Welcome to Close it now, the podcast that's revolutionizing the H Vac and home improvement trades industries.

Get ready to dive deep into the world of heating, ventilation and air conditioning.

We're turning up the heat on industry standards and cooling down misconceptions.

And we're not just talking about fixing vents and adjusting thermostats.

It's about the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement.

We're the driving force, inspiring top performers who crave excellence not only in their professional endeavors, but also in fitness, nutrition, relationships, and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all.

This is Close it now, where excellence meets excitement.

Let's get to work now.

Your host, Sam Wakefield.

Well, welcome back.

Close It Now.

Sam Wakefield.

Here, Let me get my radio voice on here for a sec.

No, just kidding, everybody.

Don't.

When you're getting yourself in your sales appointments, don't use that creepy salesman voice.

Just be normal.

There's an old tagline, if you remember back to the first two, three years of the podcast.

Everybody listening.

We used to always say, stop being weird and start selling.

And it still applies, but we've just moved on from that a little bit.

But it's good to remember that sometimes.

So getting into the episode today, I'm excited to have our guest on.

He has lots of history.

We'll let him give us a highlight reel here in a minute.

But I'm super excited.

They reached out to me.

You know, if you, if you don't know this, if you don't host a podcast or something like this, you know, once your podcast grows to a certain size, you get every single day, it's like eight to 10 messages from who knows who.

You're trying to put people onto your show, which is great for me.

That way I don't have to go out and try to find people.

The other part, other side of that is you never know who's going to appear.

And so I usually say no to about nine out of 10 people who reach out to be on the show.

This was an exception.

And you'll hear why as soon as we get to.

As soon as we get into this interview.

So I am excited to introduce James Hatfield.

He is C.

What'd you say?

C.

I'm sorry, I already forgot.

C.

The C.

The A, B, C, D, E, F, G.

Yeah, he's C Suite.

Yeah, exactly.

The chief revenue officer.

Revenue officer.

I sell stuff.

I sell stuff.

You know the sales guy.

Yeah, we were talking.

We've been talking oh, my gosh.

We had spent an hour the other day getting to know each other to even discuss what we were gonna talk about today.

But Chief Revenue Officer with a live switch is the name of his organ, and he has a massive history in sales and sales experience and growing and leading teams, et cetera, et cetera.

So, James, welcome to the show, man.

I am excited that you're here.

I'm glad to be here.

I love talking about home services trades and of course, sales and technology too, because I'm a bit of a nerd.

Yeah, of course you can't be in home services.

And that's the cool part, is if anybody who's doing anything, if a company is growing at all, even a little bit in home services or trades nowadays, they have to be plugged into some of the latest technology, otherwise they are getting left behind.

If you don't embrace change, you better get used to extinction.

That's what I've heard years and years and years ago, and it absolutely applies to our industry.

Before we get into some of what we're going to talk about today, everybody, of course, is wondering, like, who is this guy?

Where did he come from?

And why in the world would he be on this podcast?

So give us your highlight, real man.

Give some experience, some history, and along the way would love to hear, like, one big philosophy that you.

That you live, you know, for your personal life that guides your.

Guides your business as well.

Yeah, I think, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right?

So my grandfather, unfortunately, his dad passed away when he was quite young, but he was the oldest of a large family, so he had to drop out of high school and go get a job at a tire shop when he was 16 years old to put food on the table.

My goodness, could you imagine being 16 years old?

And that's what happens.

You lose your dad and now you've got to go and get to work so the family can eat.

So we, we really didn't come from much, but we did come from hard work.

You know, my grandfather built his own house up, you know, later on in life.

My father, same thing.

His dad died young and then he ended up being a blue collar guy, put himself back to school, built his own house, and, you know, the dreams of my father and my grandfather, you know, it's very formative, right?

Fathers in our lives, if you have one, can be very formative.

And, you know, my grandfather's like, hey, I want you to, James, paint the lines on the highway.

Because if you do that, you're always going to have a job.

You'll always be.

That was his big dream.

My father was like, james, I want you to be a plumber.

You're a plumber.

There's always going to be plumbers.

You're going to make a great living do that.

And you know, I didn't know I needed to pay bills for my sum, right.

No one was.

And of course parents like, get out of our pocketbook as fast as possible.

So when I graduate high school, I learned instead of painting the roads, I learned how to paint houses.

And that's really where I started.

I just sat beside guys that knew what they were doing.

And then, you know, I didn't mind going door to door, knocking on doors and hustling to get money.

Like that never bothered me.

Nose never bothered me.

You know, I just, I'm always shocked when people say yes, to be honest with you.

So here's this guy in a clipboard and a hat.

You know, I try to look presentable and I'm knocking on doors and all of a sudden multiple crews.

You know, we're doing full head to toe exterior painting, deck power, washing, the whole nine.

And here we go.

And that sets my journey off.

Literally.

I just need to make ends meet and that's where I come from.

And that's I was fulfilling the dreams of my, my fathers, you know what I mean?

So that's what where I got started.

Love it, Love it.

So, and of course that teaches a massive amount of work ethic and discipline and drive, which is awesome.

So take us forward a little bit because that of course led you into more of your, you know, your career path and some of the things you did pull us forward a little bit, into a little bit more of your history because I know that it is pretty massive and pretty expansive.

But yeah, tell us a little bit more about your sales experience and the teams and some of the stuff you've done.

So it's, it's one thing when you're going door to door, you know, and you're selling, which is always great, by the way, if you, if you don't have enough business, go knock on some doors, humble yourself and tell your team to do so.

And if they won't, then they, you know, it tells you a lot about where your team's at and their love for, for your business.

So, yeah, I figured we need to.

Put a pin in this one and circle back a little here.

Oh, we can circle back to selling because that's another thing I've.

I actually love Selling.

So from there I was like, man, I'm running these crews.

I'm trying to understand my books.

I can't make heads or tails going to the bookkeeper.

They're speaking Eng to me, but I'm like, I don't know what they're talking about.

But I knew I wanted to get really good at it.

And at that time, I'm dating myself.

University was actually affordable, unlike today.

I can't believe what we charge kids.

My kids might go to community college if you're going to go at all.

Right?

But anyway, that's a whole nother soapbox.

I won't get on.

And at that time, it was affordable.

And I went to get accounting classes because that's where I knew I was weak.

I was strong in sales, strong in management, strong in team building, recruiting, but I needed to get strong in the numbers.

So I hunkered down, went to a state school and got to learn accounting.

As I graduated there, I had a partner who was graduating with their MBA from Duke.

And he saw a hole in the boat of what I was struggling with.

Helping business owners understand the income statement balance sheet that they pay for from their bookkeepers.

So he created this expert system.

He's a numbers guy.

And you can put your income statement and balance sheet into the system and it would tell you in plain language as a business, for a business owner, what it means and how you compare to other people in your industry.

And so he's like, hey, James, why don't you partner with me?

It looks like you're great at selling.

And we started in an incubator, meaning I worked in the hallway of some random commercial building that we could barely afford.

Okay.

And so at that time, I didn't mind picking up a phone and I'd made 150 plus cold calls a day.

Like, I'm gonna go figure this thing out.

I'm gonna find a home for it.

And sure enough, that company when Inc 500, meaning we were one of the fastest growing companies in the nation.

And we eventually started selling to banks and had a huge exit for multi billion dollars from kkr.

And the saga continues because we both went into philanthropy after that.

And then you keep fast forward in the movie, but yeah, a little bit of hustle, a little bit of grind, and a one extra plus one because you mentioned it early on, being weird in your sales calls.

I loved hiring X.

Not well.

They were almost pro, you know, like the farm leagues for like MLB baseball.

And some of them made it for a few games.

They would.

They Couldn't make it all the way.

I loved hiring those guys right off the bald field because they were so competitive, and I would get these guys.

And I got this guy.

It was 20 years ago.

This guy's name is Larry Long Jr.

If you look him up, he's actually a famous, like, sales influencer now.

And, well, I got him first.

I hired him right out of baseball.

He's in my office making the calls, and I'm listening to this guy.

He sounds, by the way.

This guy's the life of the party.

Like, in the office, all the guys are around him.

He's chumming it up.

Everyone just loves this guy.

He tells great stories, but he gets on the horn and it's terrible.

I mean, it's awful.

I mean, I can't even listen to him.

So instead of embarrass him in front of everyone's like, here, come here.

Come to my office.

Let's sit down.

I'm like, larry, Larry, you're like the life of the party here, but you sound like a robot on the telephone.

It's terrible.

I'm like, are you reading from a script right now?

Don't.

Don't be two different people, right?

Yes, be Larry.

I was like, that's what I told.

Like, are you had it?

Are you reading from a script?

Give me that thing.

So I took the thing and I ripped it up, and for dramatic effect, I had thrown it in the trash can.

So it gets a big dunk.

Larry, everybody loves you.

Just be Larry and call, just like you were saying earlier.

And you know what?

He still credits that to this day.

And he's on tons and tons of sales podcasts.

He's got books.

He's travels all over teaching people how to sell, if you can believe it.

But sometimes, to your point, Sam, that was just my plus one.

Stop being weird.

Yeah.

You know, just be you and you'll never know what's inside.

Have a conversation, right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So anyway, we get into philanthropy.

I started building a nonprofit.

I'm in Asheville, North Carolina, and my other.

My partner, he builds out a.

It's called Inmates to entrepreneurs.

Put thousands and thousands of currently and previously incarcerated men through the program.

It's still around today.

We love teaching entrepreneurship.

We love teaching the trades and the graduations.

You know, bring a box of tissues.

But it turned into an ABC television show called Free Enterprise.

Won a bunch of awards.

You can watch on ABC tv.

These are great stories.

And we hire folks out of the program into our NOW tech company because we decided, hey, philanthropy Is great.

We love it.

It's heart lifting.

Like, you know, we're too young to hang up our cleats.

Let's build another billion dollar company.

Yeah.

So we purchased a company instead of starting one in an incubator this time.

So we purchased a 16 year old company.

And then again.

The saga continues.

The saga continues.

Stay tuned for the next episode of, you know, Sam and James.

Talk about wild stories of business.

So then we buy this company.

Okay.

Uh, we look at hundreds and hundred companies.

We knew we wanted kind of a mom and pop founder led, been around a while where we could come and contribute.

And we found a company out of all places in Vancouver, Canada.

And this guy was also from the North Carolina area.

Him and his brother started this tech company with this technology called WebRTC.

And if you ask any of your listeners right now, any listener who knows what WebRTC is right now, you get a plus one and put a star in your refrigerator.

Because you were, I was like, what is this stuff?

Right?

So I'll even admit I have no idea what that means.

Nobody does.

I didn't even know.

And my partner's like, I got one.

I got, let's do it again.

I found something.

So I come in and I also like getting nerdy.

I mean, if you, if you can see me now, I've got big, you know, coke bottle glasses on.

I'll give you my lunch money later, Sam.

Yeah, but everybody on YouTube remember to like and subscribe and follow all the things.

But you're the ones that get to actually see what's going on here instead of just listening.

Yeah, you can see my big thick glasses, you know, because I can't.

I'm blind as a bat.

Well, if I didn't have my contacts and I'm sure that I would probably could give you some competition there.

I love it.

Well, I left the pocket protector at home, so don't worry, Sam.

So then I started getting with our engineers and these guys again, just like the accounting stuff.

They're speaking English to me.

I'm nodding my head.

I'm like, I don't understand what these guys are saying.

Not a single word.

They're all computer scientists.

They're smart as I'll get out.

So I'm hanging out with them for a while and we're, we're doing cool stuff.

We're like powering the super bowl this year and last year, if you go to an MLB ballpark and scan a QR code, they put you on the Jumbotron.

We're Doing that.

We did 100 episodes of WWE Wrestling.

But we're also like, stuff for.

For NASA, Department of Defense, all this really incredible stuff that the company's been doing for, you know, 16 years.

Well, I get this chance to reinvent the 911 phone call with the chief of police in Washington, D.C.

whoa.

As one does.

Right.

So we had to come up with.

Just casually say that, like everybody gets that opportunity.

Like everybody.

Exactly.

Well, sometimes you.

You're, you know, you're in the movie, but you're like, I can't believe this is what's happening.

But anyway, so I.

I get with a chief.

And we needed to find a way to connect the citizens cell phone in this case, because everyone has like four or five cameras on their phone to the police officer driving in their police car.

It's called situational awareness.

If you've got any ex police officers or current police officers, they'll know what I'm talking about.

Next gen policing.

And now when you place a 911 phone call, it's over the phone.

What's the worst part of your smartphone, Sam?

The worst part of your smartphone is what?

Oh, geez.

I don't know.

The phone.

The phone.

And the most ironic thing.

The phone sucks.

Can you hear me?

Now it hangs.

It's terrible.

It's on an old technology called telephony.

So now when you're on the 911 call, you'll get a text, you'll tap it.

You don't have to download any apps.

Nobody wants any more apps.

You tap it and you instantly your cameras light up.

And that live stream from the citizen's camera goes right to the police car.

Wow.

And they can see what they're driving into.

And we started putting us across campuses because these school shootings just suck.

And then, well, back to the blue collar roots.

Who else could use this thing?

Of course.

Well, that's a natural question.

So I'm like, well, maybe these guys that take care of sports teams and arenas.

So I meet this guy, his name is A.D.

he takes care of the Nashville, Tennessee Titans football team, NFL team.

And he's looking at my emergency response stuff.

He's like, james, this all looks great, but I got the.

I got the stupidest question.

I'm like, lay it on me, man.

He's like, can I just text my guy across the arena when the trash cans fall over and I don't have to hop in my golf cart and he can just show me what's going on?

And I'm like, oh, yeah.

And now Back.

I remember.

I mean I remember I had the next to walkie talkie.

Did you have one of those things?

Oh yeah, yeah.

I remember the.

You cannot forget the beep.

The sound of that burp.

Yes.

Oh, it's in my brain.

Yeah.

Like everybody who's anybody, if you're sitting at Waffle House before your job, you're eating your, you know, hash browns and waffles and you got your truck out there and you got your next to walkie talkie, you have made it.

Like I felt like I was the stuff that day when I had that.

But they clicked.

I was like, oh.

So we start talking to all these different people and I meet this guy in the moving industry, like moving boxes, you know, and he's a smart guy, he puts on these conferences and I'm showing him, just like I'm telling you now, I'm showing him our stuff.

He's like James, you have no idea what you have.

Like what do you mean?

He's like, we will use this for virtual estimates so I don't have to skip the drive in the truck.

He's like the most expensive thing I do as a business owner is I put a guy behind the wheel of one of my trucks.

I pay him hourly just in the hopes that I win the business.

And he also says like hey.

And you know, sometimes someone calls in or goes in through my website and I get a lead and I book the time, I pre qualify them and then my guy calls like oh, I'm headed out and the person's like no, don't bother, I already, I already booked somebody.

Right.

Speed delete is everything.

It's everything.

Nobody likes to wait anymore.

I mean that's just 100%.

Yeah, I mean I work with, you know, doing what we do.

We are always studying, you know, marketing companies and those kind of things.

And the statistics are wild.

You know, for all of the contractors that are listening, you know, when we respond within I think it's five seconds to the lead where like 80% more likely to, to book it versus not if it goes over five seconds then the numbers go down.

Literally 80% the likelihood to actually book that, book that lead.

And it's, it's nuts.

But it's exactly what it is.

It's exactly what it is.

Automations we need all kind of different abilities to be in contact immediately.

Yeah.

And in the age of Amazon, we just don't like waiting.

I don't want to wait.

I don't want to wait 20 days for a package.

I want it Overnight.

I don't want to wait in line for sandwich for 30 minutes.

Nobody wants to wait.

So we need to think as home service professionals, as when we're dealing with customers.

This is their mindset.

The longer you make them wait, the more unhappy they are.

You're the same, we're all the same way.

How is this any different?

But the question is, well, what do we do?

Like I'm on a job site or I'm doing this, that and the other, like I can't respond in five minutes.

How am I supposed to do that?

Yeah, especially smaller companies that don't have a built out team that's a dedicated people or invested in the really expensive AI systems that immediately do all of that.

Wow.

It's like a bandwidth.

Right.

But even the AI systems, they go through your booking process and they book you and when they book, they don't book in five minutes.

They're not showing up at the doorstep in five minutes.

This is still the problem.

I don't care if you're using AI or robots, you still have a problem.

Yeah, we're just talking about the initial contact.

How do we get you.

This is interesting because I love this conversation because it takes us to.

So many of the things that have been adapted and developed have been more of treating a symptom than it is the actual problem itself.

So if you like so many times in companies or trades, it's just built on this symptom.

We fix this symptom so it caused the next symptom, which caused the next symptom.

But if we're truly scraping that and said, okay, let's start over, how would we do it differently?

It would look completely different.

But we're so far down this road of we've invested in all these things to fix all these symptoms.

It's kind of somebody in medical is like we have all of these side effects of these drugs.

So if you actually just stop taking so many of the drugs, then you get better because one was treating the side effects of the other one, treating the side effects of the other one.

And then now it's this overload.

Absolutely.

And this is why I love hiring ex athletes because they inherently understand speed.

I don't care what sport you play.

What's a big stat in football?

How fast you are.

Right.

What about track and field?

How fast you are.

What about in boxing?

How fast you are?

It doesn't matter.

Any sport.

Well, why is it any different in a professional sales that we're going to be judged the same way by our Speed and the quality of our work, it's just like sports, Right?

So how is a guy who's on a job site going to compete?

Well, this is the problem that we're solving.

Right.

The other problem we're solving.

And as great as AI is, I'm not here to bash it.

It also is booking you later.

How.

What's the close rate for your AI bot?

It's kind of low.

I bet.

How often are you.

If the AI bot was so good, you'd never have to make another sales call or need another salesperson on your sales team.

Isn't that right?

Sure, yeah, of course.

But we all know it doesn't close.

It books meetings, and it answers trivial questions, which are fine, that's great.

But replace the relationship, of course.

And that's, that's why we, you know, have people that can never be replaced.

Maybe it changes formats, maybe we hop on a virtual appointment, but we're still looking them in the eye.

You know, we can build relationship.

The looking us in the eye piece is important.

Right.

Because how.

How many deals are you closing just having your salespeople chat on a keyboard, doing text messaging, Right?

Yeah.

I mean, they might be building rapport, but they're probably never closing.

Next.

How often are you closing on a phone call?

You're probably doing your pre qualification questions and every now and then you'll close the deal.

Sure.

But also, it's a little bit risky because you're blind bidding.

And I know when I was in my painting company and I blind bid a few things, those turn into nonprofits pretty fast because I screw it up and the customer is trying to explain.

Stuff, they have no idea what they're looking at.

Yeah, no idea.

Unless the model has been perfectly set up for.

And there's, of course, in trades, there's where the new buzzword is called call by call management, which is just the way we've managed for years and years and years.

Just finally got a buzzword for it.

But, you know, the, the.

There are some models.

Yeah.

To get somebody, but it still has somebody there that's done half of the work before.

It gets passed over to the person on the phone or the video.

And it's like this big convoluted mess.

It doesn't land the plane.

It just doesn't.

Because just like the police officers, you know, when somebody's calling and they're compromised, I don't know where I am.

There's fire all around me.

The same thing happens with our prospects.

Like if you're an electrician well, it looks like a gray box and when I open it, there's black switches with numbers on it and I can't.

And the ones are going left and ones are going.

And you're like, oh my goodness, can you just show it to me?

Because as seasoned professionals, we've seen a lot and our eyes operate 10,000 times better than just our ears.

So the whole thing is we drive out, we get in the truck and we drive out and we get on property and we look at the problem, we bid the problem and we close the problem.

We've been doing that for a long time, right?

So here's where the change comes in.

And we are not going to fully change it 100%.

You are still going to go on site for a lot of times.

But can we reduce it?

Can we reduce it?

Especially for some of the, the jobs that or the follow ups.

How often have you driven out, like if you're H Vac person just to reset the stinking nest thermostat when you're like.

And you do it because you just installed it and they paid all this extra money and you want to do the right thing and you want to drive out and you want to spend.

No, you don't.

You just want them to hit the reset button and the on the on button.

You're literally there three minutes.

Right?

How many change the batteries in your thermostat?

Right, Exactly.

So we have these things just like the police officers were saying, four or five cameras in these phones now.

And we have live video.

The problem has been and why you don't see live video is only four companies in the world do live video.

And if a, and if a company has live video, they're outsourcing it from somebody else.

Like we power some of the largest live video applications that are billion dollar products.

We power them because we're only one of four companies that do this.

Which is why I get an opportunity to work with the chief of police.

Right.

Because there's just not a lot of people that can do that.

So our thing is we're the live video company.

So because my partner ran landscaping business, I ran power washing and painting companies.

We inherently know our customers.

First of all, nothing can be complicated.

When you teach someone how to answer.

Do you have to teach someone how to answer the phone?

Sometimes on the first smartphone you swipe your finger, swipe the finger and you answer the call.

It's got to be that easy.

Because if nobody's going to download another app, nobody's doing that.

Nobody likes to do that.

Everybody.

What do we ask our customers on the phones now?

My wife wanted to get some driveway, and I.

My wife and I want to get some driveway work done.

These guys come and they want my wife to go out there, take pictures, upload the thing somewhere, go to her text messages.

She's like, this is terrible.

And a lot of times we just forget it.

I'm driving out.

So now we have a system.

It's built for the layperson and not just the customers, but your.

Your team.

We're not all tech.

Tech nerds, you know, I.

I am, but.

But we have to make it simple.

So to use our stuff, you have to be able to enter in a phone number.

That's it.

Cool.

To answer it if I'm the customer or prospect, you just tap a text.

Tap it.

Just tap it.

That's it.

And we're connected.

Once you're connected, it's all tuned up for third party assistance.

This is not a FaceTime call.

This ain't zoom.

And we've tried to use that, and a lot of professionals have tried, especially when Covid came around.

But the reason we didn't keep using it is because it wasn't purpose built.

Right.

It's for having a talk, doing a podcast, grandma, watching the kids blow out candles, but not to do a third party assistance.

Walk me through and show me the job so I can bid it, close it, and get the money.

I've done it.

I was teaching webinars, pretty substantial 350 person webinars on how to virtual cell right in the heart of COVID And you're right, it's like the handful of people tried it and did it.

You know, we were selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment because, you know, my.

I was training my team daily on it, but the implementation across the country was pretty low, other than a handful of people.

And, you know, I totally agree with you.

And that was one of the big stumbling blocks was, you know, somebody had to learn how to use Zoom.

Okay, well, let's try FaceTime.

Okay.

Do you have Facebook?

How about Facebook messenger video?

Okay.

All right, then you need somebody to.

Okay, can I get you to climb around through your attic for me?

No wonder.

It's like, forget it.

I'm driving out.

Yeah.

It's like, okay, guys, lock yourself in your master bedroom.

I'll call you when I get there and I'll throw a mask on.

Exactly, exactly.

And that's what we did.

So now you have something that's purpose built.

It's no apps.

Customer taps it.

And when the customer holds the phone in this case, they actually see themselves large and use small and seeing a person eyeball to eyeball.

What you said earlier, Sam, the close rates are way higher than over the phone, an AI or chatting.

And in fact I have customers that track every deal down to the T.

And you know those types.

Oh, absolutely, James.

When we go on site, I close 60%.

I've heard this in multiple industries.

We close 6% when you use your stuff.

61% about the same.

So.

But why is that?

Back to speed to lead.

You can be sitting at on a job site in your truck, pull over, you could be at the Waffle House and video connect with that person.

Are you going to close all the deals that way?

No.

No.

Yeah, but them seeing your face as beautiful as we aren't that it's the, it's the trust of like, okay, I'm the owner or I'm the lead sales guy or I'm the lead tech.

Right.

And now the customer can walk around because they can see themselves big so they don't fall down the stairs.

They see you.

And on your end you can be on a tablet, a PC, a Mac, it doesn't matter, you know what you're, we don't care about your device.

But you see everything large and it records everything.

You can take remote photos, take notes, and then you can, if you have all the info you need to bid it, fix it.

Connect a senior tech to a junior tech.

This is remote assistance technology, not just for sales, but ops and everything else.

Now we're going to use these phones to our max, you know, and weave that in into something that was thoughtful.

It's great.

I mean I'm not knocking like all the other things we said, they just weren't built to do what we're trying to do.

Yeah, it's purpose driven professionals.

That's it.

You know, give me the right tools for the right job.

I mean I can do something like MacGyver with duct tape and I'm dating myself again, but you know.

Yeah, all you need is duct tape, a Swiss army knife and a roll of the toilet middle out of a toilet paper roll.

And you're good, right?

And I can fix anything, you know.

No, come on man.

Like let's get some real tools here.

And so that, that has really been a game changer for a lot of our folks on the front end during the operations, before and after documentation and afterwards and all everything in between.

When the light bulb starts going off, I can use it Here, I'll use it here.

It's absolutely.

Yeah, it's already.

So you mentioned senior tech to junior tech.

You know, guys out on the field that going, hey, I'm having problem with this diagnosis.

Talk to the technical supervisor, talk to same with salespeople in the, in the field, install in the field.

You know, connecting department to department.

It's all these different ways to make this really, really cool.

It's mind boggling.

Like the other thing we have is you can arm your technicians with an, a tablet, can be a simple Android or little iPad and they can show up.

And I know we all have them.

I know I had them, I had techs that were good at like whatever job I gave them.

But don't ask them to try to sell anything because they can't close the door.

They don't know how to upsell.

They don't even want to talk to the customer.

They just want to get the work done.

So now your technician can show up on site.

You've booked the job, you won the job.

Now hand the customer a tablet, they hit a button and connect back with your customer success or sales team.

The salesperson said, hey, yep, I got Johnny on site, we're taking care of this, that and the other.

Oh, and while he's on site, did you have any other needs for us to take a look at while we're there?

AKA upsell and oh, have I told you about our protection plan, our membership plan?

And they're just talking virtually and seeing on video your salesperson while your tech is out there already fixing whatever they were hired to fix.

So that's another pathway to start leveraging these live video in different ways.

Right.

I love this so much.

It, it's cool because it, you know, it definitely fits a lot of different models.

You know, within the, in the trades there's several different types of, you know, customer journey models we'll call it.

You know, sometimes there's the sell, just selling technician.

Right?

The one person that's out there and they're, they do all, they're responsible for the cells and the repair and all the things and their models.

The, you know, pass it over.

The company finally gets to the point where they have a salesperson.

So pass it over to the salesperson.

The other one is like I mentioned, the call by call and I could see how every single one of these models, this would shortcut the process in a, in a way less clunky manner than kind of what we've had to just navigate or negotiate, you know, and only the biggest companies that I know of that are, you know, 65, $100 million plus have developed their own.

Something kind of like this, just strictly from necessity.

Right.

Or they may have knocked on our door.

Or they may have knocked on your door.

Yeah, it's very possible.

Yeah.

We may be powering them.

So they could have white labeled it.

They.

They very well did.

So the other piece of this puzzle is we bang our heads against the wall staffing.

And if you're in the high rent district, especially if you're in the city where you're paying hourly rates through the roof, well, now you're going to open up the talent pool across the country and across the globe.

Because if you can do things virtually now, you can hire people.

There's a lot of people out there that love working from their home.

They actually don't want to leave their house.

They just want to work from their home and, you know, be with the family or now you can hire those folks.

So maybe you're in.

Right.

Incredible workers.

But they're, you know, for whatever situations, either health and, or kids or all these things that prohibit that, but would.

Be incredible employees and totally excited to do it.

Like imagine you had.

You're a plumber in Seattle.

Last I checked, it's kind of expensive to live there.

Well, now I can hire someone on the east side of Washington state to do all the sales calls.

In fact, you can even hire virtual assistants overseas, which a lot of our business we see businesses doing, because you're paying a third of the cost.

They'll be on video and they'll do it any time of day.

They've got that, that hunger.

But hire them wherever and you can do it locally.

If you're in Seattle, want to hire other people in Seattle, hire them there, you know.

But I just know at times we struggle with finding good people to do the work and the right people on the right seat on the bus, you know, to get the job done that I need that we need them to get done.

And now you can start to do that.

The other piece.

Where do we get the most sales?

Where do we get the most money?

Like, and I'm coaching this all the time.

Where is your biggest potential for money?

People start thinking, oh, I think I need to put stuff on the website or I need to put out some mailers.

I'm like, those are good, but it's not the greatest source of your, your potential new income.

And then they stop.

Where is that?

Sam could put you on the spot and you're allowed to Be wrong.

I don't want to embarrass anybody, but where's.

Where do you get the most amount of money, Sam?

The most amount of money usually comes from your existing client base.

Sam, with the perfect star.

Go ahead.

I'm going to let you put it on the refrigerator.

Let the family know you crushed it today.

So, yes, from your existing customer base.

Is they already know you and like you and trust you.

Yeah.

And we don't think about that sometimes.

We're always on to how can I get more leads coming into the website or more people calling or more referrals.

And those all you do need a hundred percent.

But every time you pick up a new customer, you need to look at that as the most beautiful dollar sign that I learned from business school.

Recurring revenue.

Recurring revenue is the best kind of revenue you could ever ask for.

So there's some things you can do.

And again, because I'm the video guy with video, when you go on site, there's certain things you can put up called a QR code and your brand.

If you are an electrician, put that QR code with your name on that breaker box.

If you're working H Vac, go outside, you know, put that in there.

If you're a plumber, how about that water heater right on the equipment.

Because guess what happens if there's a problem?

Where do they go?

First to the right to the thing.

Shocker.

Right now what they have in their.

Know nothing about this like big cylinder in the, in the garage, it's this water heater.

But they go, we go stand.

I've been on poster child for this.

You know, I in no way consider myself a plumber.

And I'll go out there and I'll just stare at this thing and like it's making some popping sounds and the water's not hot.

Okay, we've got.

Something's going on.

Something is going on.

And I mean, I'm dumbing it down.

I know a little.

Personally, I know a little more than that, but most of the time people don't.

What.

But what do we do?

The next thing everybody does is they hop on their laptop or phone and what do they Google?

Plumbers near me, plumber near me.

So of course you need your five stars, but let's not even let them go to Google.

How do you do that?

Make sure you have your QR code right there with your thing.

And now they can scan it and take a video and tell you, hey, I think something's wrong with this.

And it goes right to your cloud, you get a ping.

And now you've got a lead, you're one step ahead, you're boxing out the competition, and you're getting a ping.

And Yep, I watched your video.

Thank you.

And maybe it was a previous homeowner that sold their house.

Your sticker is still on there.

Yeah.

Get sticky.

The best part of it is a sticker.

It's hard to take off and they don't really care because it's a water heater.

It doesn't need to be beautiful.

They're not.

No one's decorating their water heaters.

But you are.

It's such a good reminder for all the contractors out there because, you know, for years and years and years, starting in, geez, the 80s, you know, everybody, it was the big.

The big new thing.

Hey, put your sticker on your.

On the equipment so they can call you directly.

And so we got really, really good at it for a few decades.

And then for whatever reason, I guess with the.

As more technology took over, they're like, okay, well, if I can get this cool thermostat with like a little logo in here, I don't have to do that.

But what happens when they change the thermostat?

What happens if the technology doesn't work?

That's why I love this, like, great reminder for everybody.

Make sure you got your stickers on.

Put them on, get a level on them.

Make sure they're square and they look like they're done professionally.

But, man, sticker it up, sticker it up everywhere.

That's it.

Because that's where the biggest source of your cash is, that recurring revenue.

And you're claiming homes.

You're actually.

And anytime someone moves, that's a gift, especially if they move locally because you claimed that their first set of stuff, and now you're going to clean their next set of stuff and you get the old home, the new homeowner that's in there now you're compounding your business.

This is just stuff that we didn't think.

We didn't have it.

We didn't have the technology.

We didn't have this stuff.

And now that this stuff is on the scene, you can start to leverage it to get more cash.

Really what it comes down to.

And speed.

Yeah, speed to that appointment.

Right.

They know something's wrong, they call you right away.

And man, this is really handy.

So in a case like that.

So let's unpack it a little bit.

Case like that, say it's a service issue with, you know, we'll Stay in the, in the skilled trades for a sec and say it is a water heater problem.

Right.

They scan that, say it uploads, pings the person.

Right.

Where does that go?

Right.

Do we need to say I'm the contractor.

Do I need to have somebody on standby all the time to, you know, be the one to immediately be able to answer that?

Or what would best practice look like for this?

Right, so.

Because these can come in, in the middle of the night, right?

Again, back to.

If you did Want to have 24 7, get your virtual assistants, right?

We're talking about people you're going to pay $1,700 a month for, right.

That if you wanted 24 7, nobody's faster than you type of response.

Right.

Because you got the people for it.

Now that you're putting the right people, right?

Seats of the bus, your salespeople and customer people, whether they're working from home, working in an office, overseas, you're putting them there.

Right.

And that's not the only thing they're going to be doing.

They're going to be answering sales calls, but you're give them more tasks to do.

Pick other things that they can be doing for you.

That's a whole nother, you know, session that we can talk about a whole.

Episode on this, I'm sure.

Absolutely.

Like making sure we do this.

So what happens?

Customer goes to that water heater, they scan the QR code with their phone.

Up pops a little form, they write their name in it, their email, their phone number, and a comment.

Water.

Our water is cold.

Hit the record button.

So now you're still getting the lead like you're used to.

Again, they didn't, they didn't even go to Google and now they're taking a video recording and talking to you.

Yeah, we did.

So then what happens is you're going to get a notification via email or text.

You might be on the job.

Maybe again, if you're.

I have mom and pops that do this.

They get a text on their phone.

You've got a lead for solopreneurs and somebody with a couple helpers.

And there's, there's hundreds, actually literally thousands of people in that specific model that listen to the show that I know could probably really benefit from this.

Oh, yeah, I built it.

I mean, I was a solopreneur until I grew.

Like, I totally have walked in the shoes.

Right.

So you're on the job because you're a solopreneur or you're, you know, at another bid and you're getting a text now on your phone.

You've got a new recording you can tap.

Comes up.

There's the info, there's the video.

You watch it.

There's a phone number.

You call it.

Just watched it.

Yep.

Let me.

Let's.

It's gonna be this much.

Or if you can book it there, or hey, I can be there whenever you're gonna be there.

Speed.

They see the video.

They've already captured it.

And then just watch your video.

I need you to do this one thing.

See that valve right there?

Go ahead and turn that off.

That's good to keep you safe while we're on the way.

You know, whatever we need to do there.

But peace of mind.

You call the right person, Be there as soon as we can.

And convenience.

And speed.

Right.

Like, they think about the experience your customer just had.

They're already frustrated because the water is now cold, the water heater broken.

So now they're.

Now they've gone.

It's right there.

They've already uploaded.

Saves them from.

They still may go to Google.

But even if they do go to Google now, they gotta wait on a phone tree.

Leave a message.

You're already kicking their butt.

You're kicking everybody else's butt.

Because of the experience that the customer.

We got to remember to walk in the shoes of our customers.

It's not just about taking care of your team.

It's not just about doing great work, which we have to do as well.

We've got to get that customer experience.

And we can do this with simple.

I mean, you can create these QR codes in seconds, and then you just get them.

This is not hard.

Just Google, you know, a free QR code generator and take whatever link you have and just throw it in there and then it'll do it for free for you.

Yeah, there's for things.

Tons of free ways to do these things.

Right?

And then even in our systems, if you were to ever select us, you know, we've already got it baked in.

And then, you know, you can do really cool things with this stuff.

And you can put QR codes on door hangers, you can put them on mailers, you can put them on trucks.

Like, what a lot of our folks will do is they'll on their trucks, even internally, they'll have their guys scan the QR code and do a before and after.

They'll doc damage documentation.

Like if they're a painter, hey, the gutter is already banged up.

Get a video of that.

It'll be timestamped there.

Then you let the customer service person, hey, look, they got it.

We haven't touched anything yet.

Your gutters already banged.

We want to make sure we're preventing those claims.

Right.

We're also doing before and after.

How about a customer testimonial?

Because you now can download these videos, you go to your Google and Google can tell if you have authentic photos and videos.

And the ones that do, along with five stars, they raise you up organically and it costs you zero.

Right?

Right.

And another gold nugget.

It's cool having a technology person on here because so many times we kind of either don't know or just forget to mention these things.

But unpack that for a second.

For everybody that doesn't know how Google is ranking reviews now.

Because I, you know, service companies live and die by Google reviews and by their reviews.

But yeah, educate a little bit on how they're weighting that.

Yep.

So and it's a great thing to give those salespeople that you might have working from home or VAs.

This is a great job to let your sales guys and gals do.

Right.

So when you get a customer testimonial video or a before and after video, customers like, oh, please use that.

Happy to use it.

You can go, and in this case you're going into your cloud, you can download that video and you can upload it into your Google business.

Right.

You're allowed to put photos and pictures and videos.

And the more you add Google, there's this crazy thing called AI.

It can read and it understands what looks like stock photos.

Do not use stock photos on your web.

Never use stock photo.

Never do that.

You're better off hiring a photographer, taking pictures of your team taking pictures of stuff or taking photos and videos like we have and populating your site because it's even reading your website.

Right?

Not, I mean it is what it is.

And in the back of the day we just paid.

And you can still pay to play.

You can still pay.

But again, if you're, you don't have to.

Because Google actually, believe it or not, as evil as some of us think it is, what they're trying to do is be the modern day phone book.

They want to serve up a good product.

And when someone says plumber near me, Google is trying to find out where they are and serve them up the best plumbers.

Right.

So they have a good experience because they want them to keep using Google and keep seeing those ads and keep seeing those things.

So as you go in and you grab these videos, you have somebody Respond when someone puts those five stars.

Thank you for responding.

You know, hey, sorry you had that experience.

Let's take care of that.

People can see how responsive you are.

Even if it, if you didn't get a full five stars, which is what you're hoping for.

Right.

But if you get a lower star, even when they can see, oh, you know, we'll, we'll take care of that.

Sometimes the people will come back and oh my goodness, I made this thing and they came back and like these are the little bits and pieces that you need to equip your customer success teams.

That's why we like to call them customer success because it's not just selling, it's the whole throughput of everything to be guarding your business.

They're guarding the house while you're out there.

Tour guide on the entire customer journey.

There it is.

And this stuff isn't hard.

We just forget to do it or don't do it or didn't know we should be doing it.

Yeah.

And you absolutely.

If you want to crush in your area for your business, you do this, you'll box out so many people and nobody's asking like Google won't be asking for money.

You're contributing to their site, to their quality and they are going to lift you up organically.

Right?

Yeah.

You can build this organic growth with and from what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, the way that it ranks it is especially if it comes straight from the customer first.

So yeah, absolutely.

In the Google my business, we put videos in constantly keeping updating videos and pictures and those kind of things.

But for everybody out there listening too, when a, when a customer, when our clients put in reviews for us, of course the five star reviews, but they're prioritizing.

When they upload a video with their review is number one.

When they put a picture with their review, it's a little bit lower weight, but it's still weighted higher than just text.

So video is first or pictures are second and then just text is third is the way that they're weighting those.

So the better, the more video and or pictures that we can.

Even if you just have that homeowner take one simple picture to put in with their review, it's going to grow your organic reach dramatically.

Better than just letting them just write a review.

Of course, just review is great.

We need those also.

But so just a quick education piece for everybody out there.

Make sure that when you're asking for reviews, ask for, hey, would you, you know, would you put it Do a quick little video for me.

Just, you know, just talk into your phone and let us know.

Let them know what a great experience it was, if not just a quick picture.

That way it starts to organically grow and rank better and you can just like, just like James is saying, we can outperform, you know, some of these bigger companies that are just dumping loads of cash into it.

That doesn't have anything that's very organic.

Exactly.

And that's why when you're following up, following up with anything, oh, my goodness, this is where a ton of folks are failing.

It's just not following up.

They're not following up on the inbound leads.

They're not following up after they gave a bid.

They're not following up after they did the job.

After you do the job, this is where we're talking about.

Sam's talking about is after the job.

Have your customer success team call up and say thank you again for your business.

We're so grateful, helpful.

We'd really appreciate it if you'd be willing to give us a review on Google.

Here's a link.

I'm going to text it to you.

Make it easy for them.

But you start prioritizing that, you're not going to have a marketing problem anymore.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I love this.

And so what are other ways that we can use this?

Because I could almost see really using this internally and with office seeing, I could see it, God, for a thousand different ways.

Yeah, it's.

Now that you're.

You've got all these cameras on your phone, let's use them and abuse them.

Right.

Training is a perfect example.

You have one of the guys roll up.

Anybody rolls up to the site and it's a water heater.

We haven't seen.

H Vac unit.

We haven't seen.

Go ahead and start recording that video for us.

Pull this out your pocket or scan the QR code that we've got for you and take a video, get the parts, walk us through a little bit.

If you learn something and it'll just go right to the.

Nothing is stored on your employee phone.

They literally could quit on you.

That same job.

On the job.

This new unit sucks.

I quit.

But they took a video of it.

You still got it.

Yeah, so.

And the same thing for your.

Your customers too.

But these, these training opportunities, it's huge because you'll now when that video goes up in the cloud, you could just tag it training, or you can even say training in the kind of unit, you know, training carrier unit, boom, Training, carry Unit, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And yeah, you can search it.

And on those rain days, especially if you have outdoor staff, like I did on rain days, not.

You don't just tell everyone to go home.

Like, hey, on these particular rain days, once a month we're doing training days.

Come into the office or come in online.

You know, we're going to do a video and we're going to start watching some of our training videos.

Yeah.

For that.

It's also just good for having a repository when you hire a new person.

You know, going back when you can't remember, like what, especially think of the history on site.

So maybe you're going, you've constantly been servicing this house.

You're like, I can't remember what the heck I did 18 months ago.

Well, you just look up the name of that person.

See, we did 18 months ago.

And watch the video.

So something, I love this.

Something I want to mention that I remember we were talking about before.

With integrations, this is always a big question when we, you know, anything enters the trade space, everyone always wonders, well, how does it integrate with what we're currently using?

So there's a.

In fact, I almost wore my ST hat for this, but I decided not to.

But I know that's a huge question.

So can you talk a little bit about integrations?

Because that's something that say the users of say, Service Titan out there, it's something that they already have built in a way of like, okay, so they're taking some video here and they're saving it and they're logging.

How can this make it easier and simpler and talk about some of the integrations?

Because I know the last time we talked you had mentioned that was in play.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so I'm going to start with the mom and pops first and then I'm going to get to the Platinum package at Service Titan folks here in a second.

Okay.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Walk us through the whole spectrum.

Let's go the whole way.

Okay.

Let's say you run your business on an Excel spreadsheet.

Not a problem.

Even your paper based still.

So our customers still are paper based.

Everything that I'm talking about is right on a web browser.

Again, you can access phone, tablet, computer.

Everything you do will be accessed from a browser and you just log in and what happens is you can not only search somebody and just use our tool for that, but if there's a video that you need, you can copy the link to that and put it on anything.

You can put it in your Google spreadsheet.

You could send it to a spouse to review.

You can send it to insurance if needed.

So you can do anything you want with that link, right?

You can.

If you're in Service Titan and you just want to pop that link in there, you can do that too.

Okay, we have.

Now I'm going to get a little nerdy for I'm going past the mom and pops.

All right.

If you have boutique or homemade, we have folks that have homemade their own CRM.

I mean, bless your soul that you did that.

And some people just have to have it be particular.

I totally get it.

We have a zapier integration.

Or maybe you're already using things like podium for your texting.

We have a podium integration.

We have a bunch of boutique integration.

So every industry has all the different CRMs, some that are big and small.

We're already under the hood of a number of them.

Meaning you don't even have to come to my stuff, you just use it through like my movers.

We're under the hood of smart moving.

It's a CRM for movers.

You just access our stuff there.

We'll be under the hood of Jobber.

We already got approved and we're right there with Service Titan.

We've already paid all the money and done all the things and did all this, that and the other.

And we just got an approval from one of their Titanium Titanium partners and we're a partner there as well.

But yes, we'll be under the hood of and you can just access everything there in one sheet of glass.

Okay, but we have to give people options because here's the thing.

What happens if you decide I don't want Service Titan anymore.

Right.

Or I don't want boutique or I'm tired of my Excel spreadsheet?

Well, we still have all your repository.

You just go to the other CRM, put in your credentials and there it is.

Right, because we don't want to bound you anywhere and I will never sign exclusives because it's not good for my customers.

Right, because maybe you decide you're over with and you're just going to use your own home baked thing.

Okay, we give you the freedom to choose and your unlimited storage.

Go to town.

But yes, integrations are absolutely a part of what we're doing.

Nice, nice.

I love it.

And you already got to the second side of it.

Which I was going to ask is like, okay, once it's there, does it log it?

It's and all that.

But I love how it can grow with a company as they grow.

You know, say we've, you know, all of a sudden for some reason, maybe somebody dethroned service titan and something else takes over.

Who knows?

Right.

Industry and technology is always changing.

So yeah, I love that it can, you know, life switch can move along with that, to grow with the company for their specifics and their needs and those kind of things.

That's right.

And if your company that you use doesn't have us under the hood yet, you know what, companies like to hear from their customers, usually if they're listening, if they're worth their salt and tell them what you want and we're already ready to rock.

Like, we'll bolt it right under there.

All right, so put a, put a little pressure on your, on your technology companies, please.

Like, put pressure on me too, by the way, if you ever become our customer, like we like it, it makes us better, stronger.

If they're.

Again, if they're not listening to you, that'll tell you a lot.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

If they're not doing what we're asking for, customer service sucks or something.

I love it, man.

This is a huge.

There's so many things that I love about this.

One is can we do this kind of thing outside of this product?

Absolutely.

We've had tools for years to video record and to log things and to connect.

What I see with this though is the more that we get into, especially as technology pushes the needle, as trades push the needle, as we're focused on speed to lead customer service, you know, the customer experience right there was, you know, one of my trainers a while back, I heard him say something on a podcast of how can we give the Chick Fil A experience as a trades company?

Right.

Everybody knows, I mean, a company that is intentionally decided to close a seventh of their possible opening and from day one has been like that and still has grown as fast as they have, and everyone knows they have the best drive through on the planet, that experience is second to none.

How do we provide that level of excitement experience to our clients?

Right.

And so what I, what I really like about this product is it, it makes things simple.

It takes two or three different other products that we are kind of like clunky bolting together to try to make this happen.

And it, it renders them unnecessary at this point because it, like we talked, started talking initially.

It's like, it's specific to the intention of what we're doing.

And so it just really makes it so much easier along the way and doesn't have the extra fluff but also just it aligns to the goal, which is really exciting to see.

Yeah.

I think the other thing to consider is what you're asking your team to do.

Right.

We alluded to this earlier in the conversation.

I think the hard part of giving the Chick Fil A experience within the trades is you're asking your trades person to do everything.

Last time with Chick Fil A, the person who's taking my order wasn't also running to the back to cook the chicken, running around the side and sweeping the floor, and then coming back and handing me the chicken.

Exactly.

That is exactly what we're asking our teams to do.

You're asking your person to do everything at the Chick Fil A.

Right.

And that's a unicorn person.

And we wonder why sometimes our teams get frustrated.

Well, I came here to be a plumber, but now you're asking me to do this, that and the other.

Right.

And they're not all owners.

As an owner, we try to be all things to all pieces of business because we were a solopreneur.

But as we grow and scale, we want to remember when you put the right people in the right seats on the bus, they're going to perform the job better.

And so we can start leveraging these pieces.

We just, we had to have our guys beat the unicorns.

They had to be the salespeople, they had to be the technician, they had to be the follow up.

They had blah, blah, blah.

Like, it's wearing them out.

This is why we have a lot of mental health issues in this industry.

No joke.

It's not, it's not fun sometimes.

And we've all been there and we're like, well, what's the alternative?

Well, now we can start to think about these alternatives.

And once you have that expert salesperson or that expert additional help, once you start putting the right people, you're going to see the refreshment across your team.

But more importantly, you're going to start to see the Chick Fil A experience happening in your business.

Because now you've put and trained in the right ways because everything's being recorded.

So now with the sales pillar, let's.

They're not closing as high.

Well, why don't you watch a few of the closing videos?

Well, please stop swearing at the customers.

That doesn't work, actually.

You're not asking for the business.

Oh, you're forgetting to upsell.

You're forgetting to talk about this package.

You're forgetting to do this piece.

And then same with the technicians when they're recording the work they've done when the customer like it didn't fix it.

Well, let me check.

Oh, well, you can.

You're, as an owner, you're putting visit light.

You're putting light and visibility on all parts of end to end.

All the dark spaces are now going to be visible.

You're no longer swinging in the dark.

You're asking, are we doing this, that now you can actually see it.

And as a business owner, for me, that's everything.

Because when I can see it, I can coach it or I can make the changes I need to make in my business if I just can't coach up.

Yeah, if you don't measure it, you can't manage it.

I love this too because I get so many calls.

And of course, just like you're saying, we train all the time to technicians of how to communicate better.

But so many companies want to turn their really awesome technicians who site like you're saying, signed up to be a technician.

They like to fix things.

We like to work with our hands, all the things and then turn them into the rockstar salesperson and for, you know, and then get frustrated when they're not upselling the world and they're, you know, don't have all these turnovers, don't have all these things, but they're the best dang technician on the planet.

And it's like, so what happens is they either get frustrated and say, okay, well we'll just hire a bunch of salespeople or they sadly will fire some of them and then hire less skilled people who maybe can just sell better.

And then it's just this mess.

And so what I love is this allows people to keep doing what they're doing, stay in the inside their zone of genius and then easily make, you know, make the handoff to someone else to fill in the gaps.

That's right.

So now we're able to separate those, you know, you don't need to wear three different hats, three different roles.

You can do what you do exceptionally well now and not have to worry about the rest and just develop this, you know, to borrow the, of course the name a very, A nice live switch over to this person and like you're saying, talk to them while I'm doing this, they're going to guide you through this other part of the journey.

I love this example so much because that is exactly what happens.

That top technician is so good, so knowledgeable, you want them on the front line closing the cash and they just, that's not what they signed up for.

So how can you leverage that?

Well, check this out.

Keep the technician in the technician seat on the bus.

They clearly kick butt there.

Bring in that salesperson.

And now that everything's being recorded on the sales side, that technician, you can require them to watch that say, what did we bid?

And they can play it at 2x speed while they're on the way to the job.

Now your technician could turn around and tell that salesperson who might not be as experienced, hey, this is how you need to make your bid better here.

This is the change I expect.

Your technician now becomes the coach.

You know, they got the C on the arm just like on the, on the basketball court, right.

You're still allowing them to stay in the pole position technician, but now they're lifting up your salesperson.

Technically, because they have all that tech expertise and because of this as well, that senior technician can be on every job.

How can they be on every job?

Because they are one click away from anybody else.

A junior technician who maybe sees a unit they don't know the answer to.

Or maybe that senior tech needs to answer a technical question to that customer that is 10 miles away.

Well, now they can talk to the customer from 10 miles away.

This technician is now the centerpiece.

And you're really empowering them and letting them know, look, I mean, it revolves around them because now you have these, these tools to put those things in play.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And one other something else I just thought about for everybody listening, actually two different things here.

One is this could be potentially a tool when you have your technicians that you've been working with, the turnover conversation, right?

Talking to the homeowner should they repair or replace.

It's a perfect opportunity to be able to bring this in and have that internal second opinion and bring in somebody with a bit more.

Either a senior technician who's better at that conversation.

It just can facilitate this kind of call by call idea a lot easier.

The other thing I was just thinking about too, you know, there's a lot of companies across the country, all of North America, in fact, we're in 71 countries.

So I know there's plenty of other countries that have this model.

You know, in the last probably 10 years, they've gone to having a sales guy ride with a technician or just follow them to every single appointment and so they're on site.

Yes, it's a great way to immediately capture business when, you know, almost good cop, bad cop.

But we all know you don't need to follow along a service tech to five appointments in a Row if you could one be seeing an actual estimate built for you.

But also it's a way to triage it really easy with this kind of model.

We could even have pairs of technician salespeople, teams and say okay, you're here, you got on this job and okay, it is a basic repair.

Maybe there's not opportunity for upsell, maybe there's not.

It's just we're here to build reputation and build trust and you know, it's, it just needs cleaned a little bit.

Well, there's no need to bring in the other person and, and so we don't have an entire wasted hour and a half in trip and, and all the times where they could be doing something other high value instead of just, you know, twiddling their thumbs.

Because that's what happens so many times in that model.

And so I could just see so many efficiency things that are really cranking at this point by using this tool really effectively.

Yeah.

And that's why instead of having that person ride along, you're just going to hand your technician an iPad or a tablet.

So when they get on there, they hit the go button.

And the beauty is, is that salesperson now can be with multiple technicians because you'll be overstaffed if you have a technician with a salesperson doing those dual ride alongs.

You don't need to do that.

That one salesperson can service multiple technicians because they'll be centralized and just by handing off that iPad they're doing that work again.

Technician goes off to make the fix and the salesperson's doing the upsell, the clothes and hey, Johnny's already on the site.

Have you thought about this, this, this, that and the other.

So it just got it on the truck for you.

Why don't, why don' can I can have him grab it and go ahead and put it on for you?

That's exactly it.

Yeah.

The other piece that we're seeing a lot of is to reduce shrinkage.

I know.

Especially for our plumbers, they'll have their technicians scan the QR code in the truck and do a morning of kind of site audit or truck audit of everything.

And they'll go around and truck and do that and at the end of the day, oh, where's this?

That, where's this?

I had, I guess I had it on the truck earlier at the beginning of the day.

So I have some clients that use this a lot just for their inventory and reduction of shrinkage.

I like it.

That can be definitely useful a lot of things.

Well, it is Close to time to land this plane before we do.

I don't want to forget one.

This podcast is known for one.

Not necessarily.

I don't want this episode to be just a pitch fest.

I hope no one's hearing that.

But also, we're always known for giving immediate, actionable items that people can use right away.

We put a pin earlier in some this idea of self generation and this type of tenacity and being hungry and going out and actually doing that.

Let's revisit that idea and get from your perspective, your experience.

I mean, you've grown massive sales teams.

You've done a lot of different elements, everything from door knocking to different things.

Take us through maybe like a top, you know, one, two, three ways that people can actually go out and get some business.

Right.

This is a, we're in a climate right now that, you know, competing against these, you know, private equity funded behemoths that are dumping low, endless pockets, you know, dumping loads of cash and marketing.

So how do we competing in those kind of markets drop some knowledge on some people here?

Because you've got a lot of history.

Yeah, no.

And you know, I can go all the way old school because I used to run it on a clipboard.

But there's always, for a lot of home service folks, there's neighborhoods that you want, right?

There's these golden neighborhoods.

And sometimes these neighborhoods are out of your serviceable radius where you're not, you haven't gone there because you're like, I'm just, I'm not going to send my sales guys out that far.

Well, now what you can do is those neighborhoods as an example that are right outside of your service or radius, you can draw a digital like, you can go.

And now marketing is so great that you can digitally hit a neighborhood and you can send mailers to that neighborhood, you can send Facebook ads to that neighborhood and you know, like, hey, we haven't serviced this one before.

But now we're going to take this on because we can now sell virtually back to what Sam was talking about.

So now that I can sell virtually, if I can close the business, I'm going to send my team out there to do the business.

And now I'm working a neighborhood that I hadn't worked before.

So I'm going to work on that word of mouth referral, I'm going to work on that follow up and I'm going to teach my guys.

When you're in this neighborhood that we're trying to go and you're a technician, you know, I want you to put this many door hangers on.

I want you to go around and do a couple extra things while you're there.

And yes, we're asking those technicians to go a step further.

But so that's definitely point one.

Right?

Is thinking about expanding that serviceable radius and doing things now with the new tools in your hand.

Right.

Second to that, it's just old school hustle, you know, it's just old school hustle and that's.

That is if you need to knock on doors.

Are you too proud?

Right.

Complaining ain't gonna do anything.

Exactly.

And your team?

Well, I don't have any work today.

Well, get your butt out there and, and get some work.

Especially if you're in scrappy mode.

That's not going to be for everyone.

Sometimes you have resources.

You can put those things to work.

Referrals go back to you can your customers are your gold.

How?

Well, you better be doing your documentation right.

You better be making sure you know every one of your customers, going back to them, thanking them, following up with them.

Your sales team, now that you've put in that customer service, give them a list of calls to make.

Hey, just following up.

We're so grateful we're having make something up or maybe it is something.

It's your 10 year anniversary.

It's our 10 year anniversary.

We wanted to call to thank our customers.

If you need any other or if you don't wouldn't mind passing our name on to somebody.

We'd love to do that.

And in fact if, if you pass our name on and they come and become customer, we'll send you a little thank you gift.

Juice what you have and get creative.

And if you don't know the answer, the last piece is create that.

Well, I'm a nerd.

I like Star Wars, I call it a Jedi Council.

But for some of you, your board of directors and do you have one and sometimes vendors can be your board of directors.

Sometimes it's people that have been in the business and not just the ones with a lot of gray hair like me, but some of the younger up and comers where maybe technology isn't your forte, you know, or maybe this and get that fullness, see what everybody else is doing.

Apply to a mastermind group.

There's amazing groups out there that will give you fresh ideas, fresh thoughts and what's in between your ears.

You're already listening to this podcast.

I know you're already 10 steps ahead.

Just because you're listening to this podcast, I know you're ten steps ahead, right?

Are you listening to books?

Are you netflixing Chill.

Are you getting time?

Are you reaching out?

Are you networking?

And how do I network?

I mean that's a whole nother episode.

I'm going how you network?

All these layers of the cake come back to that's, that's how, that's how it's done.

I mean I get the majority of my sales calls from referrals.

I love it.

It goes back to the, the before the what I always loved in these types of conversations.

I always tell people, it's like, listen, if the Internet didn't exist, what would you do?

Because and really that's just reminding us that we'll just go back to the old school way of doing things.

That's right.

Internet didn't exist.

How would you grow your business and play that game with yourself every single quarter, every single time you're evaluating things?

Always have an element of that.

Because what happens the day that somebody runs into the poll and the Internet's down?

What happens when run into new, run into new circles?

Okay.

If you're in a home services business, you better have a bunch of real estate friends.

You know what your real estate friends will do for you?

Give you a ton of jobs, a ton of jobs.

If you have no real estate friends, go play in that circle.

If there's an open house, guess who's sitting in there?

The real estate agent.

You walk in, say it looks like you're getting ready to sell this house.

If they find anything, I'm a great plumber, I'm a great electrician.

I'm here, here's my card.

Go to the people.

No one, just assume, no one's going to call you.

That's what Samsung Internet doesn't exist.

Go to the people.

And these are some logical home service based things.

You get, you know, a ton of real estate agents or you get a ton of people that are doing the restorations or you know, what do you call it when they're, huh.

People that do insurance, right?

Yes, insurance.

I used to always like when I was in the field, man, I kept a notebook is just a legal pad.

Every single sign that I drove by, realtor sign, I wrote the number down.

When you're in the grocery store, they've got the ad looking right at you on the, on the shopping cart.

I literally would just pick up the phone and call them, say hey, I'm staring at your face right here at the grocery store.

And they would laugh and I would laugh and be like, well you have this here.

So clearly you're wanting to grow your business.

Right.

I'm also a local business person.

Would you be open to a conversation about how we could work together and maybe pass business to each other?

Never one time in hundreds of calls that I hear a no.

It's incredible.

Work people, home inspectors, they're literally.

Their job is to find the problems.

Yeah.

And they may not.

I've had plenty of home inspectors that send me referrals.

They can't legally say here's one guy to call.

But what they do is they will develop the sheet of their trusted providers.

And when you have a good relationship, they make sure you're on the top of the list.

And then they'll circle you on their list and say, here's the ones that I like the best.

I circled the ones that I like the best out of that.

And you happen to be the one that circled.

It's really incredible how that works.

And it's amazing how sometimes you can just win by doing that.

And even if you're.

What if you're number three?

Oh, well, you're the fastest person to get back.

Yeah, Right.

You're going to beat him with speed.

Speed.

Just help them out.

Say here on my listing, put this little QR code right there.

See, it just bakes all the way through the cake, doesn't it?

I love it.

Well, good stuff, man.

It has been a pleasure to have you on this show and to share everything, share your history.

Share the live Switch stuff, man.

It's.

It's cool tech.

I love when new tech enters a market and how it streamlines or makes things efficient.

And it's really exciting to watch where it goes too.

So.

Yeah.

How's everybody get a hold of you, man?

If they want to check it out, if they want to know, maybe see a demo, know a little bit more about it and get to know you.

Some how they absolutely just go to Live Switch.

L I V E S w I t c-liveswitch.com book a demo and ask for James.

Say, I want to talk to James.

Just.

And that way any listener here, I'd be happy to.

I've run these businesses before, so it won't just be the dog and pony show.

We'll probably end up talking more about your business than we do talk about any tech.

Because I love.

We love entrepreneurship.

Back to the inmates, to entrepreneurs.

We are teachers at our heart.

We love talking about this stuff.

So if anything, you'll have another vendor connection.

Even if you don't buy from me, it's not a big deal.

I'm not just like, you know, hard closer.

So don't worry about it.

And Sam, thanks for having me on this and absolutely, again, this was not designed.

This is just what's out there for everyone to consider and just hey, the things that we've learned over the years and how to build our businesses.

So it's been fun to be here.

Thank you.

One last thing before I let you go.

We cannot do this episode without talking about it.

So everybody that's reaching out, make sure your last name is not McCoy.

No, totally kidding.

Give us a super quick synopsis of that because if everybody When I introduced James, remember I said his name was Hatfield?

Well, you may have heard that name name before and here's why.

Yeah, my great great uncle is Devilance Hatfield.

So if you've American culture is.

And it's in the Huckleberry Fin, there's a parody of it.

Hatfields and McCoys is a very famous family feud in the West Virginia, Kentucky area.

And on the History Channel, Kevin Costner, if you're familiar with the actor, played my uncle and he did a great job.

Like it's, it's just the whole history thing was incredible.

So yeah, I'm an absol.

You know, as I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains right now, still a mountain man through and through.

And yeah, that's, that's been of my American history and part of my family tree.

I love it.

That's so fun.

Thank you for sharing that.

It's always cool to have people on the show and it's talking about the six degrees of separation, you know, anymore.

I think the latest study said it's like three degrees at this point with technology and that kind of thing.

And I love it.

So it's really cool when we come across somebody who has a fun history like that that's so well known.

But thanks for being on here, man.

Well, for everybody.

Listen, I'll make sure the contact info live switch and all of the ways to get a hold of James is in the show notes.

So don't drive off the road during your drive time University park and you know, pick up the notes.

Click the link in the in the show notes if you want to learn more.

Otherwise, thanks for listening.

I hope you all got a ton of value from this.

If you have ever gotten value from the show, please go to Google and leave me a five star review or to Apple Podcasts.

The Google is the big one I'm asking for right now.

Everybody though and remember a cool way to do it would be maybe have this podcast or any of the closing out podcasts playing make yourself a little video, a selfie video with it playing in the background.

Say, hey, I love this podcast, right?

Videos rank highest.

It's the nugget you learned today.

Or if you can't do a video, just take a selfie with maybe with, you know, with something that has clothes or just, you know, just take a selfie and put it in there as well.

Or of course any review is a good review.

So thank you for that, everybody and thanks, James for being on and we're gonna sign off.

So everybody go out there, go slay some dragons, go crush it, and as always, go be someone worth buying from.

You've been listening to the Close it now podcast.

Our passion is to dive head first into the transformative movement that's reshaping the very foundation of H Vac and home improvement and at the same time covering fitness, nutrition, relationships and personal growth, proving that we can indeed have it all.

We hope you've enjoyed the show.

If you did, make sure to like, rate and review.

We'll be back soon, but in the meantime, find the website@closeitnow.net find us on Instagram at thereal closeit now and on Facebook @CloseItNow.

See you next time.