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A
Like, there's a lot of optimism for 2025. As owners, we always want more. If your team's conversion rate is half of what it should be, then I'm going to ask what's happening. The bigger we've gotten, the tighter we've gotten our product lines. That's how you start with building a training program. We're about eight months into using Avoca, and Evoca has been an awesome partner for us in our call center. So what Evoca does for us is, is they do two different things. One, they have their Coach product, and coach has been helping us do what it says, coach our csrs every single day. It listens to every call and uses AI technology to basically pick apart that call and tell us where we can improve. And for the last eight months, we've been consistently improving our scores, which has been awesome. The other product they have is just conventional booking, and it's an AI tool that books over the phone. A customer calls in and it either handles overflow and as in our phones are full, or it does nights and weekends for us. And a customer will call in and actually deal with an AI agent all the way through booking. And the savings inside call center has allowed us to ramp up our marketing to continue to grow even more. Thank you, Evoca, and thank you, Tyson, for your partnership.
B
Welcome back to Owned and Operated with your hosts, the H Vac, Jack and John Wilson. It still gets me every time. It still feels good.
A
Thousands of people cheering, screaming. I. I know, I know.
B
Makeshift.
A
I often can't wait to talk plumbing and H Vac and electric.
B
Sweet, man. Well, let's, let's dig in. We wanted to touch base today on training. Was there any specific kind of training that you wanted to hit on?
A
Yeah, so what I wanted to talk about today, I. This has come up just in the, like, couple of the groups we're in. So I thought, I thought just a 101 on how to do technician training, how we think about it, what to talk about, when to talk about it. I thought that'd be an interesting discussion to sort of like, hey, I want to do more training. Great. What now?
B
Yeah. Do you want to start off? I will give how we train because it's definitely suboptimal to where you're going to be and then how you would do it differently. So we do departmental trainings twice a week, I guess. Do you want to start on. Do you. Do you start on new hire? I guess that's probably the better place to start on initially. The background is Going to be shaped by the new hire process itself. So taken from you, we do our interviews, we have a ride along workday with our team to make sure that this person has the basic skill set, has the basic attitude is, is willing to get their hands dirty, do the work that's necessary. So they do a ride along day then follows in a week of training. And that week of training starts off with day one being Service Titan training in depth on how we are, how we do the systems and how we, how we do Service Titan and all of the subsequent needs of our business and our expectations for them. Followed by then twice weekly trainings after that week right along oh, excuse me, I, I jumped ahead. Then the other four days of that week they're doing a ride along training with a, our senior member of H VAC or plumbing who is given a sheet of things that they are grading them on. Essentially we get that sheet back and then we determine if they made it, need more training, another week in the van to really figure out if they're going to make it or they get their own vehicle. So one week of onboarding training and then it becomes a twice a week, once a week is, is going over numbers, how we did last week, did we win, did we not win? And then on Fridays we do another training which is sales based. Hey, we're going to go through role playing, we're going to go through different scripting, how you deal with these scenarios. And so that is the extent of our training is, is really three items. It's onboarding and then twice a week numbers and sales.
A
I feel like that's good.
B
Really.
A
Like hey, I think the, the place to start is like even a little bit back. I want to start training. What do we do? So like you had that question at some point and you decided hey, our onboarding isn't robust enough. So I'm going to create this week long program of like here's how to use Service Titan, here's how to use Divi years at a clock in, clock out. Here's how the price book works. So I agree, it's like setting them up for success off that rip. That makes total sense to me. And then as you get going you develop a cadence of yeah, sales or ticket training. We've done a bunch of stuff, we've tried a lot of different things and it really depends on like the maturity of the team. Some sometimes we do role play, sometimes it's more indirect roleplay. So like we'll pull a Ciro or Rela recording and we'll listen to what happened on that call and then give each other feedback. And that tends to be pretty impactful. We'll do invoice reviews and I think where I was hoping to start is maybe a company does a training once a month or no training at all and they're like, how do I begin? So how did you think about beginning?
B
So we think about beginning because we had a point in time very recently where texts weren't meeting standards and you can probably go back and listen six months ago and you'll hear this point somewhere right around pre summer to going into summer, maybe June, April, May, June. And yeah, the texts weren't performing and it, we said instead of blaming them for non performance because when you're so small, all you're doing is trying to get someone out in the field because you can't afford to, to keep them into training. But realistically it feels that way. I think at the end of the day though, you're wasting your, your leads, you're wasting really good leads that are high ticket value which are going to allow you to grow and allow you to do more training because you're not training them so they're not putting in opportunities. But that's because you as the employer didn't set those expectations from the gate. So that's where we, we started. And the first step was to say, okay, let's start with bringing people in so that they know their numbers, they know where they are, they know where they're winning. That was the first step, that was our first weekly training is touching base for 30 minutes a week. We have to at least do that. And then after we got past that point, that was great. Now the techs know if they're winning, they know if they're losing. There's a bit of a competitive spirit that they, they are utilizing against each other and it's, it's more fun. They're getting to know us, we bring in breakfast, whatever the case may be. And then we said, okay, that is extremely helpful. But the next step is they're asking now, hey, my number's this. You're expecting me to be up here north of that, like how do I get there and can we get training? They were asking us, we need sales training. Like we want to reach our goals, we want to get those benefits and, and the commissions show us how. And so that's when we started that, that secondary training day. And then we said, well, we need to now wrap all this up of what you know, is the, the key and entrance points for all of these items that we're requiring. And we need to put that now on the very front end so that from day one, this is now the culture versus trying to change the culture midway through is so much harder. And so that's how we got to where we are today. And it's through a lot of conversations on this podcast with you.
A
Yeah.
B
Cause I would imagine you, you do it somewhat similarly.
A
Yeah, I mean, ours is pretty similar. You know, we started it seven, eight years ago at this point. It started with a once a week huddle and still what we call it. And now it's more developed. You know, some teams have one training a week, some have three. And it really just depends on like what's going on with that team. But yeah, they, they're going to deep dive into numbers, they're going to do sales objections videos, they're going to do a lot of stuff. I think when you're thinking about planning the training, the important thing to cover is that it's really the same stuff over and over and over. And, and it's not because I think when we first started, I, I remember it like four years ago, we're like, all right, we want to really take training seriously, so let's, let's plan out the next year of training because we want to be able to hold our managers accountable to doing trainings, which we still believe in that. It's just what we found was really all we actually need is like the next eight weeks and then all you do on week nine is do a week one again. So you're talking about like 20 different topics and really you're talking about five different topics in four different ways. So it's 20 total. But you know, conversion rate, you've got a million different ways to take conversion rate, but I think, I just think it's like a simpler process. So we started, I think the first one was probably like 52 straight weeks or 26 straight weeks of like a totally different topic every single time. And we've landed now on like, I think it's week 12 or week 13. It's a rolling 13 week calendar. So at week 13 we just like start again and we're, we're back.
B
So if you were to go back in time though, and talk to yourself, you know, circa 2019, 2020, what would be the advice you would give yourself on starting those first initial trainings? Either A, like, what makes the training actually meaningful while you're doing it? How do you structure these trainings so that they are high value to you guys and the team. What. Where would you focus? Would you focus on numbers? Where you focus on actually, like the objection in the sales portion. Where do you think that the first training should start?
A
I mean, the first training, I think, is how do you read your numbers? And like, what. What are we looking for? Like, what is good? Because I think that's a. That's a big one. That honestly is complicated, I think is, you know, as owners, we always want more. So, you know, often our teams will be like, hey, what's the goal? And I'm like, the goal is more. Like the, you know, know, the goal is always more. But they're like, okay, but like, we need a number that we can tie our. Tie ourselves to here to know that I did a good job. So as an owner, we always want more. But, like, people need to know if they've done a good job. Like, so I think getting really clear about, like, hey, this number is a good job. And, like, how to read your numbers, how to look at them. I think that's just consistency of reporting and conversation.
B
Well, and so how did you get there? Is there any kind of rule of thumb? Because I'm trying to not, you know, jump over.
A
Open sharing scorecarding talk in the onboarding, we talk about your scorecard on Service Titan. But, like, being very open with numbers like our, you know, you can walk around our office and there's dashboards everywhere. Everyone can see everything. And we're adding more, like, every day. Not every. Not every day, but every month we had. We had more data. So we all understand and we increase visibility. So like now daily gross margin and daily net margin is public information. Like, you just go walk up to the TVs and like, there it is. We're getting ready to add, you know, this is. This isn't tech focused, but just sort of the level of clarity. We think we're getting ready to add an HR dashboard for, like, here's how many inquiries we've received and here's how many we've answered, or here's how many customers we've contacted in the last 24 hours to collect money, or here's the dollar amount of money and those are going in hallways. That's like going up on a tv. So we can hold our support team to the same level of accountability that we hold our field team. So I think, hey, here's what's good. And then display that information. Absolutely. Everywhere is the answer. Like, you know, hey, it's everywhere. We're going to talk about it nonstop. And make that a part of your culture. And public, public dashboarding, I think is the easiest way to do it. Because at that point this is a part of your culture. Like, people are going to look at that wall and they're going to be like, interesting.
B
Yes. And then so, so the first step is make time. Make time for these meetings. They're important.
A
Yeah. So you make time for the meetings and then you start like, hey, what are the things that happen? And this is like, you can do this for call center, you can do this for whatever. But how do we train the behaviors and then how do we compare them against the outcomes? So the behaviors are like, how are we gonna show up to the house, how are we gonna dress, how are we gonna drive our trucks, where are we gonna park, how are we gonna greet, how are we gonna like handle exploring, how are we gonna explain options? How many options? Those are behaviors. The outcome is your sales, your conversion rate, your number of options and your total sales output. So you like compare those, here's how we're doing in trainings to here's what, and here's what those trainings resulted in. And it's just that cycle back and forth. So, okay, our conversion rate is low in plumbing. We're in the 30s, we want to be in the 50s. What do we do? Okay, well it's conversion rate and number of options look good. So that means we're not handling objections very well. Could be pricing objections, could be any type of objection. So we, we really hone in on objections for a couple weeks. So you can deviate from that 13 week schedule a little bit based on like whatever the current need is. But really it's always like, what's the average ticket? An average ticket just means how much are you selling and conversion rate is, are you selling something on every job? Like it's those two things. And that's most of what we're going to focus on. And then recently we've added more technical training because one, we, we want to be good at our jobs. And two, it, you know, people sell or they talk about more options that they understand what the option is.
B
And so what when, when you're going in there, I mean this is a lot for anyone new who's listening is like, I don't do trainings now I have to do behavioral and, and figure out like how, as an owner, how to understand overcoming objections and how to understand that.
A
This is like my topic. So I think like you do a topic on like, here's how to overcome the service fee Objection. Here's how to overcome the. Your price is too high. Objection. Here's how to overcome the next available like when can you do it? Objection. So I, I think you can do it by like micro topic. So that's what I said. Like hey, it's probably 20 trainings but really it's five topics said in four different ways. That's four different ways to say conversion, like dealing with objections. Then the next one could be like how to, how to explore the home and like ask open based, open ended questions to try to understand the need of that customer. And that could be okay. Here's a training on lifestyle questions. Here's a training on who lives in the home. Here's a training on their current mechanical systems. And again you just had three different ways to attack the same, the same problem. Earlier this year we started an outbounding campaign and we really didn't know where to begin. So we were using dialing on the phones, we were sending text messages, we were trying emails, tried a couple different softwares and ultimately we ended up with Hatch. Hatch has been an awesome partner for us. We started with them about five or six months ago and we've just continued to ramp. Every month we add three or four more automations. And my personal favorite thing about working with Hatch is Hatch comes out of the box ready to go. With Hatch you get automated multi touch outreach across text, voicemail, drop email and a ton more. So every single lead that you have gets worked, every invoice that you leave gets retouched and rehashed and it's freaking awesome. Check out use hatchapp.com OAO and so.
B
As you're going through these trainings, right you, the owner or the trainer, manager, hr, whoever's available to do these at these, at everyone's company is putting these together. They're trying to be one step ahead of the text to give them value. Do you have any advice as that you're going through the actual structure of the training itself. You bring them in, you sit them down, you, you bullshit for 10 minutes and then you're on to like the actual structure of the training itself. Is there any advice to making them extremely effective? Because I know a lot of times what we had to to curb very early on was this, this, I don't call it banter but like this back and forth where with very little actual value in the training. Yeah, right. Somebody argues and then that argument goes and just continues well we can't do that because of this and da da da da. And then you go Back and forth. How do you do you. Is there any books that you used or is there any kind of resour you use that help you to structure trainings really well. Any advice there?
A
I think most of it's like who's doing the training? That seems to be the biggest differentiator and honestly like the best way to do it. This might be a little bit scary, but ask your team like we ask them for feedback. We got this from Chris Hoffman but just like hey, was this a good training? Like did we do good? Did we answer your questions? Do you feel like you got value out of it? Was it worth the drive? We really honed in on that and we tried to get, we tried to improve and take that feedback and improve and I still early in it. But yeah, I think who's doing the training was the biggest lesson because we had people that would permit that for 30 straight minutes and then we had other people who would just sort of corral it and then get the training on. And that was a. Seemed to be a person by person. So my point there is I would lean into your strength, lean into the strengths of your team of like who does this really well and who just doesn't.
B
And I know we've talked about this before but also I mean where, where it helped me in terms of those trainings and to get to a point where they were actually becoming valuable was eos understanding how to do a training and how to I mean frankly take objections and take questions from your employees, put them aside to continue the training to get the points across and then go back and, and solve or however you want to to handle those. But um, making them highly valuable with time frames and with any kind of follow ups necessary. I think that that's an important part to making it effective training at least on our end. What we find is that high level of structure dissuades kind of the monkeying around to, to some extent.
A
No, that's honestly that's a good idea. We don't, we don't do it exactly like that. Something that we're getting ready to do and this was a move that we saw from a shop visit two months ago was we went to the shop and they start every meeting the exact same way. And that's in my next 90 days. That's one of my like tasks to complete. That's cool is every meeting starts the same exact way. So it's like you start with like some two review shout outs. You go through the core values real quick, you give a shout, quick shout out to somebody that, like, live those core values. And it's a literal slideshow. And every meeting starts the exact same way, which kind of aligns with what you just said. And I like that because it, like, I think, I think what it does over time is it gets you in the mode of like, okay, we're in meeting mode. Like, we've done this five things. Yep. We're aligned on this. Yep. I'm totally on for the vto. Makes sense. So, yeah, we, we sort of backed into it from a different way, though. But I do like that a lot, that level of uniformity.
B
Yeah. And so, so we have those trainings. Well, we have the, the two different separate trainings. How many times are you training? You said multiple for some departments, maybe one for other departments. And is that based on the needs and the wants of the, the technicians who's dictating how many trainings they're getting?
A
We will typically leave it up to the manager. Unless that team is suffering, then we stop leaving it up to the manager, but we'll typically leave it up to the manager. And if the team is, is succeeding and hitting their targets, I'm, you know, I'm not going to write them, but if your team's conversion rate is half of what it should be, then I'm going to ask what's happening? Like, hey, what's your training plan? What are you doing? When it's, when the team as a whole is succeeding, then there's always going to be like one or two people that need more help. Then we go personalized. So we do this.
B
That's interesting.
A
And I, I personally do this. So every Monday afternoon, I spend a half an hour with each frontline, like, department plumbing, H vac, electric drains, and, and we go through their KPIs for the previous week. Hey, here's what happened. Your guy did this. His conversion rate was this average ticket was this. What's going on with this guy? When was the last time you talked to him? Is there something going on with his personal life? Is there like something professional? Has he been struggling a lot? Like, did he follow the process? How many times did he contact you for help? And we just sort of unpack it and usually what ends up happening is we, we force a ride along, okay, hey, this guy, like, what do you think you're going to do about it? Like, here's the results, here's what happened. How are we going to support this guy? How do we, like, help, you know, keep him improving? And our, our manager's going to Ride along and they, they help out or sometimes like I don't think a ride along is necessary. Like I think he's good. We're just going to talk to him all great, we'll try that. And if it's not improved next week then we're gonna do a ride along. So like you tell me. Yeah, but I think a weekly touch base and making it like we don't need to make one person's problem a group problem. So if one person's struggling for some reason like we've had, you know, it's a big business. So people have a lot of personal stuff going on. Any given time somebody's parent is really going through something or somebody's kid has really gone through something. And so like we just try to handle, handle that on a personal basis. But if the whole team is underperforming. Yeah, then we're going to start. Yeah, then we're going to start. What's going on with your trainings? When was the last time you had an objection training? How are you talking about options? What's going on?
B
And, and so, so from an individual training perspective, still managers to individuals and on an as needed basis, correct?
A
Yeah.
B
Okay. And then with that, I mean, I guess is. Would you consider a one on one training and then how often do you, are you requiring managers to give one on ones to frontline staff?
A
It should be weekly.
B
Okay.
A
We are not as consistent as we should be on that and that's a big, that's a big area of focus for us.
B
Yeah, it is for us as well. We do it in plumbing pretty well but in H vac it's, it's non existent. So we're working to streamline that across. But interesting. I mean it's, it's a lot but I think at the end of the day training is much as nobody wants to spend that time and that money to, to bring people in. That's not revenue generating. You know, I reiterate like the, the amount of, the amount of returns we saw off of that training and those training exercises is so extremely valuable. People who don't have the training and who are not performing, you're wasting, you're wasting money. I mean you really are, you're wasting those calls, you're wasting those leads and you're not getting performance at the end of the day and it's not doing, you're not winning as a team, you're not winning as an individual and the customer's not winning because they're not getting the best service possible. By a trained individual.
A
And I think like if you're just getting started off in training, I, I just don't think you have to overcomplicate it. Like pick three, four topics and you can repeat them. Like right now we're on a six week training with HVC service and it is literally four topics that we're repeating for six straight weeks. That's it. Like it's not, I think we really want to over complicate it and make it brand new or whatever but like it just doesn't matter. Like this is the, this is the four things that we have to talk about. And at the end of six weeks you have to, it, you have to know how to size, you have to know how to call by call, you have to know how to do these things which the whole team is systemically struggling with.
B
With those trainings, are you focusing, especially like this instance that you're talking about it, is it focused primarily around the sales portion or is it technical training? Do you offer technical training on the back end?
A
We're doing a ton more technical so that's been an area of focus. I would say it's by trade. We're trying to make it more systemic because really the managers run the training. But we asked for a survey, we, we just did a survey of our team of like hey, what do of our benefits? And like if you could add something, what would it be? And most requested was more technical training. Interesting.
B
So like can, sorry, this is purely selfish here and now asking but like what kind of technical, like can you, can you give examples of what kind of technical training you guys are moving into?
A
A lot of it's product specific. I mean with H Vac a lot of it's been refrigeration focused. Like we're doing refrigeration changeover right now. Like we got to know like that's a big deal. That's a really big deal. Like oh, we've got the new fire alarms or whatever inside those, inside these systems we need to know what's up. So that's a big area of focus for water. It's okay. What's, how does water quality work for water heaters? We just switched water heater water tankless water heater brands. How's it work? Like literally how does it work? Yeah, because it's different. Like it has a different type of condensate and our installers need to know and our salespeople need to know so they can sound intelligent when they're talking about it. So pretty product specific stuff and Then.
B
So now, now circling that back. Yeah, that does, circling that back. Back to the, the kind of hiring process. So when you're doing the hirings now, if you are offering these product level, you still are requiring on hiring that these individuals have a decent background in H Vac and then you're just giving them specialized, not generalized knowledge and specialized.
A
Yeah. Like here's the specific products that we install because we've, the bigger we've gotten, the tighter we've gotten our product lines just because it's easier. So yeah, that, that's been an area of focus for us.
B
It's really interesting. I mean that, that's neat because you know, when, when I think about technical training, what scares me is right, you should be able to hire out the generalist portion. If you, if your technicians in H Vac are having trouble with refrigeration theory. Yeah. Maybe a refresher course doesn't hurt. But to be giving in depth trainings on, you know, how does a, you know, a heat coil work or how does a contactor work? I'm, I'm thinking that, you know, that's a hiring problem, not a training issue. But it sounds like what you're doing is completely not that. It's, it's products only. And how does this.
A
Yes.
B
These new items work? Which makes sense because you want the.
A
Text, you want to add. We do want to add a live fire lab to do more of what you just said because I feel like that would help anybody sharpen up their skills. Yeah, like heat exchanger breakdowns. Here's how you identify cracks, you know, because you want to be able to do a good job. Like we want to be good at the thing that we're hired to do.
B
We had something like that, a live fire. The live fire box. When we got to. When I was working at Frito Lay and it was this giant box and it had like six different electrical tests in it, like how to, how to set a photo eye and all this kind of stuff. How to wire up a three phase motor. And that was like the first thing they touched before they even got hired was making sure that the individuals know their basic electrical skills. So interesting. I mean, that, that's extremely helpful. I, I'm, I highly recommend anybody out there who's not doing trainings regularly to make the time. It's hard. It is so hard. And I'm not, I'm not someone who's going to pretend like it's not because stealing that time away from running, it's hard, you know, well, and getting like.
A
Planning it out and like. And that's why I think you take a few hours and like you just build a program.
B
Yeah.
A
And that's why I'm going to really like push for that. Because if you build a program it's like, hey, here's our 12 week program twice a week. Here's the links to the videos, here's the links to any like paper forms that you print out with it. Just do it once.
B
Yeah.
A
And then you're done. And then you just go in and you open up, you click the video. Boom. Here we go. Here's the talking points.
B
The problem is not, at least for me, John, the problem's not that. The problem is like, hey, I got to call at 7am and we got an active water leak on this just super juicy call and all the plumbers now they're sitting in a training for two hours or an hour and 10 minutes plus drive time so. Or we have a down 10 year old H vac unit. Get, we need something over there ASAP or we're going to lose the call. And at the end of the day like those juicy calls are, you know, we still will skip trainings on call by called because of that, if it has to be that, that juicy. But in general we've said, hey, it's not worth it because the time that that goes into training. Yeah, that's one call. But they have another 15 over the next two, three days. Like those 15 are going to be more important than that singular call.
A
Yeah, I mean I, I think so. And I think, yeah, I mean you can go even for like we have eight people right now at a nextar training for basically the whole week. And like obviously eight people's a lot. It's like two people.
B
Next star's a lot.
A
Yeah, well I was saying that to somebody the other day. Like I do think nextar is the right answer above a certain point.
B
Yeah.
A
So I'm just gonna say that I was talking to someone about that the other day. It's like I, I don't remember what Nextar is probably like 30 or 40 grand a year or something. But on top of that we easily paid 80 to 100 grand additional for training. Like easily.
B
I puked in my mouth a little bit.
A
Yeah.
B
But I mean, no, I, I know. It's, it's the same concept, right? It's like really good training to be able to get an employee to a spot where they can convert.
A
I mean we have eight people that are gone this week and they're Going to come back and probably double. They're going to like permanently double basically because now what's going to happen and this is how this gets even more impactful. So you get into this training rhythm. So then onboarding people onboard into this awesome rhythm that you have. And then when you do one time trainings where like people move up a level, your ongoing and consistent training, like they get more out of it. Yeah, so like these eight people are going to go to these trainings, they're going to come back and they're going to get more out of the trainings that you're already doing. So they'll never regress. Whereas if you send people to these, like I hear about people going to these one time trainings and then they never follow up with another training and they regress and they're like, oh my God. Yeah, the first month was amazing. They did awesome. It's like, well, what did you just do to support them after that? Nothing. Then what are we doing here? You know?
B
Yeah, I mean it's like anything else. You don't, it slowly falls off, you don't use it, you lose it and then they regress back to initial points.
A
Whatever the mean was. Yeah, well that's how you, that's how you start with building a training program. So you make it simple, same five topics, 12 weeks, eight weeks, like you can do six weeks, you can do four weeks if you want. Just repeat it once a month. People have to hear stuff seven times for it to get in. By the seventh month they'll be maybe tired of the training, but I bet not because you will add more people. People have different perspective and just document it and, and run it.
B
I love it. I mean we started it like I said, based on the talks from this podcast. I think if you haven't started today, get it ready to go. Nothing crazy, just make it a habit. We're meeting, we're talking about training, we're talking about our goals, who we are, where we are and how we're going to overcome those objections in the future.
A
Thanks for checking us out. Check out owned and operated.com if you want to hear more. That website is starting to get a lot more traffic, which is kind of fun. I think we're at like a few thousand hits a month and I'm just like, where are you guys coming from? That's pretty cool.
B
Follow us on the Facebook group too. Facebook group is awesome. I've been more active in there. Love it. Really good groups of people in there.
A
So yeah, I think we're about to cross 700 there.
B
Yeah. Lots of question answering. I think it's very, very, very helpful.
Owned and Operated Podcast Episode #162 Summary
Title: Get Your Techs to Close More Tickets: How We Built Confidence, Boosted Sales, and Cut Stress
Release Date: January 21, 2025
Hosts: John Wilson and Jack Carr
In Episode #162 of Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast, hosts John Wilson and Jack Carr delve into the critical topic of enhancing technician performance through structured training programs. Titled "Get Your Techs to Close More Tickets: How We Built Confidence, Boosted Sales, and Cut Stress," this episode offers invaluable insights for home service business owners aiming to elevate their operations.
[00:00] John Wilson opens the discussion by highlighting their partnership with Evoca, an AI-driven call center management tool.
"We're about eight months into using Evoca, and Evoca has been an awesome partner for us in our call center."
Evoca provides two main functionalities:
The implementation of Evoca has led to consistent score improvements over eight months, allowing the team to reallocate resources towards ramping up marketing efforts.
[01:35] Jack Carr emphasizes the necessity of comprehensive training programs for technicians. He outlines the foundational aspects of their training regimen, which includes departmental trainings focused on numbers and sales:
"We do departmental trainings twice a week... day one being Service Titan training in depth on how we are, how we do the systems... followed by ride-along training with senior team members."
John agrees, stressing the significance of robust onboarding processes:
"I think the place to start is like even a little bit back. I want to start training. What do we do?"
The hosts discuss the evolution of their training programs, moving from extensive yearly plans to more manageable rolling 13-week schedules. This approach allows for repetitive reinforcement of key topics, ensuring that essential skills are ingrained over time.
[07:53] John Wilson shares their methodology:
"We started with a once a week huddle and still what we call it... they’re going to deep dive into numbers, they’re going to do sales objections videos... It’s simpler now with a rolling 13-week calendar."
This structure focuses on two primary metrics:
By consistently monitoring and training around these metrics, the team fosters a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
[10:36] John Wilson introduces the concept of transparency through public dashboards:
"We are adding more, like our daily gross margin and daily net margin is public information. You can walk up to the TVs and like, there it is."
This visibility ensures that all team members are aware of their performance and the company's financial health, promoting a unified effort towards shared goals.
[16:28] John Wilson offers advice on structuring trainings:
"Who's doing the training? That seems to be the biggest differentiator... ask your team for feedback... who does this really well and who just doesn't."
He underscores the importance of tailoring training sessions to leverage the strengths of team members, ensuring that each session is engaging and valuable.
The discussion shifts to personalized training approaches. [19:16] John Wilson explains their strategy for individual performance improvement:
"Every Monday afternoon, I spend a half an hour with each frontline... We unpack it and usually what ends up happening is we force a ride along... How do we support this guy?"
This individualized attention ensures that each technician receives the necessary support to overcome personal or professional challenges, enhancing overall team performance.
A significant portion of the episode focuses on the dual importance of technical and sales training. [23:27] Jack Carr discusses the integration of product-specific technical training based on team feedback:
"Most requested was more technical training... product-specific stuff."
[23:57] John Wilson elaborates on their technical training initiatives, such as refrigeration changeovers and water heater functionalities, ensuring that technicians are well-versed in the latest products and technologies.
This balanced approach not only empowers technicians with the knowledge to perform their tasks effectively but also equips them with the skills to confidently upsell additional services.
[27:11] Jack Carr addresses the common challenge of balancing training time with urgent service calls:
"The problem is like... we got an active water leak on this just super juicy call and all the plumbers now they're sitting in a training..."
He emphasizes that while urgent calls are inevitable, the long-term benefits of ongoing training far outweigh the occasional disruptions.
[28:20] John Wilson mentions the cost and value of comprehensive training solutions like Nextar:
"Nextar is the right answer above a certain point... easily paid 80 to 100 grand additional for training."
Despite the substantial investment, the returns in terms of improved conversion rates and customer satisfaction make it a worthwhile expenditure.
The hosts advocate for creating a sustainable training rhythm through repetition and consistency. [30:22] John Wilson advises:
"Make it simple, same five topics, 12 weeks... People have to hear stuff seven times for it to get in."
By maintaining a consistent training schedule, businesses can ensure that their teams remain knowledgeable, motivated, and capable of driving sales growth effectively.
In closing, John and Jack reiterate the paramount importance of structured and consistent training programs in driving business growth. They encourage listeners to prioritize training despite the inherent challenges, highlighting the substantial returns in performance and customer satisfaction.
For more insights and resources, listeners are directed to visit www.ownedandoperated.com and join their active Facebook group, fostering a community of like-minded home service business owners dedicated to continual improvement.
Notable Quotes:
By implementing the strategies discussed in this episode, home service business owners can effectively build confident, high-performing teams capable of driving sales and enhancing customer satisfaction, ultimately leading to sustained business growth.