The Achieve Podcast - John & Nikki DeCausmaker (CallBoss)

Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, the show where we highlight leaders, creators, and entrepreneurs, those who are building meaningful businesses, shaping their industries, and having an impact. I'm Taylor, your host, and excited today to be joined by John and Nikki DeCosmaker, the founders, owners, and see the boss of Call Boss. And you can find them at yourcallboss.com. So give us the backstory. First off, thank you for joining us today.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Oh, my pleasure, for sure. So for those who aren't familiar with, give us the backstory on how you guys got into this space with CallBoss and who you're serving.

You wanna start?

You can go ahead.

Oh yeah. So we had a service-based company And when we started, it was just me in a truck. I was trucking a truck. And then Nikki was answering the phones and I was answering phones in the field. And what we realized really fast is that, man, there's just a huge need that isn't being addressed, right? So there's call centers, they'll take a live message for you and then they send it on. And so we try to get the help. We would reach out to, you know, call center, but it just created more work for us on our end. And then we go to conferences. We got a little bit bigger. We go to these conferences and these guys pay all this money to be at a conference, but yet they're in the back of the room or they're outside, they're on their phone and they're answering phone calls. They're like, there's got to be a better way. Yes. So Nikki and I talked about it and it was like back of the napkin. Hey, I think we can do this. Nikki has a call center background. We both have customer service background and she's like, oh my gosh, like what are we doing? This is, this is, we'll do it the Little John's way. And just put it as a call loss. And so when we started, we reached— we literally reached out to our friends like, hello, please help us, and like, we want to start this up. And it fired off, and people were like excited. And now you fast forward 7 years, and now we have software in the background, we have ongoing training for our CSRs, we've really, really dabbled in. We can get in the back of people's CRM systems. So we're like a high-level admin that can do everything your admin can do and help your admin. We're not here to replace your admin necessarily, or your managers. We're here just to help them. But we can convert leads to customers, we set appointments, take credit card payments, cancel, reschedule. We have a service that you can do, uh, customer service follow-ups. We do campaigns, collections, all the things. It's all the stuff that people forget about. And yeah, when we started Nikki loved the small, the small companies, and we still have a heart for the small guys, right? Because you make an impact right away, and which is awesome. But I think as we've gotten bigger, we started attracting big companies, right? We become like their safety blankets. So now it's like, yeah, hey, we have an all-staff meeting. Hey, call bosses, what's going on, right? So we developed a whole system behind it, and I think the one key takeaway is this: You train us once, you don't have to train us again. If you hire somebody in-house to help with the season, if they leave, your training is over again. How much it costs for ads and the space and your onboarding them, and when they leave, like, how much does that actually cost you when we're a support staff that's here for you 24 hours a day?

Wow, that's awesome. That's impressive. 'Cause yeah, that point you just made of when you bring on new people, that duplication, that retraining and hire somebody new to replace, wow, saves a lot of time and money.

Yeah, and how many times, and this is nothing bad against the people who work in these offices or even the owners, right? The owners, the managers are super busy. They bring in an office person, they promote him to office manager or him to office manager. Or they haven't answered the phones, and they're getting upset because, man, I can't figure out my close rate, and this is not happening, and that's not happening. Well, you hired them, you trained them once, you never went back to make sure that they're trained. You're not supporting them like they need to be supported, right? And then you wonder why there's a burnout. You wonder why that the customer service isn't at the level it should be. Whereas we check for empathy. They smile when they get on the phone. Are they being retrained in all the CRM systems, right? Are we answering as if, right? You know, a smile to the phone goes a long way. Nikki preached that, especially in the beginning. And I remember when she was buying mirrors for everybody to put in front of their desk. Smile, then answer. Fair?

Exactly. And it's no knock on owners too, because you're so busy as an owner, it's almost like set it and forget it. And then you forget that person's doing all the things. And so with CallBoss, it's like you can set it and forget it, but we're going to make sure everything is happening the way it should be.

I'm Sacramento.

That's amazing. The load that you take off at that, the cognitive load, because if you have a dog, if you have a child, you have like employees, like all of us, we forget, we get bombarded with stuff. And so be able to let it go and know it's being taken care of and just handled.

Wow.

So what would you say right now is driving growth for you guys?

I think people— well, at this moment, I think what's happening is people getting overloaded with with business coming in and they're just desperate looking for help. So people who use us or people who know about us like, hey, you need to call Paul Boss. And then we'll take them on, the onboarding's fast. It takes us about 4 days. We can have somebody up and live running, but it's just pulling the trigger, right? People are like, well, I can handle it myself, right? Man, one missed call is one missed opportunity, right? You miss, you miss 2 calls a day, 5 days a week, that's 10 missed calls, right? There's 40 missed calls a month, right? It just compounds. As you go, right? And I think the other thing too is when we went 24 hours and people like, man, I love it, I don't know if I need that. We sold a job for AIM and they were a Monday through Friday company that, yeah, let's try it, man. I think the last 2 weekends in a row they've made one sale that paid for the whole week and some, right? It was like, dang, man. He goes, I'm never getting rid of this, right? And he does irrigation repairs and residential properties. So I think All too often we just assume that the norm is like, well, nobody else is answering, right? What sets you apart from everybody else, right? What's, what's your customer service like? How do you make yourself better? And I think Nikki and the team, they've done a really, really good job to make sure that our culture is really good so it bleeds into your culture, right?

That's good. So looking back for you guys, what turning points had the greatest impact on how you think about and run the organization?

Go ahead, I got it.

For us, I believe it was a transition from where we started, which was originally in-house pre-COVID, right? And we had notebooks, we flipped through paper to know all the things about a company. COVID hits and everybody's remote, which we thought would be a perk to doing a good job, right? And now it's like, it's a, it's a thing. And so transitioning from paper to a software built for call centers to house all of our information and bring up the information when it's time for those calls was a game changer. Was that what you were going to say?

Yes, kind of. So I— we started— yes, we shared offices with our other company, and Nikki was bound and determined to have our own office. Well, we had it. We opened up an office. We were there 3 weeks. COVID happened. And literally, when we thought, okay, this is going to pass, we realized like, oh my gosh, the world is like losing their mind and everybody's You know, and we want to make sure everybody's safe because nobody knew what was happening at the time. Like, Nikki and I went home and rebuilt the— we rebuilt the business in 72 hours, essentially.

Um, shout out David Kaye.

David Kaye, yeah, absolutely. Helped us. That's right, that's exactly right. So we rebuilt the business. That was our biggest turning point because it forced us out of the norm and forced us to something that we were going to do eventually, to have to do it right now. Yeah, you know, I think that for me was like a huge one.

Well, it paved the way because now all of our reps are US-based, but they're all throughout the US.

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's that necessity, mother of all— man.

Yeah.

So when you think about your marketing and your messaging out there, what's been working well to attract and retain good customers?

I think stuff like this. I think going and speaking, you know, Nikki and I had the opportunity for the first time— like, I've— we've spoken in conferences, but like we had the opportunity the first time to speak together on stage. And I think that was really, really good because, you know, we've been together, we're married, been together 26 years, and like we have a really good working and marriage relationship. But I think like getting on stage and being able to really like key off on each other played well. Um, we were at the, uh, um, Service Edge. Yeah, Service Edge conference, and we spoke in front of a bunch of plumbers and HVAC. And like, it was awesome, like, to take away, right? Um, because I think they see that we really care about the customer, we really care about our company, we care about the employees that work here, and we want what's best for everybody, right? I think that, that those are probably the two big ones right now. Um, marketing is kind of interesting. We have a— well, we might be rolling out a big marketing plan this coming week, but, uh, marketing is pretty interesting because it's so niche. That, that's where it gets pretty difficult, right? The other thing is companies, call centers race to the bottom as fast as possible, right? So you're gonna see all these ads like, oh man, it's only gonna cost you X amount of dollars per week. The problem is that they're sending it overseas. Those people are doing a great job. They're doing what they can do, but there's a different— there, we have a culture in the United States I think is overlooked all too often. Yeah. Right? And then the other thing is like, well, I'm gonna go AI. Okay, awesome. Good AI. But when we're at that conference, that AI company talked and I was like, he goes, you need to go see every job. I'm like, you can't do that. We've sold, we had 1,000 leads in our, our landscape company that's coming into the first quarter. To go look at 1,000 leads, I couldn't do it, right? So we have to answer, answer those questions. And the other thing is you bring in AI to answer your calls, it can do some really cool stuff, but I think it takes away the human touch. That people are— I think people are desperate for it, honestly.

Yeah, yeah. There's something about that human connection that's just real. They can understand the nuances. And you mentioned the nuance of the American society, culture, and understanding that versus the foreign seas. Like, there's a lot they can do, just like AI. There's a lot of things they can do, but there's just little details people pick up.

And they work their butt off overseas. They really do. They— but it's just like, it's just there's something different about that.

Yeah. So when it comes to AI and automation, where have you guys found ways internally to utilize it?

We have some AI components in our call center software that allows us to check the inflection and what's being said. For us, it's a little funny because we say, because we're not there with the other company, we'll get it over to our supervisor. But that's not a bad thing, you know what I mean? But AI is like supervisor problem. So it's Funny how that kind of registers. Um, but we're using it in that aspect, and then we're also kind of toying with the idea for like a first line of communication just for basic information gathering or things like that to assist us with our overnight and 24/7.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah.

So looking at the trajectory of the company, if you had to pick one problem to focus on, one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?

I think it'd be consistent good leads.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Leads.

Yeah.

We get amazing people who apply for us and we have like thousands of resumes that will come through to apply for that, that company. It's— and that's— so the employees aren't the issue because we grew— Nikki has grown a really good culture, right? The team over there. It's bringing in the right work, right? Bringing in the 24-hour service work, bringing in the emergency service stuff, really like letting us shine and show them what we can do.

Mm, that makes a lot of sense. I could see that. So when you look at your own journey, the wins, the mistakes, what lessons stand out to you? And maybe which ones do you feel like took longer to learn they probably should have?

For us, or maybe just for me, but Uh, higher slow, fire faster was really a thing because in the beginning, for even for both companies, depending on seasonality, it's like, oh, you're breathing, get it, you can have a job, you know, we need you, we need the, we need the labor. And then after time, it was like, okay, now we can really dial in and get people that are specific with the skill set that we need. And then if they aren't making the cut within that first 90 days, they just gotta go. And so it's been really beneficial. I know people talk about that a lot, but it took us a little while to get there because sometimes I think we're a little too empathetic and a little too— I don't want to mess up your life, but at the same time, you don't make my business look crazy. No, I don't need to let you go, you know.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah. I think, uh, trust your gut is a big one. Trust your gut. If it doesn't feel right, it's probably not right.

Yeah, I like that. Trust your gut. So last question for you. When you think about the next stage of the business, what are you most excited about?

For CallBoss, it's going to be growth and opportunity. If we can just get in front of the right companies that actually understand what we can do to help propel them. I mean, that's a great feeling knowing that you're helping people, but getting to the right people is exciting because I think with the new marketing plan that we're getting ready to roll out, we can make a big difference.

Yeah, I think for me it's, yeah, it's bringing the right— getting in front of the right people. I think there's a growth like that we want to have that we all have set for ourselves, but the growth isn't just for us, it's like for our team, right? So like we want to grow to a certain size financially for sure, but also because I think like we always talk about like we want to, we want to take care of the people who take care of us. And so like, we can grow to a size to like really make us stand out, um, would allow us one, to bring really good talent in, but also take care of the talent that we have.

Mm, I like that. I like that a lot. So for those who want to get to know more, want to reach out, yourcallboss.com, LinkedIn, anywhere else you want to send them?

Um, they can check out our Instagram, our Facebook, and our TikTok.

Okay.

All the same name.

And is there any ideal business or client that works really well with what you guys do?

Yeah, we have all kinds. We have from pool guys, the pest, to landscapers, to garage doors, to, we're getting ready, we hopefully are gonna bring on some HVAC and plumbing, right? They're very, very interesting, interested. There's a, I think that is really cool. It's regional. I would love to get a national account. There's a big national company that's talked to us, uh, that they're huge. You know, they deal with a ton of fire departments, uh, municipalities. I know that's all over the place, but I think it's like finding those ones that are a little bit of a challenge to have that emergency services, like that's the stuff that we really want to dig into because like we want to be the best that we can be, you know? And I think getting in front of some of those people would do that for us.

We typically do most service-based companies and like there was a time when we answered for a company called Give Up Your Timeshare. They just needed help. So I mean, it can be an array of things that if someone's thinking, you know, maybe I need this for my hair salon or something, think outside the box, come to us. I'm sure we can figure out a solution.

Yeah, that's right.

I love that because, yeah, like when you're in the middle of taking care of your client, giving them the white glove service, and the phone rings for another, like, you don't want to lose them. That makes total sense. And every business, it seems like, could have that. 'Cause it, it, it's a seasonal, it seems like always like everybody comes at once and the phone's ringing off the hook. Your customers are coming in, you gotta line out the door and then it goes silent.

Yep.

Right.

You gotta ride the wave. Yeah. Right.

Have that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Wow.

Well, thank you for coming on and sharing. Any final thoughts or words for our listeners?

If you think it might be a fit, it probably is. Reach out. We'd love to help.

That's right. Um, I think for me it's like, don't do too many things, do a few things, but do the few things really well.

Oh, I like that. If you think it might be a fit, reach out and don't do too many things, but do the things you do well. That's awesome. Well, thank you for coming on and joining and sharing your wisdom and insight and what you guys are doing. I love it. I love what you're building here.

Appreciate it. Appreciate the time.

And thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed the episode, share it with a friend, with a colleague. If you're not sure about your after hours, about your, your help in the office, reach out, reach out to John and Nikki and the team and see if it's a good fit. Probably will be. And we'll see you all in the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.