From $10M to $100M: How Home Service Companies Scale Sales Fast

Summary

---

Podcast Summary:

Owned and Operated - A Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC Business Growth Podcast

Episode: From $10M to $100M: How Home Service Companies Scale Sales Fast
Host: John Wilson
Guest: Zach Deering, Mantle
Date: October 21, 2025

---

Overview of the Episode’s Main Theme

In this episode, host John Wilson interviews Zach Deering from Mantle, a sales experience platform for home service contractors. The conversation centers on how home service companies successfully scale their sales from $10M up to $100M by leveraging technology, focusing on sales process simplicity, benchmarking key KPIs, and creating a buyer-centric experience. Specific attention is paid to actionable strategies, emerging sales models (like remote/virtual selling), and insights from real performance data to unlock company growth.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fundamentals of Scaling Sales (00:00 – 02:00)

• Measuring Key KPIs is Crucial:

  “You can't manage something that you can't measure...how do you make it really easy for the seller to be able to manage the key KPIs?”
  — Zach Deering (00:00)

• Simplicity Drives Scale:

  “What's the difference between a $10 million shop and $100 million shop? It's simplicity. The $100 million shop really intentionally tries to make things simpler.”
  — Zach Deering (00:14, 23:03)

2. Personal Entrepreneurship Journeys (02:00 – 04:59)

• Both John and Zach share early entrepreneurial experiences, including running small businesses and blogs, and the lessons learned.
• Memorable Quote:

  “Technically my first business was slugging Pokemon cards in the bathroom of my elementary school...a hockey stick from there.”
  — Zach Deering (04:32)

3. Introducing Mantle and ‘Closer’ (05:33 – 07:02)

• Clarification on Branding: Mantle is the company; ‘Closer’ is the user-centric lifestyle brand supporting contractors.
• Mantle’s Mission: Help contractors delight homeowners and close more by creating an interactive shopping experience.

4. Creating Shopping Experiences in Home Services (07:15 – 10:00)

• Shifting away from sales lectures and features-based pitches toward empowering the customer.

  “Historically, as an industry, our solution...was we're going to put a bunch of specs in front of someone and have someone just lecture at the homeowner for 20 minutes.”
  — Zach Deering (08:14)

• Homeowners want agency and choice—something most FSM and proposal tools don’t address.

5. Tactical Insights from Industry Data (11:09 – 14:00)

• Best Companies Empower the Buyer:

  • Education, letting the homeowner drive the experience, and offering meaningful, customizable choices.

• Tuesday is the Top Sales Day:

  “Tuesdays are the big sales day by revenue.”
  — Zach Deering (11:36)

• Benchmarking and New Metrics:

  • Mantle enables real-time benchmarking across companies and sellers.

6. Understanding and Leveraging Metrics (14:00 – 19:40)

• KPIs like close rate and average ticket are only meaningful if measured and defined consistently.

  “You can't manage something that you can't measure.”
  — Zach Deering (16:24)

• Newer, often overlooked metrics discussed include:

  • Response time to homeowner inquiries
  • "Eyeball time"—the time a homeowner spends reviewing a proposal

• Proposal Strength:

  • Assessed in real-time in Mantle; higher proposal strength leads to higher average tickets.

  “A 10-point increase in proposal strength is correlated with a $960 increase in average ticket.”
  — Zach Deering (19:34)

7. Standardizing & Scaling Sales Teams (19:55 – 25:46)

• Companies Mantle works with range from 2-3 sellers to 30-40+ sellers.
• Smaller teams benefit from low-hanging fruit and standardized processes; larger teams focus on continual optimization and benchmarking.
• Scaling means intentional focus on process simplification and consistency—too much complexity can kill scalability.

  “You have to be so intentional on getting stuff simple. And it's almost like you go through the stage at 10 [million] where you're like, you almost complicate everything on purpose.”
  — John Wilson (26:02)

8. Role of Technology & AI in Sales (26:17 – 27:22)

• Emphasis on elevating humans for relationship-building and expertise, while letting technology handle repetitive tasks.
• The future will blend AI automation and human connection for optimal results.

9. The Future of Sales in Home Services (27:22 – 33:53)

• Remote Selling Trends:

  • Growing interest in remote/virtual sales models, especially for scaling.

  “I think you're going to see more people doing remote sales...you're not always sending someone into the home.”
  — Zach Deering (27:24)

• Not just for big companies—success depends more on willingness to innovate than size.

• The move toward online shopping/’open cart’ experiences is being driven by homeowner expectations.

  “Over 69% of homeowners say they tried to look for a price online. Only 15% said they could find anything that was very clear.”
  — Zach Deering (29:54)

• Consultative selling is the current standard, replacing product/options-only approaches.

10. Homeowner Survey Insights & Industry Misconceptions (36:01 – 39:40)

• Price is Not Always King:
  • 70% of homeowners report that price is not their chief buying factor.
• Transparency and Extended Warranties:
  • Demand for transparency is high; most Americans willing to pay about $563 for a 10-year extended warranty.
• Strategic Attach Rates:
  • Sometimes better to offer warranties cheaply and increase attach rates, or to price premium for select buyers.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Fundamentally, we are here to help contractors really create shopping experiences and close more.”
  — Zach Deering (00:00, 06:09)

• “People respond to numbers and the information that's presented to them...the sellers understand how they are where they stand vis a vis their peers.”
  — Zach Deering (16:24)

• “A 10 point increase in proposal strength is correlated with a $960 increase in average ticket.”
  — Zach Deering (19:34)

• “You have to be so intentional on getting stuff simple...I can't scale like this with 50 different commission plans...”
  — John Wilson (26:02)

• “The $100 million shop really intentionally tries to guard to make things simpler.”
  — Zach Deering (23:03)

• “Price is only the most important thing if you choose to make it so.”
  — Zach Deering (36:26)

• "Over 69% of homeowners say they tried to look for a price online. Only 15% said they could find anything that was very clear."
  — Zach Deering (29:54)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – 02:00: Importance of measurable KPIs, simplicity in scaling
• 05:33 – 07:02: Mantle’s purpose, ‘Closer’ lifestyle brand
• 08:14 – 10:00: Creating buyer-driven shopping experiences
• 11:09 – 14:25: Best practices from top home service companies
• 16:24 – 18:40: Measuring new metrics—response time, “eyeball time,” proposal strength
• 19:55 – 26:17: Team sizes, stages of sales process development, intentional simplification
• 27:22 – 33:53: The emerging wave of remote selling in home services
• 36:01 – 39:40: Homeowner survey data: price transparency, warranties, what homeowners really want
• 41:11 – end: Survey links, podcast wrap-up

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Measure what matters: Track not just close rates but also new, insightful KPIs like proposal strength and homeowner engagement.
• Prioritize simplicity: The path from $10M to $100M relies on simplifying and standardizing sales processes.
• Embrace consultative, buyer-driven selling: Allow homeowners to lead, empower them with real choices, and personalize experiences.
• Leverage technology for benchmarking & process automation: Use tools like Mantle to standardize, benchmark, and optimize sales performance.
• Experiment with remote selling: Remote and online experiences are growing—getting ahead here offers a competitive edge.
• Challenge assumptions: Most homeowners aren't as price-focused as contractors believe; transparency and extended service plans offer new opportunities.

---

How to Connect & Further Resources

• Contact Zach Deering:

  • Email: [e-mail]
  • Website: usemantle.com (Sign up and access the annual homeowner survey)

• Podcast Website: ownedandoperated.com

---

Suitably energetic, data-focused, and actionable, the episode offers home service leaders a roadmap for moving beyond $10M by simplifying their sales process, empowering both salespeople and buyers, relentlessly measuring the right KPIs, and embracing the evolving technological landscape in home services.

---

Transcript

[A]

We are here to help contractors really create shopping experiences and close more. You can't manage something that you can't measure. And the first step is how do you make it really easy for the seller to be able to manage the key KPIs? That will really move the needle.

[B]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[A]

What's the difference between a $10 million shop and $100 million shop? It's simplicity. The $100 million shop really intentionally tries to make things simpler.

[B]

You have to be so intentional on getting stuff simple. Like I can't scale like this.

[A]

Yeah, totally.

[B]

Where do you think sales is heading over the next couple years? Welcome back to Owned and Operated. I'm your host, John Wilson. During the day, I run a $30 million home service company, plumbing, H vac, electric drains restoration. And for fun, I run a podcast talking about how to do the same. Today on the show, we have a special guest. We have Zach Deering from Mantle. Welcome to the show.

[A]

I'm excited to be here.

[B]

This will be fun. What's the longtime listener, first time caller?

[A]

Yeah, it's something like that.

[B]

Long time listener, first time caller. We start most of these like one on ones with Zach. Walk me through Mantle. So give me the 62nd. Like what are we doing here?

[A]

Yeah, totally. So the 22nd on Zach. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas. DFW, DF Dub, Big D. Worked at Amazon along with a couple other places. One day through my mom got exposed to the experience in home services and that's what led to Mantle. Specifically at Mantle, we're on a mission to help the best contractors like Wilson. Let's go. Delight homeowners and close more by really creating a shopping experience. So that's what we're focused on. And I would say that I think back to like my earliest sort of like what was the formative experience when I was 11 at a computer assembly business, CDPCS. And I built my first online shop. Very primitive website. So now fast forward some 20 plus years later, right. We're helping phenomenal contractors do the do the same.

[B]

It was like a computer repair.

[A]

Computer assembly. So I had my. I like to joke it was like the business had the best margin profile ever because I had no office. My dad took me to Fry's and my the salary labor was nothing because it was just my own time assembly in my bedroom.

[B]

That is funny.

[A]

And people say I wasn't nerdy. I just don't believe it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You know something we don't dive into enough and I need to is like what was your first entrepreneurship.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Journey.

[A]

Yeah. What was yours?

[B]

I don't think I had one. Really?

[A]

When was the first time you, like, made a buck?

[B]

Like, I worked a lot.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But, like, I just got jobs.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. I got into this out of like, necessity.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then, you know, my scorecard says I've been good at it, but yeah, I got into it out of necessity. But we had, we had Steve Carroll from Kelso Industries on like Billion Dollar Contractor. And like on that episode, he started like affiliate marketing. Like, that was his background was like affiliate marketing really, like slugging links. And it was like crazy. It was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. And after that I was like, yeah, I need. I should ask people this more because. Because that was not where I totally go. Totally. Which was pretty funny. Yeah, he was like, he went from like slugging affiliate links to like building the, I think Sam's Club, like, ad centers that went from like 10 million EBITDA to like 150 million of EBITDA in like 6 months or something. Crazy. And then like now built a, you know, billion dollar contracting firm. But yeah, it is interesting, like, where people, where people start.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

My fun story about entrepreneurship is when I was like 20, you know, 13. Okay. I was like, really, like, investing in myself and like learning how to like, make money.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I was reading all the blogs at the time. Mr. Money Mustache.

[A]

Of course. And what was your fire?

[B]

Totally, totally. Yeah. And what was funny is I wanted to build a media business. I was like, I'm going to go build a blog. So I bought thinking sense.com and I started blogging. And I'm sure it's down by now. I think I got like six blogs up and I wanted to build this like affiliate slugging business. And like a decade later, like over a decade later, we've now built like an industry, you know, like a large industry media business. Which is just kind of funny that like that's. That's what we did. But yeah, that was probably one of mine. It was just unsuccessful.

[A]

Yeah. Well, ZDPCs wasn't exactly a giant financial success either. And I guess technically my first business was slugging Pokemon cards in the bathroom of my elementary school. Like some Charizard, particularly the Japanese one.

[B]

That legal, rare black market.

[A]

Yeah, some black market. Fourth grade. So I guess that would be my first venture, followed by zdpc. And you know, really, it's just been a. And a hockey stick from there.

[B]

Yeah, I love it. I love it. Are you still missing calls after hours or losing leads while your Team sleeps. That's why we work with Avoca, AI owned and operated's exclusive call center partner. They answer 24. 7, sound like a real human, and plug straight into your CRM to book jobs, send quotes, and even revive old leads. There are plenty of AI call centers out there, but we trust Avoca because we've seen the results firsthand. More book jobs, less wasted spend and. And no more missed revenue. See it in action at the link below. Start winning more jobs today with Boca. All right, so we. We started working on Mantle.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now what we do need to add is I've worn the sweater that you're wearing. Oh, this thing a lot of times. Oh, this thing.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

We need to set up a link to, like, a merch shop.

[A]

Get noted. I'll go tell the team. Yeah, I'll go tell the team that we're, We're. We're. We're diversifying out.

[B]

We're branching out.

[A]

Not just phenomenal. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

We're actually a cloth brand.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[B]

But, yeah, Closer is. Is, you know, Mantel's brand.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So the way I think about it, it's a little bit confusing, and I'd like to say, like, probably our marketing department has some. Has. Has some work to do. You're looking at the marketing department.

[B]

I assumed.

[A]

Mantle is the company. Closer is really about our partners and our users. So fundamentally, we're on a mission to help incredible contractors delight homeowners and sell more. It's not so much about us, it's really about them. And so part of that experience of creating a sales platform shopping experience is helping comfort advisors. Selling Text is ours. Close More. And so that was the spirit or the genesis of. Of Closer. Internally, we like to joke of it as like, our lifestyle brand is kind of taken on a life of its own in terms of the requests we get. There's not a way you can buy it. Maybe we should take that under consideration. Seems like there's a lot of demand. But the way I'd really think about it more than anything is it's really the manifestation of we are here to help contractors really create shopping experiences and clothes more. And this is the physical embodiment of.

[B]

That and also clothes. So we're going to add a link. If you want a Closer sweater, socks, hat, jacket, just leave, you know, comment below.

[A]

Yeah, it'll be fine.

[B]

Okay. So we started Mantle. We're here to sell. We're here to help contractors sell, you know, delight customers and help contractors. So who. Who's like, who's using a mantle.

[A]

Yeah. So we feel really fortunate that in a relatively short period of time, we have some of the best contractors across the country using our platform, primarily H vac, plumbing, electrical. Even though we're actively getting brought into other home services service lines, we're having some conversations with Garage Door and Foundation and a variety of others. And kind of the way to think about is across all of these different service lines, inside home Services, you kind of have a common problem, which is you are trying to help a homeowner who is typically making one of the most expensive purchases they'll make of their life. Right. A new heating cooling system, a new tankless, A new garage door, a new roof. You're trying to help them navigate through that experience.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And historically, as an industry, our solution to that was we're going to put a bunch of specs in front of someone and we're going to have someone just lecture at the homeowner for 20 minutes.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

And, John, I guess I would ask you a question, which was, when was the last time someone lectured at you for 20 minutes before you could spend $20,000?

[B]

I don't know, but I don't buy very much. I mean, software, I guess maybe I do buy a lot. Software is businesses. Yeah. I don't know. Like, I don't. I don't know. I don't usually, like, go through, like, a homeowner buying experience.

[A]

Totally. But I guess if we even think beyond just the homeowner. Right. Like, when you're typically shopping for things, are you being lectured at.

[B]

I might be a bad use case. I don't. I don't think I shop for anything. Like, I didn't have to buy my own car for, like, 10 years. Okay. I just sent somebody to go buy it. It was awesome.

[A]

Totally, totally, totally. Which I think.

[B]

Really. But it does sound like a terrible experience.

[A]

Yeah. Which I think it really resonates with this idea of, like, the idea of being in control and being able to navigate through it and be empowered to make the choices or have someone.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Make the choices for you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so I think that's what we're really all about is how do we help the plumbers, the H vac technicians, the electricians sort of create these shopping experiences for their homeowners.

[B]

What I would imagine is common feedback is, hey, I already pay for something like that through service Titan or house call or.

[A]

Yeah, you know. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Yeah. I think what's interesting is, I think a common question we get is sort of like, hey, There's a lot of like proposal tools out there, right? Like what's different? And I think about that from a few different lenses. One, like no one needs another proposal tool, no one needs another rehash software. No one needs another thing that's going to happen before the homeowner walks through the door. What does Wilson or what does T.R. miller or what does Eco need? Right. They need a partner to help them take a homeowner who a few days ago did not realize they're about to make one of the most expensive purchases of their life and really help move them to action. And that's how I think about sort of what we're building. How do you put in front of the homeowner quickly and easily a personalized interactive shopping experience that gives them the information to realize that hey, the right choice is the variable or depending on what part of country you are modulating for furnace and AC with all of the add ons and the 10 year warranty. And that's really what we're building in terms of why folks are commonly choosing us over what's in their fsm. It's just because the FSM wasn't really built for creating a shopping experience. Right. It was built to record an order. And fundamentally in these purchases you are trying to move a consumer to an action and to an outcome. And that's what we're on a mission to help phenomenal contractors do better.

[B]

Mm, cool. Let's dive into this like some tactical stuff here. So that's what Mantle does. What are the best companies in the US Doing? Yeah, like how can we improve? How can I improve?

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Like what are we seeing? What's the data tell us?

[A]

Totally, totally. It's great. It's great question. So one sort of just like fun thing about the data is Tuesdays are good days. When you look across the country, like.

[B]

Tuesdays are the big sale days, Tuesdays.

[A]

Are the big sales day by revenue. So Tuesdays are the big day. So if you are lucky enough to work on a Tuesday, get excited. It's not that much bigger than Monday or Wednesday, but it is definitely bigger. But I think more specifically, tactic wise, what are the best organizations doing? I think fundamentally they are creating experiences that are driven by the homeowner. What does that mean? One, they are helping to educate the homeowner about who they are and about what is going on in this purchase. They're not just throwing a furnace image and saying, hey, this is 80 a thousand BTUs with an 80% AFU. They are working to build and understand what matters to that homeowner. Two, they're letting the homeowner drive the experience. Right. Rather than lecturing at or presenting to the experience that you hate so much that you literally walked away from the car purchase and shipped it off to someone else to take care of it for you. They are empowering the homeowner to really drive the experience. And then three, they're giving the homeowner choice. Not just choice in the sense of here's this option, this option and this other option, but rather actually allowing them to mix and match and truly create an interactive shopping experience. And what we see from that is that owners feel more empowered. It helps combat the natural, the natural distrust in these purchase processes and then allows them to feel more comfortable and select their system that's right for them, which is typically or can typically be a more expensive with more add on than maybe the tech even thought walking in if they were sort of presenting with their own wallet in mind.

[B]

Do you have like an attach rate that's like on. On a KPI? Like what's attach rate? What's average ticket close rate? Like what are we seeing across industry is like this is normal.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think benchmarking is always just fascinating to me, but to people in general.

[A]

Yeah, totally, totally. And speaking of, of of benchmarking, it's something that we think is really, really important and valuable, maybe even more than important. And actually there's a new feature that we're rolling out that will allow our users to actually be able to see how they're benchmarking against the other users of the platform. So you're able to really dive into the detail and not just see as an organization overall, but see how Phil is doing compared to all of the other plumbing sales out there. So it really resonates. I'm going to give you the slightly unsatisfactory answer that I think when it comes to close rate and average tick, it so depends on the specifics of the situation. I feel like often as an industry we hear people anti about like have a 45% close rate or whatever the case may be. Without knowing more of the specifics, it's hard to really know of whether that's good or bad.

[B]

It's like how many TGLs, how many marketed leads exactly. Is the data clean? I think we found that a lot is like somebody would be like dude, I have a 70% close rate. And it's like, well we found out we're dismissing most opportunities that we didn't like and it's like, well, actually it was more like 35. And it can be that different.

[A]

Totally, totally. And also it's like, how do you count if someone gets declined for financing? Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Does that go into the.

[B]

Is that a sale or not?

[A]

Does that go into the denominator or not? And I think as a result, that was an interesting.

[B]

We did an interview with Premier Home Pros. They count that. Which was a philosophy I'd never heard. But they're like, hey, our sales, was this. Our revenue? Was this the Delta's biggest. Because we book the sale. Like, they don't do it for tax or anything, but like, hey, we sold it, but we got declined.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, yeah, we sold it. So like, I'm like, yeah, that is interesting.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's. We've seen variety of different handlings of how you handle finance declines and like, whether that should be counted or not.

[B]

On average, do people not count it?

[A]

I think on average, people do count it. With the idea being, I think it's really a question with so much across any organizations, like, what are the behaviors you want to drive? If you don't count it, then you are letting whoever is that person, seller, selling tech, you're letting them off the hook. If you do count it now, they are more motivated to try to go find, you know, that secondary person who's willing to be a signatory on the loan. Right. Because they know that this is going to count against them. And so they're on the margin more, more motivated.

[B]

Only for close rate. Like people aren't getting like partial commission or something. Or is there like instances where people.

[A]

Do get partials, haven't seen partial commissions. I think it's for close rate. But often close rate will then feed back into batting order and other ways that you're running your sales team. Or there might be a minimum like number you need to hit on. On the, on the, on the close rate. I think the thing that we've seen is people respond to numbers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they respond to the information that's presented to them. And so whether it's inside our. Our. Our application or elsewhere, the sellers are. Get to understand how they are where they stand vis a vis their peers, both in their organization, other organizations that helps drive behavior. Because at the end of the day, like, you can't manage something that you can't measure. And the first step is how do you make it really easy for the seller, for the sales manager, for the gm, for the owner to be able to manage the key KPIs that will really move the needle. And I guess one of the things I would say is also like we talked a lot about average ticket and close rate, but what about the average amount of time it takes for one of your texts or CAs to respond back to a homeowner via texts or calling?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Like historically that's been something that's never been talked about as an industry because there hasn't been that visibility.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Once with our platform you have that visibility, you're able to really drive a different conversation or another stat that historically hasn't been talked about it, which is what's the amount of time homeowners are spending on your proposal when you leave the home and you haven't let like eyeball time. Eyeball time, average view time. Right. And what you will see is across different organizations, across different sellers, you have different eyeball time. And that ends up being coming a really interesting metric for how well is the seller really building something that's relevant to the homeowner and getting them sort of invested in that and re engaging with that?

[B]

Yeah, that is interesting. Like what's the correlation? Yeah, is there a correlation like, hey, more eyeball time equals higher close rate.

[A]

More eyeball time equals higher close rate. Quicker response time generally equals higher close rate by how many points on response time? It's so varied by organizations that you have certain organizations that very consistently cluster at a few hours. You have other organizations that's longer. That's Harding. That's harder to like decipher meaningful data. I think what becomes really interesting and something we haven't talked about yet is proposal strength. Historically, organizations have been forced to say like, hey, did you present three options, four options? And that's an attempt to say, did you do a good job with this proposal? The number of options is one dimension. Right. There's really a wide variety of different dimensions that impact how good that proposal is.

[B]

Like what are some other ones?

[A]

Yeah, totally. So number of add ons, Right. What is the range between the most expensive and least expensive option? How personalized is that proposal to you, John, versus to the person next door?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Additionally, it looks into just what is for hvsp specifically what is the range of equipment? Are you just quoting all single stage stuff or are you quoting a variety of different stages of equipment? And then lastly, if relevant for the organization and if the seller is empowered to did they throw on an optional add on like a generator or water heater or main panel upgrade? And what's interesting there, and we call it proposal strength, it's assessed in real time, it's evaluated in real time and there is then feedback given to the salesperson of saying here is what the person did. Well, here's where they could do better. A 10 point increase in proposal strength is correlated with a $960 increase in average ticket.

[B]

Hmm.

[A]

And so that right there is a really actionable thing that the sellers on day one or the users on day one, the selling text on day one get to benefit from when they're using mantle.

[B]

When someone comes on to mantle. Like I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking about the data and the way we can coach from it, which sounds pretty dope. How many sellers is that the word that we're using? Sellers.

[A]

Sure, we can use that.

[B]

How many sellers is average for a company? Like is three sellers is. Yeah, 10.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good, good question. I would say like are sort of like the organizations that we're currently working with are the larger contractors when you think about sort of the industry as a whole. But typically folks have on the, on the lower end, two to three sellers. And on the higher end we're working with some organizations of 30, 40, 50 sellers. So they're pretty wide. Wide range.

[B]

Yeah, that is wide. What do you think the value difference is from 2 to 3 to 30 to 40? I mean 30 to 40. Like yeah, I would imagine that becomes more of like a staff redundanc. Like how do we onboard people faster? Yeah, two to three is like standardizing.

[A]

Yeah, it's good, it's a good question. Two to three, there's probably more lwh hanging fruit. Right? Because to your point, there probably was no sales training or minimal. Right. Maybe they sent them to a best practice organization. Probably the three people are doing different and now you're just actually providing visibility and some standardization. You're also just helping them with low hanging fruit of like hey, let's make sure that we're using the automated personalized follow ups that things aren't falling through the cracks. Right. Let's make it easy to follow the best practice of writing a personalized handwritten node, which you can do using smart code in 60 seconds. It's pretty cool. When you get to larger organizations, it is organizations that in general they are doing a lot of things really well. Which means in order for them to pick up a few more percentage points on close rate or another 500,000, 2,000, $3,000 on average ticket, you really have to go from good to great. Which it's actually funny, there's literally that book Here on the shelf of good to great. And that's what you're really talking about, right? Which is how do you really focus, fine tune the machine? Some of it is being able to slot new sellers in, but a lot of it is like how do you provide visibility? Because if you're at an organization with 30 sellers, there are some people that are really phenomenal, there's some people that aren't. How do you raise that floor? And then also how do you tell that top dog, right. The person who's always been the best in the team that you're really good but now look at your benchmarks about how it compares to everyone else and maybe you start to realize that there's even further room for you to run.

[B]

Yeah. For the ones with 30 to 40, is that one location or multi?

[A]

In that case there is a couple locations there.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think maybe like Four Seasons or so or like Parker. But there's probably not many that have 30 to 40 in one location.

[A]

Correct? Yeah. If you think about that.

[B]

So this also is helping you benchmark across geographies, which I think is important to note.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Yeah. When people are like bringing on a solution like this, how centralized is sales? Like sales training or like across multiple markets, like how, how do you think about that or how do they think? Yeah, I think we're picking into what the best do.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think, I think what's interesting about like what does the best do? And I was asked recently the question of like, hey, what's the difference between a 10 million dollar shop and 100 million dollar shop?

[B]

Yeah, that's a good one.

[A]

It's simplicity. Right. The $100 million shop really intentionally tries to guard to make things simpler.

[B]

Yeah. Well, you have to. You so ridiculous.

[A]

You absolutely have to. And even when you try really hard to be simple, it's still complex. Right?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You're in multiple trade lines. Right. You're maybe covering now a area that is measured in hundreds of square miles. You have hundreds of trucks. Right. This, everything. Even if things only go right 1% of the time, that absolute number is getting bigger and bigger. And so I think you really see that this drive towards simplicity and consistency and trying to measure and manage outcomes becomes a lot more important. I think what's really interesting is I think true consistency across the sales process. We don't see a ton of that even in relatively well run. Some of the best you might, you definitely might not. Right. Like, I think it's just interesting that there is still A decent amount of variance because at the end of the day, you are sending a human into a home.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Every home is different. Every customer that you're sitting down with at the kitchen table is different. And so how do you try to provide the ability to truly create a personalized experience that's tailored to John that's going to be different than the one that's tailored to Brendan or, or Sarah or Tommy? Right. Like, how do you truly personalize? Because even you just said it earlier. Right. You're like, I'm not like most shoppers. Right. And I would guess most people probably don't really think that they're like, yeah. Other people. Right. Oh, in these ways I'm special or different or peculiar. So how do you try to create that personalized shopping experience that works for you and every homeowner?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It feels a bit like Pareto to me where we should be only caring about like the 20% that moves the needle and maybe that is like speed of follow up, quality of options. But I think there is a. This is something we worked on and this is back to like what matters the most. So like, let's be simple. But when we first started like driving a process, we over processed it to the point where it's like, hey, you have to say exactly this thing. And like people buy from people. So like, can we get directionally there and then can we allow you to like do what you need to do?

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Because I think like how we build rapport is how I build rapport is going to be different than how you build rapport. So like how I sell is going to be different than how you sell. But yeah, I do, I do like the idea that there's a few things that matter the most. And it probably is like you said, the intentional focus on simple and how do we focus on the least amount of things that drives.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But yeah, that totally resonates. I mean we're. You have. We're not 100, obviously, we're like 30. But you have to be so intentional on getting stuff simple. And it's almost like you go through the stage at 10 where you're like, you almost like complicate everything on purpose.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you think you are supposed to complicate everything on purpose and then you get twice that size and you're like, we can't do this. Like, I can't scale like this with 50 different commission plans and all these different random things. Like, it has to be one.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally. And I think you brought up Something really important, which is fundamentally we as an industry are largely speaking, sending people into homes. Right. And so it's like, how do you really elevate the tech, selling tech, the ca, to really do what makes them really phenomenal, which is probably build a relationship and do advanced system design or advanced, like diagnostic, depending on the exact role, and then use the tools around them to take care of everything that they're either not good at or they don't enjoy doing, so that they can really focus on being really human and present and attuned to the person across from them. And particularly as more and more of our interactions are animated by AI and all of these things. And whether it's like good or bad, like to some degree doesn't really matter what any of us think, because it's going to happen more and more. The ability to really elevate the human and make them really centric to the process while using AI and technology to make them even better and allow them to focus more on what they're doing in the home, we think is really important and we found is really impactful to drive phenomenal results.

[B]

Yeah. Where do you think sales is heading.

[A]

Over the next couple years for home services specifically? I think you're going to see more people doing remote sales. Right. Meaning that you're not always sending someone into the home.

[B]

Are you seeing that more now? Like, are people transitioning to it or.

[A]

Definitely. It's one of the questions I get most frequently is, hey, how was. How does Mantle work? If we're having someone from the office call or zoom in and there's actually some really exciting. There's a really exciting product that we're releasing around on. On that very, very soon. So I encourage people to stay tuned and I know it's something that the team here at Wilson is particularly excited about.

[B]

Yeah, I don't think we've actually talked about this at all on the show, but we like Remote cell.

[A]

Yeah. Which I think is really interesting. And I think what becomes really exciting is today the way that folks are forced to remote sell it is a pretty limited experience of you're calling on the phone and maybe the person's looking at something. But how do we make that a high fidelity interactive experience? And so it's very clear that is where one trend is going and then the other trend that is underpinning it is just.

[B]

Just a dig in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Does size or scope change that? Say more like, are the bigger companies all doing one thing or is it like a bell curve? Because what I can imagine Happening is like the smallest companies are in person, the middle companies are moving to remote selling, the biggest companies are back in person.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it's this curve.

[A]

Yeah. That's interesting. Definitely don't see a ton of small companies doing remote selling and probably wouldn't suggest they do. I think what we're seeing today is it's not so much whether you're large or medium sized, it is more just like how much is there an internal advocate that's willing to reimagine it. So you have certain very skilled players that are very much committed to a strategy today of being in person.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then you have certain skilled players that are starting to experiment with it. And I think what's really interesting is the conversations I have, even from organizations that have fine tuned in home experiences about them starting to be like remote curious, being like, hey Zach, like how could this work? Like, I feel like at times like I'm almost a little bit of their safe space to be like, so like what would this look like? Right. This idea as it's clearly like they're thinking about in the back of their head. And I'd say the other thing that clearly lives in that space as well is online shopping. Right. I think it's.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Clear. And we, we do every year a homeowner survey to understand from real homeowners, like what are their attitudes. And it's clear that there's a lot of interest in online shopping. Like over 69% of homeowners say they tried to look for a price online. Only 15% said they could find anything that was very clear. 85% couldn't find anything that they could understand. And so that's clearly another trend. And I think the third trend that we're seeing, and it's really more of a recognition of a pain point is we as an industry don't do a great job around discovery. We don't do a great job of really understanding what a homeowner cares about and tailoring our solutions to that problem. That is a third trend that we see a lot of opportunities around, particularly in market environments where you see unit sales off in August down 30%. You see harder macro climates. Being able to make sure that you're truly delivering a solution that resonates with the homeowner is becoming more and more important.

[B]

Yeah, makes sense. We, our director of sales, he describes it as the three like methods of selling. So the first method was like very product based. So like, hey, here's this, you know, gas valve. It's a single stage this is what it does. Here's the brand. The second one is like beginning to offer options. So it's like, hey, here's a single stage. Here's a two stage. Like this one has a different gas valve. And then the third one, or like very closed ended questions, like attempting to start a conversation. And the third one is what we practice, it's consultative selling. And it's a much more conversational. I'm sure sales will continue to adapt and there'll be a fourth model one day. But that seems to resonate with what you're saying is these three different models of selling and like, you know, we started just like probably everybody else in the first one, just like, hey, here's a product. Like here it is, here's a box. Do you want it? Yes. No. And really talking about the manufacturer of the brand when like I think you've got data that the homeowner doesn't care.

[A]

About, that it's not nearly as important as the reputation, the comfort, the utility savings. Like brand, like 6% train.

[B]

Is it good? Yeah. Nobody gives a.

[A]

No one knows. They always think it's Honeywell on the wall. Even though you and I both know that Honeywell doesn't build equipment.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. And so bigger emphasis on online sales, bigger emphasis on like sort of the remote. I don't even know if it's like remote virtual. Like I would almost call it like open cart experience. So when we first started moving down the road of remote clothes, which again, I don't think we've talked about at all on, on this show, but which.

[A]

It could be like really fun to get one of your remote closers on, on here and just talk to it.

[B]

Interesting. I mean we do a lot. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot. But when we first started moving towards it, our marketing manager at the time, director marketing now, he, he was like, oh, this reminds me a lot of like I was on Guitar center and I was buying a bass guitar now and I left it in my cart and I got a phone call like later that day or the next day, sure. Of like, hey, we saw you left this space in your cart. Do you want a discount or do you want something like that?

[A]

Sure.

[B]

And it reminds me a lot more of that where it's like we will get more data to be able to act on faster than just like, hey, somebody's furnaces is broke. Or at least that's my hope for it, is that we'll be able to transform into like, can there be 30, like, remote closers in a call center just taking down cold quotes and open carts and, like, I think that would be kind of a fun sales experience.

[A]

Totally. Totally.

[B]

Yeah. Okay, that's interesting. All right. What is the craziest thing you've ever done to win a new client?

[A]

Oh, man. I feel like you've done your research. Well, I mean, if craziest is marked by, like, me feeling it three weeks later, then it would definitely have to be with Mike Barnhart at Eco. I made an excuse to sort of be in Columbus, and schedules were such that he was like, yeah, you know, just casually passing through Columbus. Schedules are such as, like, Zach, like, let's go for a run. So I was like, okay, show up. Like, ran in high school, haven't run much since, and Mike just takes us out on a run. And, like, when I set out on that run, I was like, I will run slightly faster than Mike the entire time, and we will run however far Mike runs. And, like, my only goal is just, like, keep up, doesn't matter. Right? And so I thought, like, we'd go out for two, three, maybe four miles, eight miles later. And Mike, at a certain point was exact. Like, you seem like. Like, you just keep up. So, like, I just. I didn't think the need to sort of, like, dial it back. Ready? And I was like, yeah, that's what I'm just. That's what I'm here for. So I definitely felt that for. For. For a few days. And so I think that might be my. My. My craziest story so far.

[B]

That is. That is funny. We. Over the years, I. I have definitely used the. Yeah, I happen to be in town.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It is shocking how many doors it opens.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I think it's good. I'm trying to remember. Usually for me, it's like, site visits. Like, yeah. Oh, I really want to go and, like, meet. I just want to meet these guys.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Or like, hey, this guy has something to teach me. Or this person has something to teach me. So, yeah, I happen to be in Columbus next Thursday. She's like, what are the wild.

[A]

Thursday doesn't work for you? I guess Friday is what.

[B]

I'm there for two days. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it is kind of funny. We've. That. That is a. That is a funny one. I've. We've done Columbus. We've done, like, New York. We've done Florida. I did Texas once. It's like, hey, yeah, I just happen to be.

[A]

Yeah, you happen to be a lot of places, right?

[B]

Yeah, very, it's very convenient. We, we just did us like a video. I think it's probably going to air after this one. But it was funny where we did a lot of like questions on like the data that you're pulling from this annual homeowner survey, which we can put the link in the, in the show notes. But like, what do you think homeowner contractors are mostly getting wrong about the selling process?

[A]

Yeah, totally. Price is only the most important thing if you choose to. And what I mean BY that is 70% of homeowners say that price isn't their number one consideration or buying factor.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think the second thing is there's a real hunger for transparency of pricing and understanding what people are, are, are, are, are buying. And the third thing is just AI search in the data. It's not super relevant yet. It's about 3%. It's becoming more relevant. Sure. But still the vast majority of people are going to Google or using contractors they already have or asking a friend.

[B]

Yeah, the non price isn't or price not being the first.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Is interesting. I think we all want it to be that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It's maybe the loudest objection. It's the most within control.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. That was interesting. Something that I thought was interesting and we'll rehash this inside that video too, but I just think it's like fascinating to me was the extended warranty. Yeah, we, you know, we had this discussion where it's like, what would people be willing to pay for an extended warranty on a system to go from like one year to ten years. And your. The data was like 500 bucks or something.

[A]

563. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. And I would have, I would have assumed like 2000 or something crazy like that. I did. We were looking into our extended warranty and how we thought about it. 40% of Americans buy extended warranty. As far as like, who would potentially buy this? Because as we were thinking about it, I've never bought an extended warranty, so I don't, I don't know how to get in that mental framework. So I was like, okay, who is the market for this? Apparently 40% of Americans, which then also.

[A]

Becomes interesting in that question, specifically possess everyone what they would pay for it. So it's very possible that 563 is a reflection of a bunch of people who would have never bought it along with or dragging down the average. So I think that's a question that's really interesting about what is the meaning that you make out of it. And maybe the. One of the things that we'll do is if folks that are curious and if they reach out to you, you can, you can get them to, to, to me, we'll actually share that. What percentage of homeowners had values over $1,000 for that question is. That becomes the interesting segment because if you start to see that there's a lot of people willing to spend $3,000, then there becomes an interesting way about how you think about pricing a one year versus a five year versus a ten year. Because maybe you're intentionally not trying to. For everyone to buy it as sort.

[B]

Of paradoxical or, or potentially you go the opposite way where you price it so cheap that everybody buys it.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

So something that was interesting. You know how we think about attach rate for indoor air quality? There's an attach rate for Target. Like how many extended warranties did we attach to each invoice? So it was something like 39%.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which is a lot. Yeah. And my guess is because the dollar amount is so small.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That people just say yes to it and then when they say yes, like suddenly they can cover the big catastrophic event.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

So I think the data is like either one, it's less valuable than we thought.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And stop there. So maybe like we don't sell it or the alternative is it's less valuable than we thought. So maybe we sell it for a lot less, but we sell many more of them to cover the gap.

[A]

Or maybe there's a third possibility which is it's really valuable for some people and it's not that valuable for a lot of other people. And so if you do want a lot of people to attach, which you could say strategically, there might be reasons, then you need to sell it pretty inexpensively or just pre bundle it in. Right. Or if you really want to sort of truly target the folks, you price it to almost a premium and let those folks enjoy it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's no secret that my office here in Nashville is almost completely empty. So how do I support my team as well as have great growth metrics? Well, the answer is international contractors with quick staffers. So Quick staffers is a premier staffing agency which will place top tier talent in your business built by the trades for the trades. So if you need a csr, they'll be placing a CSR that is highly trained in your business, that knows service titan and can book calls effectively. Day 1 Call 1 Affordable, reliable and trained in all of the industry best practices. Quick staffers can help you Cut that overhead boost conversions and scale your business fast. So don't waste another lead. Visit quickstaffers.com and transform your business today.

[B]

This was awesome. I'm really excited. We did a couple interviews. We have some more data coming out. I want to read the annual homeowner survey. Dive a little bit deeper because I think that'd be a ton of fun. But we've been working with you guys since, I don't know, like March.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

So, yeah, no, it's been awesome. So big wreck from us.

[A]

I appreciate that.

[B]

If people want to get a hold of you, like, how can they do that?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, totally. So you can email me Zaczac@usemantle u s e m a n t e l.com also just go to usemantle.com and you can, you can, you can sign up to learn more. And then also because I know it's near and dear to your heart, use mantle.com survey and you can really read to your heart's content about where the modern homeowner is.

[B]

Fascinating. It is like totally surprising to Brandon and I. It was some really good Brandon. Yeah. Particular particularly. We'll put a link in the show notes too.

[A]

Perfect.

[B]

Thanks for coming on today.

[A]

Great.

[B]

If you like what you heard, sure. You check out own and operated dot com. Sure. You give me a five star review wherever it is that you're listening to shows and hit that sub button on YouTube.