How to Run a Remote Service & Repair Team w/ Tersh Blissett | Podcast Ep 37 | Toolbox for the Trades

We don't have a warehouse. That's $2,500 a month that I don't have to pay out so then I can give it to my team. We have nicer vans. Because of that, we don't have to pay for all those other expenses.

You're listening to Toolbox of the Trades brought to you by Service Titan, a podcast for top service professionals where we interview leaders for their best tips and tricks of the trades. Learn how industry trailblazers stay ahead of the competition and how you too can be at the forefront of an industry. Let's jump in.

Tersh Blissett. Welcome to the Toolbox for the Trades.

Thank you. I'm honored to be here.

I am so, so excited for you to be here. You actually are one of the very first Service Titan customers I ever spoke to. I didn't tell you that in the email, but you've had quite a progression. And not only are you the owner of Service Emperor, but you are also a big time podc. So I'm so, so psyched to get into today's conversation, but I'm just going to start this conversation like I do all of them. How did you get into the trades?

So origin, origin story here. Really cool stuff because my dad has always been really mechanically inclined. Worked with his hands, union welder, boilermaker, worked in the factories here at International Paper Union camp in town. And you know, I was going through college and I was going through school, just in general. Right out of high school, I joined the Air Force. I was a tac P. So like, kind of long story short, held lasers for laser guided missiles. That's what we kind of did behind enemy line type stuff. And then I got out of that and kind of came back home and even went to work at the factory where dad was at and worked there for a little while. And granted, I went to Georgia Tech to, like, engineering. Like, I just really, really didn't know what I wanted to do. I knew like all the way through high school. My mom's a teacher also, and she pushed me towards engineering because I was really good at math and I could really figure that stuff out really easily. But then I really got to working with my hands a lot and I had some buddies of mine who were really big into cars. We were all big into cars. And me, I kind of knew that I had an education and I was working at a factory. But I still was envious of him because he was just like, anytime he needed a part for his car, he had it. And I was like, man, how did you get to that level and you work for a trade? I didn't even understand what air conditioning was. I mean, other than when I bought my first house at 18. He came over, looked at my air conditioning unit. It was an ancient York tombstone thing. And he was like, man, this thing is old. But I didn't really understand what he was saying. I didn't really understand that he meant, you really need to change this out. But about a couple. About six months later, probably he changed it out, and I helped him change it out. We actually ended up swapping car parts for the AC unit change out and everything else. And long story short, I ended up working with him at an air conditioning company local in Savannah. And it was really awesome because it was the instant gratification that you got with fixing things with your hands and that satisfaction of turning things over to the homeowner and just saying, hey, look, I got it fixed. And it's not a long, drawn out project like most of our car projects were. So it was really awesome. Long story short, that's how I kind of got into the trades there.

Nice. Well, first off, thank you for your service. Thank you for being in the Air Force. You join a very lovely crowd of people who came from the military and are now working in the trades, which I would love to talk a little bit about more. But before we do, talk to me a little bit about the progression you made in your career. Did you. Obviously you were engineer. You were an engineer. Really phenomenal college education there. That's a difficult degree to get. So you were mechanically inclined. Did you come in as a maintenance tech? Did you come in as a service tech? How did that work?

It was the weirdest thing in the world. So I came into this company, and there were like, four or five service techs, and within two weeks, I was the only service tech. And it was the craziest thing. Like, all of these guys had been there for a long time, and they all kind of jumped ship at the exact same time. And, you know, it was like, oh, man, like, should I leave or should I stay? Like, and. But I ended up staying. And I kind of seen it as, like, hey, if I'm the only one here, then that means I get to progress first, you know? And so that's basically exactly what happened. They brought on a few more techs, and within about. I believe it was. Well, I know that it was within two years. It was less than two years. I ended up being the service manager, then became the general manager, did install management. Like, I just I worked my way through all of the ranks, and I was there for about seven years. Ish. Before starting my first business.

That's amazing. And so talk to me about that jump between working your way up the ranks, then starting your first business. When did you get the entrepreneurial seizure, as they say in the emf?

Yeah, I don't know. It was one of those, like, sink or swim type things. I had gotten really bored at the place where the level I was there was very little satisfaction. I could have probably gone back to being a service tech if we weren't in such a small town, because we're in Savannah, Georgia, which is the largest small town in America. It's a small town mentality for a city. If I was in a larger area, probably would have worked for a larger company and became another service tech or the service manager. But I'm very much a wartime leader. And so as soon as we got. As soon as I got all the policies and procedures ironed out. Back before Service Titan, I had Excel spreadsheets where I was pulling data in from the GPS tracker. So I knew exactly what our billable hours were, our unapplied time. And I had that stuff automated back before really, you did automation. So I really got bored. And actually, as soon as I left that air conditioning company, I bought a trucking company. And, yeah, I had guys on the road doing trucking.

Wow.

And so then that got boring. And so I was like, man, I feel like I'm wasting my talent here as an air conditioning guy. So then I started an air conditioning company, and two companies later, now I have one that competes against the other one in the same market.

Okay, back up. You have two H Vac companies that compete against each other in the same market.

I do. Yep. And they're now both on Service Titan, too.

Okay, we need to dive into that. And I actually just set the stage. Let me talk. Let me just tell the listeners how I got to know you. So this was back, I think, three and a half years ago. I was brand new to Service Titan, and you had come across my inbox. I was a big podcaster, big podcasting fan, and you came across wanting to have someone on our team do the podcast and talk about Service Titan. I was like, oh, this guy's so cool. He's got his own H Vac podcast. And I did some more digging, and I found out you started the service Business Mastery Podcast. And the whole thing was, I'm going to start an H Vac business from scratch, and I'm going To document it every step of the way. And you kind of came to me and you were like, I want to do it on Service Titan. But we had rules in place like we can't service a one man shop. And I, I went up to my, my, the VP of marketing at the time and I was like, I really want to get this guy on Service Titan because if he does this, which I think he is, he'll be able to talk about his journey and growth all through the lens of Service Titan. And we were able to figure it out and I'm so happy we did. That being said, so at that time you were starting the company called Icebound. So is Icebound the one that is competing with Service Emperor right now?

Nope.

Talk to me. What happened? How did we get from Icebound to Service Emperor?

Okay, so in 2017, I was on a podcast several times with a buddy of mine, Brian Orr. He has the H Vac School podcast. And we always talked business. Every time I came on, we were talking in business and how we did business things differently. So I came on his show and then he's like, you should start your own podcast with business pertaining to business and service business. And he said he would even host it or produce it for me for the first year or so. And I was like, all right, cool, let's do that. And it was really outside of my comfort area anyways because of having speech impediment and just really being nervous talking in front of people. And so I was like, all right, two birds with one stone. I'm going to talk in front of people and really work on speech. And so I did that when I owned TriStar at the time. Now TriStar started in 2014 and this is 2017. Ish. And we were growing between 90 and 120% year over year. So the biggest thing that I was sharing at that point was the experience of TriStar. But then I had a lot of people asking questions about how do I start the business, how do I actually, from the start, like before I ever even think about it, I'm a service manager. The owner of the company already knows that I'm going to do my own thing. I have non compete, so I have to move to different city and stuff like that, but how do I actually start it? And I was like, all right, cool, I can answer that question. But then it was like, all right, I'm answering that question again and I'm answering that question. So it became constantly I was answering the question of my experience of starting a business from the ground up from scratch and bootstrapping it. And so then I was like, you know what? I should just start another business. I'm a glutton for punishment. So I began to start what actually was going to be a different company. And then I had a friend of mine who owned icebound. He had owned icebound for several years, and he was trying to get out of the trades. And so I was like, all right, cool, I'll buy your business. And then that became the ordeal. So how to purchase a business. And I ended up buying a business that was really shouldn't have been purchased, it should have been closed, because I didn't realize how bad of a shape it was in which I share in the podcast. All right, so these are mistakes that I've been making and this is a mistake I'm making. And I wouldn't do this again. And X, Y and Z. And so then I took Icebound through the progression of man. I'm getting a lot of calls for stuff that's unrelated to our trade. And so I was getting a lot of ice delivering ice calls or ice sculpture calls. And so I was like, all right, so we got to do something here. I wasn't 100% prepared to change to Service Emperor and offer multiple trades or anything like that, but I knew that I needed to do something. And so throughout the better part of. So I began at the end of 2018 really with icebound purchasing, like full out purchasing Icebound at the end of 2018, spent 2019 really trying to focus on the brand and figure out what I was going to do with Icebound, if I was going to stay Icebound or go to a different brand. And then at the end of 2019, we decided we were going to change over to Service Emperor, got all the information, did all the branding and design and all that stuff, and then launched in the beginning of 2020, a brand new brand. And then of course, everything happened and we couldn't network like we were networking because also the president of the Small Business Chamber on three different boards and Leukemia lymphoma society, all kinds of stuff. So we're networking like crazy. This is perfect. I'll still be. I'll be able to share all this stuff with all these people that I'm networking with. And then all of a sudden, networking came to a screeching halt. And so it's like. Or I spent all, all of 2020 kind of sharing Service Emperor without being able to physically share Service Emperor with everybody.

Interesting. So right now, Icebound and Service Emperor Exist.

No Icebound Service Emperor was Icebound. So Icebound converted over to Service Emperor. Now TriStar still exists. TriStar is the other company that is the company that we started in 2014 with a business partner of mine. He does a lot of construction work and I was an H vac guy. And so we started tristar and with that business we do air conditioning, plumbing and electrical. And that company is low margin, high volume, whereas service infra is the exact opposite. So it's lower volume by higher margins.

Amazing. Oh, what a story. So it sounds like when you purchased icebound you were like, whoops, I probably. There were some things that were a little unexpected. Talk to me about some of those unexpected challenges and I know you go into detail about them on service business mastery, but just some high level things that you learned from purchasing a business.

The biggest thing is don't take the person's advice for who they have as a consumer or a client and really know that client's information. Because as a company, if it's a one man shop, it's really a job for that person and they want that person. And so what I purchased was that. And so whenever it came to time to a new service expert, a new service technician to come and service this, this customer, client, they were like, ah, that's not the way that they did it though. That's not the way this person did it and that's not the way this person like, yes, but for the amount of money that you're paying, the amount of money your contract is, we're not going to be able to do all of X, Y and Z because that's not, you can't do that as a business. It just doesn't make sense. And so that's the biggest thing that really quickly we learned the 8020 rule that 20% of people that take up 80% of your time, you really have to get rid of them. So we began a quick process of dismissing clients and really honing in on our avatar. Basically that's what we spent pretty much all of 2019 doing, really focusing on who's our avatar, how do we market to that avatar and then how do we say no? Because every time that we didn't say no, that's when it really burned us. And so it's been really an eye opening experience being able to really hone back, just go back and say, okay, these are the ones where we really feel like we didn't make money. Did we make money? Which is, I mean, shout out to Service Titan. Because we can just Instantly job call stuff. And so it's like, okay, we know we made money on this job. We know we lost money on this job. Even though that was a high ticket price job, we still lost money on it because of how much extra time, effort and energy that person took from us. Whereas this job over here was a lower ticket price, but we still made a lot more money on it. At the end of the day, I love that.

I love that distinction, that a high ticket doesn't necessarily equal a profitable job.

Absolutely.

And it sounds like instead of buying a company, you more than bought one person's kind of individual stylistic reputation. Were you able to still keep some of those clients as you made the. As you changed over to Service Emperor and did the rebranding?

So any clients that we had at the end of 2019, we kept through the transition of rebranding. Now, from the time we purchased the company until the end of 2019, there was probably, I think it was probably about 20% of the clients that we retained. And there were no clients that we wanted that left. So there was anybody that left. We wanted them to leave. So it was. It was very much. It was very much a. All right, we're done. We're not a good fit for each other. As soon as this contract ends, let's just part ways.

I love that. I had a business consultant, Mike Claudio, on for season two, and he talked a lot about finding the right client for you. And you, you know, some people say, you know, who are your customers? Anyone that owns an air conditioner. Well, that's not true. Right. Who do you want to service? So when you went through discovering who your ideal client. I love the word avatar. I've used like business Persona, but Avatar is much more fun. What were some of the questions that you asked to yourself and to people working for you? Like, who do we want to be clients of Service Emperor? How did you go through that exercise?

Oh, this is. I mean, this is really exciting stuff. I mean, this gets sent to my nerd side of things.

I love it.

It's. It's. There's a company called Melissa Data. If you're in the U.S. they don't do anything in Canada or Australia, but if you're in the us, there's a company called Melissa Data and they will take and run a full report. So basically you export everything out of Service Titan. That's pretty much over $500. So like diagnostic only or consultation fee only and estimates and no charges, that kind of stuff. You don't want to export those but you export all your clients that are 500 and more and then you send all this information over to Melissa Data and then Melissa Data spits out this report. Super fancy. Like it tells you everything about every one of your clients. The where your, the zip codes that you are the most profitable, where you make the most money. And then you, you really just take that information and say, okay, well we make the most money, we get the most bang for our buck in this area. And so it'll tell you. So we know for without a shadow of a doubt that our, our avatar is 45 to 65. Sometimes we can cheat down into the 35 ranges. And then they have two kids in high school or college, affluent, they're both professionals, C suite. If both are working, they're both C suite. And so like we can dive down into, we know what kind of vehicles they drive and it's really super detailed. So then when you start your advertising, you know, don't advertise in this area because their kids are likely to play travel, soccer, so, you know, advertise over here or tennis or something like that. And so it's, when you start the advertising process, you just, it's almost, it's almost cheating because you know a lot of what, you know their desires are. And obviously that's not the only people you can ever market to. But that's definitely your, your target avatar. That's why they call it the target.

Well, it completely informs, you know, how you speak to your clients and the value props that you present. I mean, if you're, if you're targeting to C suite level adults, married couple who probably have very little time on their hand, first thing off my head that you'd want to market to them, hey, we give you text confirmations like we are easy, like no frills, like we let you know, easy reschedulable appointments, that kind of stuff. And that just gives your marketing team really a North Star to figure out how do we get these folks? And in terms of the cheating, I think that's just the mushy feeling we all get when we realize how hyper targeted advertising really can be.

Yeah, I mean, we, we've been able to go so deep and I'm so thankful because the podcast is what's made this happen for us. We were able to connect with people like Ad Manatee and they have been able to tell us what colors make the emotion for our avatar. So we know that black and orange and gold are, that's the colors. So we can't use any other Colors. We know that our font has to be between two fonts, and it can only be black font on white writing or white font on black writing. It can't be colorful. It can't be yellow. We have to stay away from yellow. And it's wild. And once we started doing that, oh, man, the people that call, they self select. And it's weird how that happens, how so many people that are not our avatar that used to call us that we used to have to say no, or we have to say, you know, we're scheduled back. We're scheduled out a certain amount of time. We're not getting those phone calls as much anymore. And when we do, it's whenever we're advertising on, you know, PPC or something like that, where it's like, just hitting the masses and you can't really control the color and font and that type of stuff.

I love that. That's awesome. And it also, I imagine as an owner who, you know, as you're growing a business, you obviously have to wear the marketing hat a little bit. Right. When you get those specific rules, those parameters, then you're off to the ra. You're like, great, you did all the hard work for me. I'll just do it now. Right. One other thing you mentioned in your. One of your answers is that you're a wartime leader. And I was going to ask if, although icebound wasn't what you thought it was going to be when you purchased it, do you feel personally that you flourished under those circumstances?

Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, it was a penguin. Penguin was our logo, and we really rocked it. I mean, I had penguin socks. We just, we. We ran with the brand. And it was one of those things where it was like, we could have probably made it work, but it was. I rather hear the hard truth than a comforting lie. And it was one of those things where, like, hey, look, you know, you're not going to get over 10, 15 million with that logo and that brand unless you offer more than one trade in our area. Because, I mean, we only have 244,000 houses here.

Oh, wow.

In our city. And when I say a large, small town, like people, if you think of Savannah, if you know of Savannah, they've done a great job of marketing Savannah as a large, kind of large city almost. And when you actually look at the census and look at the data, you're like, oh, wow, like, that's really not that large.

You know, I thought you were going to say like, two million. And I was like, oh, 200 wow. Okay. Yeah. I thought Savannah was much bigger than that.

Yeah. It's crazy how well they've done marketing the local chamber because they do tons of marketing with Visit Savannah and stuff like that, and it is wild. Whenever you actually look at the data, take that with a grain of salt, because that is homeowners. That's like, people that I could market to versus renters and stuff like that. Yeah, totally.

All right, Very cool. So I kind of got why you changed the name from Icebound to Service Emperor. It sounds like you wanted to go multi trade. Also not really helpful getting those ice sculpting calls. The minute you said that, I was like, oh, yeah, that kind of makes sense. So talk to me about where Service Emperor is right now. Like, what do you. What kind of industries are you in, how much revenue are you doing and where you guys want to take it? Because it sounds like you have goals and aspirations to go well beyond 15 million.

Yeah, we do. We really do. We. We want 10 locations that are doing at least 5 million each, and they're all going to be similar size areas as what we have now. That's our. That's our goal. I mean, that's our target. And it's very well laid out, and we know how to do it, and we plan on doing it in the next. Less than 10 years is how we have it laid out currently. So. So right now, rebranding. So when we rebranded, we also changed a lot of mindset internally. And so we had to dismiss a few employees and then brought on more new team members. We brought in team members from Ohio, I mean, 600, 800 miles away. It's been a really cool process. Yeah. And so we've been able to. We've grown really. I mean, December, we grew 384% over previous December. Yeah, I mean, it's really been taken off, but we are just over the $1 million mark for air conditioning only. And so we have plumbing and electrical as affiliate partnerships. And for December and January, we're getting more electrical calls than we are air conditioning calls. So it's been a wild kind of process, and so much so that we are going to be bringing on 10 more technicians. Managed techs, service titan. So we're going to be bringing on 10 more managed techs before summer of this year between air conditioning. I mean, between plumbing and electric, electrical and H vac installers.

Nice.

Yeah, we plan on growing at least 300% in this year for 2021.

Well, 384% is certainly significant growth. And when you said affiliates. Are these partners that you have in Savannah or are you growing out the departments internally?

These are partners in Savannah. So the way it works with us is they're quote unquote, probably technically subcontractors, but we vet them so much so that they are spitting images of us. And once we can get so many calls coming in that it's justifiable for us to bring them in internally. We've already had the conversation with these people that either they're going to help us get the license or they're going to. They're going to come in and come on board with us as a license holder for that trade. So we already know that that's going to happen. And it's really just mainly us making sure that we have the demand before we actually pull the trigger. That way we're not setting someone up for failure in a different trade. We actually, one of our brand promises that we are the concierge service, the home concierge service. So we are your home's concierge service. So anything you need for your home, we have an affiliate partner for that. If we don't do it in house. And we vetted them, we've, you know, background checked them. They all know our value promise and our, the brand promise. So they know exactly what we believe in. And if they don't believe the exact same thing, they're not in our affiliate program.

That's really interesting. I know a lot of owners struggle with that. And the growth aspect is like, do I wait for the phone to ring and then hire them or do I hire them and then try and get the phone to ring? It's kind of a chicken and the egg problem. And so it sounds like you've really combated that. I know that working with subcontractors, some people get a little dicey about it. And you mentioned you vet them really, really thoroughly. Can you talk just a little bit more about that process?

Oh, absolutely. So they're vetted the same way an employee is vetted. So literally they could come on board as an employee and they checked all the boxes already that, that an employee would. Part of our process is five step process. And it kind of got dicey with being quarantined and everything. But we still, we've been on zoom. Any remote. You know this. We were remote back before remote. It was cool. And so the final step of the five step process is we go out to eat together. My family and their family go out to eat together. And we just watch how they do like how they interact with people, how they interact with the waiting staff, people who really, they wouldn't benefit to be super nice or kind to. And we just really. And then how they interact with their children and spouse and just that, that constant interaction. And we always go to somewhere that's really noisy and really kind of irritating to be at. And so you just kind of get that it's just, it's good food, but it's not the best for conversation. So you can kind of really see how they act whenever they're getting kind of irritated at the fact that they can't converse as well as they like to. And so, you know, that's, that's the final step. If you made it to that, that process and you still, we still have the, the feel good vibes about each other. And then, you know, then we can say, yeah, they're, they're worthy of being one of our affiliate partners as long.

As they don't flip the table. In that, that, in that, in that loud bar. I would have diffic. I used to wait. I used to be a waitress, so I would be very respectful. But that would, that would, That's a smart test there. Tersh. You already alluded to my next question, so I want to dive right into it. I mean, talk to me about the fact that you guys are 100% remote and that you embraced remote culture prior to COVID 19.

We did. And so it's. I don't even know why I did it. Probably just to be different. And this was In, I guess, 2018, whenever I first purchased Icebound, I knew that. I think the biggest. Thinking back, probably most likely the reason why I decided to do it was to show everybody on the podcast because there's a lot of guys and gals on the podcast who are smaller and they feel like they have to have that warehouse or else people won't come on board with them. And so it was kind of like, all right, well, I'm going to show you how to do it without having to have a warehouse. And so then it became, well, all right, so how do I get to 5 million without a warehouse? And then how do I get to 10 million without a warehouse? And it really, just out of necessity, it was. Everything that I do is extremely deliberate. And so then, like information management people were asking, well, how do you have your policies and procedures in a book that your guys can't go get? Because not only that, we moved 60 miles outside of our service area. So it's literally an hour drive. If the guys Wanted to come to our house to get a book to review policies and procedures. So that's a piece of cake. We just go to our website, create a subdomain, that's our din area. So then everybody on our team has, has a sign in a login and they can access anything that's policy and procedure related. So and then they can take a test. It's, it's very similar to the academy where you just take a test and you see, you know, did they actually read that or did they not? And that's how we solve that problem where not only that, we don't print paper. That's an expense we don't have to deal with. We don't have a warehouse that's $2,500 a month that I don't have to pay out. So then I can give it to my team. We have nicer vans because of that. We don't have to pay for all those other expenses. Then people were like, well, what about trash? Well then I negotiated with all of our vendors like, hey, if you want my business, I have to be able to dump all my trash in your dumpster. So then we got to doing that and then we got to doing remote inventory and then we, you know, truck replenishment came on board with service Titan. So then it's like, oh sweet. Every Monday we get to do truck replenishment. So instead of having to use a third party inventory management for the service techs, then we're able to do use this program that's already built into it. And it's just really, we wouldn't be able to do it if we had the old, you know, server that had to sit in the office somewhere. But technology's there. Like why do it? And other than the morale aspect of it. And I get that totally. So like what we had, like this morning we had a company meeting. It was at 8. From 8 to noon to this month, it was just a longer than normal. But quarterly we'll have, we do commercial and residential. And so we have commercial clients that will say, hey, can we borrow, you know, a couple of your tables in the back corner and just have a meeting there and I'll pay you like 150 bucks or whatever. I'll definitely tip the waitress and everything. And that's where we do our company meetings and morale things. And then quarterly we also have a meeting here at the house where we invite the whole family, their family, and we'll get like a 200 foot long slip inside basically bouncy house. And then just have the kids go into town and everybody just hangs out on a Saturday. You have to be very deliberate when it comes to morale because you can't just have your every, everybody meeting around the coffee table in the morning type Morales anymore. It's very much all right. We're communicating on Slack. We have a channel called Banter on Slack that that's just for them goofing off. If they want to send like just goofy memes or whatever, that that's where they send it to. And, and so it's, it's a constant, very deliberate checking up on morale. It's constant, very deliberate. What are we going to do with trash? What are we going to do with scrap copper? What are we going to do that and the other. There's no more reactive management. It has to be very proactive. And then as you step up to the next level, you have to know exactly what's going to happen beforehand because you don't have a shop to throw a lot of stuff into or for people to come hang out if they don't have anything to do, what are they going to go to do? So you have to have that stuff as a forethought beforehand. But other than that, I mean, it's great for us.

That's. I mean, I really commend you. I imagine then the transition when, you know, Covid hit Savannah, you guys were like, like quarantine, okay, we're done. We got it. So that probably was really nice.

We really legit did. We already were doing the booties. We were already doing gloves. And so other than face masks, that's the only thing, you know, getting new face mask every day and then sanitizing the vans every night. That's. That was something that was a little bit different. But we had a fogger for our, from our duct cleaning machine. And so we cleaned it, cleaned the vans out that way. Julie, she is a nurse. She's by trade, that's what she went to college for. And she's been a nurse for 14, 15 years now. And so she came on board full time in 2020 and left the hospital. She actually was planning on leaving in January and then Covid happened. So she actually stayed on at the hospital to help support. And then halfway through the summer, it just got to where they, they really didn't need the extra staff. And so she came on full time, full time with us. And so now we have full time medical staff on board too. So that's a little thing.

And Julie's your wife. Just clarification yes.

Sorry.

No, that's all good. I was going to ask, but you already answered it. I love the idea of being proactive with your morale and being proactive with the culture. Love the idea of just cutting your commercial clients a couple extra hundred bucks a month just to use those rooms. And I'm so happy that you guys use slack. Whenever I find out that somebody. You already answered it. I love the idea of being proactive with your morale and being proactive with the culture. Love the idea of just cutting your commercial clients a couple extra hundred bucks a month just to use those rooms. And I'm so happy that you guys use slack. Whenever I find out that some of our customers use slack, I'm like, oh, yes. Because it's such a great tool. I mean, it really can be. It's personally on the service titan side, I've been blown away by some of the groups that have come up with COVID that have really helped guys. Her. Her channel is very, very fun.

Oh, it's lit.

As the host of Service Business Mastery, you connect with a ton of smart people in the industry. Talk to me about how that's helped you grow your business.

Oh, man. Oh, wow. It's. It's definitely one of those things. Because with Service Business Mastery, I've been doing it since 2017. I think we're at episode 503, something like that. In about halfway through season one, I was really like, I'm getting a lot of repeats. Not. I didn't have repeat guests, and I do have repeat guests on the podcast, and they're great people, but I didn't want to just because, like, if you go into a Facebook group and you have the H vac, you see a lot of. Of people, the similar people. And it's awesome having those people on the show, but we also know a lot of information about those people in general as well. So then I kind of got connected with a few people who were really. They get people from outside the industry and say, you want to be on podcasts and say. They just search all the podcasts and say, hey, this would be a good podcast for you. So I got hooked up with four or five of those, and I was like, okay, these are the type people I want. I want CPAs, I want accountants, I want marketing people, people who do digital marketing, people who do print market. I want people who are authors of books. Everybody has to be an author of a book in order to come on the show. Like, I want all of this stuff. And they're like, okay, cool, we got you. And so we ended up with. I don't know if you're familiar with Mike Michalowicz. He's author of a book called Profit First. He was like the first one that came on and we became friends actually. I actually went up to his place in New Jersey and I'm in his latest book called Fix this Next. And so it became this, this like, weird cycle of great friendships. But everybody now is pretty much outside of the industry, so I'm able to bring information in that's outside the industry, thinking outside the box. And whenever I'm. Before the podcast ever starts, we're like, okay, how can you twist this to make this work for our listening audience? Because sometimes they're just weird. It's just like, okay, this is going to be weird. This is going to be a challenge. Like, how are we going to twist this here to make this work? Because, I mean, I don't remember the last time that happened, but man, it was, oh, Arch and tower. We spent 45 minutes doing our pre record call before we ever actually started the interview. And the interview only lasted about 30 minutes because we were spent so much time thinking about how we can make it work for the industries and they're an agency that connects people. And it was, oh, it was such a great episode by the time we got finished with it. But beforehand I was like, I just don't see how this is going to work. I don't see how this is going to fit. And then, then just something clicked in the conversation. And then all of a sudden it's like, okay, this is going to work. And then since then, this episode was just released a couple, you know, a couple weeks ago or something. And I had such great response out of it. And I didn't even think. I was like, I don't even know if I'm going to release this episode. Like whenever we first started talking and it's like, oh, I feel bad because I don't. Everybody's time is valuable, so you don't want to waste it. But sometimes you come across that and it's like Roth iras. And it's like, how do we make this work? How do we make a Roth IRA work? For service business owners, it's really awesome hearing the guests come on and put their twist on little things that I didn't even think that the service industry would really need or could really use and they really have. But the problem that I have now is that I only release once every Wednesday and I record at least three every Wednesday. So I have a backlog of about 65 episodes. So, yeah, I'm running into that little problem now.

Charsh, I might be wrong, but you might be able to take a year off.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

I love that you take folks from across different industries and different walks of life and you try to apply it to service business. I think that's so smart because some of the most successful service entrepreneurs I've spoken with have really adapted mindset and strategies from outside the service business and applied it to their own. So I absolutely love that. I think that's phenomenal. And it's all. It is a really great way to meet people. I mean, you can't talk to someone for an hour and then not leave liking them. That's basically how that works. I'm curious what you would say to an owner who says, like, I don't want to network with anyone. I don't want to talk to my competitors, I don't want to talk, talk to any. Like, I want to be very tight lipped about my strategy. And people that get very just kind of like, protective about how they're running their business. What would you say to them?

I get this question a lot, especially about the podcast. You're like, why, why do you share all this stuff knowing your competitors will do it, or, you know, your competitors will have the information? And it's, it's funny because they don't do it. They're just not going to do it. And just watch yourself as a business owner. And how often do you change? Like, how often do you go to the office and say, hey, change everything. Let's just throw it all up in the air and see where it lands and it doesn't happen. You get into this rut as a business owner, no matter how bad you don't want it to be the case, you get into this rut where you're like, you just get comfortable doing the same thing over and over again. Even if it's a great idea. You're like, okay, this is a great idea. But then two weeks later, you're doing what's comfortable and what you're used to doing. And so, honestly, I don't network a ton with my direct competitors, but I do have some friends who are in my area that are competitors that we constantly are bouncing ideas off of. And it's really cool because we're watching each other grow at the same time. There's some of them that are smaller than me, some of them that are larger than Me. And it's really been cool watching that entire process. Whereas I have tons of friends who are outside of our area that are in the trades and we bounce ideas off of each other all the time.

Yeah, it's so valuable. And I mean, that's the most thing I'm really right now trying to learn more about how service businesses grow. And they come over that like 3 million doll hump, the 5 million dollar hump, et cetera. And basically, like, everyone I speak to says, you got to talk to people, Talk to people that have done it already and see how they did it. That's the only way you're going to learn. So I think that's really good. That's a very good point.

The tr. The tricks that you. That you don't even know about, and you're like, oh, I didn't even know I could do that. Like, yeah, you just have to ask. Like, when you're buying a van, don't pay for the wrap. Separate. Finance it in with your van van, financing it in with your lease, so you don't have to come out of pocket four or $5,000. It's like, huh, okay, I didn't know that. Not until I asked another service. I mean, another business owner. I'm like, I don't want to re. That was when I was going through the full rebrand. I was like, man, I don't want to rewrap all these vehicles and everything. And they're like, well, as you purchase vans, just build it into the. To the lease or the finance that you're doing. And you know they'll pay for it to be wrapped before you ever even get delivery of it. I was like, oh, okay. I didn't know that.

That's a pretty good aha moment. Are there any others that come to mind?

Same with shelving. Like, don't spend a thousand dollars out of pocket to put shelves in your van. Finance it into the cost of the van. That get into some sort of lease program when it comes to vehicles. And you know that they're so cheap. And you develop a relationship with those. The commercial lenders. And have your lender have a banker, have a lawyer, have a accountant, a cfo, cpa. Like, create those deep relationships with those people. And so then when you need something, your banker, you just text. Like, I can literally text my banker. And he's like, oh, yeah, you're good, let's do this. And so it's not like going through lean processes and stuff like that. Just develop those relationships. Well before you Ever need to have them.

Got it. Great advice. So you already said you have 500 plus episodes of service Business Mastery. If people are interested in listening, which I'm sure they will be after this. During this interview, which episode should they check out first?

Ooh, probably the first episode. It sounds so weird and it sounds so horrible, but it's just that first episode where Brian, or the guy that actually got me into podcasting, he's interviewing me for the first two episodes. And it's really some good stuff. And it's just real juicy content that, like, oh, how to deal with property managers and the origin story of me and why I even started the podcast and gives a little bit of background about me. And I'm a lot more open now than I was then. But it's really cool to hear that. Then you could skip over a couple seasons and get in with somewhere in 400s. The four 15s. They're good episodes there.

Well, my next question is, what are some of your most memorable episodes? What are some ones that you're like, oh, yeah, that's a good one.

The last one I did because my memory sucks. No, the. Any of them where I still have relationships with the people after the fact. And there's a lot of them that are like, hey, you know, we get on podcasts and then we say we're going to stay in touch and then we never do. And like, I really want to stay in touch with you, but, you know, that happens. That conversation happens from time to time. But then the ones that really stay connected and I think of like Wayne Herring and then Mike McAlowitz. Anything Mike McCallowitz. I have Tommy Melo. Like those, Those guys, they're. Those guys are legit, genuinely good people and they like having a relationship. But Wayne Heron's the same way and he has what's called the Business Builders. Oh, he's gonna shoot me if he hears this. It's the Business Builders camp campsite or something like that, where it's just a group of guys that go and do camp outs and they, they. If you're into hunting, they'll go hunting. And they go like, it's very primitive and you just really like, dive deep into your soul type stuff. And so, like, we do a monthly book club with him now. And so we read business books that are completely unrelated to the quote unquote business book. You won't find these business books anywhere. One of them is like, it's an hour long listen. If you listen to Audible, it's called the Family Board Meeting. It's really, I mean, it's so awesome. It's talking about family and growing your family and treating your family like a board meeting versus forgetting about the family throughout the process of growing your business. And so stuff like that. Like those, I mean, that's. Anybody that I've made connections like that with, they're obviously great ones. Any, any of my coaches that I've ever talked with on the podcast. Mike. Mike Aguilera. Who else? Bruce Wiseman. Any of them, you know, bdr, you know, CEO Warrior. Those, those are always really cool because kind of getting a little information from bifo, cpa, like create those deep relationships with those people and on the curtain type thing and just revealing that human, human nature of somebody who you see so much of on social media.

That's great. I love that. What book are you reading now with your book club?

Book club. We actually just finished. We just finished one the board meeting and then just started another one. He just actually literally texted me a few minutes ago. He's like, have you read it yet? And I was like, I'm not going to reply yet. So we're supposed to get, we're supposed to meet up again two weeks to do that book one. So I'll probably wait until like a week and a half to start reading it. But yeah, they're always really simple. We've done extreme ownership.

Sure. That's a good one.

Absolutely raving fans. There's a buddy of mine called. His name's Jesse Cole and he's known for wearing a yellow tux and his book's called Find your yellow tux. So he wears, he wears yellow tuxedos everywhere he goes. So he's talking about doing business differently and standing out in the crowd. And so it's really cool phenomenon. And I've gotten a lot of my, my, my standing out of the crowd type stuff from. From Jesse.

Nice. Very, very cool. I love good book recommendations. So you already talked about the family board meeting. We already established that your wife Julie works in the business. So talk to me about what it's like running a business with your wife.

Life, it's challenging at times. You know, there's conversations about staying in your lane. And we both have very similar type A personalities where we want to do everything we want. We don't want to relinquish control sometimes. And so it's a constant communication with her and between her and I, like, okay, these are your roles. And that was another thing with org chart. We had to create a full org chart, you know, 10, $10 million in revenue worth of org chart. And so we really were like, okay, even though we're doing several of these at one right now, who's going to do it later? And having that conversation really opened us up to, well, I feel like I'm doing that well. No, I'm doing that well, we don't both need to be doing it. And so having that, that constant and clear communication and then, you know, you throw four kids in the middle of that too. So at 4:00 clock clock, you know, you have to turn business off for an hour no matter what. And so that's, it's just a lot of communication and, and try to have thick skin as much as possible. And then one of the rules. So we have life coaches and we've had life coaches for a hot minute now because we really were concerned with, with that question in general. And so one of the things that this couple, that's our life, one of our life coaches, they, they were like, you need to create boundaries. Don't ever take work to bed. Don't like, you need to like. So that was our boundary that we created. So as soon as you cross the threshold of our bedroom, you're not allowed to talk work anymore. If you want to talk work, you gotta get up, go and be deliberate about talking work somewhere else, not in the bedroom at all. So that's. That. That really helps out a lot because it's hard to turn off work, especially if you work from home, being that you work remote or you work from your book bag from a laptop or if you work with your spouse and then if you network with your spouse. So she's on some of the boards and I'm on different. About different boards that we're on and stuff like that. So it's, it definitely can be very blurred lines. Whereas, whereas life and work remote or you work from your book bag from a laptop or if you work with your spouse and then if you network with your spouse. So she's on some of the boards and I'm in family versus you know, doing work life.

So stuff nice I like. Interesting that you guys use life coaches and it sounds like you were very deliberate when bringing Julian from a part time basis, also a full time basis of setting those boundaries and being very clear about the delineation between this is work, this is family, which I think is brilliant. I think that's the way to do it. In terms of life coaching, if you don't mind me going on that tangent, what prompted you to get a life Coach. And what would you say to folks who right now who are listening, who are like, life coach? Why would I do that?

Yeah, it was well before we thought we needed it. At the same time, it was like, this can't be. Like, we don't know the answers to this, and it can't be like this all the time. There has to be somebody out there that does this or has experienced this. And one thing I forgot to mention early on is when I first started my first H Vac company, I then went back to school for a psychology degree. Yeah. So I had. And I did that just so that I'd understand the reason and in the way that my team thought and why they thought about different things. And so that was kind of my whole goal there. And then. Then it became a really deep interest of mine of, like, okay, the thought process, how things think, how people think and why they think the way they do. And very much love languages and filling that love cup. And then as we. We progressed in our relationship and got married, it was. It's very much like, all right. She worked a lot at the hospital, and I worked a lot in the business. And so you could watch things progress and decline very quickly and easily or take longer, like, if you got your feelings hurt, like, not being able to express things openly as much as we wanted to. And so it was just by happenstance that we met this one couple, and then after meeting that couple, then other friends of ours that. Like, one friend of mine that's in the Air Force, and he's Attack P also. And, well, he's now not. He's. He's a youth minister now, but he was. He was Attack P. And so he was like, oh, yeah, John Joe. Oh, yeah. I loved them. They're great. They're the greatest people in the world. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Like, y' all use. Y'. All. Y' all have life coaches, too. And you're like, nah, but they're just great people. Like, you know, and so, like, the more we. We kind of accidentally met this couple who's a life coach, and then it was like, okay, cool. So we started using them. And then through networking, we've met other coaches that are life coaches, and one of them, she. She works closely with Julie, and it's all about creating your brand colors, and that's what she focuses on. And not only that, internally, like, you're like, how you think internally. And she's almost like. Pulls stuff out like a psychologist, but she's just a she's a life coach in general, like, making sure that you, you're always on point. Like, you always represent your brand correctly. And okay, cool. Like, it's. We'll try it out. And then it turns into, oh, wow, she's like a psychologist. Like, she's pulling all kinds of stuff out, try it out. And then it turns into, oh, wow, she's like a psychologist. Like, she's pulling all kinds of stuff out. So it just one thing progresses into another, and it really is a snowball effect. And it's. It's wild how much information. Like, even though we were really well connected beforehand, we meshed extremely well beforehand. And me being having psychology degree in psychology, like, I understood a lot of that stuff, but we still. So it just one thing progresses into another, and it really is a snowball effect that didn't realize how much that we could grow by having a life coach and anybody that's like, ooey, like, super macho, like, I'm not going to have somebody like a counselor or shrink tell me what to do. It's not that way. It's. I mean, because John, he coaches other business owners. And so, like, we go out and do a double you, and it's like really, like how you connect with yourself internally and how the more you're respected, the more you give that respect and that desire for your spouse to actually show you more respect. And those are the type people that really give you that aha moment where it's like, okay, I understand now what the reason why when things are good, things are good, and when things are bad, things are bad. Now this makes sense because when things are good, like, she was showing me respect and I was showing her the admiration that she desired. So. But then when things were bad, I realize now that I was really just feeling disrespected. And then in turn, I wasn't showing her any admiration. And then it's like, wow, this is like a crazy yin and yang. And it's like, oh, I know how to fix this stuff now. You're no longer like, was it men are from Mars and women are from Venus? Yeah, it's no more that conversation as much anymore. Like, we kind of get things. And when things do, like, happen, it's like, okay, I understand why it happened now. Let's don't do that again in the future. That type of stuff. So I was the ultimate alpha. Like, no, not doing this. And then like, after seeing the positive results from it, business and personal, it was like, oh, yeah, cool. Like, I mean, one of the biggest things that just first aha moment for us was, as you can hear with what I'm sharing here, we do a lot, a lot. We're constantly doing things. So John's wife, Jo, she's. She was like, your life is like a rubber band. What's happened? Have you ever pulled a rubber band so tight that finally it just pops or pulled it and so the elasticity is gone. At some point you're going to have to come back and like, just say no to some things. Say no to that board meeting. Say no. That board group in general, like, you're gonna have some. At some point your. Your life is like that, that rubber band and it's just going to stay expanded out or it's going to pop. So it's just cool little aha's like that there's like, okay, this is worth My, my $150 investment for this one hour.

Thank you for being so honest and open about that. I so appreciate it. And I want to just mention while you were giving that great explanation, relationships need tending to to. They are not something. It's not like you get married and that's it. Good to go. It's very much something that needs tend, loving, loving care. And it sounds like you're investing in that. So way to go. Just like you invest in your business. So way to go. I have a couple more questions left, but the main thing I wanted to. Not the main thing, but one of the things I wanted to ask is, man, you seem to love Savannah and you are super engaged in your community. So talk to me about why that's important to you at Service Emperor.

Honestly, it's. I don't know, it's part of the buy local thing. Like, it's just shop small sab. That's my thing. And I don't. I. I got into that. So podcasting and getting into the networking about the same time. I was deathly afraid of talking in front of people. And now, like, it's. It's very common for me to talk in front of 13 or 3,000 people every month, you know, and so like, it was that very, very much out of a necessity. I needed to meet people just so that I got out of my comfort zone. Because it was really easy for me to sit behind a desk and work on an Excel spreadsheet. I could do that all day long. I could be just fine. I'm extreme introvert. Extreme introvert.

Really?

Oh, yes, absolutely. And so as soon as I realized that I needed to come out of that shell and I needed to go network with people. It became an addiction almost. And so it was like, okay, let's go do some more networking and let's meet more people and let's see if we can grow our network that way. And then it was, all right, let's see if we can get some ROI from this. Like, I don't know if this is really a thing or if I'm just creating a lot of friends. And so then that became a thing, and then it became like, all right, you're teetering on philanthropy here. Like, what are you going to do? Is this. Is this. Like, are you going to start giving back? Are you going to do this? And then that's whenever I really started talking to Mike Michalowitz, and he's like, man, you got. You have to build your foundation before you can start giving back. And that was the mistake that I was making in 2016, 2017, and even parts of 2018, I was giving to charities. I mean, we were giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to charities where they were like, you got to keep that money. You have to put that money back in your business and grow your business and stop giving it away. Once you get to the 10, 15, 20 million doll, then it's going to be to where you can give way more than that away. But if you don't stop what you're doing right now, you're never going to be able to get to that point to give that money away and make a huge impact in your community. And so I was like, all right, thanks, Mike, for that reality check there. But it's been really cool, and we still give away a lot with foundations and anything that we can, especially if we can trade anything, we'll do that in a heartbeat. Trade labor for. For. For that. But now it's like anytime you go to a. Any kind of chamber meeting or. Or bilocal or, you know, the Police Canine foundation, so there's a Georgia Canine Police foundation, and like, 5% of net profits from one of the vans automatically goes to that foundation, like every month. So then they're like, anytime something happens, I mean, it's a giver's gain types philosophy, not intentionally upfront, because they were actually a really small organization when we first became friends with. With them. Just so happened that one of the guys that is the head of that organization statewide now, his son plays on my son's soccer team. So it's like, it was. We're just really for good friends to start with and then to learn what they do for, for the canines that, the police canines. It was like, okay, this is a no brainer. We'll definitely get to your organization and kind of a sucker when it comes to that kind of stuff. And so my CPA and people like Mike, they're like, all right, you got stop. You know, and so that's, that's, you know, that's kind of the why I am the way I am about Savannah. If I, if I grew up in Atlanta or if I grew up in, you know, New Orleans, I'd probably feel the same way there. And it's just, I think it's just part of our DNA here.

I love it. I love it. And I'm. I'm more than confident you're going to get to that point where you're going to be able to give away a lot of money. Tersh. So just keep. Yeah, you'll get there. I have a couple rapid fire questions for you. May I ask them?

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, well, actually, before I get to those, is there anything we should have talked about that we didn't talk about?

No, I think we covered. I think we covered most everything.

We did cover most everything. All right, are you ready?

Yep.

How do you take your coffee?

Ooh, coffee black with just a lots of sugar one day and then the next day, like 11 tablespoon of sugar because I feel bad for the day before.

Nice. And it's just a cycle. Got it.

Yeah. It's a vicious cycle.

If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Wow, this is a good one. Because I don't really like people. No, I'm just kidding. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. My grandfather, he passed away about two weeks ago, so.

Aw. I'm sorry for your loss.

It happens. But yeah, definitely pops.

Nice. What's one thing you're trying to learn more about right now?

Titan Advisor.

Oh, it's pretty big. Titan Advisor is like bananas big.

It's so massive, it's crazy.

It's a new tool we just added to service Titan that allows you to take the most. It basically, like, asks you what your goals are and then suggests features based on what you're trying to do. I don't have the time in this episode to talk about it. It is insane. If money weren't an object. So you had unlimited resources, what's the first thing you would would do?

Donate to all the charities. I keep telling. No.

That'S great.

Yeah.

You already gave a bunch of them during the interview. But are there any specific podcasts or books you want to call out that people should check out?

I'll be honest with you. I. I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to listening. I don't. I'm not a great reader, but I. Because I do suffer with mild case of dyslexia, but I do listen to stuff like crazy on Audible. And. And I have a list. It's at Kit co Tursh and then reading for success with hyphens between each word.

Kit Co Tirsh.

Kit co Tursh.

Got it.

Oh, my God. So there's like 150 or 200 books there that we've read over the past year. And so those are some good books. Books that I've read or listened to.

You're like, do I have a list? Yes, I have a website for my list. It's Kit Co Tersh. T E R S H. Right, that's it.

That is it.

All right, final question. What's the number one thing every contractor should do to run a successful business?

I only can do one.

Only one. Well, I mean, you can give me two. It's not.

Yeah, it's your show.

I'm just hosting it.

So two things really fast. And I want to make sure that I'm ultimately, I'm like uber clear about this because I'm so crazy passionate about it. Is get your CRM. I mean, obviously I'm all for service site and like, do that, do it, and do all of it. Like, there's nothing more irritating to me than to hear somebody complain about a CRM or complain about service site. And then they have like a 10 as their service titan score. Like, do it, get it and do it. Just do it. And then relinquish the reins, like, totally. Like, you don't have to be that guy or that gal that has to do everything. Get people that are really good, Let them replace you. Be replaceable and have a good CRM.

That's great. Great advice, Tersh. Thank you so much. I really enjoy chatting with you today. Thanks so much for being a guest guest on Toolbox for the trades.

It was 100%. My pleasure. Thank you so much for the invite.

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