$856K Res. Electrical Work Sold & Installed: David Diehl of Tingley Home Services in Milford, MA, Shares His Service Call Process
9 Jun 2023 · 65 min
David Diehl, a licensed electrician at Tingley Home Services in Milford, MA, walks through his service-call process from pre-call research to presenting tiered options. The company hit $856,000 in sold-and-installed revenue in 2022 and now runs 20 technicians across electrical and HVAC divisions. Diehl credits commission structure, friendly competition, and a no-weekend-work culture for keeping him motivated.
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Welcome to Successful Contractor powered by CertainPath, a show for residential contractors about residential contractors. We chronicle business journeys, share insights, and celebrate successes in this wonderful industry. I'm your host, Bob Houchin. For more information on how CertainPath can put your contracting company on a certain path to success, visit our website, www.mycertainpath.com. I hope you enjoy today's show and take away a nugget or two. David, thanks so much for being on the show today. How are you doing?
I'm great.
Excellent. Excellent. Well, we're here to talk for a great reason. You had a great year. Before we get into it, can you share with everyone who hasn't had the pleasure of meeting you what your name is, your company name, and where you guys are located?
Sure. Yeah. My name is David Deal. I work for Tingley Home Services. We're located out of Milford, Massachusetts, and then we service basically the whole MetroWest area of Boston. So all the towns just outside of Boston— Weston, Wellesley, Natick— and then, yeah.
Very good. How long does it take to get into Boston from where you guys are?
Into Boston from Milford, probably like, depending on the traffic, it can be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
I was there, right? Yeah, that's really true.
If you're going really deep into the heart of the city, could— yeah, you could have had like a 1.5-hour commute before. And then there's parking. Yeah, it's a whole other issue.
Yeah. How's the traffic like in the MetroWest part of Austin where you guys are?
It's not too bad. It's not too bad. Yeah. If you're getting— the closer you get to the city, the worse it gets. Sure. It makes sense.
That makes sense. Like I said, we're talking for a very good reason. You had just a killer year last year. Share with everyone what you, what you ended up doing in revenue as an electrician.
Yeah. So last year I did— it was $856,000 sold and installed.
Sold and installed. Not that you just sold a job and someone came behind you. You did it yourself.
So you're busy.
You're a busy man.
Yes. Yeah, sure. Sure was. Had a couple of crazy months where I was starting to question my sanity. But yeah, just go home and reset and take it one day at a time.
That's great. I want to get into your process and how you approach a call. Before we do that, I love learning people's Stories and how they got to where they are. So you're a young guy, but you said you've been with Tingley for 6 years.
Yep. Yeah, it was 6 years in October of 2022.
So what were you doing before that? In school or what were you doing?
Yeah. So I did, I did like 2 and a half years of college, like a lot of the people in the— or like a lot of people that are like electricians at our company and just everywhere. Yeah. Tried out the college route, did a couple of years at a liberal arts college. I majored in liberal arts and then environmental studies. And I was just like, what the hell am I doing? I was watching my student debt just rack up.
I was going to say, you're watching your student loans go up. Yeah.
All I was doing was drinking and partying and not like figuring out what I wanted to actually do.
Sure.
I was like, I just need to take some time, think about it, and just kind of work some like jobs here and there while I figured it out. And then Really?
Now, what drew you to the trades? Did you see something, talk to somebody?
It was actually my brother who's 2 years older than me. He like, he was getting close to graduating college and he was like, you know what, dude? Because I was talking about him, talking to him about like what I would like, trying to figure stuff out. And he was like, you know what, dude? If I could go over, go back and do it all over again, I would get into welding. There's a bunch of money there. And I was like, welding trades, and started just It kind of took off from there. Yeah. And so I eventually started looking into plumbing, welding, and then electrical seemed like it was the most practical. And it was the kind of thing that I kind of like take those skills wherever I wanted to go. Yeah.
Yeah.
And so how did you get matched up with Tingley then? Just answering that or how'd that work?
So the in Massachusetts, the way that schooling works is you have to basically do like 600 hours of class time and then work 4 years as an apprentice. And you can either do the school ahead of time before you even start working or do night classes. So I did just a year of school at like a trade school.
Okay.
And while I was going there, the founder of the company, Vinny Tingley, He came to the school and did an inspirational talk just to kind of talk up the trades and make it— try to motivate all the students there. And so I started talking to Vinnie a little bit while he was there. Yeah, we made a connection and then he had me come in. We had like a couple of week-long vacations. So on my vacations I would go work for him.
Was there an interview process or he said just come on in and check it out?
Yeah, I mean, it was like we kind of chatted while, while he was at the school and that was— there was never really like a formal sit-down interview. Yeah, it was just kind of like he got to know me then and then I would come in and work for the week.
Yeah.
And we kind of just— it was pretty informal. So I was kind of lucky in that regard. I didn't because I didn't— I mean, interviews can be a little nerve-wracking.
Sure, sure, sure.
So yeah.
Yeah. How many trucks were they rolling at that point? Like what, 6 years ago? Yeah, 6 years ago you said, right?
Yeah, probably. I think when I started there was probably 3 trucks on the road. Yeah. So they were way smaller. Yeah.
Things have grown considerably.
Yeah. Now, now we have— I think we have 6 licensed electricians, 6 to 7, and then we have an HVAC department now too.
Yeah.
Yeah. So in total, I think we're up to like 20 Technicians, like between like HVAC licensed electricians and apprentices and all that.
Yeah.
Out on the road every day.
Yeah.
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What's it like working with the team? I mean, there's some really great people over there. I've gotten the pleasure of meeting, you know, and knowing Vinnie and Ryan and Yeah, I think Jason and there's a handful of other, I think, technicians. I think I've talked to your team over the years. So what's that like?
It's awesome. It's— it was like, like when I started at the company and like even when I was like just working there on the— like during my vacations when I was going to trade school, I was blown away at like how different it was from what I was expecting when I got into the trades. I was, I was expecting to be doing commercial work or working for some Big company or something like that, where I was just a number. And like, I always heard the like common thing where like, oh, you're an apprentice; you're probably going to get treated like a piece of shit for four years. You're just a you're just a tool.
Tool monkey.
Yeah. And I got there and everybody was like my age. There wasn't anybody like even now like our oldest licensed electrician is like thirty-two or thirty-three.
Yeah.
So like everybody was like the same age as me and we were all having fun.
Good energy.
Yeah, really good energy. And so they. Yeah, so it's a really good place to work. They like the— they really value all their employees and everything, and they try to make sure you're aware of that.
And can you ever tell me, I guess I didn't realize it or I'd forgotten that, you know, Vinny is kind of transitioning out of the business a little bit. He's done a great job and Ryan's kind of spearheading it now. But Vinny's got an interesting role, though, in the company. He's still around. Kind of share what he does and how he works with you guys.
Yeah. So Vinny, he now is the— his role in the company is the Dream Manager.
Yeah.
So he'll basically have one-on-one sessions with all the employees and you can kind of choose if you want to just do 2 a year or if you want to meet with him every month. And basically he kind of just talks through you, tries to get to know you on a personal level and figure out what you want to do, what your goals for work are for your personal life, because they kind of like realize that like it's important in order for you to be happy at work and be a productive member of the team. Yeah, you have to be happy outside of work too.
Sure.
So he tries to help you like hit all your goals in all areas of your life.
Yeah, I mean, it's a tough job that you guys do, you know, and but it's nice to see a company value you beyond what you can produce for them. So that's really cool.
Very cool.
All right. So you, to back up a little bit, you know, you started kind of showing up and kind of sort of working and you're seeing like, oh, this is a pretty cool place. So when did you officially become an apprentice then? Did it take long?
No, it was like as soon as I got out of school. I could have like gone from like get out of school on a Friday and start working on Monday. I took a week off, obviously. But yeah, it was like I didn't have to. Yeah, yeah, it was immediate. Okay, great. It was.
And then let's see, I guess the next 4 years you're an apprentice then. Okay. What was that experience like? What kind of training did you get both technically, but especially also, you know, this is a certain path where more of the communication and sales side of things. What kind of training did you get in that side of things as well?
Yeah. So yeah, my entire 4 years, I think we had just maybe like a year or 2 before that we had they had started with SGI at the time.
Right.
So we were like, my entire apprenticeship we had been using that business model. And so yeah, like over the, just over the 4 years I was able to work with everybody and kind of see how everybody kind of approached, because like there is like the specific like way that we're supposed to like go about things. Everybody has their own specific style of doing it.
Yeah.
So I was able to kind of like see how everybody did it their own specific way.
Yeah.
And kind of like figure out, like, be like, oh, I like how he's doing that. Yeah, I don't like how he's doing that. Or sure, like when he's talking to customers or stuff like that and kind of like figure out how I want to do it on my own. And having 4 years to be kind of like on the sidelines or kind of like just be standing behind the licensed electrician as he's talking to the customer. Yeah, there's a lot of time to be able to observe and just See what's going on. Figure it out for myself.
I bet. Well, first of all, how did they decide that you were ready for your own truck? Was there a way to the— was just everyone said, hey, yeah, he knows what he's doing? What did you have to do? Role play or whatever in the office? And they said, okay, you got it. Or what? How did you graduate officially to your own truck?
Yeah. So I mean, like, once I got my license, they were like, all right, you're ready. You're good.
Just go for it.
You've been here for 4 years. You know it. Sometimes, like occasionally, the licensed guy I would be with would be like, hey, you want to take the tablet and try to present this to the customer? Something like that. We didn't do that too often. Or sometimes, like if we were in the middle of a job or doing like a diagnostic or something and had to like go tell them we had to do a little bit more or something, they would be like, hey, you want to like take over and see if you can get them to agree to like do more work or something like that? But really, I mean, like, even as an apprentice, like, I was able to kind of like start to talk to customers more and more, even if I wasn't like presenting options. And that just kind of got me more comfortable with dealing with that interaction.
Yeah.
As time progressed over the 4 years, like, obviously in like my first 2 years, I'm not the most like outgoing or social guy. And so like, if they were— it took a while for me to get to that point, but Really?
You felt a little awkward at first doing it?
Oh yeah. There are some like stories from when I was like in my first year that we always like joke about. Like when I just like tried to talk to a customer, say about like a digital timer or something, I just completely botched it. And the licensed electrician is in the other room and they're like, Dave's talking to the customer. We have to go save him. So what was the turning point?
What made you more confident? Just running more calls or was there— I think it was that you could take them.
I think it was, yeah, running more calls and then just kind of getting more comfortable on the technical aspect of things.
Oh, sure.
Just being more confident.
Yeah.
About the work that I'm going to be doing. Like just knowing more about everything that's going on in the home. Just kind of like—
Just experience.
Yeah, exactly.
You feel confident in your technical skills, so thus you're more confident in talking to people about it.
Right.
That makes sense. That totally makes sense. All right. Well, let's, let's go into your process a little bit. When you get— say it's your first call today, you get dispatched to that, that call. What do you do to get ready for it? Like, how much of the notes are you looking at about what the call is about? What do you do personally to mentally get yourself prepared? What's your process like?
So yeah, I'll I mean, I'll usually like listen to music. Usually just throw Spotify on. Yeah. Kind of make the apprentices listen to the music that I like to listen to.
Oh yeah, that's true. You got an apprentice with you now.
Yeah.
He has to deal with it, right? Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'll look up the house that I'm going to, try to find it on Redfin or something, see like how big of a house it is. I don't always do that. If it's like a pretty straightforward job, I don't worry about it too much. I just because I mean, I'm going to get there. I'll be able to see it and talk to the customer about it. But if I'm like, if it's a huge job where they want like 10 different things, there's a big laundry list of things they want done. I'll be like, all right, what's going on in this house? Sure. So sometimes I'll research the house a little bit. Yeah. And yeah, and I'll obviously look in the history to see if they're a new customer.
Maybe what we offered before.
Yeah. Yeah. What type of work we've done in the house. That kind of thing. So I can kind of refer to that if I like be like, hey, I noticed that we've done a bunch of work in the past. How's all that holding up? That kind of stuff.
Right, right. Or see what options maybe they didn't buy, but maybe there was a note that they were kind of interested in it. Right, right. Yeah.
Or if I see that we've tried to sell them a search projector 3 times over and they said no every time, I'll be like, all right, maybe I shouldn't try to push the search projector.
You know, don't need to get them angry at you, right?
Yeah.
That's funny.
Okay.
All right. So you get, you get to the house, right? You want to make sure to get out promptly and walk up to the house, knock and, you know, smile. They let you in. When you get into the home, what do you— how do you start making that connection with the homeowner? Because obviously not everyone wants a service person in their house, right? You know, they'd rather be watching TV, doing anything else except spending money. So, you know, sometimes there's some angst. the homeowner might have? How do you kind of get them to trust you and like you? Is there certain things you ask about, kind of break the ice or give a sincere compliment? What do you like to do?
I mean, I kind of try to— I don't like to have just like a— I don't always just like immediately go to be like, your house is beautiful. Sure. I kind of like try to stay fluid and just kind of go with the flow. If like there's stuff to talk about, I'll— if there's something I notice I can relate to them on, I'll try to like Make some conversation with them. A lot of the times people are kind of like they know there's an electrician there and they just kind of want to dive right into it.
Right.
So I'll try to make eye contact with them, stay positive and keep a smile on my face.
Yeah.
Try to kind of like get on their level if I notice that they're brief and to the point. I don't want to like cut them off. Just kind of let them. Show me what's going on and try to talk to them as we're going through through things.
Yeah, yeah.
But if they're willing to kind of stand around and I notice that they want to chat and be friends, then I'll obviously do that. But kind of try to you're mirroring their energy exactly. Yeah, it's kind of like what I've seen in the trainings coming to past expos. Sure. I was able to like come to one like when I was an apprentice too, so I kind of was able to like see some of the. Things that you're supposed to do to try to like get on their level, try to mirror their— yeah, mirror their body language. Yeah, that kind of stuff.
Sure. How often do homeowners just take you right to the problem? Like, okay, I got, I got a ceiling fan that needs to be hung in this room. Let's go. Is it like the people always in a rush that way, or will a lot of people stand there and talk with you, or what's your experience been?
I mean, a lot of the times they do kind of just like be like, so where do you want to go from here? Like, well, we'll stand in the— we'll kind of like go through the formalities and just kind of be like, so how you doing? Blah, blah, blah. And then a lot of the times they'll be like, kind of, so how do you want to— I mean, it's kind of 50/50. Some people will be like, all right, I want to replace this ceiling fan and take you right there. Some people will Be like, so what do you want to do? Do you want to like start off at the electrical panel? Do you want to see that first, or do you want me to show you the problem first? Some people are more aware that you're an electrician and you want to see the electrical panel. Yeah. Other people don't even think about that. Yeah, right, right.
Sure. So when you, you know, say someone takes you right to the room, they want to hang that ceiling fan. I mean, obviously you guys try to do a safety inspection on every call, right? Even if it's like a vanity item, like A ceiling fan or a fixture. How do you explain to homeowner? Yeah, I really do need to go take a look at the panel to shut it off. Just you got to shut the power off, or how do you explain to the homeowner? You know, I kind of need to take a look at what's going on in the home.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. So yeah, say they kind they kind of are trying to like they want to like stay in control and they want to take you right to the problem. I'll let them do that. I don't want to like. Try to like take that away from, from them, but also try to like still steer them towards like being able to do the safety inspection and everything. So I'll let them take me to like, say, the ceiling fan and then be like, so can we see the electrical panel? And then they'll take me to the electrical panel. And once we're there, that's when I'll usually bring up the safety inspection. Okay. Yeah, just kind of be like, so now that we're here at the electrical panel, we do offer a safety and a complimentary safety inspection with the service fee. It's included. We will run— we'll run through that, let you know if there's anything going on the electrical panel.
Yeah.
Check your smoke detectors, GFIs, grounding, that kind of thing. If we notice anything, we'll make any suggestions. Most of the time the people are perfectly fine with that.
Yeah.
If people— there are some people that are just like, I don't want that.
Sure.
I don't try to push too hard. Yeah. And that kind of— if I notice something big, I'll still kind of like— I won't go out of my way and like go into every room and check for smoke detectors. It doesn't count for them.
So then you bring it up.
Yeah, exactly. Or if I notice— if I take that cover off and I notice that there's rust or burning or anything like that, breakers that need to be replaced, something like that, I'll definitely bring it up to them, even if they say no, or at least even if I know they're not going to say, you Yes to it, and it might like piss them off. I might not bring it up. Yeah, but I'll at least make a note of it in our safety inspection that we fill out. Yeah, because I think it—I think they have it set so that they—it just always gets sent to the customer at the end. So I'll at least fill out the parts that I notice, and then it kind of covers our bases too. Yeah, say we were. Yeah, say something happens afterwards. We can be like, well, we noticed that there was an issue. You said no to the safety inspection, but we still made a note of it. Sure.
Well, we're at the panel right now, so let's dig into that a little bit. I'm sure you walked into this— I mean, being in the Northeast, some older homes, I'm sure you've, you know, you've seen some maybe, you know, Federal Pacific or just ancient panels and you're like, I called you out for a ceiling fan. I had no idea that, first of all, you know, a panel is something I had to change out, right? As I'm a common, normal homeowner who has no clue. Well, how do you kind of start talking to me as an ignorant homeowner that this might be something that I should be concerned about. What do you— how do you explain, you know, what you're seeing at this ancient panel?
I mean, say we run into an FPE panel, we— or like a fuse panel. We basically tell them, if you want us to work on this circuit, we have to— we're required by code to put an arc fault breaker in your panel, a fuse panel, an FPE panel. They don't make arc fault breakers for that. And even if we weren't going to put an arc fault breaker in it, in the panel, we still can't work on that circuit until you do something about these panels because we need to be able to stand behind our work and make sure that once we work on this circuit, if anything happens, that breaker is going to trip. That's not going to happen with an FPE panel or a fuse panel.
Right.
They're extremely dangerous and we can't warranty anything essentially. And we aren't willing to take that risk that something could happen after we work on it. Sure. We obviously keep everything to the highest standards and make sure that nothing, nothing is wrong. Yeah, but just not being able to actually comply with the code with that panel being in by not being able to arc fault it. Yeah, there's step one. If they want to have work done in the house using a licensed electrician, or at least our company, they need to get that panel out of there first.
So you just say, you know, sorry, Bob, but this is really— it sounds like this is a hazard and we need to really talk about Replacing this. Yeah, I mean, you just should go ahead and let go at that point.
And it's like if you want to make upgrades to your home, upgrade number one that you should be doing is the safety stuff before you spend your money on the nice to haves. Let's focus on something that actually is causing a safety hazard to your home. Sure, sure.
Let's say you walk on just you know it's not as dramatic as that. You know, just older animal. Yeah, but. Maybe it's, it's 10, 15 years old, but, you know, you open it up, you know, you start kind of looking at it. What— how do you educate the homeowner about what you're looking at and what you're doing?
So that's the kind of stuff where, yeah, after we're— after we kind of like go through everything, look at all the work they want to have done, do the safety inspection. If I notice that the breakers are super old, we kind of Recommend that breakers should be replaced every 25 to 30 years. If I notice that there's really old breakers in the panel, I'll kind of make them aware of that. And yeah, try to bring up arc fault protection. We have to install it on the circuits that we work on. If they have a really old panel and we're going to be arc faulting, say, like 10 circuits in the panel to get all of this done, that can kind of lead to We're going to be putting a bunch of new technology into a really old panel. Bring up the option of do you want us to put all this stuff in your old panel or replace the panel, which is going to have to happen at some point in the near future? Sure. And get these new breakers and a new panel so that you're not kind of having to pay for those breakers twice once you have to replace the panel. That's actually— you're giving me options.
I mean, yeah, I'm not saying you have to do this right or we're just going to shove you know, the new stuff and the old stuff and I don't know any better, you know, and then something else goes wrong and I have to replace it a year from now. Yeah. Do you start having that conversation at the panel or is that really only delivered when you sit down and deliver options? What do you like to do?
It kind of depends on how bad of shape the panel is in. If I open up a panel and you can barely get that cover back on and it just like visibly, like even to a homeowner, is like a mess, I'll try to leave the COVID off and take them to the panel. And be like, hey, look at this. Sure, this needs something should happen here. Yeah. If there's rust or something like that, kind of show them that. Yeah. So it kind of depends on how bad it is. If, if it's like if it would be a good idea to do it, but it definitely isn't as big of an issue if they say they have maybe 10 more years out of the panel. Sure. I'll try to be straightforward with them and be like, You could get 10 years, 10 more years out of this. Yeah. It's also the kind of thing where maybe in 1 to 3 years something could go bad. Sure. Maybe even less. I can't— you can't really guarantee when something's going to fail. Yeah.
So how often is a homeowner— so, you know, getting like to go back to the example, the ceiling fan example, how often will the homeowner go with you to the panel on a ceiling fan job? Is it often or they always go ahead? You know, what's your experience been?
They'll usually go to the panel with me. A lot of the times, like at that point, I'll kind of say like, okay, so now that you've shown us everything, we're going to do our safety inspection. We'll write up all our estimates. It'll probably take 20, 30, 45 minutes maybe even. And that'll kind of be like, like a— that'll kind of like prompt to them like, okay, he's going to— he's got some time. He needs to take some time to like go through everything. Yeah. A lot of the times people are working from home, they'll be like, all right, I'm going to go back upstairs and You're working from home. Some people will just kind of want to be there, right there with you the whole time and go through the whole safety inspection. Yeah. Which, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. They— yeah.
Oh, I was going to say, how do you handle those, you know, those real strong D personalities in the DISC profile, D personalities that, you know, you again, he wants you here to put the ceiling fan in and He just says, yeah, panel's down there. And okay, then you go down there and you're like, oh my God, this thing's a disaster. And I really need to tell this guy it's a disaster. How do you get his attention then? He just— do you go up right away and go, hey, you know, you know, Mr. Jones, I need to talk to you about that? Or how do you kind of take control of that call in those situations?
Yeah. Yeah. But in that kind of situation, yeah, I would kind of like try to like at least get him ready for like, be like, hey, just wanted to let you know something's going on here. More than just the ceiling fan and kind of like try to feel out how, how much they care about it. Yeah. If I would be like, I can write up estimates for you if you'd like to take care of this. Yeah. Maybe sometimes if I'm still trying to feel them out a little bit, give them a pretty broad ballpark for what it's going to be to take care of something like that and kind of trying to feel out how they— how willing they are to, like, spend money. So, yeah.
At what point do you know what we talk about having a credibility statement, you know, kind of telling the homeowner, hey, I've been doing this at a 4-year apprenticeship and doing this for 2 years on top of that. I've been in a lot of houses and this is what's awesome about Tingley. And here's, you know, our guarantees and why we're better. When do you kind of work that in? Is that early in the call or is it moments like that where A homeowner's like, why do I need to? The panel seems fine. It works right. But you're like, no, it needs to be replaced. So yeah, is that when you kind of flex a little bit and say, this is what I, you know, kind of said, you know, share your credentials. So when do you like to use that?
Yeah, I try to— I kind of try to hold off on like flexing my muscles and being like, I'm a licensed electrician. All right. Yeah, I kind of like try to keep that in my back pocket until— or like if they start to like Question pricing or anything like that, or like question like why certain codes are being like when we start talking about codes.
Yeah.
That's when I start talking about like as licensed electricians, we make sure to adhere to all of the codes that are in place for working in homes. Yeah. The dispatchers on the phone always tell the homeowner that they're sending a licensed technician. To the home, so a lot of the times they're aware that I have that license, and I try to like kind of gain their trust by just being a genuine person and try to not have to like flex my muscles in that way.
But still part of the process to go hey I am a yeah in my experience this is what really is the best avenue. Yeah exactly.
Sure yeah. What are some of the most you said code violations?
What are the big code? Are there certain code violations you see all the time? I mean again you guys are in a Older part of the country, right? A lot of older homes. So there's certain things you're always you know seeing or noticing.
Yeah, I mean knob and tube is one thing. We can't work on knob and tube circuits. It's just another kind of thing where we work on that circuit. If something goes wrong, it's yeah knob and tube is just too dangerous to work on. So if we notice knob and tube, we'll be like, hey, before we replace this fixture, you have to rewire this. Get rid of the knob and tube, at least on this circuit. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, and a lot of stuff with like just old electrical panels. Yeah, GFI protection. The codes have constantly updated. Sure. Three years. So there's a lot of areas like kitchen countertops, washing machines. Outdoor outlets, right? Yeah. How do you tell someone—
and again, there's plenty of homeowners that don't know what a GFI is. How do you explain what it does and what, you know, why they really should have it?
I try to kind of keep it simple for them, but make it just be like a GFI is basically that water safety outlet so that if any, any appliance that is being used near water Sometimes I'll bring up the morbid, like, toaster in a bathtub kind of thing. That one's— I don't really pull that one out, but sometimes if I'm scrambling for something. But yeah, basically just kind of— yeah, it's a water safety thing for any— like, for the washing machine, it's an appliance that uses water and electricity. Those 2 things don't really mix well sometimes. Or if you're standing on a grounded floor and if you're in your basement, And you're in your bare feet, you can become a direct path to ground if something goes wrong. Yeah. So it's basically a shock hazard thing. It keeps you from getting electrocuted. Sure.
Do you explain it's a code— it's really a code violation to the new homes that this is something we absolutely have. They absolutely have to have.
Yeah. I mean, it's their home. They don't have to do it. I always, I always say that this is, this is optional. I don't try to pressure them into doing it. Yeah. I always highly recommend it. Sure. And like if they say they're— I always kind of try to say like, this is the code for new homes. If a house is being built today, this is what it would require. Yeah. So it's even more important in older homes too. Yeah. Same thing.
You're not pushing. Yeah, exactly. I like that. The hot one is always troubleshooting calls. Okay, I've got an outlet. I don't know why it's not working. So, you know, say I took you right to it, you know, from, from inside. You came in the home, we're going right to it. And maybe I got a call I want to go on or something. I'm working from home. How do you explain this to the homeowner, though, that, you know, we really need to— you know, there's a charge with the troubleshooting, right? That it's not included in the service fee. So how do you address that? How do you, I guess, sell the value of what that troubleshooting charge is?
Yeah. So yeah, with diagnostics, those ones obviously are a bit tricky trying to get people comfortable with it.
Yeah.
So I always kind of try to like get on their side and make them like get their— get them to kind of trust me that I have their best interests in mind.
Yeah.
So I'll always kind of like— I won't immediately like go in and say like they're like, oh, my post light isn't working. I'm not immediately going to get get to the front door, um, or then meet and like start talking to them and be like, okay, diagnostic, like within the first 5 minutes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll kind of be like, okay, we're going to take a little bit of time. We're going to see if we can find an immediate fix. If we can, great. I'll let you know what it will be to fix it. If we can't, if it seems like there's going to be a bit more, um, uh, involved work in terms of trying to figure out why your post light isn't working, We have this diagnostic charge. It basically covers the time that it's going to take. It could take up to 3 hours to try to figure out why this isn't working. Included in that is a small repair. So we will do everything we can to keep it covered under the diagnostic. We can't guarantee it.
Mm-hmm.
There is a chance that, say, something needs to be rewired. If there's a big repair, we need to rewire it or something like that. We will have to have additional costs, which we will go over with you before We make those repairs. We're not— we always try to keep everything straightforward.
Yeah.
So sounds reasonable. Yeah.
So people are like, oh, okay, it makes sense. You're 3 hours or I guess there's a charge, right? Do you tell them? I guess it's X amount at that point then.
Yeah. So I mean, if I, if I bring up that there might have to be that diagnostic after we find that we can't figure out what the problem is, I won't tell them right away what that cost is. I'll kind of get them ready for just mentally that like, oh, I'm going to have to pay more than the service fee. Right. And then once I build up that price for it, do the safety inspection, obviously, hopefully have more than just one option than the diagnostic. If we do this, like I'll try to do the safety inspection before we do the diagnostic.
You will do that kind of as you're just, you know, they're letting you do your thing and they're doing their thing. And so you'll do kind of a safety inspection as you're walking around as part of that.
Yeah. So if I do the safety inspection, I always try to build options and stuff while I'm in the house. Sure. I don't really go out to the truck or anything. I try to stay in the house so that I can talk to a customer as we're going through. It'll kind of like just give us some time to— it'll make them feel like we're doing like doing our legwork before we jump to that diagnostic part. And then I can also build up more options. So you're like, so here's your option C. Just the diagnostic. Option B, option A is includes a surge protector or replacing your panel or something like that. Really?
You offer options before doing a complete diagnostic on everything. Really? So then you're basically— do you have to close them a second time then? Say if it is that you do the diagnostic and you're like, oh man, this is a— this is going to be a complicated repair that we need to do. So you'll do it, you'll go back again. Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, if I have to. I mean, if— yeah, if we find that there's a really expensive piece of equipment to be replaced or something. Yeah. Hey, Mr.
Jones, this is the situation. Yeah.
Okay. Yeah, this is— we've figured out that this is the problem. Unfortunately, there's a— say the wire is broken underneath the ground. We can't fix that covered under a diagnostic. We're going to have to put a new piece of pipe in the ground and run a new wire to your post light. Right. There's going to be a lot more work involved in that. It's not just a quick little fix. Sure.
But before that, maybe you had already talked about surge protection and 2 GFI and maybe even a panel. Yeah. All in. Wow. Okay. Interesting. All right.
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Just to go back to my outlet example, do you go ahead and pull outlets in? Other outlets in the room, say they're one, the other one's backstabbed and just it's dead, and then go, hey Bob, you know, take a look at these other ones. You know, they're also in the same situation. Is that something you usually do as well? Oh yeah, definitely. How do you explain to a homeowner that all the other ones are working fine, right? That one's the only one that's broken. So how do you kind of communicate what you're doing in that situation?
Yeah, so like with backstabs, backstabs in specific, specific, like with Like, it's just kind of explained to them, like, the way a circuit is wired is it's everything is kind of daisy-chained from one outlet to the next. So that load is passing through all of those outlets and any one of them could kind of go if there's just a loose connection because of the nature of backstabs. It happened at this outlet. It means that it could be happening at all of the other outlets as well. And if you want to avoid having to pay another service fee once it happens at the next outlet, which is probably going to, if it's happening at this outlet, it could be a good idea to just get it all taken care of right now. And then the more outlets we can, we can offer discounts on, like if you're doing multiple outlets at the same time. So you got 50 outlets and switches all throughout the house. We can give you a bulk package, discount the price per device. And that might incentivize them to be like, okay, maybe I should just do it all right now.
Sure, sure. You know, we talked about surge, but we really kind of didn't highlight it that much. What do you— how do you— because again, you know, growing up I thought, oh, power strip, everything's protected on that, right? So how do you educate people on the value of a whole house surge protector? What do you— what do you say to people?
Yeah. So let's say with surge protectors, kind of That'll be the kind of thing where I like. So I noticed your panel doesn't have a surge protector. Oh, that was a thing. Yeah, they're required on all panels as of 2020 by the National Electric Code. The way I'll kind of like describe them to people, I try to keep kind of keep it simple. I don't try to get down to the nitty gritty unless they want to. Yeah, I basically compare it to a surge strip. I'll say it acts like a surge strip that you plug your computers and TVs into, but it basically protects everything throughout the house. So. especially the big ones like your in-wall oven, your car charger, which people are doing a bunch of car chargers right now. So help to, help to protect all those things that can't get plugged into a surge strip, essentially.
Things you don't think about that are really expensive.
Yeah. Yeah. And we do that. We, we sell the PSPs so we can kind of sell them on the really good warranties that they offer, up to $100,000. And damages, if anything does happen, they can get that covered by PSP for that, for the damages that might occur after the surge goes in. So it kind of just gives them that peace of mind.
Yeah, kind of sells itself. Yeah, exactly.
That's, that's something I kind of try to like tell myself is just let the product sell itself, let them know what it is. And then some people value that. Some people are like, I'll just wait until it blows out and then I'll call you.
Yeah. That's fine. It's your decision, at least, right? You're not hard pushing them. Yeah. Something I always forget to bring up, but it's obviously a huge safety issue, smoke detectors, right? Growing up, until I got started working with CertainPath SGI, I was like, those things expire? I didn't know that, right? Yeah. How do you educate people that they do expire and that they're really, it's a major safety concern? So maybe you notice that yellow smoke detector. How do you communicate those? That should be something that we address. Yeah.
So that's the kind of thing where it's really easy to notice it too. So I'll just kind of be like, even if they said no to the safety inspection, I'll still bring it up. Just be like, hey, I noticed your smoke detectors are really old. They're recommended by the manufacturers themselves that they would be replaced every 8 to 10 years once they hit that point. It can just create the potential for a lot of inconveniences. It can create the potential for nuisance tripping. And then also they won't— they can't be guaranteed that they'll work the way that they're supposed to. Right. They might not actually find— notice a fire or if they don't have carbon monoxide detectors, kind of bring that up. Yeah. Be like you don't have any carbon monoxide protection. The new code is to have those at the tops and bottoms of the stairs. Make sure you have one in the utility room.
Yeah. Yeah. What kind of options do you guys offer on smoke so that, you know, is it just interconnected? You do the— I don't know, there's all sorts of different types, right? Yeah. I'm not a technical guy. You tell me, what do you guys typically offer?
Yeah, there's a bunch of different options. Yeah. So you can kind of make it work in whatever house, whether they have it hardwired or not. Yeah. Say it's a house that doesn't have any smoke detectors. Yeah. If it's— we can offer to just do battery powered, which some people are like, I can just screw that up myself. But a lot— some people will be like, I don't want to deal with that. I'll let you screw this in. Yeah. If it's a really big house, they do make like the 10-year sealed battery smoke detectors that will be Right.
Yeah.
This is the top battery. Yeah. And they make, they make some models that have like the wireless interconnect and you can kind of sell them on that and be like, this will basically act like a hardwired system, but you don't actually have to add the wires and they'll still talk to each other. Yeah. If it's kind of like a smaller house, say it's a little Cape house, 1,200 square feet or something, and they only need 3, I can tell they don't really want to spend that much on it. Just go with like 10-year seals that still— that, but they don't interconnect. It can make it a little more cost effective, but still, still get some of the protection.
You're observing the situation and building it for that. That's great. Yeah, that's great. Lighting. Do you ever recommend lighting? Maybe it's, you know, outdoor lighting or security lighting, or maybe you're just like in a dark room and They got 80, you know, different things on, you know, lamps on to illuminate the room. Is that something you ever bring up to people?
Not typically, honestly. Like if somebody calls me out there to put a ceiling fan in, I'm not going to be like, so I noticed your side yard is very dark. Sure. Why don't you put a motion detector out there? Yeah, they'll be like, what the— what a weird transition. Yeah. Like, like that was one thing I noticed, like I had like one, like when I was an apprentice, one of the licensed electricians I worked with, she would do that constantly. And every time she did it, the people were like, no, I don't want that. Yeah. And I, yeah, it just kind of comes across at least. Yeah. Yeah. And it just, yeah, I don't know. For me, it just kind of comes off as kind of like grasping at straws, trying to like, like trying to push everything. Yeah. If it's not like Like, yeah, safety lighting, security lighting. Technically, you could call it like a safety inspection item, but I personally don't think that that needs to be brought up. It's— that's the kind of thing like a lot of people will call us out there for adding security lighting stuff.
And then at that point, yeah, then you're talking about it because that's why you're— Yeah, sure.
Yeah. And most homes, like, they'll— like, people will have their switched outlet or something. If people want to upgrade from that, they'll call us out there for it. Yeah. I kind of view that as a personal preference kind of thing. Sure. I mean, if people want to upgrade it, they'll let us know. Do you guys—
I can't remember. You guys have a club membership that you sell? Very good. When do you start talking about it? Do you— I'm assuming the call takers mention it when, when, you know, me, the homeowner calls in. When do you mention it in the service calls? And only when we get to options, or do you bring it up earlier in the call?
So I usually save the membership unless it comes up somehow otherwise. I will wait until the end when we're collecting payment to bring up the membership. It's kind of like that extra value booster at the end of the call.
Okay.
Like when we're presenting options, there is like, we use ServiceTitan. It shows like a little green number, like potential savings.
Yeah.
If people see that green number, say it's a $5,000 job and our safety and our membership gives you 5% savings, and they see that 5% savings of $500 or $250, whatever 5% of $5,000 is, they'll— then I'll bring up the membership if they're like, what the heck is that potential savings?
Yeah.
Then I'll bring it up then. If it doesn't come up, I'll kind of bring it up at the end and they'll have gotten comfortable with the price that they're going to be paying. Yeah. And then just kind of build value on top of that.
Okay. Yeah. I was going to say, what are the value builders you talk about with your club membership?
So the main 4 things that I try to bring up is it drops a $99 service fee for today's visit. and any future visits, and it drops it to $59. It extends our 3-year warranty. We have a 3-year standard warranty and everything. It extends it to be a lifetime warranty as long as you're on the plan. Wow, that's great.
So lifetime, that's got to be pretty attractive to some people.
Yeah, some people are really into that. Yeah. And then it also gives them priority booking sometimes in the summer when we're booked A month out. Yeah. The office will know that they're— when they're calling, they'll know that they're on the membership and try to get them in as soon as possible, no matter what. And then also it brings up— it saves them 5% on all the work. Yeah. I try to not just be like, membership, 5%. What do you think?
Right. Yeah. You actually tell them what the heck it is. Yeah. Just make it a monetary item.
If they're pushing back on the price when I'm going over options, then I'll also— if I'll at that point, if they're kind of waffling on whether or not they want to do anything, then I'll bring up the membership then to try to be like, hey, here's a way to save you a little bit of money because at that point, you know, they're just kind of focused on the numbers. Sure.
Do you guys have— I know you started HVAC, what, 2 years ago, 3 years ago?
Yeah, I think it was just over 2 years ago. You know, it was Yeah, we're— yeah, about 2, 2.5.
Is, is the club membership bundled with the HVAC? So where they get like a discounted tune-up and stuff like that, like, is that something you share? Because a lot of people automatically know they got to get, you know, their HVAC system tuned up. So, hey, you get this additional service for this X amount. Is that something you talk about much?
I usually— I'll mention to customers that we have an HVAC department. Yeah. I personally haven't sold one HVAC membership. Was it a different membership? Yeah, we have different memberships. We have an electrical membership and then an HVAC membership. Yeah. If they bundle them together, they can get like a savings in total per month. But there's a lot of it kind of like the HVAC membership, the way ours is set up right now. I think it kind of depends on how many systems they have. Yeah. If they have 5 condensers and a furnace, it's obviously going to be a little bit more to maintenance. And I think, yeah, I'm not sure about all the specifics of it, but yeah, for the HVAC membership, there's a lot. It kind of depends on the scale of the house, I think. So, but I'll always bundle together, right? Yeah, I'll try to bring up that we have an HVAC department and try to at least flip a lead over to them and be like, do we— can offer like a We'll come out and do like a maintenance of the system. Yeah. And they can go over the HVAC plan.
I was going to say, you see the system, you know, it's like, oh my God, this thing's 20 years old. Yeah. Rusted to rust bucket. You'll call and we just met. Hey, Mrs. Jones, you know, would you want us to talk, you know, to call the office and see if you take a look at this? Will you do that actually, or have you done that in the past?
Yeah. And that's something that we try to like Like we've— they like— and like the office has kind of trained us to be like, hey, while you're at the house, try and get something set up while you're there. Yeah.
So that comes at the same time or you just set—
or at least set up an appointment. Yeah. Be like, would you like us to call the office and set up an appointment or at least have them call you so that you don't really have to do anything? And sure, we can just come out here and make sure everything checks out.
That's great for your heating and cooling. Before we sit, you know, you sit down, you go through the options. Do you talk to them about what you saw on your safety inspection? Like you really took good notes on everything. So you're not— so yes. So how do you explain like what— how's your safety inspection set up? Is it like, you know, red, yellow, green, or, you know, do you go over, hey, these are— everything's looking good with this, but this is so-so and this is, you know, against code and Moffle, how do you communicate what you see in the safety inspection?
Yeah, so I don't really like pull up the safety inspection and go through it line item by line item. I'll basically like build safety inspection items into like one option. Okay. If there isn't a lot going on in the house, if they just have one thing that they want done, I always try to build 3 options still. Sure. So I'll try to have maybe like prioritize some safety inspection stuff. Say option A has your surge protector, your GFI protection, and the switch you want replaced.
Yeah.
Option B has your ground fault protection but no surge protection. And then option C doesn't include your ground fault protection. And I'll kind of talk about everything, like be like, we can definitely do any and all of this today. We can replace your switch. And kind of bring that up first. Be like, so like when I'm kind of ready to go over estimates and everything, be like, so we can definitely take care of what you called us out here for. We ran through our safety inspection. I noticed that you don't have ground fault protection for your washing machine on your countertops and your outdoor outlets. I also noticed you don't have a surge protector on the panel. I built up a couple of different options for you and I kind of tried to prioritize things so you can see price differences here. And let them know that these are the estimates that I've written up for you. If you want to change them up in any way, we can definitely do that.
These aren't like you're kind of opening us to it, like so I don't feel like I'm being pushed into one of three things. Yeah. Okay. Definitely. All right. Very good. Do you guys do a lot of financing?
I can't recall. We do offer financing with Green Sky. Okay. I don't typically bring that up unless. They start pushing back unless they start pushing back. I find a lot of people kind of have like a personal pride thing. They're like, I don't want to finance that. Yeah. So yeah, I'll kind of use it as a last resort. Yeah. I mean, like me personally, if I called somebody out to my house, I don't want to like finance everything. I try to avoid financing whatever I can. Sure. And a lot of people are the same way. Some, some people do really want to finance and They'll even ask, do you offer financing? Yeah. And I'll bring it up then. But yeah, it's really when I start to get pushback is when I'll bring up the financing part of it.
So you don't do it.
It sounds like you don't do it a lot then. Yeah. Yeah. Not typically. Like last year I probably did it maybe 5 times. Oh, wow.
Yeah. So not much at all. Okay. No, that's cool. So how do you handle— well, you know, I thought, I don't know, that's coming out. You're going to fix my one. Broken outlet. This is going to cost $100 and you're going to be on your, on your way. You know, I'm a dumb homeowner, but then all of a sudden you lay out these options and like, oh wow, we're looking at thousands of dollars potentially. So how do you handle those people that are a little sticker shocked?
You kind of try to be like, there are certain codes and stuff that we have to adhere to. It's not just that we need to replace a switch whenever we work on any circuits in the home. We have to add an arc fault breaker for it. As licensed electricians, we have to hold ourselves to the highest standards and make sure we're adhering to all the codes. So we have to install these arc fault breakers. It does add a cost to the job. Included in that price, we always show up when we say we will. There's always going to be someone in the office to answer the phone for you. We communicate really well with you. We kind of let you know when we're coming, send you a text when we're coming and all that. And if anything goes wrong after we leave, say your smoke detectors start beeping, or this switch stops working, or your arc fault breaker that we put in starts tripping, we're not just going to blow you off and never answer the phone for you again. There will always be someone there to answer the phone for you and hold us accountable for whatever work we did. And we try to stand by everything. So all that kind of stuff gets factored into the price. It's not just a Time and materials. It's all that one straightforward price that includes all those added benefits. It's not just replacing the switch. There's a lot more that comes with it. Sure. Yeah.
Maybe highly your warranty. I mean, 3 years is a pretty— I'm assuming that's probably better than most other electricians in your market.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, typically it's probably like a 1-year warranty or if it's a one-man show, they probably don't even want to warranty it.
Never to be seen again. Yep. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Do you get much— boy, I might— this is a lot of money. Maybe I want to get other bids. Do you get people that'll say that or— Yeah, yeah, definitely. How do you— how do you handle that?
Someone that's, you know, maybe want to get other bids? Yeah, I tell them that's totally okay. That's— it's up to you. It's your home. That's— there's nothing stopping you from getting 3 estimates. It's all over the news. They're telling you to get 3 estimates. It's— sure. So you don't push back hard.
You don't want to be that—
I I yeah, I mean, I try to. I always try to push a little bit and not be like in your face pushy, but just kind of be like we're here. We're ready to do do the work today. If you do get estimates from other companies, I just highly recommend that you at least make sure they're doing the everything up to the current codes and everything is and make sure they're doing like try to compare what they're doing. We're going to send these estimates over to you. Try and compare what they offer to what we're offering here. Make sure that they're putting those arc fault breakers in or doing everything up to the current code and all that.
For sure. How about those customers like, you know, there's— it's different shock. Well, I think I just need— I need, you know, a little time to think about this. Will you just kind of go, sure, I'll go, you know, I don't know, go whatever you do, find an excuse to leave for a minute, basically. And then circle back. Is that something you'll do? Kind of let them digest it a little bit?
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. If they need to go talk to their significant other or something, I'll be like, yeah, would you like to step out, hang out by the van for 15 minutes or something like that? Or just if they want to go upstairs and they're like, yeah, you can just hang out in the kitchen. And we're like, that's totally fine. There's one time where a customer, they like needed a new circuit run for their new electric stove. They're switching from gas to electric. And they went upstairs, talked to their wife for 20 minutes, brought the wife back downstairs. And then I basically had to go through the whole spiel again to the wife. And then they went upstairs for another 25 minutes and I was just standing in the kitchen the whole time. And they came back down after basically like 45 minutes or an hour and they're like, okay, we're going to do it. Yeah. So thank God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like standing in the kitchen like, oh my God, please say yes.
Yeah, kind of funny. All right. So the job sold. Do you always try— I mean, I'm sure there's instances where it can't— the work can't be completed the same day, right? This thing sold at 5 or 6:00. And I don't know how often we got to say, do you stay until 8 or 9:00? I mean, it's surprising homeowners don't want you to do that, right? If it's a later call.
Yeah.
You'll try and book it maybe what, the next day or something like that or a couple of days out?
Right. Yeah, definitely.
So what do you do to make sure that that person doesn't get buyer's remorse and cancel? You kind of start the job a little bit or what do you guys do? Yeah, we—
yeah, if we say it's— we usually end our days around 3 to 4:30. Sure. If we sell something, say at 2:30 or at 3, we at least try to get something going. If, say, you sell a service change, you need to change the panel on the meter. We'll try to get at least the grounding done that day, get the ground rods driven, and then at least try to collect like a partial payment. Okay. Something like that. Okay. Sometimes you can't— there isn't anything you can get started on and you kind of at that point you at least try to get a deposit from them. Okay. Be like, we can come back and say tomorrow morning, or if you— if they need to wait until next Tuesday, be like, In order to reserve your spot on the schedule, we just need to take a 25 to 50% deposit depending on how big of a job it is or something like that. How much material needs to be ordered? Okay. And just be like, well, we'll need to take this deposit, and then the remaining balance can be paid in full once we complete the work. Okay. So at a minimum, if we aren't starting the work, if we can't, if there's nothing we can even do that day, at least try to get a deposit so that you know they're. I'm kind of invested in it.
Yeah, but most people, I think they would probably understand that, right? Yeah, I do. As a homeowner, I'd be like, oh, that makes sense, right? Yeah, you're going to order all this stuff for me. Yeah. So there's got to be a cost associated. Sure. Yeah. Just kind of wrapping up, David, what kind of has motivated you to do such a great job? You're a young guy and already you've got some great numbers. So what motivates you to stay focused and have the right mindset day in and day out?
Mm-hmm. I mean, number one, well, maybe not number one, but one obvious thing is money. Our company has a really good commission structure that it kind of rewards us the more we sell, the more we make. Yeah. So that's one motivating factor. Honestly, I'm a bit of a competitive person, so I like being able to see my numbers and kind of track it on ServiceTitan and see my progress from day to day and kind of be able to have that friendly competition with my coworkers and be like, hey, where are you at?
So every morning you guys are poking and prodding each other maybe a little bit?
Maybe not every morning, but we'll always check in and be like, hey, where do you have for the month at the end of the month? Or something like that. Or where do you have for the year? Yeah. So that kind of stuff. And honestly, just the— our company gives us a really good work-life balance and just being able to like stay fresh and not be overworked allows me to kind of stay in a positive mindset, which I find just really helps overall in my overall outlook being at work. Yeah. So having a really good work-life balance really does make a difference for coming in and being motivated.
That's great. How many hours do you typically put in a week?
It's usually 40 to 50.
Yeah. There's no— they don't do this 80-hour stuff even though calls might come in. They're like, it's not worth burning you guys out.
Yeah. I've in the six and a well six and almost half six and a half years I've been at the company I've worked one Saturday in that whole time span.
Good for people to hear.
Yeah, because there's a lot of companies that go, "Oh, you don't you don't offer weekend service." Yeah, and customers will ask that and be like, "Nope, we don't work Saturdays. Our company really values our our work-life balance." And people most of the time customers are like, "Oh, that's." That's really cool.
Yeah, right.
They see that as a positive thing. Like, they obviously— some people want us to come out on Saturday, but we're like, you're not a customer.
Yeah, yeah. Which is great because, I mean, it's hard to find you guys, so no reason to burn you out. Yeah. Kind of wrapping up, say, you know, a young guy like you were a couple of years ago as an apprentice is watching this and hasn't run his or her own truck yet. What would you say to him or her to kind of Say, yeah, how do they become like you and become successful? Sell $800,000 in residential service.
What advice might you impart? Just try to keep an open mind, be open to taking criticism. There's nothing wrong with a little bit of constructive criticism and try to learn from your people. Always try to be learning and asking questions. Yeah. If I was like when I was an apprentice, if I was ever with somebody that say like a coworker that you didn't really enjoy being with, sure. Always try to find the positive. Yeah. If you're working with somebody and you hate how they do everything, at least try to be like, okay, how can I learn from this still? If they're a really bad teacher, be like, okay, how do I try to like pinpoint the things that you shouldn't do when you're working as an electrician and try to Fine-tune the way that you're going to work when you're running the show. Yeah.
By the positive. Yeah. Find the positive. That's great, David. You did a great job today. You really outlined how I deliver exceptional service every day. I appreciate your time. Congratulations on all your success. Thank you, Bob.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for your time. Have a great rest of your day.
Yeah, you too.
I hope you've enjoyed today's show. If so, please like and subscribe on YouTube. If you're on your favorite podcast player, please leave us a 5-star review. The 2 seconds you take to leave a review will help other success-minded contractors like you find us and hopefully get a little bit better, which elevates our entire industry. And please join me for future episodes. This has been The Successful Contractor powered by CertainPath.
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