How Home Service Pros Use Emotional Automation to Win Referrals and Brand Love with Caleb Baitz

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades – "How Home Service Pros Use Emotional Automation to Win Referrals and Brand Love"

Hosts: Tersh Blissett & Josh Crouch
Guest: Caleb Baitz (To Your Success)
Release Date: July 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores how emotional automation—the strategic integration of personal touches through automated systems—can help home service businesses (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, etc.) stand out, foster loyal advocates, and generate more referrals. Guest Caleb Baitz from To Your Success shares stories and actionable strategies for using “surprise and delight” tactics (like cookies, gifts, and thoughtful follow-ups) that connect with customers on a human level—even in automated workflows.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Power of Emotional Automation in Home Services

• Transforming Customers into Advocates
  Caleb opens the show discussing the impact of emotional advocacy:

  “If you can create these fans, you have an advocate in the community… Are they energized enough to speak up about you?”
  [00:00]

• Standing Out with Automated Thoughtfulness
  Josh and Tersh describe practical examples: automating gift baskets or branded items after high-ticket jobs, integrating with CRMs, and making customers feel genuinely cared for—at scale:

  “You can have different things for different job types... It really opens up Pandora’s box of creativity to own that customer journey and be unique in your market.” — Josh
  [05:40]

To Your Success: The Cookie Gift Story

• Origin of To Your Success
  Caleb shares the origin story—his father-in-law moved from motorhome sales to starting a cookie company, based on the surprising impact gifting cookies had on customer memories.

  “After that huge purchase, the one thing the customer talked about most was cookies… How do I get more cookies?” — Caleb
  [08:13]

• The Human Element
  The core belief: business success grows from making others successful first. Measured acts of appreciation, like a dozen warm cookies, leave a lasting impression.

Surprising & Delighting Customers

• Go Beyond Expectations
  Tersh and Caleb describe how surprise gifts and personalized follow-up (automated, but heartfelt) deepen relationships and set brands apart:

  “You gotta connect emotionally and energize that person to speak up… because you just did something totally different.” — Caleb
  [19:15]

• Real-life Example: Impact of Layers of Thoughtfulness
  Tersh tells the story of automating multiple “thank you” levels, culminating in a massage for a particularly high-value client—an act that generated word-of-mouth and enduring goodwill:

  “We had three levels… If you spend over $10,000, immediately Mary gets an email to schedule a massage… now [the client] mentions that in every presentation across the country. I didn’t even know that it had happened!” — Tersh
  [13:01]

Differentiation in a Saturated Market

• Brand is How You Make People Feel
  Caleb references Steven Semple’s idea:

  “Your brand is the sum total of how people feel about you… When people say your name, what do they think? What do they feel?”
  [17:42]

• Branded Physical Gifts = Lasting Impressions
  Branded tumblers/coolers/cookie tins become physical reminders, creating brand “anchors” long after the job is done.

Referrals, Reviews, and the Real Value of Memorable Service

• Referrals Over Ads
  For many home service businesses, the best leads are still generated through word of mouth, yard signs, stickers, and memorable experiences.

• Intentional Follow-Up Creates Stories
  Genuine follow-ups—like a call after surgery or a thoughtful thank-you—create “six-star” service:

  “He didn’t have to do that… If somebody has a question, Dr. Darvis in Savannah, that’s who you need to use.” — Tersh sharing about his dentist
  [27:47]

• Automating Personal Touches for Scale
  Automation need not eliminate the human element if designed with intentionality (e.g., replicating an owner's handwriting for thank-you notes). Surprise + delight = increased odds of referrals.

Measuring Impact & Long-Term Brand Value

• Quantifying Customer Connection
  The ROI on personalized, emotional gestures isn’t always directly measurable, but their cumulative effect is real and compounding:

  “It’s a long haul investment. You measure that by qualitative metrics… Feelings, soul, depth of the impact.” — Caleb
  [34:12]

• Employee Buy-in
  When staff see the company make customers smile, it boosts morale and makes them feel proud to be part of a business that cares.

The Local Advantage Over Large Rollups

• How Small Businesses Can Shine
  Josh remarks on the opportunity for independent shops to do what private equity–backed, massive organizations cannot—authentic, localized personal connection:

  “There’s a vacuum of opportunity being created by very large groups that lose vision for strong customer connections.” — Caleb
  [36:48]

• Low-Burden, High-Impact Automation
  Personal touch automation is a “low burden” on staff and sets the company apart, especially where corporate competition is high.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Emotional Advocacy:

  “Are they energized enough to speak up about you? You gotta connect emotionally and energize that person to speak up, to share about you because you just did something totally different.” — Caleb [00:00][19:15]

• Unique Referral Trigger:

  “Now Jared… mentions that in every presentation… how his air conditioning company sent a massage therapist to his house… Completely automated. I didn’t even know it happened!” — Tersh [13:01]

• Brand Impact:

  “Your brand is the sum total of how people feel about you. It’s all those feelings. That’s who you are.” — Caleb [17:42]

• Why Go Beyond?

  “More people should have three star reviews than five star reviews because they’re doing what was expected… The fact you get a five star review just because you showed up on time is sad. That’s sad that’s the state of mind we live in.” — Tersh [23:21]

• On Mistakes as Opportunities:

  “Some of those negative opportunities are some of the best to create fans… that’s whenever you actually show the integrity of your brand.” — Caleb [41:57]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:00–01:28: Introduction: Why advocacy matters
• 05:34–07:03: Meet Caleb Baitz & To Your Success origin story (the power of a dozen cookies)
• 09:38–13:01: Examples of automating "surprise & delight" and next-level client appreciation
• 15:17–19:15: The value of referrals, building brand advocates, and avoiding transactional marketing
• 23:21–29:46: Going above and beyond; real stories about creating lasting impressions
• 34:12–36:48: The difficulty and necessity of measuring qualitative marketing (feelings & brand equity)
• 36:48–40:29: Small business opportunity—how automation and “local feel” beat out big-box competitors
• 40:29–44:51: Low-burden automation, employee engagement, and maintaining the personal touch
• 44:51–45:28: Final thoughts: gratitude, old-fashioned values, and automation as a tool for human connection

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Actionable Takeaways

• Automate Thoughtfully: Set up workflows to automatically send personalized gifts (cookies, branded items, handwritten thank-yous) after jobs based on triggers like spend level or job type.
• Focus on Unexpected Joy: Build “surprise and delight” into your customer journey—people talk about what they don’t expect.
• Remarket to Existing Clients: Don’t just chase new leads; continually nurture past clients to encourage word-of-mouth.
• Humanize Automation: Use tech to create HUMAN moments, not just efficiency.
• Employee Buy-In Matters: When your team sees you going the extra mile, it builds company pride.
• Small Businesses Can Outshine Big Ones: Local, genuine, memorable gestures punch far above their weight.

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Connect with To Your Success

Website: toyour-success.com
Connect with Caleb: Schedule a call via their website for a complimentary strategy and sample.

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For more insights on building a standout home service business through automation, emotional connection, and authentic branding, subscribe to Service Business Mastery!

Transcript

[Caleb]

If you can create these fans, you have an advocate in the community and it might be years before that customer buys again from you, but strategically, you've planted someone in that town, in that community that is an advocate for you. And the question is, are they energized enough to speak up about you? Are they fairly neutral about their experience? Like they expected a five star experience, they got a five star experience and yeah, I don't know, I just googled and went for whoever had five stars. You know, you got to connect emotionally and energize that person to speak up, to share about you because you just did something totally different.

[Podcast Announcer]

Are you looking for valuable business advice to reach that seven figure revenue mark? Do you want actionable tips to properly navigate through every business challenge you encounter along the way? Let Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch be your guide in getting you to the top here at Service Business Mastery. Tune in as they sit down with world renowned authors in business leadership and personal growth who share valuable insights about management, marketing, pricing, human resources and so much more. Let their nuggets of wisdom gold guide you in owning a thriving, profitable and ever growing business. Here are your hosts, Tersh and Josh.

[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Tersh Blissett]

Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Sarah Tech Service Business Mastery hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching Service Business Mastery Podcast. I am one of your hosts Tersh Blissett, sitting virtually next to my co host Joshua Crouch. And we have Caleb on the show today with to youo Success. For anybody who has ever listened to this episode, you know that we talk a lot about automation in the trades. Particularly like we we talk a lot about Service Emperor, one of my H Vac and plumbing companies in Savannah. And one of the things that I like the fact that I have the ability to do is test automations in Service Emperor that Josh and I are talking about on podcast or in Facebook group. So Service Emperor is kind of a testing ground. Before we really like were hot and heavy talking about AI and automation and on the podcast I met the guys at two year Success. It's been years and years ago now and we started using to youo Success and to youo Success is actually the one of the things that got my mind like spinning and ideas like coming out of the possibilities of things that are that you could do with automation. It was like we we were using Service Titan and anytime that anything was over a set dollar amount it automatically triggered a little gift basket and then if it was another thousand dollars or $2,000 or something like that then it was a big gift basket with a yeti cooler or with Yeti cup and some candy I think is what it is. And oh this is really cool. Like what else can we do? What else can we automate in this process? Like that's honestly to your Success is one of the snowball things that got me because I knew automation during the process during the back end. But automate to build a customer experience is not something that was ever that I ever really thought about until Meeting the team at Two Year Success. So I'm excited to talk to Caleb. And this isn't the first time to youo Success has been on the podcast, but I believe this is the first time you've been on the show. Correct, Caleb?

[Caleb]

Yes. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Thanks for having me on Tersh.

[Tersh Blissett]

Welcome.

[Sponsor Voice 2]

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[Tersh Blissett]

Josh, is there anything you want to add before?

[Josh Crouch]

Yeah, I mean Church and I, we share this a lot. I don't know how many times we share this story on the podcast itself, but when we go around and we talk about AI and automation, a lot of times we talk about customer journey and some of the things that both I did in the trades. Tersh is still doing in the trades and then even at Relentless Digital how we help automate some of these things, but automate it in a way that so it's going out automatically, but the customer continues to feel warm and fuzzy about your company. It still gives that human emotion with doing business with your company. That stuff, it's crazy. Especially now we're in 2025 recording this and people share that stuff on social media, then they mention your company on social media and now the other people like that. And then it just, it, it really kind of can carry. You get in front of the right person, we don't know who's an influencer in what space and all this type of thing. You can really get a lot of business off of that stuff. And then I say it just feels good. Feels good to make people happy. You did a great job. They left a good review. They got a box of cookies or whatever the the case is into your success. Can talk more about what they have. But what I love is you can automate it based on dollar figures based on what type job types. You can, you can have different things for different job types like Terse was talking about. It really opens up Pandora's box of like creativity to really own that customer journey and be unique in your market.

[Tersh Blissett]

Welcome, Caleb. Share who you are and, and what you do.

[Caleb]

Yeah, absolutely. So oversee all of our marketing efforts. I've been with the company 13 years and a little secret. We're still family owned and operated. So I'm part of the family. My father in law started the business 27 years ago and he was actually in motorhome and RV sales for 27 years before he started the cookie business.

[Josh Crouch]

What made him want to start a cookie business from being in the motorhome world like that. Those things are two completely opposite things.

[Caleb]

That's really what it boiled down to. He loved Cookies. But yeah, when he went home and told his wife, hey, I want to stop selling motorhomes and I want to sell a cookie, she's like, you got to sell a lot of cookies for every one motorhome that you sold. You know, but he's such a lovable man and he loves everyone and literally looks to build others up. Which actually inspired. He was led to call the company to your success because his concept was, hey, if we make others successful, that's when we're really successful. The cookies came because he loved cookies. But also Josh, one thing he did was they would actually give a dozen freshly baked cookies to a customer after buying a motorhome.

[Tersh Blissett]

There you go.

[Caleb]

And you know, after that huge purchase, the one thing the customer talked about most was cookies.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yep.

[Caleb]

How do I get more cookies? Oh, my gosh.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Caleb]

Yeah. They loved it.

[Tersh Blissett]

I love the fact that y' all bring a full setup to the trade shows. If anybody goes to a trade show, like, and you see to your success as one of the vendors.

[Josh Crouch]

Amazing.

[Tersh Blissett]

Just follow your nose. Follow your nose and that'll take you right to two year successes. Booth.

[Josh Crouch]

We just need to make sure that our booth is right next to.

[Tersh Blissett]

To your successes or the furthest away from it so that I'm not eating all the cookies the whole time.

[Caleb]

That's right. They're always, they're coming out hot and fresh and we have a good time. I mean, we're known as the cookie people and so that works. I mean, we don't mind being called that. We bake. I mean, behind me, We've just baked 10,000 cookies this morning. That's usually what we do on a typical morning. So I mean, that's actually what makes us unique is we do freshly bake these cookies every single day and ship them nationwide. And we doubled down in the home service industry because residential home services is a perfect fit for, for the type cookie package we send. We put it in a branded cooler bag, or like you mentioned the custom, you know, tumbler, and ship it with a custom thank you card directly to the customer's doorstep. And it's all automated.

[Tersh Blissett]

I thought that was a really awesome thing, but I was like, what else do you do? And then there was even like follow up postcards.

[Caleb]

It's the perfect opportunity. What we do is, yeah, we include a postage paid paper survey response request. We also email the customer asking for feedback. And it's all tied in with the unexpected surprise of the gift package though, of, hey, we want to thank you for using us. We recently Sent a surprise on its way in the mail. We hope you enjoy it. We would love to have your feedback. And so it's tied together. The surprise and delight is really the magic of it, though. We also believe that listening to the customer comments is going to help you actually learn and grow. And whether it's positive comments or honestly, there's a lot of helpful things in the negative comments. There is. And usually whenever you tee it up with a freshly baked cookie gift, you're much more likely to get some feedback. But I think the bigger picture though, is the brand impact. And that's kind of what I want to talk about this this afternoon, is that companies have an opportunity. I mean, I have this with, as a, as a marketer myself, we have an opportunity to differentiate by connecting with customers at a human level. And what I like is about you guys is you're talking about, yeah, automation as a holistic strategy and remembering to develop customer relationships in the process. And not just, you know, automate for the, for the fun of it, but to really have a strategy and to have a vision for your automation and make sure it fits into your customer experience. Because think about this. Whenever you started Service Emperor, you probably didn't have a huge marketing budget. So where did most of your leads come from?

[Tersh Blissett]

A lot of it was word of mouth.

[Josh Crouch]

He still doesn't. You won't even pay me to help him.

[Tersh Blissett]

Why would I pay you?

[Josh Crouch]

We talked about, we came on here with like some gambling stuff because all the events are in Vegas and Church told everyone how cheap he was. So just in case, now everyone can listen to this and be like, d is cheap as hell.

[Tersh Blissett]

Why would I pay Josh though?

[Caleb]

Okay, why would you pay Josh? Because. Sounds like you probably don't need it as much because you're still getting leads through what avenue?

[Tersh Blissett]

Over the years we've put out a ton of stickers. We've stickered up everything and put out thousands of yard signs. And so honestly, between the yard sign stickers and word of mouth marketing, it's funny though, because there are so many times that we do thousands and thousands and thousands of automations a month. So sometimes somebody will ask us about something and, and Josh and I are both guilty of this, where we're like, yeah, I'm not sure, let me ponder on that. And then 45 minutes to an hour later, like, oh, yeah, I actually do this in my business. I just forgot that we automated this because we've been automating it for years. And that hasn't broken one of the amazing Things about to your success is the fact that like your team reaches out to us and says, hey, you're down to the last ten tumblers you reorder. And I was like, oh, shoot, I forgot we did that. Like, I forgot we're sending out 200 tumblers, you know.

[Caleb]

Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

And so it's like after the two year success thing, after we got started using to your success in my mind really started thinking about the automation thing and like how to automate for a client experience, not just to reduce the hours of office work that's being done. We got connected with Mary, who is our mobile massage therapist. And so we stepped it up. So it was like we had three levels up to your success. And then there was another level that now it's like over. If you spend over like $10,000 or $12,000 immediately Mary gets an email and she schedules to come out and do a mobile massage. So then to help de stress during a stressful time of your system need to be replaced. And that just happened to get on. A friend of mine, like a friend of mine who's the president of the banana Savannah Bananas, his wife was pregnant. She was like, I really would love to have that, but I'm pregnant. So unfortunately, you know, I can't have a massage. She's. And Mary says, well, no, we, we do prenatal massages as well. She starts crying. Jared is like, wait a minute, why is my wife crying? Who do I have to go beat up? Like, let me know. And she's like, no, no, it's happy tears. Like, I'm stressed right now. It's August or whenever it was, like, I'm eight months pregnant and they're going to come and give me a massage. And so now Jared and I just talked to Jared the other day too, at a Bananas game and he was like, yeah, I still mention that in every presentation that I talk about. He goes across the whole country making these presentations, talking about how his air conditioning company sent a massage therapist to his house to give his wife, who's pregnant, a massage. And it was completely automated. It happened. It was like almost a year after it happened before I found out that it happened. Like, I didn't even know that it had happened. And I didn't know it until another customer said, yeah, we signed up because of Jared's story about what you did. I was like, wow. Oh, what's Jared's story?

[Caleb]

That's unbelievable.

[Tersh Blissett]

Like, I don't know what Jared's story was.

[Caleb]

Everybody is wanting to try to do marketing things that you can track, that you can directly attribute. Okay, I paid X number of dollars. I got this many clicks and I got this much, this many sales from that. And I think what happens is business owners, when you start out, you know that most of your business comes through referrals and through that organic viral marketing that is just priceless. And then as time goes on, you face these different pressures of marketing gurus coming in and being like, hey, you need to start doing this, and all these different tech features, which are good and there's a time and place for it. I'm assuming your biggest pressure.

[Tersh Blissett]

I'm pointing right at you.

[Caleb]

I can't tell.

[Josh Crouch]

So.

[Caleb]

Oh, yeah, I just want to.

[Josh Crouch]

I just.

[Caleb]

The biggest.

[Josh Crouch]

You look like an idiot, so I figured I'd let you just run with it.

[Caleb]

The biggest pressure is budget constraints. And so when you start scaling, it's like, okay, how many massages can we afford? How many cookies can we afford? And you start really dialing it in. And before you know it, the accounting department's looking at you saying, hey, you spent this much on massages and cookies, and like, what was your return for that? So it takes a visionary and somebody to champion to say, hey, this is part of our brand is our customer experience. And I, as the owner can't be out shaking hands with everybody. And so we have to figure out a scalable, automated way to still be human and connect with people and automate something really cool, really different that connects with them in a human way. High touch, literally, with a massage type experience, or you think about connecting with people through food. Who do you share food with? It's a friend, it's a co worker, it's someone like, you break bread with people in their homes. I mean, that's a very human way to connect with people. And so that's our vision behind, like, we don't do just promotional items. Our product is freshly baked cookies. It's universal, it's food. It's memorable because people are ingesting it, they're thinking about you, they're delighted, their kids are pumped, running around the house because, you know, cookies just landed. If you can make my wife happy, you have scored a touchdown. That's exactly what you described with your customer.

[Josh Crouch]

Well, I like, you guys put it in, like, branded things as well, because you get a cookie tin, typically you don't throw those away. You reuse them, you reuse coolers, you reuse tumblers. Like, even if you don't use them off, they're still there and you still see them. So it's this, we talk about brand impressions and constant. Just in front of someone, you're constantly in front of them after the fact.

[Caleb]

That's a total part of the strategy. Because when you think about a brand, really what is your brand? Well, is it the colors and the logos? I would say that your, your colors, your log, your typography, those are brand assets or brand anchors, things that people see and they remember you. What they're really remembering is. And Steven Semple with the wizard of ads, he put it this way. Your brand is the sum total of how people feel about you. It's all those feelings. That's who you are. That's your name. When people say your name, your company name, what do they think of when they see your logo on the billboard, what do they feel? What does that conjure up in them? You know, I think that's where when we do like the branded, we help you design a custom branded cooler or the tumbler to go with this gift package because we want that feeling of eating those cookies and that unexpected surprise and delight to be strongly associated with your brand color, your font, your logo. And so we've got this totally custom package that is designed to help you and post sale build your brand experience. And that's built over time. I mean, you guys know, like your brand experience starts from the very beginning with advertising, to the first phone call, to when you step into the house, to whenever you. What do you do after the sale? Do you just get the check and leave or do you do something unexpected and say, you know what, we want an ongoing relationship with you. Like, we want to be your resource from here on out. Do you say something that makes people feel that way?

[Tersh Blissett]

Absolutely.

[Caleb]

And I think they've already what's cool. It becomes a comprehensive strategy in the long haul. I'm a big fan of remarketing because you got to remember, like, if you can totally delight this customer, just like you did with Savannah Bananas, he's out there now talking about you guys all over the place organically. Like he's, he's driven to do that without you paying for it, without you reminding him to do it. So if you can create these fans, you have an advocate in the community and it might be years before that customer buys again from you, but strategically, you've planted someone in that town, in that community that is an advocate for you. And the question is, are they energized enough to speak up about you? Are they fairly neutral about their experience? Like they expected a five star experience, they got a five star experience and yeah, I don't know, I just googled and went for whoever had five stars. You know, um, you gotta connect emotionally and energize that person to speak up to share about you because you just did something totally different.

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Tersh Blissett]

Absolutely. And I, I think that the, the five star experience like going back to like I'm sure you've read like giftology. We've all read the multitude of marketing books that like leave a brand impression. And, and what I think, I believe personally is that we give three star service and expect a five star review. Like we've done like three stars is the average, like that's, that's doing your job. We didn't do anything crazy. We didn't like honestly more people should have three star reviews than five star reviews because they're doing what was expected. I paid you to do this. You did the job. That's what I expect. The fact that you get a five star review just because you showed up on time is sad. That's sad that that's the state of mind that we live in. But the to be able to go above and beyond and have like a five star plus reviews, I think that's it takes intentionality and as a business owner it's very easy to get stuck in the minutia of putting out fires and like you got into a wreck or you got like, you know, a new design on your van that you have to worry about or you have inventory you have to take care of and all this other things like oh, now I need like they've already paid me. Like why am I, they paid us. We've had our transaction, we've had our engagement. Like why keep following up with them especially whenever you, you have a system change out if they're like in Savannah, around Savannah area. A lot of the house, not, not every house but a lot of the houses have like just one air conditioning unit. So you, you've, you've changed out the air conditioning unit. They're not going to need another one for 10 years. They have a 10 year warranty. Why do I keep engaging with them and follow up with them? Well, like it's for the referrals. Like how was the experience well, it was great. It was, it was, it was what I expected. You know, they wore shoe covers. They didn't put a hole in my wall. They showed up when they said they were going to show up. They even gave me a phone call on their way. That was all great. Oh, by the way, they engaged with me after the fact and they made sure that everything was good and made sure to follow up with me and made sure that I was comfortable and all of that stuff. And that makes a massive difference in the just. I like. I had oral surgery a couple weeks ago. It was emergency surgery and it was weird. We had planned it out like for the middle of the summer, but I had a crack in a tooth and my wisdom teeth had grown in back sideways and basically broke the back teeth. And so we had planned to cut them out and put an implant in a titanium rods in. Well, I woke up and I was in immense pain and I texted my dentist, which is a friend of mine, before he even could respond to my text. The oral surgeons calling me. And it's like, hey, can you be here? Like, I have an opening in an hour. I can do it. And I was like, bet, put me in there. I'm in. So Julie drives me down there. That's great. We he and within the next two hours, he's got it cut out, two titanium rods put in, sewn up. I'm back, you know, headed towards the house. And about three hours later, he calls my cell phone and he was like, hey, Tershot, I was just checking on you. I was like, I expect it to be an automated message, you know, and granted that's not scalable for an air conditioning company to call, the owner of the company to call every single time, but for the oral surgeon to give me a call. And then this was on, like, I want to say it might have been a Friday. No, it was like a Thursday. And then on Saturday at like lunchtime, he calls me and he's like, hey, Tertia, I was just checking on you. On Saturday, he does this like, I'm not going anywhere else. If I have to have oral surgery, that's where I'm going. If somebody has a question, Dr. Darvis in Savannah, that's who you need to use. He's a great guy. It's one of those things where it's like, he didn't have to do that. If I had a problem, I would have called the office. But instead he proactively reached out to me. And that's the kind of service that is a way above like five star service. In my opinion, it, that's probably realistically like that's five star service. But based on how we scale things right now, like it, that's like five and a half stars. Five, six stars.

[Caleb]

But you're right, it's, it's exceeding the expectation. The expectation is that you're going to do the job perfectly, you're not going to mess up my house. I mean, you're going to show up well dressed, you smell good, you put on your shoe covers. You know, that's the expectation. And I think you can't engineer this though. And as a business leader, that's where we can proactively think about, okay, how can we engineer this to exceed expectations, to train our team and then also incorporate surprise and delight. And even in what you just experienced with the oral surgeon, you were surprised and you were delighted with that service. I mean they went, he didn't have to check in on you. He did a post operation follow up with you. And as, as relational as we can make it is going to directly impact the depth of impact that it has on the customer emotionally. So that's a very high touch example. And, and I think that's appropriate from a doctor perspective. Whenever you look at, you know, a heating and air business, something that we've even done is taken the owner's handwriting and we have perfectly replicated that inside the thank you card. So it's just a simple message. Hey, thank you so much for choosing us. We want to be here for you, your friends, your family. Let us know if there's anything we can help with. And that being sent and automated, I mean they know that that's appropriate for the spend amount and it feels right to get that dozen cookies in that unexpected gift package. But the fact that they handed you a check and you didn't have to send them anything in return, but you did, you just actually sent them a thank you gift speaks volumes because nobody's doing that. You don't get a thank you gift in the mail. I mean occasionally I think I can count on my hand the, the few birthday cards that I get from like a car salesman or you know, insurance. And that stands out still.

[Tersh Blissett]

A couple years ago we bought a BMW from Crites BMW in Savannah and they sent a tin of bird cookies to us from like a thank you gift. And it, it had their, their logo, the Kreitz logo on it and all that other stuff. But I was like that, that tin sat on my island for months, I mean way after it was empty because it Got emptied quick. But it was, it was one of those things where it's like, like that didn't have to happen. The experience just, it crites does a great job with client experience. And it's one of those things like exactly like you said, they didn't have to do this at all.

[Caleb]

And here's the thing though, there's no one aspect of marketing that is the magic pill for everything. And so what I really like to do is think of our customers experience from again, first advertisement to first interaction, online demo, phone call. We interact with them like what are we promising up front, how are we delivering and is there surprise and delight along the way and then how are we remarketing them to them afterwards? Okay, so imagine like you bought a car and they've made this great grand brand impression. You guys ate up all the cookies that was left on the kitchen table. But like, so you're energized. Now you just need to be reminded to talk to them. So it's still important to have that advertising, that remarketing even to customers that already bought from you and are unlikely to buy again because that's going to bring you back up in conversations. You are trying to stay top of mind to wiggle your way into the conversations with family, friends, you know, you want to be that guy they mentioned when they're like, oh hey, yeah, I had a great experience with such and such H vac. You guys should check them out. Definitely worth talking to them. That's, that's where the remarketing comes into play. And to think about advertising not just to new customers, but to your existing customer base that is emotionally connected with you and energized enough to speak up and advocate on your behalf and, and if we can keep those conversations moving, that's gold.

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

Because you know, if you think about the fact that because most people now have some sort of text or email platform to try to re engage or set up tune ups and things like that. But if the only time we ever touch base with these customers when we want something, so we're winning and there's no, there's no way that the customer's winning at all. Or getting anything that makes them just smile when they see the company name. Most like stop unsubscribe, you know, stuff like that. Like you have to, you have to give value in the marketplace for people to want to pay attention.

[Caleb]

That's good. Yes, you have to give value. You've got to be the first one to do it.

[Josh Crouch]

And yeah, I mean it's worked out really well. I mean Church and I give free content out every week to help people grow their business.

[Caleb]

There you go.

[Josh Crouch]

And it's worked out very well for us. We've turned it into like six side businesses. I don't recommend that for too many people, but every, if you can look at things like that, because I know early on in my career we would get done with the job, we'd move on, we would never ever talk to that customer again unless they called us. And it was always like, well, how come the phone's not ringing today? We never really had something to bring them back in into us. And then now that Facebook groups and next door communities and subreddit communities and all these, all these other places where people hang out, this is where they share their experience, their real experiences. Not necessarily on Google reviews, because Google reviews, they get those right after the time of service. They're usually pretty happy because their problem went away. What do they think about you? A week, a month, six months, 12 months after you've been out there? They're like, man after, after being here, like that company really wasn't that good. They don't care about me. They just want my money. You know, there's no, they don't feel any sort of, as you said, Caleb, an emotional connection to that brand.

[Caleb]

Yeah. Are they energized? And I think we really try to measure things so statically, so quantitatively. Can I make a spreadsheet out of this? How many customers should I get and everything. And when you're looking at relationship marketing and your brand, it's very difficult to measure exactly how much a truck wrap got you or a website rehaul got you. I mean you can, you can try, you can put a tracking QR and a tracking phone number and track, track. And I love tracking, I'm a marketing, you know, nerd. I love the reports and everything. But you know, when you invest in your brand feelings and attach it to your brand cues, it's, it's a long haul investment. And I think you measure that by qualitative metrics. So what is a qualitative metric? Well, that's feelings. That's soul what was the quality? What was the depth of impact from that marketing touch? It's like yes, we have quantitative results for things like Google Ads, pay per click for clicks, but whenever we look at relationship marketing we're looking for qualitative feedback. How, how big of a smile was, was it on the kid's face whenever you guys were passing out snow cones at a, you know, local town get together?

[Josh Crouch]

We actually, we had a podcast episode do. I don't know if you've ever run across Levi Torres of High Five Plumbing Heating Air in Colorado. They so to kind of to this point every, they actually measure this as a KPI for their technicians and installers. How many high fives did they get today? So it's, it totally jogged my memory because I'm, I'm like, you know, because there's ways, I mean obviously it's a unique example but the creativity that's the beautiful thing about the trades and these smaller businesses that maybe haven't sold out to PE yet is everyone. I made a post about this last week about like because people were bitching about, sorry I said PE and how they own everything and like they have all these Google business profiles and they spend so much money on Google, blah blah, blah, blah and they're just complaining, complaining, complaining. And I'm like they don't have what you have though. You have the ability to do something that actually makes an impact and makes them makes memorable. Because the PE company typically they're how come your profit went down. They're just going to look at how to cut costs, profit, how to sell more. Like they're, they're going to look at very high level metrics instead of actually things that homeowners care about. And actually they're going to talk about to friends and family and people they work with.

[Caleb]

There's a vacuum of opportunity that's being created by very large groups that lose the vision, strong customer connections.

[Tersh Blissett]

Wouldn't it be in their best interest to sign up for two year success? Like not that this is an ad for two year success.

[Caleb]

Like it's in their interest to build those relationships. Yes.

[Tersh Blissett]

They know the complaints are here. That doesn't feel like a local touch anymore. And having something like to your success is a very low barrier to entry, a low burden on the office, like no burden almost to the office staff. And it can provide that extra touch that they're not having.

[Caleb]

Absolutely. And there's a few groups that are honing in on this and keeping that relational touch and keeping the local brand in place and that feel and those relationships, you know, so some people are doing an incredible job and I, but I think there's a lot of opportunity out there that will pop up. So as much as we fear, you know, all the takeover, I think, I think the inverse is going to happen in the long haul and relationships will always win out.

[Josh Crouch]

This isn't the first time private equity venture capital has come into an industry and completely disrupted it. Like we, honestly, we're probably one of the last industries they've really come in and disrupted like a medical hospital. All, all these other industries have been disrupted way before we were like, we've.

[Tersh Blissett]

Seen what it did to our local hospital. Like our local hospital is garbage now. And it happened five years ago, 10 years ago. And like we don't want that for our air conditioning companies. Like they should see that. I don't know. That's, that's a conversation for a completely different day.

[Josh Crouch]

There must be enough money. Well, I've heard that in, in granted this a little off topic here, but like investors and investment groups, they'll buy 10 businesses and hoping one succeeds.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, yeah, I, I've heard that.

[Josh Crouch]

I don't know how I, I don't like again, we talked about gambling. This was, we had a little conversation before this about gambling and going to Vegas and stuff. And I don't think anyone, all of us agree that we're not really gamblers. So like for me, trying to base my, my future life off of 1 out of 10 that seem like great odds, I wouldn't stack them in that favor. But there's, there's opportunity and I think it's the, it's, it's all mental.

[Caleb]

I would rather drive, make, make small progress consistently than win the lottery occasionally because that's going to be more guaranteed and, and it's going to be exponential. And here's, that's where automation comes in. You guys know all about this. Whenever you can be consistent with your customer experience, whenever you can figure out systems and processes with automation, that's when it really takes off. And I think the key is making sure that there's some kind of human element to the automation as well. You know, where you've got that personal touch. Like we, we don't lose that personal touch as part of the. So like, you know, tersh. I love the idea with, you know, emailing the, the massage therapist to be able to go out, what, what a creative idea. I mean but just figuring out your budget, what can you spend on the customer on the back end. We usually see a Spend average of about 1/2 of 1% going back into the customer experience after the sale is done and seeing that as the marketing opportunity to energize those people to be your advocates. So it's, it's a huge opportunity to differentiate. And that's the key in this business.

[Josh Crouch]

I think what it does too, this isn't. We have something we haven't chatted about here is when your team knows that that happens too. Your, your technicians, your office staff. People want to work at a company that isn't just focused on bottom line numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. They, they want to feel something. They want to feel like they're part of a brand that cares about the customers they serve.

[Tersh Blissett]

Caleb made a mention early on that. And it is very true, very true. Like 100%. It's been preached for years. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. They're going, you're feeling how you made them feel is how they'll remember you. I want to emphasize how important that is for, for employees to, to know as well. Your team members need to know this as well because you cut them off in traffic and instantly that massive billboard just pissed them off. And now that's the emotional attachment they have with your company is the fact that you just brake check them in traffic or you cut them off or it was a legit mistake where they were in a blind spot. What did you do when they came by you flipping you off? Did you flip them back off or be like, sorry, didn't see. Like, I apologize like you're in a blind spot.

[Josh Crouch]

That's why I drive an unmarked vehicle.

[Tersh Blissett]

That's why you drive 10 miles an hour under speed limit in left lane with your blinker on.

[Josh Crouch]

Can't piss anyone off if I'm driving too slow, right? Well, I guess I could I piss you off. You were the passenger in the truck.

[Tersh Blissett]

And I was pissed for everybody that was behind us.

[Caleb]

Hey, some of those negative opportunities, though, are some of the best to create fans. I mean, because here's the thing. If you can respond in humility and, you know, own it.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Caleb]

And make it right. We all know with our, with our personal businesses that that's whenever you actually show the integrity of your brand and make an incredible brand impression that, wow, you know, these guys messed up, but they stood behind it.

[Tersh Blissett]

And they're real people, 100%. Caleb, how can people get connected with you?

[Caleb]

Yeah. Check out our website to your success dot com. That's T O Y O-U-R S U-C C E-S-S S dot com and you can learn more about our products and services. We would love to just schedule a call so there's a button on there. You can check out our schedule and just set up a call to discuss how the automation works, what gift options are available, how we can customize your gift package, build out an automation workflow for you. The cool thing is our pricing is really reasonable and we do everything for you from helping you set up the automation, set up the automation rules. You just give us an idea of who you want to send to. It's very controlled. And then we help you even design the product. We manufacture it, we stock it for you. We bake the cookies fresh. We ship it to the customer.

[Josh Crouch]

Customer.

[Caleb]

So and it's pretty much ready to go.

[Tersh Blissett]

They're good cookies.

[Caleb]

Oh man. And we'll send you a sample cookies.

[Tersh Blissett]

I will say really good. And as a customer, a paying client, I want to everybody understand that to your success is not paying me to say this. You can send me cookies though. As much as you like. The hey, it's.

[Caleb]

I'll get with you.

[Josh Crouch]

Before next week because we're going traveling together and I'm hoping he brings the tin and you can share at least one.

[Caleb]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

Hard pass on Gotcha. No, I'm just kidding. I the, the you mentioned that the setup is a painless process and I will vouch that it is it legit. I feel like it was a five minute long meeting and we just went from, from that and your team does a great job with following up because I know that whenever I signed up I think it was during a busy time of the year and I just missed the emails a couple times. But, but you didn't give up and you weren't like overly pushy or anything like that. You're like hey, we want to send this out. I just need to get your approval on it. And so I was like, oh yes, my bad. Sorry. But you like just staying on top of things and, and your team is always so delightful to deal with and so it's. Well, it's not the way. That's not the case with every company and I want to, I want to give a good shout out to your success for that.

[Caleb]

I appreciate you saying that. Tertia. If we don't make you guys successful, then what are we doing? You know, so that's the whole goal.

[Tersh Blissett]

Cool man. We appreciate you hanging out with us 100%. Caleb, is there anything you want to add before we click we, we wrap things up.

[Caleb]

No, I appreciate you guys too. And you know, you just remember everything you do in your personal relationships to strengthen those relationships. Express gratitude to people that you love or care about or want to grow with. That same concept applies with our business relationships. Expressing gratitude, breathing life into people, having a culture with your team that cares about people, it's all the same stuff. It's pretty basic old fashioned concepts, but we can use automation to build it out and engineer it and I think that's, that's where the opportunity is. So I appreciate you guys having me on. Love what you guys do for sure.

[Tersh Blissett]

Absolutely. If anybody has any question at all, don't hesitate to reach out to Caleb. Yeah, if you have a question about to your success and you for some reason don't want to talk to Caleb, reach out to me. I'm an open book. Don't reach out to Josh. He doesn't check his emails. So that's it.

[Josh Crouch]

I hope you have a wonderful autoresponder via AI and zapier.

[Tersh Blissett]

So at least mine gets checked. We'll see you later. Have a good week.

[Caleb]

Oh man. See ya.

[Podcast Announcer]

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