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- [00:01]
Mailshark Representative
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- [01:04]
Jacob Moneymaker
This is H Vac Masters of the Hustle with your host, Jacob Moneymaker. Looking at the city like I already own it. Yeah, I'm a hustler cuz I'm a hustler yeah I'm a hustler.
- [01:40]
Ishmael Valdez
What is up?
- [01:41]
Jacob Moneymaker
You are listening to H Vac Masters of the Hustle podcast and here's your host, J. Moneymaker. And welcome to episode the great the BAM. The BEO 316. And I just gotta say this episode is brought to you by the one, the only nuva thermostat. This is the thermostat that is made by the contractor for the contractor. You talk about self branding, self awareness, keeping and retaining your client being different than everyone in your market. I'm telling you this is the thermostat and this is the podcast. Actually we are going to be dropping some bombs and fire about the new features and benefits and really what the Nuva thermostat is doing to dominate the market right now and further to dominate the market as well. And let's welcome the one, the only, my good friend Ishmael Valdez, which we know him as the head janitor.
- [02:43]
Ishmael Valdez
Let's go. What's up Jada? Bro, it's always fun spending time with you. It's always fun doing podcasts on you, bro. You have like the best energy in the world, man. Honestly.
- [02:54]
Jacob Moneymaker
Well, hey, I learned energy when I went to a Tony Robbins show five years ago. Everyone was dragging their ass. It was like a two day show. And all of a sudden that dude changed the energy and introverts were not introverts anymore. People were hugging each other, high fiving. And that's when I learned you could change the mood just by energy.
- [03:16]
Ishmael Valdez
You always have the dopest attitude man, and you always have the dopest energy. So I love being around people like you. And dude, congratulations on royalty. You're killing it, bro. You're killing royalty. You're killing your freaking, you're, you're killing your mentoring and, and, and your on sites with the, with the contractors, bro. It is. Dude, you're, you're on fire right now, man. You can see it too.
- [03:37]
Jacob Moneymaker
Thank you. I appreciate. Well, first off, we got some big announcements with nuva and things that are coming and features and benefits. And first off, thank you because you're extremely busy, right? And for all my Spartans that are jumping on and watching this on replay, we're going to be dropping some fire the next hour, 45 minutes to help elevate you, your company, wherever you are to the next level is talk about real quick, Nuva thermostat and what separates this thermostat from all the thermostats out there? All right, there's a lot of them, right? So why is it the nuva thermostat, the nuvaway?
- [04:19]
Ishmael Valdez
Look, bro, it's. Honestly, it's, it's. First of all, it's. I want to thank all the contractors that jumped on board. I think we crossed the 500 contractor mark already where 500 of dope ass contractors across the nation have jumped on board. We're on 48 states already, 48 states nationwide. So thank you guys for joining. Thank you guys for being part of this nuve journey. And look, there's a ton of things that, that make us different from the echo bees and the honeywells and the nest and the. What's the other one? The sensi or whatever they are. Like, there's a ton of features on it. The main, main feature that sets us apart on it is that we nuve don't want the consumer, your clients or the contractor's clients to ever know it's a new bed thermostat. That's why we always, we put them on white boxes with just a nuve logo instead of know, putting all, putting it all over our thermostat and engraving into our molding. We don't want that. We want the consumer to always call the contractor back for whatever reason it is. If they're having a problem with the thermostat, call the contractor. If they're having a problem with ac, call the contractor that installed it. We want to give the power back to the contractor. J. And that's why, that's why I'm so passionate and that's why I'M so excited about this new Med thermostat because. Because for the first time in the control history, right, we've all installed Honeywell and Echo V and Nast and all these thermostats. Throughout history, they've always branded themselves as the provider. I'll give you a fun fact. Most people think that their AC is made by Honeywell just because Honeywell is the biggest control. Honey was the biggest control manufacturer in our industry. So everybody thinks they own a Honeywell AC when. When they really do own is a train or carrier or Lambs or one of those brands, right? So for the first time ever, we decided to put a digital logo with a call to action, which. Meaning that your phone numbers on the. On the thermostat for life and your QR code that leads you to a landing page or to your website or to a book or to a scheduler that is on the. On the thermostat itself for life. So that's one of the things that differentiates us from us from the rest of the thermostats. The power of branding and owning that wall and making sure that the customer never knows it's a new vet thermostat. That's the number one driver why people are jumping on board and why people are loving our product, for sure.
- [06:47]
Jacob Moneymaker
So as you guys continue to grow and everything, you know, y' all are doing great. One thing that we just talked about is you just installed 15,000 thermostats. 15,000 thermostats. So what does that mean? That means that you are in 15,000 houses all across the nation. And I got to ask you is, how does that feel?
- [07:14]
Ishmael Valdez
Dude, it feels so good. Because, look, I'll give you guys another fun fact. When I started this journey of the Nuva thermostat, our success rate of being in a successful control, remember, the controls that have been in the industry have been in the industry for five, for, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. So for a new. A new control company to come in the industry and actually be successful, we had a 3% chance of a success rate. And that was a. That. That was taking in consideration me, my reputation, the. The. The influence I have in the industry, that was a 3%. If it would have been just a regular person walking in and trying to install, I mean, come up with their own thermostat from scratch. Again, this is a thermostat. We came from our circuit boards, our molding, our screens. Everything's from scratch. We didn't copy the Honeywell. We didn't copy Nest, we didn't copy anybody. We manufacture our own circuit boards to our own screens to our own molding. So, so for, for somebody to come in and actually launch a product to our industry, I would, they would have had a less than 1.6of a percent chance of being a successful product launch. So 15,000 units later, Jada, I'm thrilled and I'm, I'm honored to be even to even say that because we're in 48 states already. 15,000 units later, my team, you know, I don't know if they can see it, but my team in the back has been crushing it, man. Obviously, you know, I am the CEO of N. I do drive. I do, I do drive the. But bro, if, if it wasn't for the least, you know, 60 people I have in the back right here hustling day in, day out, making sure that every contractor gets their questions answered. If they have a warranty, if they have a concern, if they have anything we get, we get back to them right away. So, yeah, it's been 15,000 units installed and deployed. It's been 500 contractors have been on board as of June. We just finished our biggest month, which was June. We finished with $1.5 million in revenue, total sales between subscriptions and thermostat sales. For you guys that don't know it's a $250 thermostat would have been equivalent to like a 50 million dollar month in H vac. So I'm really, really proud of our team, man. July we're gonna crush again. Our go for July is $2 million in thermostat sales and subscription sales. So I'm super pumped to make sure that everybody knows why they should be joining our thermostat data.
- [09:36]
Jacob Moneymaker
One thing that you just said is when you took the risk, you knew that there was a 3% chance making it right. So that means all odds are against you is and you still did it, right? 99.9% of people wouldn't do that.
- [09:55]
Ishmael Valdez
They wouldn't take it even if they had a 50, 50 chance of risking it. Exactly. 50, 50 chance of risking it most. The vast majority of humans in the world would never take that chance, even if it's a 50, 50 chance. I took the 3% chance just because. Listen to what I'm going to say. I took a 3% chance of being a successful a product launch in this, you know, antiquated control. Control section that we have in their industry. I took it because I knew the fucking problem is there and Nobody's fixing it. I knew that Google is, is controlling whether we want to see it or not. Google, Yelp, social media, Angie's List, HomeAdvisor, all those, all those lead lead marketing platforms are controlling our industry. No matter what are controlling it. We're always relying on Google, we're always relying on Angie's List, we're always relying on Yelp, we're always relying on brand new leads because we don't have a way to retain our clients. Let me give you guys a fun fact. Ready for this? If I was to install a new bed thermostat at every single home when I started my next gen journey. For people that don't know, I grew next gen from zero to $108 million you made in a short seven year career. For people that don't know. If I could go back for through my next gen journey and I could install a new vet thermostat on every single customer that I touched from day one, I would be spending $0 in marketing. $0 in marketing. The reason is because we touched between I think almost 600,000 homes in my short seven year career at Nube. I mean next year if I had the power to install 700,000 new bed thermostats with, listen to me, with 700,000 custom next gen apps because every contractor gets their custom apps to be able to control that thermostat, right? I would be able to message 700,000 people with a click of a button without ever spending a dime on Google. And that's the problem we have in the industry right now. J We have to un Google the industry. And I know that's not a word, but I'm going to make it a word. Our industry every day. That's our number one. Our number one pain point is we have to un Googleize it. When people need you, where do they go? J they go to Google when, when, if the AC doesn't turn on, right? C Customers all have the same, the same mindset. The same mindset. They go to their thermostat, they all have the same habit. They go to their thermostat, they turn it on, they don't feel the cold air. What do they do? Grab their fucking phone, go on Google, look for an easy contract. Hey, when could you guys come out here? Right? That's every single home, every single homeowner does the same thing. It's the same behavior for the last 20, 30 years that Google's been alive. That little habit of them going to the thermostat and looking at, there's, you know, it's a Nest logo, it's an echo bee, it's a Honeywell. Means nothing to us contractors. Now imagine they go to that thermostat. Your logo's there, your, your, your phone number's there, your QR code is there. They go on their app, right? They go on their app. I have an action app online. They go on their app, they click on it and look at, boom. I click on it right there. That phone number is right there. Without ever touching Google, if they need me, they're going to click that logo and be like, hey, I noticed that my thermostat's not, I mean, my AC is not working. When can you guys come out here? Right? Another scenario. Homeowners sells their, their house and you just installed that unit two years ago. Or it's a 10 year old unit and you've been servicing it for eight years and they sold their house. A new homeowner comes in. How are they gonna know they're gonna have to crawl in the attic? They're gonna have to, you know, go in the condenser. If the condenser's in the roof, you're screwed. Like, how are they gonna know? The best way to know is if that thermostat's on their wall and that new homeowner walks in and says, oh man, this is done. This is a royalty logo. Let me click on it or let me see, let me try to mess around with it. They're going to grab your information and now you have that customer for life. The name of the game is to retain clients to make sure that they never, ever go back on Google to your competitors. That's the name of the game in.
- [14:05]
Jacob Moneymaker
Our industry that's dominating and owning the market. I want to rewind a little bit because I think it's intriguing what you said at Next Gen today. If we installed the thermostats in every home, zero marketing, right? So everyone knows the size of NextGen, how much money would that be saving them on marketing monthly?
- [14:29]
Ishmael Valdez
So we would be. So we were spending between 1.2 and $1.4 million a month, 1.2 to $1.4 million a month. @ next year, when we were running at $108 million, we were spending over a million dollars a month between different sources just to be able to acquire new clients and keep all our technicians busy, keep our project managers, our installers, keep all of them busy. We were spending that much money. Now imagine if I was spending, let's say 100,000 instead of 1.2 million, I would be adding 1.1 million, $1.2 million a month in profit, in profit every single month. Because we are un Googleizing that operation. That's the name of the game to be to start, get this to start. Stop depending on Google because guess what? 20 years ago a Google keyword for AC was 2 bucks. And then 10 years ago it became 100 bucks. Last five years ago it was 500 bucks. Now it's in California for a new replacement need on Google it will vary between 6 to 800. Guess what it's going to do in the next 5 years or 10 years or 20 years. It's only going to keep increasing. Why? Because Google owns us no matter how we look at it. If Monopoly, Jason, if Google said no more keywords for H Vac across the whole nation, we're, we would have to, we would have to lay off all our employers and half of our employees because nobody would know where to look. Right? That's the, that's the problem that we got to fix. And that's why I'm so passionate about this thermostat and the, the, all the features that it comes with. Now look, I do want to talk about J is some of the objections that contractors have. Right? Yes, it does come with a monthly subscription fee. 100% it does. You know why it comes with it? Because there's, that there's no other thermostat that provides all the features that we do. Yeah, custom app on the App Store. Imagine when they go to the App Store to download the app to control their thermostat. They're not downloading Nest, they're not downloading Echo B or Alexa or Honeywell. They're not downloading that. They're downloading next gen. They're downloading royalty, they're downloading service champions. They're downloading Bob's Plumbing, they're downloading whatever your company name is. Imagine the power of that. Having tens of thousands of custom apps in your customers phones. That is the most powerful tool we're providing on it. So, so why we charge a monthly subscription fee for new vid is because guys, I gotta pay for, look at, I got 60 people here working on our, on our, on our customer success team. I got developers and engineers in Armenia, in the Philippines that gotta develop these custom apps. I gotta develop all these features for you guys to use. Right? All the messaging that we're able to do between the thermostat and the app, the being able to Start the units from your office. Like that all takes engineering and software development and all that. So why do we charge the contractor a monthly subscription fee? Is because of all the features. But I promise you the features alone will pay for the monthly subscription. One message goes to an eight year old unit saying hey, urgent tune of needed or water heater flush needed it. Pay for your whole subscription because you're going to be able to retain and capitalize on that client.
- [17:48]
Jacob Moneymaker
Just the fact of, of having your logo on an app itself, I mean, just that al phone is worth it because not only are you on the thermostat, but everyone's on these all day, right? And they're scrolling and they're looking at their apps all day, bro.
- [18:06]
Ishmael Valdez
All day long. Look, it, I, it mind boggles me that people haven't realized that this phone replaced tv. It replaced radio, right? Like what do people listen to now? Podcast, Spotify, Apple Play. Right? Like people don't listen to radio anymore. People don't, don't. What do people do when they're watching TV or Netflix or whatever? They're on their phone. Yeah, they use the TV and Netflix and prime and all those as background noise. Yeah, bro, you know how many people I'll bring in? My whole family. My daughters, my cousins, my brothers, like for 4th of July, we're going to have them all over and we'll put a TV movie on Netflix for them. They'll be on their tablets, on their phone watching the movie. This is the most powerful tool, the phone. So us contractors, our number one job. Our number one job. There's two, there's three things that every contractor needs to focus on for the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years, okay? Retention of good employees. Retention of good employees. Because guess what? Good employees are very far and few in between. Retention of good employees. Retention of customers. Your retention of customers will decrease your marketing spend. And lastly, how the do we get inside this moment? How do we make sure that no matter what, whether it's through social media, through a custom app, through a podcast, a Spotify, a play, whatever it is, those are the three things that you guys, every contractor should be focused on for the next 10 years. How do we get in this phone and stay in this phone? How do we retain the best employees? And how do we retain the vast majority of clients without them looking for us on Google or on Yelp or on Angie's List or an invoice on their email? How do we facilitate the customer experience? Right? How do we facilitate the customer experience? That's what Contractors should be focused on right now. Jayden.
- [20:10]
Jacob Moneymaker
Oh, I agree. Ish. And one thing that I also want to talk about is there's no thermostat out there. Okay? Out of all the thermostats, that is creating a network of people. And what I mean by a network of people is, is every single month, NUVA puts on a training program with high, high professional 1 percenters across the nation.
- [20:38]
Ishmael Valdez
And.
- [20:38]
Jacob Moneymaker
And they deliver every single month. I want you to talk about that because you've been running it for, I think, the last four or five months. And I had the opportunity to be a part of it. And I'm talking about hundreds of different contractors are in this meeting and everyone's hungry. And just to be in that community. Pot, right, Is just next level.
- [20:59]
Ishmael Valdez
J. Let me ask everybody a question. When was the last time Google called you guys and said, hey, going to have Tom Howard do a financial meeting for you. When was the last time Echo said, hey, I'm going to send you a link to this, to this video that we just picked up from, from Jason on a badass how to present different options to your clients. When was the last time Honeywell checked up on you guys? Dude, those companies are trash, bro. Number one, they. They don't care about the contractor. Let me tell you why they don't care about the contractor. And then I'm going to get into our new venturing platform. They don't care about the contractor because they're. They're selling direct to your clients. Listen to me. Why do you guys keep buying that trash if they're selling to your clients? Why would you want to buy. Why would you want to do business with a company that goes around you and skips the. The most important part of the operation, which is us, the contractors. I pledged you guys. I pledged you guys. And I told you guys from day one, I will never fucking sell to Big Box. I will never go around to my contract. You know how many times Home Depot's knocked on my door? You know how many times Ferguson and AC Pro and Goodman and Lennox have been like, hey, Smell, we need to talk to you about your thermostat? I said, no, you guys are not my clients. My clients, my business partners are my contractors. Okay, that. When was the last time they did that? That's why we're doing the mentoring, jw which is. Dude, that blew me away because look at our first. The first time I announced it was January year. And I said, hey, I'm gonna have Tom Howard do a. A live financial 101 to how to, how to set up your chart of accounts on P Ls, how to read a balance sheet, how to really dig into your financials. And obviously you guys know Tom Howard is one of the brightest minds in our industry, bro. We had about 100, 110 people on January. We are up to 340, 350 people joining our monthly on monthly mentoring platform. What it is is when you guys join our newbie networks, when you guys are installing and buying our thermostats and and paying for our subscriptions, you guys have access to two things. Number one, you have access to a digital library that we're building inside our Nouvet networks platform. Meaning every video, including this one, every video, every mentoring class, every one on one that we've ever done is going to be on our new university where you guys could just click it and put it on the way to your car, put it on the way to work or put it on the way to wherever when you're on your office just so you guys could keep learning. We are building the first digital university for the trainings. We already have over 60 videos on our digital university. We're going to have hundreds, if not thousands of videos. So you guys could educate yourself on financing, on sales, on marketing, on recruiting, on pay plans. All the shit that you guys need to educate yourself on is in the nuve university platform. That's what you guys get. You guys get access. When you guys join nuve and our new networks, you guys get access to that. Every month we have a two hour class with somebody in the industry that's done amazing things like J Dub, like Tom, like Tommy Melo. We just had Tommy Mello. We're having Ellen Rohr. This, this, this month, every month you guys get a two hour seminar for free when you join our new networks platform. Every Wednesday I do, I'm letting new contractors in, new NUVE members walk in. We do about a 30 minute huddle J. Every Wednesday for 30 minutes, we do a 30 minute huddle of hey, this is what you guys should be focused on. Check what's your average, your average ticket. If you have this many employees, this is what your average ticket should be. If you have this many employees, this is what your average service ticket would be. This is what your conversion should be. This is what your closing percentage should be. This is what your cogs should be on your P and Ls. This is not what you should be paying or how you should be paying. All that we dissect in our movement Networks platform. This is why you guys should join. It's not. We're not just a thermostat. We're not just the software. We're mentoring platform for the trades. We are becoming the fastest growing thermostat company. We're becoming the fastest growing software company, but we're also becoming the fastest growing mentoring platform for the trades.
- [25:11]
Jacob Moneymaker
I love it. I love it. One thing that I've got to ask you is for the contractors asking what, what's next for Nuva? What, what if they were to sign up? What does the future of Nuva look like for them?
- [25:26]
Ishmael Valdez
So, so right now we have one thermostat rolled out already. We're rolling our V2 for Pantheon, which I just, I just released a flyer last night. I'm putting all over social media and all over, all over our marketing. We're using version two, which is going to be a sleek thermostat with a, with an aluminum bezel, round LED screen. It's got a floating light in the back, which now won't have it on the front. I'll have it in the back so it looks like it's floating out of the wall. So version two is coming out. Panting on releasing it. December, we're releasing our water temperature humidity sensors, their wire sensors. So now my plumbers, my electricians, my H vac guys, you guys are going to be able to sync up these water sensors under the sink or by the shower or under the drain pan or in the attic, wherever you guys want to put it. Once I release that, my, my best products coming out, which is called version three of Nuvin. It's going to have a CO sensor inside the thermostat. CO meeting. It's going to detect gas and it's going to monitor gas. We're already monitoring air quality, humidity, temperature, set point. We're already monitoring all that for you. We're about to add CO2, CO sensors inside the thermostat. Now if it detects gas inside the home, it's going to alert the customer, it's going to alert the contractor, the app, the thermostat, and it's going to, it's going to start making a beeping sound on the thermostat, meaning, hey, there's gas in the house. Get your fucking contractor out here now. Who do you think they're going to call when that alert goes through? Whoever serviced it, whoever's logo is on the thermostat, whoever's logo is on the app. Now imagine any of those calls come in those Are emergency high money making calls, guys?
- [27:07]
Jacob Moneymaker
Oh, absolutely, right there. As you continue to grow. And the thermostat, obviously with growth is growing pains, right? And we heard about growing pains and everything like that. What are some bugs that you saw that you guys had to work out? Because maybe some listeners heard about the bugs, right, but they don't know that the bugs were fixed. So let's, let's talk about that.
- [27:33]
Ishmael Valdez
January 19th was doomsday for us. January 19th, Amazon screwed us. You know, obviously we got to pay Amazon servers a monthly fee to be able to keep all the data secure. All your, you know, all your monitoring, all your reporting, all that. Well, there was a problem January 19th this year, which, you know, caused a huge outage in all our thermostats. And luckily we were able to recover them all. I think it took 24 hours for them to recover. But we did have a huge warranty issue. From then on, it's just been. Our warranty rate has been decreasing month over month, day over day, week over week, every single week. We are riding less than one third of a percent right now. Listen to me. Not even a full percent, 1/3 of a percent. We're riding as a, as a overall installation right now. So out of 15,000 units that we've installed less than 1/3 of 1%, we've had issues with Echo V, Honey 1 Nest. They ride between 2.1 and 2.2%, right? Which is 10 times what we're riding on. So yes, we did have a little hiccup with our thermostats. Now we fixed it. We put about a brand new backboard, we put a brand new LED screen more that, that, that's more sensitive and more interactive. We redesigned the thermostat. Jw, I don't know if you've noticed it. We redesigned the interface before it was just a simple swim. Well, now it's got buttons, now it's got a different animation on the thermostat. So yes, we have a little hiccup, guys. And you know, probably some, some of you guys know, but for you guys that don't know, we are guaranteeing you guys. Now listen to me, listen to me. When you guys join the nuvent networks and you guys join one of our, one of our subscriptions, we have a labor policy. Any thermostat that you guys have to replace because it's a warranty issue or a manufacturer issue or whatever issue it is, we are issuing you a labor credit for you guys on every single thermostat. So I don't want my customers to ever lose money on my product. Let me fucking make that clear right now. I am. I am the proudest fucking. This is. This is my baby. This is, like, one of my daughters, right? Nube is one of. Like, one of my daughters is. This is. My whole life is revolved around Nube and my daughters right now. So if you guys have any issues with my thermostat, all you got to do is contact your customer service rep and say, hey, I got three thermostats this month. Or I got one thermostat that. That was defective this month. You ship it back to us, and instantly you get a credit into your account. For whatever reason, whatever reason, all you have to do is ship us back the thermostat. And if you guys want to accumulate them, let's say you guys only have, you know, in the last three months, you had one or two or three. If you guys want to wait till you have 10 and grab all 10 of them and ship them back to us, we'll give you a credit for all 10 of us. So please, please. Number one, yes, we had a hiccup. We cleared that hiccup. Number two, you will never lose money with my thermostat. I promise you. You have my word. We will always credit you back through whatever warranty you ever have. All you have to do is return my thermostat, because I want to know what's wrong with it. As soon as I know what's wrong with it, I fix it, and it makes us a better product. So as soon as you ship me over that thermostat, we get it back, you get an instant credit into your account.
- [30:36]
Jacob Moneymaker
I love it. One thing that I also want to be a part of and talk about real quick, because this is important to me as a consumer, as a contractor. Right. Is customer service. Everyone behind you, your team that we talked about, your customer service has been absolutely amazing. Through any process royalty has to go through with our clients, when we had to go through those type of issues or obstacles or. Or challenges, which all of them are gone, right? Like. Like you just said, they're. They're disappeared now. But I got to say, your customer service, anytime I have a technician that's out there, we reach out and we solve the issue right there on the.
- [31:19]
Ishmael Valdez
Spot every single time, dude, that I'm really proud of. And thank you for bringing that up, Jason, because honestly, bro, I hold these people, all these people you see in back of me and my people that I employ, people in Armenia, I Employ people in the Philippines, you know, we're about to employ people in Mexico. We just opened up Canada, we just opened up Australia. We're gonna open up Mexico next. Like, every single person that that is is employed by November and gets to be a part of the team. They all campaign so well, bro. Everybody who makes a good living with us, but not everybody makes it. Not everybody makes it. Meaning we hold them to the higher standard. The one thing that fucking boils my blood is when somebody talks bad about our thermostats. Meaning, oh, I, they never answer my calls or they never got back to me, or they, you know, I call them and they call me back three days later that I make sure that I talk about in every single meeting, right? I make sure that I hold my standards high. And number two, I make sure that I'm transparent with them, telling them, like, guys, this is what I expect from you guys. If you guys can't meet those standards, you will not be here. I promise you guys, you will not be here. And they know that for me. And that's what, that's what. That's the one thing that I'm super, super proud of. And even through any headache that we've been through or through any, any contractor, you know, warranty or whatever issue we've had with them, the one thing that nobody's ever brought up to my attention is saying, hey, your customer service sucks, bro. And that's because I hold them to the highest standard possible. And for you guys, contractors that are out there, if you guys, I'll give you guys a quick tip and why, and how you, how you know what type of customer service you got, okay? Listen to me. Every fucking Yelp review that comes in, every Google review that comes in is a 1 star, 2 star, 3 star. Every low rated review, 1 star, 2 star, 3 Star that comes in on Angie's, on yo, on Google, I don't care if it's true or false. I don't give, I don't, I don't. That's not what the review's for. That is a true insight of what your company's doing behind your back. You want to know what type of company you're running? You want to know what type of company you are? You want to know what type of company your team is running without you having to ask and interrogate and bring in people and do all these bullshit meetings where you're going to get lied to, CEOs, owners, please listen to me, yo, Google and all those review platforms, even social media, when people are DMing you saying, hey, your company did this. They took advantage of this. They, you know, my grandma, this, all this. That is one thing you should never ignore. That is one thing you should never ignore. It's true. Inside of who you really are as a company, you want to know what type of contractor you are, look at the bad reviews, ignore the good reviews. Everybody's got hundreds of thousands of those. Everybody's got. But you want to know what type of contractor you are? Go into their Yelp, spill your mouth by 1 stars and start digging in through that, and I guarantee you, you're going to have a commonality in the complaints that are inside your platinum.
- [34:22]
Jacob Moneymaker
Now, when. Let's just talk about this real quick, because this is really good. Some people, when they do see bad comments, right, Their blood boils, right?
- [34:34]
Ishmael Valdez
It's.
- [34:34]
Jacob Moneymaker
It's their baby. They're attached to it. What is your recommendations for contractors for responding and who should respond and how fast should you respond?
- [34:45]
Ishmael Valdez
So I was responding to all reviews, and I was getting on the phone. I was getting on the phone talking to my consumers up to. I think I was up at 22, $23 million in revenue, which was, I think, year two or three. I think it was year three. So year three, I was responding and I would. I would have alerts sent over to my phone, right? From y', all, from Angie, from. From Google. Every time a review came in, I would read it and I would analyze it and I would make sure. And then if it was a bad review, guys, we have a group message at $23 million. I already had a little management team. I had a group message with my management team of like, hey, one star review would come in, I would screenshot it, I'd put it on the group, and then I would let them take care of it. And they literally had 24 hours to update that review. Or it would. It would hurt their bonus. Okay? That's how you incentivize people to do things, right? So one slot would come in. They have five minutes to call that customer. That. Or they would give me that information and I would call them myself and try to turn around, obviously, let them vent out, hear them out. The key to a battery view. Listen to me. The key to a bad review is your response rate. Your response rate, meaning if it comes in a 24 hours, 3, 36 hours, 3 hours a week later, you're responding to it, that review is going to stay there forever. Yeah, but if a review, a bad review comes in, in any platform and you get their information and call them within the five minute grace period. You call them up and leave them a voicemail. They don't answer or text them and say, hey, I'm Ishmael, the CEO of Next Generation Air Conditioning. I just saw your one star review. Can you please call me back? That's all you have to say? Let them call you back. When they call you back, shut the up and listen. Yes. You're not there to play be taught ping pong. You're not there to. Well, my technicians would never do that. And we've never. You're not there for that. You're there to listen to them, to let them vent out. Hey. And then this is how you turn it around. You know what, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, I want to thank you for actually exposing a weakness inside my operation and inside my business. What I'm going to do is I'm going to bring that technician in, I'm going to take him out of the field because I don't want him touching another client and making the same mistake he did with you. Or I'm going to take that installer out of the field. I'm going to take that project manager. I'm going to take whatever. And we are going to, we are going to, we are going to mentor him and we're going to, we're going to supervise him for the next 30 days. And if in the next 30 days it happens again, we're going to terminate him. You have my word on that. This is my cell phone number. Whatever you need. Guess what? You could call me, you could text me. I will make sure that we take care of you. That's how you attack the one star warranty, the one star reviews. Listening, being empathetic of the situation and always, always acknowledging and thanking them for the reveal. That's how you get done and that's how you get those one star reviews. I do that. Of all the one star reviews that used to come into next gen. And remember there was points that we were talking, we were touching, you know, anywhere between three to 600 clients a day.
- [37:41]
Jacob Moneymaker
You're spitting fire right now too. So keep going. Keep going, bro.
- [37:45]
Ishmael Valdez
Thank you.
- [37:45]
Jacob Moneymaker
So I got 36 people watching, so keep going.
- [37:49]
Ishmael Valdez
So there was times that we were. You were touching 500, 607, 800 customers in one day, guys. So anytime there was a one review that would come in, I would make it a point. Why? Because guess what? What I, what I, what I showed my team that I care about. That's the standard I said to them What I should, if I ignore those one star reviews, if I just let them go, or if I text on the message, oh this lady's crazy. Or if they text me, oh that lady's crazy. We already did everything. I would put. I don't give a if she's crazy. That's not the point of this bad review. If we would have done what's right by the client from the initial contact, which is the phone call to when we're collecting payment, if we would have run the next gen and customer experience properly, that one star, if you would have never came about. But obviously we up somewhere. So guess what? Now we gotta fix it. And that's the standard I held everybody through across my management, my platform, I mean my, my whole team and my whole operation. I care about what people talk about my company. I care when something comes in, into my, into my review platforms and somebody's saying whether it's good or bad, whether it's true or false. And that's not for here to debate. I guarantee you if 100 customers, if we go into 100 homes and all 100 customers had an exceptional experience to my standards, the way I wanted my girls to get treated, the way I wanted my grandma, my mother, my father, everybody to get treated. If those 100 clients got treated the way I wanted to treat them, 100 reviews would come in saying how amazing we are. But obviously that's, that doesn't happen. That's a fairy tale. There is going to be some fuckups and the fuck ups that come in. Guess what? You as the CEO, you as the operator, you as the owner, that's your responsibility to set the tone of how unacceptable that is. Okay? And this is across every trade. I'll give you another example. If some, if a contractor calls in and says hey, I want to cancel my subscription with you guys, I don't like your thermostats, I don't warranty, I don't let them just cancel and it's okay and no problem. That's it. No, because then if I do it and I say okay, that's no problem, guess what? They're going to think it's okay.
- [40:04]
Jacob Moneymaker
Yeah.
- [40:04]
Ishmael Valdez
And if a bad review comes in on yelp on your guys end and the customers complain about, you know, your technician being too aggressive or leaving dirt all over their driveway or screws or whatever and you just ignore it, your whole team gets amplified of like oh man, he doesn't care. Why should I fucking care? And that's the standard you guys gotta make sure that you guys always hold yourself. And the key to this is making sure that you don't just do it one day. You don't just do it on a Friday when you're in a good mood, or on a Thursday because you got, you know, money in the. No, Monday through Sunday is the same. Same standard. There is. It is.
- [40:42]
Jacob Moneymaker
It doesn't stop.
- [40:44]
Ishmael Valdez
It is unacceptable to disrespect the client or do something wrong inside their house. And as long as you guys set the tone for that, you guys will always have a badass stomach.
- [40:54]
Jacob Moneymaker
You know, I will. We'll go back to nuva. But, man, that information, right there was some golden nuggets to my Spartan. So I appreciate you as, you know, transitioning, but going back to the Nuva real quick, I gotta. I gotta ask, you know, out of the 15,000 thermostats that's been installed, you get a lot of feedback from contractors. What's been the feedback that you've been getting from the reactions of homeowners seeing the thermostat for the first time with the lights and just being different?
- [41:29]
Ishmael Valdez
You know what I love when they send me videos and I post them some. I post some of them online, but the reaction when they see the thermostat light up or the backlight light up or the logo, the reaction of the client, you can actually tell in their eyes when they're like, oh, my God, this is different. This is unique. This is actually good. And then they start asking questions, and, you know, most of the time, the technicians, hey, if you ever need us, just click on this logo and we'll be right here. Look, I'll give you guys something that I was gonna talk to everybody at Pantheon, but look, we just landed a huge integration with service time. We are gonna do a full integration, 100 integration. The first and only thermostat to integrate with service time. We're about to do Housecock Road. We're about to do Field Edge. We're about to do every CRM. Meaning from now on. Listen to what I'm about to tell you, because this is going to change the way we dispatch. This is going to change the way we interact with clients. From now on, they will never talk to a CSR again. They go to their thermostat. It will have tomorrow, 1pm, Wednesday, 3pm, Friday, 4pm you click on it, you confirm it, technician gets dispatched. That call goes all the way to your service sign dashboard. It automatically puts it on and assigns it to whoever installed the thermostat, whoever was the last technician that was there. So now a customer, a frictionless experience, meaning on the app or on the thermostat, they will be able to dispatch a technician for the first time ever. Now you guys don't have to do. Now the customer is in charge of the journey.
- [42:56]
Jacob Moneymaker
I love that you're mentioning this because it's where technology isn't going. It's here, right? And it's getting much better. But it's crazy that you're saying that because I had a podcast earlier this week, I think on Monday, and we were having this conversation and I'm telling people right now that pretty soon the vision of the office staff and CSRs aren't going to be there. It's going to be driven by AI and there's just going to be an overseeing manager that's going to control, you know, what AI is doing.
- [43:32]
Ishmael Valdez
You guys want me to tell you what the operation looks like in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years? Yes, there will be, there will be. In the next three to five years there will be $100 million companies being ran with six to eight people in house, CSRs dispatching in house control, production, warranty, purchasing, all that, CFO controllers, all that wipe that of the fucking earth. All there's going to be is going to be managers for the AI agents to be able to manage. So meaning one service manager could handle 100, 200, 500 technicians because everything else is there. One office manager, instead of having 4, 40 or 50 or 100 CSRs, one office managers, he's just going to handle the managing of the agents inside the AI world. So yeah, guys, listen to me, listen to me because this is super important and this is going to be critical for the mom and pop shops. Listen to what I'm about to tell you because look, the first ones that are going to innovate and implement this is the enterprise, enterprise level contract and, and the mom and pop shops. Anybody below you know, $3 million of revenue, you guys should be scared shitless right now. Listen to me. Scared shitless right now. You guys should be hitting the panic button right now because these enterprise level companies that were running on 20, 25, 30 overhead will now be running on 5, 10 overhead. Yes, drop their price and compete with you guys. And now you guys are going to be starting to floyd by the enterprise level companies. Why? Because instead of selling eighteen to twenty thousand dollar change outs, they're going to be selling them for ten to twelve thousand dollars changes just like you're doing it and still be profitable. So listen to me if you are a contractor, any anywhere below $3 million, you guys should be scared. Shit is right now that is 92%. 94% of America is under the $3 million range. Yeah, 94% of contractors are under the $3 million range, meaning 6% of contractors are enterprise level contractors. They're going to be controlling the world. What you guys need to do, if you're, if you're a $3 million below company, you guys need to perfect your customer experience today. Because customer experience will always win 100%.
- [45:51]
Jacob Moneymaker
And this is why I am so big on customer experience, not the business. The business will take care of it. You focus on that customer experience. Like Disney, Universal Studios. There's reasons why people go there and pay big dollars and they're okay with it. They get thousands of dollars in debt just to go have a good experience, right? I'm telling you, all is, is just dropping gold. And I got to say, man, to all my Spartans out there, if y' all aren't, you know, pulling or on the side right now, taking notes, you know, making a video of this, whatever it is, man, is. You are dropping box bombs, you are dropping fire. As always. I gotta ask you a question because there's, there's not many people that, that I look at as true hustlers, grinders. Like, you know, I gotta ask you, man, you're one of the elite of the elite out there.
- [46:45]
Ishmael Valdez
Okay, thank you. Appreciate it.
- [46:47]
Jacob Moneymaker
How do you time manage everything? People ask me all the time, but I, I feel like you're on a whole different level than, I mean, even the 1 percenters out there, you know what I'm saying?
- [46:59]
Ishmael Valdez
You know what, what I learned real quick when I was growing all these companies and you know, obviously I got other businesses besides Nuve. Nuve is my, my, my number one priority right now. I learned to respect my time boundaries. Not time management. I learned to respect my time boundaries. Meaning, look, every day is the same thing for me. I wake up, I pray, I go, I take my girls to school, I drop them off, then I go to New Bay. I'm from New Bam from 9am all the way to 1pm okay? For those four hours, there is. I'm not, I'm not in la La land thinking like, oh man, I want to go to this restaurant, or hey, I want to go spend time with my brother. Or hey, I'm gonna fan up. Not nothing for the four hours. The, the four hours that November, it's new BE100. There's nothing else in my mind for that 30 minutes that I get to wake up in the morning, feed my daughters, get the breakfast going, take them out to school. I'm not thinking about Nouve. I'm thinking that, you know, how do I serve my daughters better? You know, hey, baby, do you need anything? Hey, let me, let me do your hair for you. Hey, your socks on backwards. Like I'm, I'm doing anything that I can to pour my love to them. For the four hours that I spend at Nouve, it's four hours dedicated to them. Listen, when I leave nouve, from 1 to 3pm, I leave new. I go to the gym. I'm not thinking about New day. I'm not thinking about my daughters. I'm not thinking about what I want to do after I do for those two hours. I'm thinking, how do I keep, how do I keep perfecting my body? How do I keep, you know, what, what is it mentally that's keeping me away from getting to my other goal? From 1 to 3pm, from 3pm down to, you know, 6 or 7pm, sometimes 8 or 9. I'm back grinding. I'm back no bit. I'm not thinking, you know, I should be drinking protein or I should be at the gym. Let me. I'm not so respecting the, the time boundaries that I set for myself and making sure that I found. I'm gonna give you guys the biggest nugget because this is what I learned in every operation. Remember, this is my fourth company that I've grown. Third company that I've grown. It was Home Comfort USA. We grew up to 21. Next generation air conditioning grew up to 180 Nube. Enterprise value already at $90 billion. First year startup, our enterprise value is already a $90 million. Those three companies, what I learned, the most important thing in there once I started respecting the boundaries, once I started respecting my time and time and making sure that I poured my effort into it. Once I started doing that, that's when everything started came about. I learned that once I found my routine that impacted my business the most. That's the routine that I kept meaning most of you guys out there right now, contractors, technicians, sales guys, installers, operators, all you guys, you guys still haven't found your routine that impacts the business in a positive way. You guys are still trying to figure out what to do every day to impact it. Once you find out, listen to me, Once you find the routine, your daily routine that you enjoy the most, that has the biggest impact on your business. That is looking cons having that consistent routine for the longest period of time is what's going to give that company a bigger enterprise value. Okay. Finding a boring routine that you enjoy that impacts your business. I found my routine. Wake up, pray, go to school, take my to school, go grind that new day. Go work on my body and my mind and my mind, go back, work on Nu that I've been doing for the last nine months. And that's how I was able to accomplish 500 contractors, $400,000 of MRR, 15,000 units deployed, you know, $1.5 million in June, facing $2 million of July, being able to build a couple hundred people already in our first 10 months. Startup at Nouve. Like I found, I look for the, that routine that's, that's impacting the business. I look for it, I keep, you know, changing. I was before I was going to the gym at, at 11 and then I was coming back to Nubin and it wasn't impacting the operation right then I switched my time. Then I started doing things different. Once I found out that dope ass routine that I love, guess what? Just deal started coming in, people started coming, hey, we just closed another deal. Our financials are showing a ton of profit. You know, contractors are installing at a high rate. That's the routine that I found. And now I'm just going to stick to it until we get to an enterprise value of a billion dollars.
- [51:19]
Jacob Moneymaker
I love it. I love it, man. You, you, you have some massive, massive goals which I know you're gonna just smash them. Ambitions, dreams, visions, right? You're one person that doesn't allow controversy to get in your way. And all the naysayers and hey sayers on social media, right? Just give us more love, more attraction. That's all we need, right?
- [51:44]
Ishmael Valdez
That's it, bro. That's it. There is nothing and nobody that's going to stop me from. The only person that can stop me is God himself. Other than that, he put me on this earth to help you guys, to help the trades, to help our industry. He put me on this, on this earth to the, the message of, hey, the plumbers and air conditioning techs and electricians are just as good as the lawyers and the doctors and the engineers and the, all those people that went to college. We're just as good, if not better to those people. And that's the message he put me on in the search. So I got to make sure I keep pushing that message across the world.
- [52:15]
Jacob Moneymaker
Absolutely. Now, as we are wrapping up, you know, I gotta ask you, is there a wait list or anything on Nuva thermostats right now. And then Also, as the Nuva 2 is coming out at the end of the year, is it. I'm sure it's priority, right? I'm sure it's not like, hey, you jumped the line. You got to be on the.
- [52:39]
Ishmael Valdez
Whoever the new dealers are from the beginning get first dibs on their new thermostat. There is going to be a waiting list for the V2 to roll out. I got to make sure that all my dealers get a first taste of it. They love it. They start installing them. Dude, you know, the trippy part about it is when. When I took the project over, which, you know, me and Tom Howard and Tommy Mellow and Travis and now Aaron Gainer is on board. Like, when. When I took the project over, I asked Tom Howard. You know, obviously Tom has got a. He's got a unique insight onto how things operate. And I asked them. I'm like, tom, what is the worst case scenario that could happen to Nube and what's the best case scenario that can happen to November? And he said, look, Ishmael, worst case scenario is that you roll out a ton of these units and they start getting a ton of warranties and nobody wants to buy them. That's worst case scenario, which we already passed that landmark. He's like, if you can hear your first thousand units installed without, you know, having the world on fire, you're. You're good to go. So that was worst case scenario. The. The. The best case scenario was you don't have enough thermostats to sell to everybody. And I'm like, dude, for the third time this year, as soon as the thermostats are made and they're shipped to the United States, we run out of thermostats before they get to the United States. Meaning people are purchasing them in advance just to be able to get them, get them through summer. And that was the best case scenario. And I always look back at that and thinking like, man, that is so dope that I'm on the best case scenario of the. Of the spectrum of not having enough product for my. For my contractors. That is so dope, man.
- [54:10]
Jacob Moneymaker
Honestly, I absolutely love it. You know, I got listeners from business, business owners, technicians, installers, CSRs, all departments within the trades of H Vac. Right? What would you like for them to get out of this episode of H Vac? Masters of the Hustle to the Nuva world.
- [54:31]
Ishmael Valdez
Look, the. The Nouvet platform is giving me a bigger reach into what the actual what my actual personal goal is, what my actual business goal, what my actual purpose in life is, right besides my daughters and raising four strong women to have an impact in this world. Nouve platform is giving me a voice inside the industry. A voice in a world platform where we need to change the biggest problem we have in our industry, which is not obviously, you know, the thermostat's going to help a lot of problems. The biggest problem we have in our industry is that nobody wants to be a fucking plumber, nobody wants to be an electrician, nobody wants to be a roofer, nobody wants to be an AC technician, nobody wants to work for us. That's the biggest problem we have. And November is a stepping stone to me getting to the world stage and telling the world about dope people like Jason, dope people like Aaron Gaynor, like Tommy that built a billion dollar garage company, Tom Howard that built $150 million H vac company in Fresno. Like all these dovet stories that I'm going to be able to tell the world to influence our 17, 18, 19 year olds to come and join us in the trades. Because guess what? If we can have an influx of hundreds of thousands of millions of people wanting to be plumbers because they know they can make three to four to $500,000 a year, if we have an influx of people, of good hard working people, it's only going to solve the biggest problem we have in the industry, which is recruitment. Everybody is okay with a shitty technician, a shitty installer, a shitty csr, shitty manager, a shitty sales guy, because nobody wants to be it. If we can fix that problem, we are going to take the trades to a new hype. And that's my overall goal.
- [56:13]
Jacob Moneymaker
Absolutely. Love it. NUVA is, you know, I gotta say, I, I, I'm truly 100%. I want everyone to understand that's listening is royalty. Myself, H Vac, masters of the hustle. I don't stand behind anything until I believe in it, right? And this is something that I've stood behind since day one. Day one, right? And, and again, it was being different of everyone in my market, right? It was as a new company starting off. How do I look like a big company to a consumer when I'm installing the system? Well, you think that my first install when we installed the nuva when it was me and a subcontractor, but they see my logo, you think that they thought I was just a couple hundred thousand dollar company at that time? No, because what did we look like? We looked professional. We delivered an experience, and we were different. And I gotta say, I love it.
- [57:14]
Ishmael Valdez
Keep killing it, Jason. And thank you for all the. The. Thank you for, you know, promoting the product. Thank you for all the referrals, too, bro. Thank you for all the installations you. You've done. Obviously, you're one of our amazing clients. And thank you for always, you know, supporting me and journeys that. That I've taken on. I appreciate you, buddy.
- [57:29]
Jacob Moneymaker
Absolutely. Until next time, y' all late.