, you know, licked an iPad, usual stuff.
