Social Media & Video for the Trades w/ Josh Crouch | Podcast Ep. 50 | Toolbox for the Trades

Josh Crouch, welcome to the toolbox for the trades.

Thank you very much for having me.

I am super excited to chat with you again. This is not the first conversation we've had, but you are the director of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at Professional Services in Port Washington, Wisconsin. And you are also the founder of Relentless Digital. So from what I know of you, you are just a really great implementer, super smart guy who's working in the industry and I cannot wait to pick your brain. But before we even go into that, I'm gonna kick off this podcast the same way I do all of them. How did you get into the trades?

I stumbled into the trades. I was in a previous life, thought accounting and numbers were my thing. Cause I've always liked statistics. I applied for an accounting role with an H Vac company. I knew nothing about H Vac. I'm not a handy guy at all. My wife will tell you that. She tells everybody that. So I got hired and about three months into my tenure there, quickly started taking over operations and kind of fell in love with the industry, the operations side and running a company. So it was just one of those things you stumble into and you kind of take the opportunity as it comes and just roll with it.

Yeah, I mean, and honestly, that's, that's, you know, half of the folks I speak to on this podcast stumble into it like you did, and the other half were born in it, kind of were molded by it as Bane and Batman says. I don't know why that thought just came to me. I normally don't record this this late in my afternoon, so I'm coming up with pop culture references, but it sounds like came in from a very traditional background accounting and, and then fell in love with the business side of everything and all the opportunity that the service industry provides. Is that correct?

Yeah. Well, I mean, in the accounting world, it's very structured. The trades is anything but structured. It goes from super easy you're high fiving and loving life to this sucks. And it's like the worst day ever. But it's, you know, it's a good mix and it keeps things very interesting.

Yeah, definitely agree. It's not the same day twice. This is a little off the questions that I originally submitted, but right off the cuff. Can you tell me about a really good day you had and a really bad day you had?

Well, I could start with a bad day. Those are a little easier to remember. So that first year I got into the trades was 2013, and in Wisconsin, we had the coldest winter in 30 years. And I was with a business that had a lot of. A lot of we'll just say issues because we're not naming them. And payroll issues, tax issues. Just a whole. A whole mess of things. And we literally could not keep up. We had a customer list of over 30,000 from previous years and stuff like that. And we would have. The middle of the day, we'd shut the phones off. We have like 40 voicemails that we had to get back to. And then we'd shut them off again at the end of the day and we have another 40 voice. It was just a mess. And we had whiteboards and notes and we didn't. We had a DOS based computer program and it was. We did not have Service Titan. We did not have anything even remotely close to Service Titan. And nobody knows that. Nobody knew how to use the software. So I don't know if that was a bad day, but A bad winter.

Yeah. Yeah.

But honestly, I mean, good days have come because of the bad. You get the. Those rough days and it makes you appreciate the good. And the company I'm at now is a lot of good days. We have a great crew and we get a lot of really good feedback from our customers. They love the systems and the software and the processes that we have. And a lot of that comes back to working with good partners, you know, like, like Service Titan and some of the other partners we work with.

That's awesome. So happy to hear that about professional services. When you and I first spoke, which I believe was this past summer, you mentioned that you had a really great dynamic with the owner of the company. Who. His name is Mark Dahl. And you said that the two. The two of you just work together. Really? Could you talk to me a little bit about that dynamic, please? Yeah, I usually speak to owners. Yeah. And I would love to hear from your side.

Yeah, well, I'm part of the marketing side. I do all of our customer interaction and I almost kind of like a brand ambassador role of sorts. But I actually knew Mark from before working at Professional. I was his territory sales rep for one of his equipment lines. And actually so from my. The poor experience or the where I had the really bad winter, that company, we fixed all those problems. After a couple years, I moved into territory sales and met a lot of really good owners. A couple that wanted to grow moved into opening a new branch about an hour away from their primary location. That's where I got my first start with Service Titan. And things went really well there and then ended up Mark was Looking to grow. He had joined a coaching organization and looking to grow. And we always had really good conversations on the territory, sales side. So things just kind of fell into place. He was looking and I was looking at the time and it just was a really good match.

Nice. It sounds like you were interested in solving problems and really scaling a business. And Mark was also at that place in terms of his mindset to get to that area of growth. And so kind of those mutual goals formed together to really make a dynamic duo, so to speak.

Yeah. The company I opened a branch for had a different philosophy that was more volume based as far as H vac site goes. Volume based, lower price, lower quality. But I was looking, I've always been on the other side where I want a high value, high service, high quality. And Mark is a phenomenal contractor. Great workmanship. All of our guys have top notch workmanship. So it's really easy to promote a company when you know everything's really good. You can vouch for. They installed the system in my home, so I know it's really good. So things, it was pretty easy from that point just to kind of promote the company and put some things into place to kind of keep the engine rolling.

I really want to underline what you just said there, which is you were working for a company before that was focused on volume, whereas Mark was focused on quality and delivering tremendous customer service. Do you think that owners should who are looking to do similar things Mark is doing at Professional Services? Do you think they should really highlight what their mission is in order to attract unconventional folks like yourself to the trades? Not like that. You are unconventional, but it wasn't your original path.

I think they should, and I know we're going to get into some of this, but I think you should always be looking at different industries, not only from just hiring perspective, but a marketing perspective too. Because just because things have been done a certain way in our trades or plumbing, electrical, etc. Doesn't mean we can't bring something from a retail perspective or a restaurant or, you know, there's gray marketers everywhere. They might not just be in our trade. So there's always new things that we can try and implement.

That's great. I 100% agree with that. So let's back up a bit. I'm already jumping all over the place. Talk to me a little bit about Professional Services. The last time we spoke, they hit their first, your first $300,000 month, which was a huge milestone. How's the company doing today?

We've hit that milestone a couple more times. And actually awesome just did so in February, which is a short month obviously, so we get some big targets ahead of us this year. But things are looking really good. You know, Pandemic has probably helped our industry more than. More than most, which, you know, I guess right place, right time a little bit because some industries haven't done so well. But with that being said that there's a lot of opportunity. We actually just grabbed a guy who had about 10 years of experience in commercial appliance repair and he was looking to make a trade because. Or change in scenery because he was. He lost about 15, 20% of his annual salary. And really good guy. He's got sales experience, he has technical experience. So he's picking things up really fast. It's just. There's a lot of opportunity. It just might not be in the industry you're in now. You just kind of have to keep your eyes open for that.

There's a lot of. There's a lot of opportunity it made. It just may not be in your industry now. I feel like that's gonna maybe gonna be the title of this podcast, which is why I wanted to say it. You're welcome. And commercial appliance. Commercial appliance. I. I didn't even think of that. But yeah, if he was working on restaurant equipment, for example, 15 to 20%. Yeah, that makes sense why that went. That went south in the year. They're really like. It blew my mind how Pandemic resistant the trades are. I mean, we already knew it was essential. We already knew it was recession and more or less recession proof, especially on the residential side, but man oh man, like very fortunate.

Yeah, I think this year personified that to an extreme. Really.

Yeah, I agree. So I know that professional services offers more than just standard H vac and I really want to talk about how your team differentiates yourself because you offer some services that I truly have not seen before. And I talk to a lot of contractors regularly. So talk to me about your geothermal services, the energy generator services, and how you identified those niche services as a market need.

Well, geothermal is actually how Mark got his start in business. He was. He was working as a union contractor, mostly commercial stuff. And he started. He has a love for that, the technology with geothermal running, the underground pipes, you know, kind of the green energy, if you will. So that's how he got his start. And it was. He kind of went backwards. A lot of companies will go into the forced air side, which is more common everywhere. But he Went geothermal only and he specialized in it and he got really good at it. He's on the Wisconsin board of directors for that and very well known for that. And then things started to go the other way when trying to. He started having an employee or two and not just doing the work himself and he needed to keep them busy. So they started picking up this job and that job and it just kind of, you know things start rolling from there and. But so that was, that was something he already had in place. So he needed to grow the forced air I guess the traditional H Vac side of things. And then. Yeah, so a little bit backwards that way but. And then about a year and a half ago or I think think so we got became a Generac emergency generator dealer. Kind of fits with our avatar if you will. It's, you know, people that are gonna buy generators aren't. They're the customers that are gonna spend money on their home and they're gonna make home improvements because they care about their home and they want to make sure that power goes out, their family's safe and their sump pump comes on. We have a lot of. Especially with the older town near the Lake Michigan we have a lot of homes that have get water damage and stuff in the basement if the sump pump dies or the power goes out. So it's very important for them to have that as a backup. So it's a nice add on service for us. On the flip side it's actually turned where doing generator service work and maintenance work has turned into very nice lucrative jobs on the other side for the H Vac side. So it gives and takes. But it's been a nice ad for us. And because we can already run gas pipe setting generators really isn't. Isn't the most difficult thing in the world for us to do. We just need some equipment to haul it and some strong guys and a good electrician.

Love it. You said something there that's going to make me bounce to the marketing side because you mentioned our avatars. Talk to me about what your avatar is and not the last Airbender. Another pop culture reference I will credit to recording this later in the day than I normally do. What's your marketing avatar?

Well, our avatar is so our market, the county we work in is a higher end homeowner if you will. Usually married, it's got a couple kids or a little older kids. They're on Facebook. So we do well in that market and they want someone that they can trust to come in their house even if they have to. We're not the cheapest. We run across that. We're not the cheapest by quite a bit. But they appreciate everything we do because the communication we have with our customers is so detailed that nobody can really match what we offer. So the price almost becomes irrelevant at that point. And then our technicians, everything's so well branded that they. Everybody knows where we are, who we are. So we get a lot of local press and referrals that way too, just by doing good work. And we always try to give back to our local community anyone that we got like a. I don't know the official title, but we call our Smile program. So if someone's lost a loved one recently or they've had a bad experience or they've had something, guys have credit cards, they can go pick up flowers, they can go pick up something at the local store just to make them try to brighten their day a little bit, make them smile, which we've had, obviously, with the last year, you've had a little bit more of that stuff with some of the health issues. So we try to do what we can to make people happy. And when they think of our brand, to smile instead of be like, oh, crap, I gotta hire the H vac guy. I don't want him. I don't want him at my house. So.

Interesting. I've heard this. I thought. I have to say, I was preparing. When you said the Smile program, I was preparing for you to say how we donate equipment and for families in need, which is, I think, a very common tactic. But you actually give your guys credit cards or credit where they can purchase little things to make a customer who's having a rough time smile. That's actually a really nice, classy touch.

Yeah, it's a little different. I mean, we. We've done similar things with the equipment and stuff like that too. But, you know, sometimes it's. It's like everything, even in markets, the small things that really make a difference, where you can think about a brand in a positive light versus, well, they're just. They always just want my money. So, you know, it's. It's really nice. And it makes everyone feel good too. It makes the text feel good, makes the office feel good. Because the office usually is the one identifying those opportunities. On the phone, when somebody says, hey, you know this, and my husband used to take care of this. He died six months ago. And, you know, this, that, and the other thing, we identify the opportunities, get it in the notes, and the techs have the leeway to, you know, just whatever, whatever they deem necessary after talking to the customer.

I love that. That's really, really cool. So you recently started Relentless Digital, which tells me that you are definitely passionate about the marketing side of things. And I really want to ask you, what do you think, given your experience now you've been in the trade since 2013. What are some critical marketing tactics that you think contractors should use to grow their business and provide excellent customer service in addition to the Smile program we just talked about?

Yeah, I have a little different mindset maybe than most marketers. At least I feel I do just based on some of the groups and things we're a part of. And I correlate this to cable companies because everyone has usually a negative opinion about cable companies. Cable companies are really. Well, cable companies are really great at giving the best deals to the new customer instead of taking care of their existing customers and keeping in touch with their existing customers. Only time you heard from your cable company after a two year deal is when your costs were going up. And it was usually a letter. It was just your next bill was $40 higher and you had no idea why. So I'm a big proponent of any customer that comes in and books a service call with us. We stay in front of them and we market to them in multiple ways. Email, direct mail, sometimes it's just a phone call. But I think a lot of businesses are looking for that next golden ticket of a customer. Instead of realizing that they have a pot of gold already inside their customer database, they just need to nurture it and figure out how to dive deeper into it, if you will, and maybe offer additional services or things that their customers probably want they don't even know they have. So that's from my marketing perspective, and I think that's what's allowed me to resonate with some people, is because pay per click is expensive, local. I mean, some of these things are really expensive for some of these contractors and the costs aren't getting any cheaper. So you have to find different ways to keep that marketing expense down. And retargeting and nurturing your existing customer base I think is super important.

I agree. And I mean, that's definitely something that we say at Servicetitan. If anyone has heard about our marketing pro pitches, direct mail, email. But we're a big proponent of that. And I would love to hear your professional opinion as a marketer. How do you generate ideas for nurture campaigns?

Can be trial and error. But I mean, honestly, I'm. I keep my ear to the ground. And I'm sure that if anyone knows me that watches this or listens to this, knows I'm, I'm very active in a lot of groups because I'm always asking questions and I, I want to make sure that if there's something that's working for somebody, let's test it, let's try it, let's see if it works. Let's, you know, let's look. Because you don't know if you don't try it. So I think that's super important to not, to not be in a point where, well, I know everything, this is the way it is and this is the way it's gonna be. It's. It's constantly trying new tactics because everything's changing. Google changes. And I make videos about Google changes. I literally, it's like almost weekly sometimes. But yeah, it's important just to keep your ear to the ground.

Yeah, I definitely agree. Now, you've mentioned groups, like social groups. You mentioned Facebook a big time a couple times. Are you really big on Facebook right now for attracting your customers but then also networking with fellow contractors?

I am because I know there's a lot, there's new social medias popping up and you know, Clubhouse seems to be a big one right now. But I think Facebook, a lot of contractors are on Facebook because of groups like the service Titan Mastermind group and things like that and some of the other service related groups that are out there that are very popular and the people that run those groups are so, they're so damn smart. Like they, they got companies that they, they have figured out efficiencies and ways to scale that contractors of 10 years ago could probably only dream of. I mean, these guys are scaling at such a rate that it's fun to see the stories and just pick their brains when they allow us to.

Yeah, I agree. On the clubhouse front. This episode will come out in a couple weeks, so I don't mind sharing this opinion. I've been trying to figure out what it is and it just seems like an area for like, hey, do you ever want to listen in on a podcast in real time and have it not edited and not be able to engage in any way? I don't know if you've had a chance to share, to explore Clubhouse yet, but I'm like, I don't see this going anywhere.

Well, I, I don't have an Apple device, so I haven't gotten. I, I have people that probably could have gave me invites, but I don't have. I don't have an Apple device so. But I, I have a client who is love Clubhouse and the Access, the Grant Cardone's and Elon Musk and all this stuff and I, you know, I guess I can see it almost connects. You get to see those people in real time, see him speak versus them in a video or them in a podcast that's recorded and sent out a month later or whatever. But I don't know, I can see where there's some allure to it. But unless just like anything else, if they can't figure out a way to monetize it, it's not going to go anywhere. I mean it's just we live in, you know, if Google couldn't monetize search, where would they be?

I know it's really interesting. I'll be curious to get your thoughts if and when Clubhouse goes on Android. I don't like it but I may be eating my words in a couple months so we'll see. I would love to hear you share maybe some specifics on particular campaigns that you've ran in the past that have been really successful for professional services or maybe with one of your other clients that you wouldn't mind sharing.

Well, I've been trying to get my clients to do more video which is. Can be daunting to get them to do that, just not so much that they don't want to. It's a time thing and then as you know, I mean you're on camera a lot with the different things you do it you get, you can get used to it but if you're not used to it, it's a, a very nervous experience because you're always worried oh how's someone gonna see me? Am I saying the right things? Do I sound intelligent? But the clients that do videos and they can do them regular, that stuff really does well. And I do the same thing in my marketing agency. I make videos and then I put them on YouTube or Facebook and then I send the link out to people I talk to or prospects and it's that lead nurturing, right? Giving back value. I recently just talked to and I don't even know. I don't think he's on service titan so I won't drop his name or anything but a guy down in California who has a tremendous. He's got like 25,000 subscribers. He's a contractor but he makes.

Holy cow.

He makes. Yeah and he's. His videos get thousands of views and he's got an entire blogs for customers where he kind of. It really Allows customers to get to know him. And he's got some different, he's a very, he's a very frank person, very honest. So you know, there's a lot of marketing things out there. Well, your System only lasts 10 or 12 years and he literally tells you no they don't, they last like 18 to 20 and some of this other stuff. And. But he, he sends those blogs out to his customers and he sends them out I think once a week. And his, I looked at some of the back end stuff for his website. The number of keywords and stuff he ranks for organically is unbelievable. Like 5,000 plus keywords. And he's just killing it by making videos. But I, you know, I guess it's more of a, more of a direct story of campaigns is, is more, it's, it's all lead nurturing stuff. It's setting up a multiple email campaign where somebody, somebody does or we, somebody hires us for like, like a maintenance service and we, the content after that directs. You have to keep that customer in mind. A maintenance customer is different than a demand service customer because a maintenance customer is going to take care of their stuff proactively. So you have to kind of tweak your content so that way they get content that helps them proactively with maybe something else in their life or something else in their home. Whereas a service or a demand service customer, you want to turn them, try to educate them to be a maintenance customer. Because if we had maintenance 12 months a year in any of these trades, we'd all be very happy. We all love our life. It's very easy to schedule. But demand service, you know, it's a lot harder to. And it's a lot harder to sell stuff on demand service too. Nobody wants a UV light or a water treatment or anything like that. When their plumbing's broken, that's the last thing.

Exactly.

So it's content like that to try to keep it funneled. Night Marketing Pro has really kind of opened up the floodgates for that because you can really get granular on your audience where you're literally just sending out to a few people content that is specifically directed at them. And I think the last time I checked, almost all of the email campaigns I have for professional services are 50, 60 plus percent open rate, which as you know as a marketer is very high.

So that is envy. That is an enviable open rate. I want to get back to video real quick because I feel like people have been hemming and hawing the video or rather beaten the video drum for years now, ever since YouTube became a thing, and there's still people that are resistant to it. And I get it. It's tough. First time you see yourself on camera, you're like, oh, my God, I look like that. I speak like that. Like, I get it. Would you actually mind dropping the name of that person you were talking about earlier? Because it's fine if they're not on service titan. I just think our audience would be interested in checking out their videos.

Yeah, it's Greg Fox, Fox Family Heating and Air in California.

Very cool.

Really interesting. Really done well for himself.

That's awesome. We actually had Roger Wakefield on season three of the podcast, and he's.

I've seen him.

Yeah, his YouTube page is insane. And he's like, I get millions of impressions. And it's so funny because his shop is. I want to say it's not the biggest shop, but he says sometimes he'll actually go do the job himself, and people will open the door and be like, wait, you're the guy who's going to do my plumbing? And he's like, yeah, it's me. Who'd you think it was going to be? You called my company. So it's super funny. And I think it's also just. If you build that video base, if you create content, you build trust with a customer, they're always going to think of you. Like, having a voice, having a face like, that's so much power. That's just as powerful, if not more powerful than a really good brand. I think it's part of the brand.

Well, I just talked to someone this morning. They're on a different software, and they're using a different proposal software. But we talk strategy on the three emails that he's going to send out after an estimate campaign. And I said, honestly, I said, you need to work on client testimonial videos. Not reviews. Not. Not Google reviews or Facebook reviews, but testimonial videos. I think that's. Honestly, I think that's. It's funny because some companies did this stuff years ago, and then they just let it go and nobody's really doing it. But the client testimonial video is going to be. I think that's going to be the next big wave for service companies, because Google reviews are getting to the point where, you know, if you're comp. If you and your competition, especially these big markets, all have 400, 500, 5,000 reviews, like some of these guys have, what's the difference between a company of 5,000 and 4,000, I mean, if you got the same star rating, all the reviews are raving, what's the difference? You know, and that's really where I think at some point that's going to be more of a commodity than anything because everyone's going to have tons of reviews. And if they're all 4.8, 4.9, you got a video, is either video of you, video of your clients in a way, to capture that regularly with some kind of a process is going to be important.

Yeah, I agree. And that actually brings me to my next question, which is like, where else do you think the future of marketing for service businesses is headed?

I know everyone, you know, and they probably get on this and you hear this a lot. Video is really where it's going. And that's so true. I'm a huge believer in it. And I've seen my marketing business grow because of it. I've. I've seen our. And now professional services. We don't, we haven't done as great of a job lately on it, but we did have a tech tip series which was starting to get off the ground and people loved it. With a couple videos, get a couple thousand views locally and you know, you start getting, you got to be regular with it. And that's probably the hardest thing. And I think what owners don't realize is it does not have to be them doing the videos. If they have, let's say they have a technician that maybe has a little bit of a personality and he's kind of funny and whatnot, have them make the videos. Especially if you trust them. Obviously it has to go through you, what the message is. But you know, they, if you trust them, they can make good content. And that's our, our service manager was actually one doing the videos, not Mark. And he's, he's got a good personality on him. And there were some, they're pretty funny. And I kind of made some spoof videos on it. And you know, that stuff goes a long way. But owners don't have to do that. You don't have to spend time in your day doing it. You just have to have somebody do it. Or marketing, you can have the marketing guy do it. I took videos of our Dyke the Daikin system in my house and kind of of the install what we did, what we didn't do, why we didn't do this and why we did that, did it this way, you know, so you just gotta have somebody that is capable of doing that. And I think there's a lot of People with the changing of industries and looking at different opportunities that can bring some of that skill, you know, and the generation coming up, they grew up with these, so they know how to use. My 12 year old knows how to edit videos better than I do. I've actually seriously considered hiring him, like to do editing, just add stuff to my videos to make it more entertaining because he's good at it.

I mean, not to give you unsolicited parenting advice, Josh, because I am not a parent, I have no business giving you this. But editing video is a skill. I mean, like, get them, get them set up with Final Cut or with Premiere. Oh my gosh. Now he's got. Now he's got a skill he can use anywhere. That's awesome. I think you should do it. Talk to me about the mindset you think that owners need to have in order to stay competitive as it comes to marketing and be prepared to adopt new technology and new strategies. Because like you said, marketing is constantly pivoting. What differentiates you with your 4,000 five star reviews from your two competitors that have 3,000 five star reviews?

Yeah. And when I was coming up with a name for my marketing company, it took me a little while and I realized that my personality is the type to get up early, get a head start on everybody, and just like, if I need answers, I don't stop until I will literally keep asking people until I get the answer that I need or want. And I think that's how, at least in my opinion, based on my personality type, which I kind of feel like I have that entrepreneurial mindset where you just got to keep. You have to be relentless. You can't. Somebody doesn't give you the answer you want or an answer that you think helps you, you have to keep going to find it. Whether that's a software, whether that's a marketing company, a vendor, a supplier, you know, if they're not taking care of you and helping in working with your business to make things easier, you have to find a better one. It's just the way the world works. There's so many people out there willing to earn that business. I think a lot of times the stress of the trades business gets people down and then they kind of lose their track. But I also think there's a lot of really good. And it doesn't even have to be a paid coaching organization, even though there's some really, really good ones out there. But even these get in touch with these online groups and stay connected with people. Some of these groups are so Positive. And people just, they love helping people. The Masterminds group is a perfect example. That group is phenomenal. I mean, people just love helping one another. Anytime I've ever had a question on service type, people just like jumping in like crazy and they'll bend over backwards to help you, even though they don't owe you anything. So there's always help out there. You just have to go find it.

Yeah, I agree. Oh, and I'm so happy to hear you talk kindly about Masterminds. I love our Masterminds group. For anyone who's not a customer, it's.

One of the best on Facebook for sure.

For anyone who doesn't know service titan, Masterminds is a group where our users or customers come together and they troubleshoot a lot of workflows for one another. Not like there are a ton of. I mean, you know, it's software, but someone will go in and say, hey, I'm brand new. I'm trying to get this workflow going. And before even one of our reps can flag it and have our support team contact that customer, there's like 10 customers from across the country helping this person and their issue was resolved. So I really like that. And that's one of the reasons I love my job, is because I feel like I really connect with our customer base. So I'm happy to hear you say that. And also, congratulations on starting Relentless. When did you start it?

During like, the first month of the pandemic. It wasn't. I didn't. I had like two people, two people that I know reach out to me for help with marketing. I didn't have this grand plan, like I was going to go rule the world of marketing and do all these things. Things are going well for us at Professional, and I feel like I'd gotten pretty good at the local search aspect of things. So that's where things started, especially with Google Maps. Because Google Maps, I think, has taken a big, A big step forward in the last two years as far as, I mean, my wife, literally, we were going to Arizona in a month. And probably when this episode comes out and every restaurant or every place we go, the restaurants near me comes out and she's looking at the reviews and looking at the menu, and she never leaves Google. And I know there's a lot of people that search just like her. And, you know, that's. That's where I think a lot of companies, I think smaller companies can shine there because they don't have to compete on, are they throwing $10,000 a month at pay per click or are they spending a ton of money on lsa? They can compete there, at least for now. Hopefully that stays. But for now they can compete there. So that's where things got started. And then results. Once you figure out that you can duplicate results for a couple other companies, you start trying to promote it a little bit and then you get a couple more and then you start once. Now I start getting referrals and it's getting that point where it's gonna start being probably a full time thing soon. But yeah, it's been a fun ride. It was unexpected. I didn't plan on a year later being here, but it's been really good.

Some people decided to master their sourdough. You decided to start a business at the beginning of the pandemic.

Yeah.

Just like, huh, all right, I guess now's the time. I really commend you for that.

We're home. We don't have any. And that's again why the name was born. Because I'm like, well, what am I going to do? I might as well do something productive and try to, you know. So I still get up early and I just work on this before work and then I work on it after work and on the weekends. So.

Love it, love it. Okay, so we spoke about marketing a bit. You also have sales in your title. And I'm not sure if you know this, but marketing and sales sometimes have a little bit of tension between the two. So I would love to hear your perspective on that. You just said it can. So how do you meld those two? Not concepts, but divisions together in your mind in order for both to be productive. And you can also just generally speak about how you think the two should work.

Well, I think it has to be a. It's a give and take relationship because sometimes sales needs help from marketing to get the word out about something and vice versa. I think a good, it's like any good relationship, you have to, you have to have meetings, you have to talk, you have to see what, what are you running into. How can we help you? The same thing on the other end. Like if I need something, what, what are, what's more interesting to customers? I mean, we did a. In partly because of the pandemic, we did a promotion where people went with a higher end H vac system. We threw in either a UV light or electrostatic air cleaner because it's, you know. But we have to know our customers really that interested in that stuff. If they are, well, let's make it so let's give them that. And then we're going to give you a tool so you can sell a higher end system and make more commission. But it has to be a communication effort to make sure that all parties kind of work together. Because if they're constantly fighting, a lot of times you're not going to get the, you're not going to get great results. You're going to have one that's not happy with the other. And luckily for us, we're a small company and I get to deal with both. So. Which might help a little bit. You don't have two different personalities going like this all the time.

I'll give my third pop culture reference of this episode because Rule of three is like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, just having conversations with himself. Don't know if you have a Lord of the Rings sci fi fan. I obviously am. Anyway, the last time we spoke you mentioned that you were hiring green techs, which I know is a strategy that a lot of folks are implementing across the industry. And you said at the beginning of this episode, the right people for your business may not be in the industry yet. So I'm really curious to hear how hiring those green techs has been working out for you guys.

So it honestly now if I wish I would have known this years ago because I always look for the first company I was at. We were. I was always looking for people with experience and I had a lot of personality problems. I don't mean if there's technicians listening. This doesn't mean you all have personality problems, just the ones I hired. But we have completely gone from hiring with hiring for experience to hiring more for attitude and for workability and that sort of thing and great people. And during this last two week stretch here in early February, we had just like most of the country, we had some really cold weather. Now that doesn't affect us in Wisconsin as much as it affects other people, but it's still when it's below zero, it's very cold. But just on the weekends. I mean literally we had our, even though we only have one on call tech, we, the entire team was out and, and we have a app that we use called Boxer. It's like the old walkie talkie type apps where you can be in groups. But like we have a service channel and an install channel and warehouse and the service, I mean it was like a thing of beauty listening to it on the weekend because hey, I'm going this way, do you need anything? And they're just this great teamwork and we ended up going from having no calls scheduled on a. It was a Sunday actually to 16 calls against small company and two install crews came in and it was just nobody, nobody had a problem, nobody, Nobody complained. You know, there was no. But it's because we've hired people that are. They're great people, not necessarily just great technicians. Because I think you can. This day and age, with digital technology and video, I think you can train people a lot easier than you used to be able to. And some of that digital technology like interplay learning has been a great tool for us. We have our guys, they get assigned a series of videos for the week and then the following Friday we talk about it and we will actually take a furnace and we'll go through that section. And it's actually bred a consistent training, consistent technical training for our team. I mean, in the last year we've hired a college theater director, a guy. I can't remember what Chris. What Chris was doing. He wasn't in the trade though. The guy at the commercial appliance repair tech. Trying to think. We did. We. We did have an acquisition. So we did hire one guy that was in the trades and he's been a great addition to. But we've hired some guys that's just totally out of the industry and they've been great fits and great assets and they've. Honestly. One of our best selling techs is the college theater director. He's great at indoor air quality. He's phenomenal. Like, he has better tickets than everybody because people love him, his personality, they just love the guy. His reviews are off the charts, you know, and he's struggled at times, but we have tactical support on the back end to help him. But if you set up systems early, even as a small company, set up the systems, train. Take the time to train somebody, especially if they want to get into the trade, because you go through. Indeed. And I get tons of applicants and a lot of times they say, yeah, I've had trouble getting into the trades. I wanted to get into it for years. Well, we're always looking for people, regardless of skill level, to come in and learn. You know, adding a service like duct cleaning is a great way to bring people into the trades because it's not. It's probably a little more physically demanding, especially if you have like the rotobrush system. But it allows them to get used to the system, get used to airflow, get used to the components inside a furnace, and also start just being around the industry a little bit. So I Think that's been a big asset for us. That's usually where we start, guys, is maintenance and duct cleaning, and then kind of graduate them up from that point.

I love that. And thank you for going into such a detail there. I am absolutely enthralled by the fact that you have a college theater director. So selling IAQ so successfully, I didn't think about it. But having a theater nerd, and they refer to themselves as theater nerds, selling your equipment like, theater people are delightful and they're performative, and there's a performance aspect to sales, whether folks want to admit it or not. And anyone who can do any type of theater, I can imagine them being very successful in this industry.

Well, and he does a mean British accent, too. We actually hired a guy, like, nine months ago. That guy's no longer with us, but for the entire first week he was there, we had this guy do the British accent all week, and he literally thought that's how he talked. And we're in. I mean, we're in Wisconsin. Like, nobody talks like that around here. So we have. But he's been fun to be around. He's the guy that kind of. He keeps the mood light and light level because he's. He's just. He's always a joy to talk to.

That's amazing. Oh, man, my AirPod just fell out. Don't buy the new AirPod and Max's. That's my hint to you. And I'm going to tell my editors to cut this out every time I smile. Like, they get loose. So weird. Anyways, theater director, I absolutely, absolutely love that. And you talked about the Interplay learning System. Is that a particular brand of training from a specific. Like, what does that look like? I've never heard of it before.

Yeah, it's an online training for the trades, and they actually have a full suite of programs for plumbers, electricians. They even got. They have geothermal stuff in there. H Vac, they have appliance repair. They might have a couple other things, but. So it's like a virtual reality setup. So what happens is they have online videos that you can watch anytime. And when you get ready to test out of those, you do have to buy a special gaming laptop or something like that. So that's probably the most expensive thing with the Oculus goggles, but you actually put those on and can fix a furnace. They'll give you fault codes and take you through, and you get to, you know, you have, like, tools on your. On your wrist and stuff like that. It's almost like being in a live situation. And it allows you to diagnose systems and just use your brain to work through those scenarios. So. And the nice thing for us is it's structured in a way that I. That I created a curriculum where we could just take, okay, hey, here's week one, then we go talk about it. Week two, and we just kind of gradually builds on itself, and then you can split it between heating and cooling seasons or however you want to, you know, depending on your market. You may not split it that way, but it's allowed us to foster a culture of every week we're doing training on something, and then the service manager's taking that further, and now he looks for YouTube videos on specific problems that might not be covered as in depth. Hey, guys, this is your homework assignment. And then what we do is we have those guys teach it back to the group. So they draw schwas and they teach it back. So that way, if there's someone in class that doesn't always pay attention, we're going to find out.

Nice. Nice. I absolutely love the learning opportunities that come with AI. And actually, at our user conference, I want to say, three years ago, we demoed an AI system that was exactly what you just said it was. Putting on a virtual headset and then like, remotely diagnostic diag. Remotely diagnosing something. There we go. I think that's it. That sounds right. And everyone was like, oh, so I'm so happy to hear that that's happening for you guys now at a, you know, still a pretty small company. And like you said, you just need an Oculus and a gaming computer. Like, that's awesome. Yeah.

And the series is. I mean, it's. I think each seat's like four or five hundred bucks for the year. But, I mean, you think of it, if you send someone down to a technical academy, you're going to spend a couple grand just in the week. And this is another option. And this could be something that's built on that, because we've looked into, like, the ultimate tech academy and some of these other places that have tech school. But it's just a way to. Especially with the last year when everything. You don't know if it's open or closed. This is a way that we can continue to train, learn, and keep our guys fresh and. And take our guys that don't know a lot and kind of raise their skill level.

Well, I think it also not only keeps them fresh, and it also keeps them engaged. And I mean, again, I would imagine that in the kind of curriculum you've set up, perhaps there's an opportunity to go in person to a technical school once you've hit X amount of levels. So I could see a world where you build out some sort of program and they're just constantly reaching for that next milestone to unlock that next achievement for either a raise, promotion, et cetera.

Yeah, well, and I think, and I, and I, I don't know, I know of Ken Goodrich and I know just what everyone that listens. I saw him in one of those group posts somewhere, say if he had to start all over again, that's one of the first things he would do was build a training program like a world class training center. Because again, it's a scalability thing. If you can take anyone off the street, teach them the trade and the customer service side of things, you can literally do just about anything you want to do. In our trade, it's a people trade. It's not like McDonald's where they figured out how to make hammers faster, that sort of thing. So you have to be able to take people and put them into a system that works and generates technicians. Because we need, we're always going to need technicians. In this last year kind of proved that.

Yeah. And there's a lot more nuance. Yeah. I mean like McDonald's franchise success, sure. But there's a lot of nuance that goes into being a technician versus, you know, developing a franchise like McDonald's. Right. Being a technician is hard. Soft skills, selling skills, all of that stuff is. And then the technical skills. It's a lot of work.

They deservedly should get paid a lot of money for what they do.

Yeah. I actually spoke to two people this season alone. Mary Jean Anderson from Anderson Plumbing and Eric Knack from Isaac Heating and Cooling in upstate New York, San Diego. Upstate New York. And they both just started their own technical training and that's their solution. They're like, we built our own institute and we're just, we're pushing people through there and I think that's a really, if you have those resources, that's a wonderful thing to do. But I think what you're doing is like the scaled down version. And if you don't have, you know, tens of thousands of dollars at a whim to just kickstart a program from scratch.

Right? Yeah. And I think it's a building block and I think this is, I see this more and more, especially with the ability of technology to do these things. I think it's, I think this is kind of the wave of the present and future. As far as if you really want to grow a company and scale it, you have to have something in place. And these options like this will really allow us to do it at scale, even if we don't have a huge budget for it.

I agree. So I had another question for you, but I honestly, I don't know if you have this problem given that you are getting green tech. So what I've heard historically is sometimes you'll get. You'll get a technician, a seasoned technician who's been in the trades for a while. And some of them are really great at selling, others are really great at fixing. And some will have that attitude of, well, I'm not a salesperson, I'm a technician. And I wanted to ask you, what do you say to techs who say that? But I'm curious if, given your current recruiting model, if you even really encounter that.

Not at this company, no. We actually have guys that, again, once they get to a certain point in their training, they will become or have the ability to sell on the job. Right now they, they turn a lead over. Except for our service manager. But because. Because the people we hired were. Have great personalities and they like people, they like to talk to people they are itching to sell. Like, they, they want it. And you know that they want it because they, they tell me after they turn the lead over, hey, I started talking to the customer about this, this, and this. They're kind of pushing that envelope to get to that point. But we want to make sure. It's always important to make sure that they can fix everything first before they can sell a new one. Because you don't want to create. That's how some of these big companies get in trouble, where they just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And they forget that it's the customer's money, the customer's decision, what they want to do. It's not our job to push them into anything. It's our job to present options and let them decide what they want to do. But no, I. We really haven't had that problem here, I think. I mean, in any company you are in, everybody's a salesperson. Even from the person answering the phone, they might, well, I'm just the receptionist. Well, you're not. You set the tone for the rest of their journey through our company. If you answer the phone, you know, Bob's Plumbing, and that's it. I mean, you set the tone. The customer's like, okay, this is really the company I want to do business with, you know, so everybody's in sales whether they think they are or not.

Yep. And I'm. I love that you gave me that answer, by the way, which is that you don't really have that problem anymore. Not to poo poo on folks on seasoned technicians, because seasoned technicians are phenomenal. They're great. But what I hear over and over again is that sometimes you have to unteach bad habits. It's easier to teach new habits than to make someone unlearn bad habits.

Well, and that gets back to having a system in place to bring new people up. Because the biggest problem I see is these small companies is they have somebody who is. Sells most of their equipment but is a major pain. Can I say ass? I can say ass on the podcast.

You can say ass.

They're major pain in the ass. And they. If they got rid of them, they probably solve a lot of their own problems. Yeah, the sales might dip a little bit, but again, if you're constantly bringing people up, you don't get held hostage by one person. I've seen it happen. The company, the first company I was at, I literally, there was times I had to, like, talk my two best guys off the ledge because I knew we had nothing else coming out after that. If they weren't here, our sales were going to dip dramatically, and I had nobody to replace them. So I'd be on the phone with them for an hour, two hours, just letting them tell me about all their problems and everything. I was like their counselor. But it was a bad position to be in. Now we're in a position where, hey, we can take our service manager, who is great at sales, out of the field to actually manage the group. And our numbers are still going up. And I think that's a. I think any small business should. Should want to be in that position where they don't have to rely on just one person or just themselves. These owners, sometimes they have health issues and they're the. They're the selling tech of the company. If they don't have anyone else and they get injured and can't do their job, you know, what is it? You have to build that next. That next group coming up, because you have to protect yourself and your business.

100% agree. And I'll also add to that, and this is a theme that's come up before. You know, that one selling tech who's generating 80% of your revenue. They can really be a bad apple. That's not. That's bringing down everyone. And sometimes when you get rid of those bad apples. Yeah, you could take a hit for the short term, but in the long term, it's really going to improve your culture and make your business a good place to work, which is the goal. Yeah, yeah.

It makes it fun. People want to come to work. I mean, we don't. You know, I know there's been businesses that have had trouble getting employees to show up, you know, because the government's been giving them so much money. But again, because everybody likes each other at our company and we're hiring good people, good quality people, we, we have no attendance problems. We don't have. If someone calls in sick, we know they're sick because we don't have a recurring issue with anybody. And again, it just makes it a great place. Like, everybody knows when you come to work, everybody's gonna work and do their part and play, play their role in the team, if you will. Where I know that. I know a lot of people struggle with that. And, and that's why, I mean, when you guys, when these, if you listen to contractors, you go out to like a restaurant and you have a great experience with a waiter or waitress, ask them if they're looking for a job. Just be open to it. Be open to putting yourself out there because you don't know who you're going to find. Or if you have a service person from a different industry come to your house. You know, if they're really good, ask them what they're doing and what their plans are. I think you can, I think you can just open yourself up to some possibilities, to really, to grow your business and to take some pressure off of you.

I agree. Agree 100%. I'm actually, we're almost, we're almost about to hit an hour, but I want to turn the Ken Goodrich example that you gave a few minutes ago to, to you. Now that you've been in the industry for coming up on a decade, what would you have done differently in your past that you. With the knowledge that you have now?

Well, one, what we've just been talking about with the training, I would have something in place. I don't think anything can replace that. And I would have service titan.

Well, thank you.

Because I've had the DOS space, like literally having to type on a keyboard system. And it was literally. We had to create spreadsheet. I had a monster of like 30 or 40 spreadsheets and hand entering invoice. It was. I would never want to go back to that. And just the customer service experience that allows people to have. I mean, it really allows customers to feel good about your company. It allows them to leave reviews, which helps your marketing department. I mean, literally, this stuff kind of all works together in an ecosystem. If you have well trained employees, the marketing helps, takes care of itself because the employees are also your marketing department, you know. So I guess that's probably where I would start. Good quality software to manage your operations and have a good training program in place.

Yeah, I definitely, definitely agree. All right, we're coming to the close on the podcast, but before I go to my rapid fire questions, which I did not give you earlier. That's okay. They're. They're not too. They're not too bad. I would love to know if you have any podcasts or book recommendations out there for our listeners.

So I'm. I'm more of a. I'm more of a YouTube person. Got it. So, I mean, there's some great podcasts out there, but for me, I'm more of a. Because I'm in the marketing side of things. I'm more of like a Neil Patel fan because he's got such great ideas for repurposing content, which I try to relate to contractors because I think one video or one podcast, I mean, you can cut this thing up how many different ways and talk about employee retention and all these different things in one podcast. So if you create one piece of video, I think that really goes a long way. So he's my favorite as far as YouTube goes, because his content, it doesn't take him 30 minutes to tell you a five minute story. It takes him five minutes and he just goes right to the point and gets it done and then you move on. So. But other than that, I'm not much of a reader either. I am trying to get through now because I have my own business. Profit first with Michaelowitz. The original. Not the one, not the other spin offs, but the original. Because I love the concept. I actually met him at an event about a year before COVID and he's such a great speaker. He's so entertaining. But I love the concept of profit first because I would have never thought that way without somebody like throwing it right in your face. Like, hey, take the profit every month out of your business, put it aside and keep it there. I mean, it's simple, but it's. I've been on the contract side where you're literally paying, robbing Peter to pay Paul and using your suppliers as banks. So those are my two favorites, I would say.

Nice. Like it. And I like that you use YouTube. A lot of people are big YouTubers. There's some phenomenal content on there, so I'm happy for the suggestion. All right, you ready for some rapid fire questions?

Shoot.

How do you take your coffee?

I don't. I drink Advocare Spark.

What is that?

Advocare Spark. It's got, like vitamins and amino acids and stuff, but I just shake it up with water and drink that in the morning.

Noted. All right, cool. If you could have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be?

Oh, boy. Probably Michael Jordan.

Ah, yeah. Michael Jordan. Very good businessman. What's the number one thing you're trying to learn more about right now?

Sometimes I feel like I spread myself too thin with things and try to learn too much. Honestly, probably just better client communication from the marketing perspective, because it's a totally different ball game than dealing with homeowners and dealing with business owners. So finding project management tools that will allow me to do that.

Yeah, I get that. Totally. If money weren't an object so you had unlimited resources, what's the first thing you would do?

Move somewhere warm.

I love the honesty. What's the number one thing every contractor must do to run a successful business?

Take care of your people.

Yep. That's. That's. That's common answer. And that's it. Josh, thank you so much for being a guest on Toolbox for the trades. I really enjoyed speaking with you today.

Yeah, thanks for having me on. This was fun. Thanks, Jackie.