Pantheon Live 2023: Pull Good Ideas From Great People | Podcast Ep. 142 | Toolbox for the Trades

Will you please tell me your name, your job, and where you work?

Absolutely. So my name is Mary Anglin. I work. I'm the executive director at Life of Mechanical Services. So we're based in North Texas and we cover the entire, like, DFW Metroplex.

I love that. And you have been on the Toolbox for the Trades podcast before, but thank you so much for stopping in my little Toolbox for the Trades mini booth here at Pantheon. You used to be at CEO Warrior, and now you are at Lightfoot Mechanical. Tell me a bit about that change.

Yeah, so I was a. I was a master advisor at CEO Warrior, and I loved it there. It's an incredible organization. It's absolutely fantastic. But I just needed to make a change for my family, and so I'm really focused on that work life balance and spending some time with my kids. And so I'm the executive director at Life and Mechanical now, and I love it. It's really getting back to my roots, right? It's getting back to how I entered the trades and falling back in love with my technicians and all of that.

I hear that when you have kids, you are supposed to spend time with them. So I think that's really. I think that's good that you're doing that.

That's what they told me. And so I was like, all right, I guess, you know, tuck you in at night, that kind of thing.

I have to say, you're my first interview of today. I'm so luck. You are a Service Titan wizard. You have been at, I think, almost all of our user conferences at this point, right?

Yep, pretty much. And I've been on Service Titan. I feel like I'm an OG service titan person. I've been on since January of 2017. So it's been six and a half years.

Yes. Oh, my goodness. That's insane. Okay, so what advice would you give to folks who are coming to Pantheon maybe for the first or second time? There's so much stuff. They learn so much, they're excited, and they get back home and they're like, how do I even begin to implement this stuff? What would you say to them?

It is overwhelming. There's so much information. And especially this year, like, the breakouts are intense. I remember the very first Pantheon, and it was like, there's this track or this track, and this is where you go. And now I just am so impressed with what Serviceitan has done with the breakout sessions. I'd say one is pick your top three things. Take. Absorb all of the information while you're here. Don't limit yourself, don't limit your mind. Take it all in and then debrief when you get back to home base. Right. Debrief. Pick your three things that you're going to implement. If you try to do everything at once, it will get overwhelming. Your team will probably not respond as well as you want them to because there's too much change at once. So pick your top three things and implement those. And really the products that are coming out with service site now, those are a great place to start. Just because that there's so much support from service Titan when it comes to the implementation side that I would highly recommend looking at the Pro products, looking at some of the new features that they have coming out, configurable payroll because there's so much support in those areas. So implementing is going to be just naturally easier.

Thank you so much for doing the shout out to Pro products. Your check is in the mail, but you just signed up for Dispatch Pro. I know, it's one of the things I want to talk to people about here. So what made you do, what made you pull the trigger with it?

It's, it's so interesting. I feel like as I interact with my department managers and, and my general manager there's a little bit of a hesitation for them on the technology that's kind of coming into our industry. There's a lot of artificial intelligence, there's a lot of machine learning, there's a lot of just automations that can happen and they're a little bit hesitant about it. And I think there's some of it that they're like, I don't want a machine to take my job.

Sure. No. Who does?

Exactly.

But what, what we're looking at is when you look at your bottom line and you're looking at what is going to make you a profitable business, how can you compete in your market? Automation is going to have to happen.

It has to.

And so the Dispatch Pro, the reason we kind of went that direction is I feel like it's going to be the most receptive team and the technology behind it is astounding. I love it. Right. I got my general manager, funny story, I got my general manager on board with some artificial intelligence because he asked me to put together. He's like, we need a policy in place for some of this that the guys in lunch breaks and how are doing? I said okay, yeah, no problem. And I put a prompt into chat GBT and I said, hey, I need a policy for a home services company that details these you know, few things, gave it some prompts. Three minutes later I emailed him back a policy. He was like, you're really fast. And I said, yes, I. Yes, sir. Yes, I am. I'm amazing. I'm Dawn.

I'm so good. I'm so good at what I do. But I love that, I love your attitude because I think there is a lot of fear about AI coming in and taking our jobs. Right, sure. So I think it's really important to have that outlook and look at what it can help you with. I had Amanda Triolo and Bree Skiffington on yesterday talking a bit about how they're using AI at, at Amanda's company, at Ad Leverage and also at another company they're developing. And I think that's the attitude we have to go in with. It is like, okay, let's see where this goes. Yeah, you know, you can be doom and gloom about it, but let's stay optimistic.

Yep. And how can it be a resource for, for the company and how can it make lives better? How can it improve your. Your. The way that you service your customers, the way that you take care of your customers? The reality is, is that an automated customer experience is going to be a consistent customer experience. And so for them to like anybody who's looking at the products, looking at the pro products, or looking at Service Titan in general, the best feature that I've always touted about Service Titan is that it allows you to create this consistent customer experience. I want to go to sleep at night as an executive director knowing every single one of my customers had this level of service that we expect. That's our core value. I can't do that if I'm constantly relying on entry level employees to create that experience for them. Yes, I can train them all day long, but you're going to have a CSR that has a bad day at some point. But at least I know that every time they're going to get a text message when the technician's on his way, they're going to be able to track his arrival. They're going to get a follow up message that says, hey, how was your service? They're going to get their email, their invoice emailed to them. Like there are these automations in place that allow me to go to sleep at night knowing my customers had this consistent experience. And I think without a software like this, there's just no way that it would, I wouldn't go to sleep with the confidence knowing that it happened. I'm saying it would happen. But I just don't, I don't know that I'd have the same level of confidence.

Sure. You've been so generous through time. I've got two more questions for you. I'm going to tap back into your coaching a bit, if you don't mind, when it comes to implementation. Right. So you picked your three things. You go back to the company, you're like, we're going to do these three things. What advice would you give to folks that want to maintain that? Right? Because I know this is, this is a weakness of mine. I go in, I'm like, I just learned about this and we're going to do this now. And then three weeks later it's like, they're like, hey, well what's happening with that? I'm like, what? So what do you recommend when it comes to consistency?

So you have to make it visual. I'm a visual person. That's what matters to me. So I actually have a huge board in my office that has my 90 day boulders. I operate on a 90 day schedule. I have no annual goals, I have no, this is what my year is going to look like. I have a 90 day year and I want to accomplish my boulders in those 90 days. So I never look out further past than that. If I can't make a dramatic change in the next 90 days, start all over. So every 90 days I meet with every manager in the company and we go through their boulders and mine are these top line things and my boulders are almost always supported by my manager's boulders. My manager's boulders are supported by their team leaders boulders and then that is supported by our entry level or our service expert boulders. So we operate on this every 90 days. We look at it as an entire company and say, how do we feed into each other in order to get these top line, larger goals?

Oh my gosh. I should talk to you more about boulders on a longer episode, but thank you so much for that little insight. Final question for you. I'm asking everyone this. If someone approached you and was like, I want a career in the trades, what would you say to them?

You couldn't make a better decision than that. This is, this. I've been, I've worked in a lot of industries. I worked for Six Flags, I've worked for. In the financial world. Right? I worked for financial planners and then I came to the trades 12 years ago and I absolutely loved it. There's so much opportunity. And that's the thing that I love most, I think about the trades is that there's no limitations. If you work your butt off and you have passion and drive and you love serving a customer, then this is absolutely the industry for you. You don't have to go to college, you don't have to have a degree. You don't have to spend seven years trying to train for something specific. Work your butt off, learn what you need to learn, and you have opportunities in this industry. And I think that that's just. It's, it's. It's unparalleled.

I agree. I agree. Mary, thanks so much for sitting down with me. Now go learn about dynamic pricing. Sure.

We'll do. Thank you.

Rick, welcome to the mini toolbox for the trades booth here at Pantheon.

Thank you so much. Excited to be here.

I am so excited to chat with you.

Thank you.

Tell me who you are and what you do.

Absolutely. So my name is Rick Vines. I'm the founder and CEO of Vines Restoration Plumbing in H Vac. We're located in the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina market. Very, very excited. H Vac was a newly onboarded division. That's just absolutely killing it. So super excited.

Yeah, I love that. I got sun poisoning in Myrtle beach once, but I still love it.

It's easy to do. Easy to do.

It was like the end of March. I'm from New York originally. It was the end of March and I was like, I'm going to go on a stroll on the beach. I don't need sunscreen. Holy cow. Never doing that mistake again.

How about the humidity? How did you adapt to that?

It was tough. It was. I live in L. A now where there's no humidity, so I always have great hair days. But I love Myrtle Beach. Such a fun. Such a fun area.

Thank you.

Thanks again for joining me. This is now your second Pantheon. How has this one been so far?

Excellent. So last year was outside.

Yes.

Loved it. Awesome experience. I was at the Coliseum last year. My team, I mean, it really was an absolute blast. So I'm enjoying the AC at this conference. It's been beautiful to be able to be inside and hearing some of the sessions. I will mention that these sessions have been incredible. I mean, these guys are super prepared. I love hearing the real life experiences, especially coming from, you know, the business owners and the techs. I mean, you know, just real life scenarios that are truly beneficial and we can relate to. So kudos to all the folks who are preparing and these keynote speakers. Very impressed.

So what's been your biggest takeaway from this conference?

The biggest takeaway from. From this conference for Us, obviously, you know, we always recommend bringing a big team. You know, there's so much to learn. Me personally, as just a business owner, I love hearing, you know, my. What I'm attracted to most is culture, and I love to just hear from other organizations that are doing a really good job of thinking outside the box how to bring on new, you know, new recruits.

But.

But really, you know, just all the speakers and how. I don't even know what to say. Let me think of something that's really set up. What was the guy's name that. That was up here this morning? Thomas, I think.

Tommy Miller.

Tommy Miller. Incredible.

Yeah.

Best figure I ever heard in my life.

Tommy Mello.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, he's great.

Unbelievable.

Yeah.

Like, I believe he. He should be on a soap opera or.

Well, you know, he has a podcast.

Does he?

Yeah, it's called the Home Service Expert.

Okay.

It's amazing.

Him. Yeah. Phenomenal speaker.

So you just got out of Nichify with the Tippett Brothers over at Rainforest, and what did you learn there?

Yeah, it was incredible. That was probably my most favorite session so far. Again, outside the box thinking. Something I'm very attracted to. How do we stay competitive in marketplace? What are we doing to stand out from the competition? How are we tracking the consumer? So, you know, a reference point that I took from that class, in fact, and that really I related to was a statement that Mr. Tippet made. He said, a powerful and unique identity is ultimately the best competitive advantage you might have in your marketplace. And so that attracted me because, you know, I can relate to folks that I know that may struggle with identity crisis, and, you know, it could be really bad for the business world. So identifying your identity and standing out is something that, you know, again, I was able to really relate to.

I love that. I mean, your logo on your shirt. I love the highlighter. Yellow. That's one of my favorite colors.

Yes.

So what do you think you're going to do when you get back to Vine? How are you planning to implement all the stuff you're learning today when you get back to the.

So we make a ton of time. We carve out time after these sessions, we sit with our team. We usually take about two hours, and we got some compliments from some of your staff that were upstairs. But our implementation, it's a slow process. But, you know, last year, you know, we, we, we. We took everything that we were going to implement and we. We executed within the year. So things have changed so much, too. From last year to this year, just with the technology itself, it's pretty impressive. So again, just establishing a line with my team that, you know, we don't want to become accustomed to. Technology is changing so much. Like we get in so many routines with our day to day and it's really, and I get it, it's hard to, to bring in change. But that's another reason bringing them to the Pantheon as a service company, getting their buy in and support, seeing the changes that are happening and the why behind the change is really helpful for them to accept change in their own positions.

I love that. That's such a good mindset to have. So I know that you use Dispatch Pro. Tell me a bit about that, please.

Yeah, so Dispatch Pro has been great. You know, the goal here is not to eliminate people, it's just, it's to create efficiencies. There's things that artificial intelligence provides that this, the human mind can't with all that goes on in a day to day. So it's filling in holes, it's identifying, you know, who the best tech is for the best projects. It's, it's an extremely helpful resource for efficiencies.

Amazing. I'm so happy to hear it. And what about Scheduling Pro?

Scheduling Pro, same thing, uses artificial intelligence. And you know, our girls would be able to give you more insight on that. But it's another amazing add on. I recommend trying to onboard as many Pro features as you can. Obviously not at all at one time, but you know, the more you can bring on and efficiently use, I mean it is really done. It's done wonders for our organization.

Yeah, that sounds like an actual nightmare trying to onboard all Service Titan Pro products at the same time. So as someone who takes learnings, you know, from Pantheon, from the Service Titan Pro products, what would you recommend to someone who's maybe, maybe struggling to implement?

Give that to me one more time.

What would you, as someone who has implemented Service Titan and implemented a lot of stuff that you've learned here at Pantheon last year at Pantheon, what advice would you give an owner who's struggling to implement?

So my, my advice to owners and to management is to make Service Titan a part of your lifestyle. You know, it's not just a program that we use. It truly is a part of who we are. So, you know, it's, it's really neat to kind of represent something more than Vines. Typically, you know, most companies get into the business and their focus is providing plumbing really well or providing H Vac. This allows the ability to just outshine your competition, bring in more efficiencies, be more profitable. And we represent, I mean that's, that's really what we're doing. We're not operating a plumbing business anymore. We're not operating an H VAC business. We're operating a software company. We're very reliant, dependent on it. And the more reliant and dependent and the more trust you gain in this software, the more successful you're going to become.

Amazing.

I love that.

I have a final question for you. You've been so generous with your time. What advice would you give someone considering a career in the trades?

Listen, that is a sweet spot for me and a soft spot in my heart. You know, the trades, it is an amazing opportunity for future and I would encourage the younger generation. You know, there is a massive gap that we've seen with, with high school level pushing. College and trades got missed for a good 10, 15 years. So we're now trying to backtrack and gain some attention and traction with some of the younger youth. But what I would tell you is, you know, providing an opportunity for your family and having flexible scheduling, being somewhat your own boss. You're representing something, you know, depending on the culture that you're a part of, you're representing something more than just, you know, a local brand. So for us that's, you know, we, we, we implement faith a lot and that's something people, our, our, our. Joel. Our goal is to try to change lives in the process. Right. Give something to people to help improve not just their financial ability, but, you know, also them personally in their homes, creating better marriages, better parents. So that, that's, that's, that's, that's what we're about.

Do you know that one of service titan's core values is change lives?

Love it. Absolutely love it.

That's so great. Rick, thanks so much for sitting down with me. It was fantastic to meet you and I can't wait to do a longer interview with you later on.

Thanks so much. Yeah, I really appreciate you.

Lincoln Walpole, welcome to Toolbox for the trades live here at Pantheon.

Thank you. Pantheon's been amazing.

Is it your first one?

No, it's probably number five. But it gets better and better every year.

Oh my gosh. So have you been to every single service type?

No, I've missed a couple here and there. I actually came before we were a part of service time as well.

Okay.

And yeah, you guys have a great venue and it's good to see everybody so excited to be here.

Yeah, I love it. It's Always so intoxicating every time. And this is the largest we've had. And I just like, I look out into people I've all I've seen spoken with. And I'm so happy to add you to that list of many people that I've spoken with here. So we're going to talk a little bit about what you do at any hour. So you're the cfo, is that correct?

Yes.

And how long have you been at the company?

So I joined the company about 10 years ago. We actually got through private equity backing about three years ago as well.

Nice.

So we have grown a lot over the years. It's actually been two years. So when I first started in 2013, we did about 10 million in revenue at our one location. We're going to do about 101 million this year. But then as a group, we're going to do about 380 million. So we've grown a lot.

Sorry, I just need, like, to pause 10 million to 380 million. That is pretty intense.

Yeah, a lot of organic growth, but then another about 270 million in acquisitions.

That's amazing. All right, so tell me a bit about how you use Scheduling Pro and Dispatch Pro at any hour and how that helps you with your growth.

Yeah, so we actually got onto Dispatch Pro about two and a half years ago.

You were one of our early betas. Thank you for your service.

Yeah, we loved it. Yeah. And it has gotten better and better over time. When we grew from 45 million to 73 million, we actually did not add a single dispatcher during that time frame. So Dispatch Pro has been awesome for us, and it has gotten better. They recently did another new release, and in that release, we see that the data and the formulas and all of the analysis has gotten even better. So we're really excited about that.

That's awesome.

Now, regarding Scheduling Pro, we have been on that for probably two years, maybe a year and a half. I don't know for sure, but that's been really awesome because as we are in the office, we need to go ahead and schedule employees to work during those spikes that you see, especially in the summer for us. And when we got onto Scheduling Pro, we realized that we were able to hire fewer people to manage that spike. We tell people, you know, when the lines are really busy, go ahead and book online. And that has allowed roughly 20% of our calls to be booked online. And then, of course, we also use Live Voice with you guys as well. So we've been able to manage our staffing a Lot better because of Scheduling Pro.

That's really great. I'm so happy to hear it. So when you actually have a message on your phones when they're busy that says, hey, we're all busy right now, but go online and you can book with us.

Yeah, we do, because we do some things on the radio that really bring in a lot of calls at once. So those spikes become very unmanageable.

Sure.

But through Scheduling Pro, we're able to get those all taken care of very quickly. So we've definitely been able to decrease the number of people that we have in the office. So in our growth over the last two years, of course, we've got Dispatch Pro and other things, but on the CSR side, we have not had to hire as many people. Our call volume has probably jumped by 50% over the last two years.

Oh, my goodness.

But the number of CCRs or CSRs that we need has probably jumped about 20%. So significant savings for us there.

So, I mean, I have to ask. You're telling me the work has doubled? Are your CSRs and dispatchers running around with their hair on fire, not able to leave their computers, like. Or what is that actually like?

Yeah, not at all. We're able to manage through those spikes a lot easier. When you have Scratch Scheduling Pro and it takes off 20% of your calls, you really have to decrease your staffing, or you can decrease your staffing by a lot more than 20%. It becomes so much nicer for everyone. Using the technology that Servicetein has has been a big benefit for us.

I love that. Thank you so much for this. Incredible. Just hearing about it and being so willing to take on our new products and letting us, giving us feedback, allowing us to do better. That is what, you know, this partnership is all about. Thank you again for being part of a beta. I think that's awesome.

Well, you know, we appreciate you guys having us help you guys as well, because it definitely is a partnership. It helps all of us.

Yeah. So back to Dispatching Pro real quick. I know AI is a big topic at Pantheon today. You know, there's some people that are really excited about it, some people that are a little wary about it. And I want. I'm curious, now that you have Dispatch Pro, which is essentially AI for dispatching, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, so we did not actually let any of our dispatchers go when we got onto Dispatch Pro. We wanted to make sure that we leveraged the AI and gave our dispatchers the ability to focus on emotional iq. So we were able to take away the math and the worry about who should go to what call. And they were able to focus on building up the technicians with more emotional support. They can go into calls knowing they're going to sell those calls a lot better. So that has helped us increase our revenue dramatically. We're probably up on average, with our average ticket about 15%. And a lot of that could be attributed to Dispatch Pro.

Amazing. Anything you want to say about Scheduling Pro or Dispatch Pro that we haven't covered already?

I would say that people need to understand the value that the soft skills bring to their workforce. By having AI with Dispatch Pro and by having Scheduling Pro as well, we're able to have people focus on what they are good at and what AI cannot do.

Right.

AI cannot help people understand the very difficult emotional things that we need to build our people up with. We, at any hour, are really focused on retention. And by having our ability to focus on retention solely with the dispatchers, we're able to retain our people better as well.

I love that. I have to ask you one more question. You've been so generous with your time, so thank you. What would you say to someone who's considering a career in the trades?

I would say, make yourself valuable by learning everything you can about that trade. The people that are valuable in our business, they don't just go to work and receive training while they're on the clock. They'll go home and study a lot as well. And then also believe in yourself. People who don't believe in themselves are not going to do as well in the trades. People who are able to with confidence say, hey, I can take care of the outlet that's burning your lights, whatever it may be. They're going to project that confidence on the customer, and that's going to build value for themselves as well.

Amazing. Lincoln, thanks so much for joining me for this mini interview. Justin Tarr, you are the owner of Daffy Ducks, which is, in my opinion, the best name a company could have. Welcome to Toolbox for the Trades here live at Pantheon.

Thank you. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and I appreciate you having me on.

I'm so excited to talk with you today. So we're filming this, we're doing. We're going to do a mega episode where we combine a bunch of different interviews. I know that you're really into educating customers about duct cleaning right now, so tell me how you're approaching that.

So I'm having a lot of fun with it. I began a campaign that I'm doing on social media right now some of our ads, they're pretty quick ads. I filmed them at our training lab at our own office. And I try to let customers know what real duct cleaning of a high value looks like that achieves the objective of good indoor air quality. In comparison to a lot of the companies that are out there either scamming, there's a, there's a lot of, for lack of a better word, scam people that are going into like Facebook forums and community groups.

Oh sure.

And they're telling people that they're a duck cleaning company and the homeowners are unsuspecting and because of a low price they go in there, give their information and then this person goes in turn to another group and subcontract, so to speak. And these people are in other countries that are doing this and they subcontract the work to somebody local who is also uneducated, using improper equipment and tools, untrained, so on and so forth. And so at the end of the day, the homeowner end up, ends up getting taken because they think they have a particular need which they may not even have. You know, so, so I'm doing those videos, I'm putting those out there. My next, next phase is getting ready to, is to launch some free inspections.

Oh.

Behind some of these companies. So I'm looking at choosing a small geographic area that we can manage properly and then we're going to offer our services to actually go behind some of these companies that people have hired for the, you know, the quote unquote 99 whole house special, so on and so forth. And so we have inspired inspection, video inspection equipment that we can use. We have other testing equipment. I want to go in there and open up the systems, look inside the ducts and see what really happened. For these low price, I like to call them blow and go companies and I want to expose them and I want people in their, in their homes and their hard earned money and their families to be safe. And for those that really do need the service, I think that they should receive the value that they're paying for, but they should also understand the value of what it really takes and what it really costs to do a quality duct cleaning in their home and improve their home indoor air quality.

I love that and I think that that's such a good thing to do because we really have to demystify this process for homeowners or else they're going to continue to make decisions that maybe aren't the right ones.

Yes.

So I really value that as something that you're working towards. Yep.

Thank you. Thank you. There's a. So I'm a member of the National Air Duct Cleaners Association. I sit on the fall technical committee. In fact, I just came from our fall technical conference in Dallas last week where I did a session and educational presentation. And we do a hands on training there for newer people in the industry and companies that send their newer technicians. And so we were a part of that as well. But NADCA has a website that people can do a search for to see companies that are certified. But in addition to that, the standard for air duct cleaning that NADCA created is called acr. The NADCA standard and a part of that, at the very beginning, it tells all of the reasons that duct cleaning should actually be done. Right? And so I think first and foremost, homeowners need to understand why, why and when duct cleaning needs to be done. Because oftentimes again, if you got a little bit of extra dust or something else is happening, you may not even need duct cleaning. And so when you think you need something because of another underlying issue and you don't understand what the remedy or the solution is supposed to look like, then all you have to go on is price. And of course, us as consumers, we're always going to look for the best deal or what we perceive to be the best deal, right? And so a little, a little known fact is that if somebody goes in with, with the wrong tools, the biggest tool in duct cleaning is containment. So that's putting the system, system under negative pressure to be able to pull out and away from the living space any debris that's disturbed or lifted up into the airstream. And if that part alone is not set up or done properly, then you're making more of a problem than existed in the first place, going in there incorrectly. So just big. It's near and dear to my heart. It's the industry that we're in. It's the industry that I, you know, that I love. I got into the business because my children had breathing problems. My family, I grew up in a family where everybody had allergies, everybody had sinus issues. You name it, we had it. You know, we were sitting at the kitchen table, you know, one of my kids with a, with a mask on his face with a nebulizer that we had to put albuterol in just so he could properly breathe. And so when it came time for me to start a business and I was looking for an industry to get in, it was, it was little known back in, in 2007. But once I understood that it was an air quality improvement type of service and solution, I was all in. I love Daffy Ducks was born.

There you go.

Wow.

I didn't know that. I'm so happy. I do, though.

Yes, yes.

This is not your first Pantheon, is that correct?

It is not. I went last year for the first time. It was amazing. I like, I haven't seen an event set up the way that it was when we went last year. Being able to be in the USC Coliseum. The whole theme was just, it was nice. It was fire.

I'm so happy to hear that. So what, what brought you back this year? What made you want to come back?

The biggest, the biggest, biggest benefit, if anybody wants to know and has never been here, is, is the networking. Ish did. Ish did a, A Ishmael Valdez. Ishmael Valdez did a session today and he brought up such a good point where he said, everybody wants to go to his sessions because they want to ask him, you know, that they want his. The information from him. So he categorized groups. He said, everybody that's, you know, 1 to 5 million dollar company stand up 5 to 10, tend to, you know, and he, and he went up and he said, now look around. He said, if you're one and you have a goal of five, look at those people because they are on the other side of the bridge that you got across and they're going to be able to tell you exactly what to look for going across that bridge. So networking, I think first and foremost and being, being able to meet people. I've met a couple of people already yesterday evening at the reception that are in pretty good positions to help me, that just offered to help. Hey, you know, let's get on a call, let's get on an hour call, see exactly what you got going on. I'm working on some performance, paid use structures and things of that nature. And these are people that, you know, these aren't your quote unquote, coaches and consultants, which I don't have anything against. I'm actually an advocate for people getting coaches and mentors. But these are people that, hey, I've been there. I have some resources that I can help you out with. I don't want anything in return but to give back and help. So Pantheon has been a great outlet for that. And then the sessions, being able to go through and have my, my pick of the things that are aligned with whatever my current strategies and goals are, are pretty cool. And there were, you know, there were There were a few that I was able to attend so far that were good. And then last but not least, I'm a geek. I'm a tech geek. So I love all the new release information and bells and whistles. We just came out of one with, with improving is I think improving the core. With Tom Howard talking about the core of the Service Titan system and all the improvements that they're doing there as opposed to just releasing new pro products. I think everybody was excited about that one. So those are my. Those are my three. Three takeaways for so far for panting.

Justin, every time I talk to you, I'm always reminded how much I love it because you just share such great insight and I love hearing what you have to say. Yeah. I have a final question for you. You've been so generous with your time and I know you're here to learn and to network. So tell me, what would you say to someone who's interested in a career in the trades?

Jump in with both feet. I see. I've seen so many people discount the trades or not even look at the trades as a viable option for a long term career in lieu of going to college. And again, I'm not a. I'm not, I'm not against college, but I do firmly believe that, that it is not for everybody. I think that there are people that have more cognitive and technical abilities that can really thrive in the trades. And when I see how much money a lot of these companies and the people that work for them are making, it's mind blowing.

You mean the companies here at Service Titan? Yes. Yeah.

No, it's my.

I just had someone in your seat say, oh yeah, we hit 480 million in revenue. I'm like, yeah, those are. That's Monopoly numbers, man. Like, I can't even. That doesn't even make sense to me. So I agree with you. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your take, Justin.

It's been an honor as always. Jackie.

Right back at you. Thank you so much. Isaac. Welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. It's so great to have you, Jackie.

Thanks so much for having me.

Tell me a little bit about who you are and what you do.

My name is Isaac Zimmerman. I'm the CEO and owner of Jay Blanton Plumbing. We're one of the largest independent residential plumbing companies in Chicago. I bought the company about 10 months ago from a multi generational family that owned the business and I've been running it since then. It's been a very dynamic 10 months. We've grown A lot. We started in end of last year when I bought the company at 6 million. We'll end over 10 million this year and our goal is 20 million next year. So we like to think of ourselves as a startup within plumbing.

I absolutely love that. And you know John Wilson, who was a previous guest on this podcast, I need to know, you're 30 years old, you didn't know anything about plumbing before purchasing this business. What made you do it?

Well, I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. My parents were immigrant entrepreneurs who came to the US with nothing. My dad was actually a Holocaust survivor and they had purchased businesses when they came here, invested in things. And so I grew up with that entrepreneurial small business DNA. So I knew that I always wanted to buy a company one day. Most of my professional career was actually in finance and private equity buying companies. And so I wanted to take my history with my family's businesses, combine it with my financial experience, and try to build a big business over a multi decade time frame. And so I'd study different industries, met a lot of people. Actually, John Wilson was a big reason why I got into this. Having met him, saw what he was doing, and I just fell in love with the trades. I fell in love with plumbing and H vac. And I realized, based on a whole bunch of dynamics, that it was the perfect industry to build a large business over a long time frame.

Amazing. And this is your first pantheon, am I correct?

This is my first pantheon.

What do you think?

It's incredible. My team probably hates me because every five seconds I'm texting them like a million ideas. My phone is full of notes. But I think this honestly was a transformative experience. I feel like we have more clarity of sight even after coming here for two days than we ever had before. The people here who are very inspiring, the stuff that they're building, what they're working on, and we're trying to be the best students of the game and take what we can learn from everybody. And so I think we're leaving here transformed, refreshed, and like we have a very clear path going forward. So I honestly think this is an epic conference and was worth 10 times the price of admission.

Thank you for saying that. I am always humbled whenever folks say that because it's a privilege for me to be a part of a company that puts on something like this. So thank you. I had the pleasure of meeting your team before we did an interview, some of whom you inherited when you purchased the business. And they told me that while it Was a little crazy that a 30 year old purchased the family run business. Previously, you made promises and you delivered on them. So tell me a bit about how you managed to do that at Jay Blanton.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think I was just blessed in a lot of ways. I think I chose the right industry, the right company, but I think I ended up with so many surprises that I didn't expect to be as good as they were. So I guess to answer your question, first of all, I think there was a lot of luck involved to where I was able to deliver promises because things just went so well. Not everything's been smooth. We have tons of crazy stories and ups and downs. But on the whole, so much has just gone right for us that it made it easy to deliver promises. Not that I wouldn't have delivered promises even if it was hard, which it has been hard at times. But for me, like the people are the number one thing in this business. This is a people business. We're a people company that happens to do plumbing, we're a sales business, we're a customer service business that happens to do plumbing. And so that's all people oriented. And so if we don't keep, if I don't keep my promises to my management team, we don't keep our promises to our technicians, then we have no business.

Yeah.

And so we're trying to be the place, you know, in plumbing where the best people want to work, certainly in the Midwest and Chicago. And so that requires delivering on lots of different promises, on pay, on culture, on stability. So I think we all think about that all the time.

Amazing. What advice would you give to an owner who's purchasing a business and is integrating with a brand new team?

I think spend a lot of time getting to know them. I think be open minded, but I think also be willing to push the envelope a little bit in a respectful, teamwork oriented way. And I think there's a lot of people who would give advice that says don't do anything for this first six months after you buy something. I basically ignored all that advice and within a month we had completely redone the business. And I think I was able to do that because of the relationships I started building with everybody, because of how passionate I was about this industry and our company and I guess just how well I understood the business and like put myself into it. And so I think if you really immerse yourself in the team, in the company, I think you could do more faster than you might think you can. And then I think Keep the promises you make. So I told people on my team, I said we're going to be a winning team and you're going to make more money with me and with this company than you've ever made before. And on the whole, my management team, like two of the ones you met just now who were with us at the start, their pay has doubled in 10 months.

That's incredible.

I would say on the whole all of my technicians pay has doubled. So we've implemented completely new pay structures and yeah, I think that's what gives me a lot of energy.

I love that. Let me ask you real quick, do you use either Scheduling Pro, Dispatch Pro or Marketing Pro?

We do use Marketing Pro. We don't use the other two, although we have a lot of energy after this conference for Dispatch Pro. Yeah, that might be coming.

Well, what's your experience with Marketing Pro been like?

It's been good so far for me. Like my passion is sales and marketing and I think I said this a few minutes ago. We are really a direct to consumer marketing company that happens to do plumbing. So any way we can be on the cutting edge of, within this industry of measuring return on investment, of doing direct mail, of anything sales and marketing related, we want to do it. And so Marketing Pro is allowing us to streamline emails, direct mail, measure return on investment better. And I honestly like we've only really been using it two months now, so I'm sure we're like at 5% utilization of what it could be for us.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering a career in the trades?

I mean, I love it, I think more people should do it. And this is candidly, it's coming from somebody who owns a plumbing company but can't do plumbing. But when I look at the people that we have working at this company, I look at our technicians, I think it's incredible career. I think it's a way to have first of all, like you're doing mission critical work for society which I think from a value standpoint is incredible. We help people in need every single day. The need is only growing. People are doing less themselves. Infrastructure is getting older and because of that you can also make a lot of money and have a lot of stability. We have people that have, you know, that are 22 years old working for us, making $200,000 a year with no college education and they were doing, you know, a relatively like minimum wage job before. Within a year of working with us, becoming a technician, they're making life changing money, have stability and are impacting people in their homes. So I think it's obviously, I think it's badass. So, yeah, I think more people should do it.

Awesome. Isaac, you've been so generous with your time with me today. It was so great to chat with you and to learn a little bit about what you're doing at Jay Blanton. Thank you so much for joining me on the Toolbox for the Trades mini booth here at Pantheon.

Thank you so much.

Jackie, Lydia and David Brewster, welcome to the Toolbox for the Trades live at Pantheon. Mini episode here. How are you guys doing?

It's great to be here. Love it.

Why don't you really quickly tell me what you do at Aqua Clear Water Systems. Did I get the name right? Yes, I did. Okay, great. Why don't you guys tell me a little bit about what you do.

Well, what we do is we do water treatment for homes and commercial and our tagline is Changing water, changing lives. I got into this 27 years ago, just fell in it. Never even heard of the word water. Softer. Kind of like people falling into the trades. And I was like, I guess I can sell it. I don't know what it is. But was able to learn that. Just had a passion for it. Helped grow two other companies and then was able to start my own company in 2005 and moved to East Tennessee, back to my hometown and just started in my dad's garage and now we've got about 48 in 40 employees and just love it.

That's awesome. And you're the owner? President?

Yes, yes.

Me and my wife. My wife's wonderful. She couldn't be here, but she is. She, she works every day in the business and we wouldn't be where we're at if it wasn't for her hard work.

Amazing. And it's a family business. Lydia, daughter and I, I've spoken to JJ, to Jonathan, JB, your son on an earlier episode of the show. And Lydia, tell me a little bit about what you do.

Yeah, so dad started about 18 years ago. Since then I've been full time for about two years. A little over two years. So I'm a warehouse marketing, onboarding, recruiting manager.

She's all purpose. She's an all purpose player. Whatever we need, we throw her in.

I used to call myself the Jackie of all trades. I still kind of there. So I can relate to that. I love that.

Yeah.

So I'm going to talk to you guys a little bit about Pantheon and about Marketing Pro. But I really want to understand this idea. You have about, you know, you serve your technicians. That's something you talk to me about, Lydia. So tell me a little bit about that. Yeah.

We are a family run and Christian owned business. So we like to just have a servant's heart at the end of everything. So like dad said, our tagline is changing water changing lives. And we don't want to be in the business if it doesn't improve the people around us, from our clients to our internal clients, which are our coworkers. So that's just kind of our heart about everything that we do. That's the reason we created a training platform like internal training. That's the reason we buy or outsource sales training, so we can teach our guys to upsell. That's the reason we give commissions on things. We like to put our money where our mouth is, pay $5 per review. We do a little bit of everything because we treat them how we would want to be treated and how we'd want someone to treat, you know, our brother, sister, daughter, whatever it is. So that's kind of our mindset behind every single process that we do inside the business.

I love that. David, anything you'd like to add?

Yeah, it just is exciting to see the young guys and people come in and a lot of them have not been in a good culture, maybe not in a good family. And we don't tolerate whining, we don't tolerate complaining and cussing and just negativity. Our goal is, you know, we're hiring winners. We want you to be a winner. So when we come on the team that we want to encourage each other, help each other grow our business, take care of our clients, we're blessed to have about 2,000 five star reviews and it's wonderful. And it's all because our great team, they just do a great job with our clients and we just want to build them up and build up our clients.

Amazing.

And I would say like one things that we like to say about our, our team, we call it a team. We're not a family at our business. We're a team because we can drop you draft, you send it to extra training classes. That's just kind of our environment here is everyone loves that athleticism, the gamification of business. So like bringing that fun, that energy, that competitiveness just makes the guys all like rise up together.

Totally. Rising tide lifts all boats, right?

Exactly.

So this is your second pantheon. Tell me about what happened last year, last time you went and what made you decide to come back.

Well, the great thing about Pantheon is when you get here, you just get to meet so many wonderful people that are in different trades, different skills, different challenges. You build those relationships and you can iron sharpening iron. You're helping one another. And it's nice because we're in a different trade. We can help them with our experience and they can help us with their experience. And we just. I mean, it was just so great the whole year. This year from last Pantheon, we've been able to draw on the strengths of other people that we met at Pantheon.

That's awesome.

The networking, for sure, is the biggest thing because you get to meet people who are movers and shakers in their industry. And H Vac may have some really cool insights for water treatment, and water treatment might have some really cool insights for plumbing. So this is where you come to me, the best of the best. And that's where you pull good ideas, good teamwork, good friendships and stuff like that.

I love that. Can you guys give me a specific takeaway you got from last year that you implemented right away?

What didn't we. I had like a whole list of.

30 things that I implemented. So many things.

I had a team like based running marketing campaigns based off the age of equipment. It was something we hadn't done. We were 18 years old. And that's something that I put into action asap. So that was huge. Made a lot of revenue. What was another.

And we made some good relationships with Service Titan and we were able to bring our insights in from the water business. And they really did listen to us and were able to implement some changes that ultimately helped our business. So we appreciate them listening to us. And I would encourage anybody, you know, thankfully, about having kids in the business. They don't care to fight you and argue with your. Their dad, you know, and they're like, you're old school. You gotta change. And I remember four years ago, four years ago, like, man, it's just too expensive. That costs too much money. It's going to be too much pain, too much struggle. And we'd already tried two other softwares. I was kind of content. And then the leadership at that time didn't want to change either. Accounting didn't want to change. Nobody wanted to change. And as the leader, thankfully, my oldest son just really kept pushing me, JB Pushing me and pushing me until finally I just gave up and bit the bullet. And it's the best thing I did because if forced me to change, it forced me to fix those issues that I didn't want to deal with. And then Service titan helped me see so many areas and yes, it's an investment, but where can you put in let's say $60,000 and get a million dollars? And so it's just a great investment. So I encourage anybody who's struggling with making that decision, man, just get on the diving board and just jump and get, get good people around you. That's going to help you grow that and get with the right people and because it makes such a difference and you'll look back and go, how did we do it without service day?

And your technicians will say the same thing.

I hope you are ready for that to be on our website.

It's a game changer. I mean bat the bullet, start making money.

Yeah, exactly.

I could not, I could not thank you for wording that just so wonderfully. And I could tell I came from the heart and that's always so humbling to me being able to work for a brand that does that for companies like yours. So thank you for sharing that. Tell me a bit about Marketing Pro. How have you been using it and what's that been doing for your business?

Yeah, absolutely. Love it. So as we know like if your reputation online is not good, you don't really have a reputation nowadays people don't tell their neighbor about their plumber anymore. Really, really rare that they even remember your name or have your contact saved. So if someone's going to Google you, that's where they figure out who you are as a company, how you treat your people, how you treat your clients, all that stuff. Like how professional are you? So Google Reviews, that is huge. So there's an automated campaign where you can text after you do a job and you can ask for a review. So obviously you base it off job type and stuff. We don't send it for our go backs or anything like that or service calls, but installs and publishers for sure. Yeah, exactly. Make sure you add that note. But yeah, just getting, getting Google Reviews is literally, I think we've increased by like we went from 80 Google reviews and three years to 2,000.

I mean it's unbelievable. Oh yeah, my son fought me on that. We got that going and then once it did and then what we did is every Wednesday we have a team meeting. We bring Chick Fil a biscuits in and breakfast in and we have a team meeting and we read the reviews. We hand out cash money for those reviews and it's just fun. And we actually read them because when you hear the success stories and how it's changed people's lives, it Encourages you to do a great job every week.

Mm.

And it's our clients complimenting our co workers, not just us. You know, they hear it from us all the time, so it's nice to hear it from someone else's voice and, like, shouting out your friends.

Oh, heck yeah. I totally believe in that. All right, you guys have been so generous with your time. I've got one more question for you. If someone were considering a career in the trades, what would you tell them?

Do it. Do it sooner rather than later. I mean, you can't mess up here. The job security for the trades is not going away anytime soon.

I mean, and you determine your destiny. I mean, because so much money is spent on education now in colleges, and then you get out and you're making less money than a plumber would make, an electrician would make, or someone else would make this. You get into a trade and then the more you learn, the more you earn. And it just. There's so many opportunities. I mean, everybody, it needs more plumbers, more electricians, more water treatment salesmen, more installers. I mean, there's so much opportunity and the market keeps growing that you need to jump in.

Population's increasing, more people are moving, more people are buying, more people are building.

And less people and less people know how to do anything. I mean, they didn't grow up on farms, they didn't grow up working on cars. They don't know how to fix anything. So the opportunity is even greater today than it was 20 years ago.

Yeah, and it's definitely getting a shinier industry too. I mean, the trades have had a bad rep and they've been, you know, Joe in a truck with his ratty tatty pants. But now it's the cool, competitive. You're making lots of money. You have the cool jerseys, you know what I'm saying? It's getting more of a sought after industry.

I love that. Well said. David and Lydia, thank you so much for joining us.

We love it.

Thank you.