HVAC Hiring Strategies for Service Leaders to Replace B Players with ATS Culture – Ryan Naylor

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Episode: HVAC Hiring Strategies for Service Leaders to Replace B Players with ATS Culture – Ryan Naylor
Host(s): Tersh Blissett & Josh Crouch
Guest: Ryan Naylor (Founder, Ava HR)
Date: July 23, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tersh and Josh dive deep with HR expert and entrepreneur Ryan Naylor to explore actionable strategies for hiring and retaining “A Players” in the skilled trades. They focus on modernizing recruitment—with a special emphasis on how automation and AI, including Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), can help business owners stop the costly cycle of hiring and re-hiring “B” and “C” players. The conversation delivers practical advice on creating a compelling employer brand, speeding up the hiring process, and leveraging culture-driven job postings to attract the right talent.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The True Cost of B & C Players vs. A Players

• A vs. B Player Dynamics

  • B players often pose as A players, take credit for others’ work, and can drive top performers away.—Ryan Naylor [07:50]
  • C players are, in the long run, “three times more expensive than A players,” due to mistakes, opportunity cost, and reputation loss.—Ryan [06:08]

• Why Cheaper Labor Costs More

  • “If you paid an A player 30% more willing to pay that 10 bucks more an hour…you’re actually saving money.”
    — Ryan Naylor [06:09]
  • B and C players not only make more mistakes, they lose referrals and harm business growth opportunities.
    [07:09–07:47]

Identifying A Players in the Hiring Process

• Behavioral Interview Techniques

  • A players “remember great experiences with detail.”
    B players’ stories are “foggy in their details.”
    — Ryan Naylor [00:00], [29:14]
  • During interviews, ask candidates to describe a specific instance where they helped a customer overcome their biggest fear. Detailed, passionate answers signal an A player.
    [00:00], [29:14]

• Reference Checks Are Undervalued

  • “You’ve got to do three of them. You gotta ask the right questions.”
    — Ryan Naylor [09:26]
  • The critical question: “If the opportunity presented itself again, would you hire [candidate name] again?” Hesitation signals a red flag.
    [09:53]

• Self-Reflection and the Candidate’s “Why”

  • Ask, “What is your why?” If a candidate cannot articulate their personal motivation, or their answer is shallow, they’re unlikely to be an A player.
    — Ryan Naylor [31:23]

  “My why? I’m here to feed my family. I will literally go die in the ring…to feed my family.”
  — Ryan sharing a story from Cinderella Man [31:15]

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Modern Recruitment for Trades

• ATS Explained

  • “It’s a CRM for hiring—keeping candidates organized, centralizing notes, and publishing jobs for free to all the major job boards.”
    — Ryan Naylor [11:29]
  • ATS automates candidate communications, filters out unqualified applicants, and helps avoid “bottom drawer” resume filing.
    [12:59–13:52]
  • ATS gives small businesses the same reach as corporate giants, but “at a fraction of the cost.”
    — Ryan Naylor [12:59]
  • Automations allow for quick filtering and speed to first contact, which is vital in hot labor markets where top talent disappears quickly.
    [16:24], [23:25]

• Recruitment Workflow Tips

  • Limit unnecessary steps: “For each click, you’re going to lose 5% of your conversions.”—Ryan Naylor [16:53]
  • Use an ATS to automate basic screening and initiate one-way video interviews to assess communication skills efficiently.
    [21:01–21:44]

Employer Branding & Culture Marketing

• Telling Your Company’s Story

  • Stop using corporate clichés (“rock star,” “rocket ship company”). Instead, be authentic: Who you are, what you do, and, most importantly, why you do it.
    — Ryan Naylor [24:21]
  • Example: “We empower dads to have their weekends back by doing their landscaping for them...”—turns a job into a mission.
    [26:26]

• Impact on Applicant Quality

  • “Applicants bought into the vision and…not just chasing $19 an hour to be a landscape technician.”
    — Ryan Naylor [27:21]
  • A compelling story attracts people who are proud of their work and company—a hallmark of A players.
    [27:43]

Speed to Hire and Market Realities

• Why Fast Response Matters
  • “I just looked it up, there’s about 390 HVAC technician job openings on Indeed right now in Phoenix.”
    — Ryan [23:19]
  • “Why would you wait more than 24 hours to call a candidate? Because if you don’t, someone else will.”
    — Ryan Naylor [23:25]

Involving Your Team in Hiring

• Cultural Fit through Team Exposure
  • Example: Company held a “fish-off” community event to let candidates and current techs mingle—real interactions reveal personality and fit in a casual setting.
    — Ryan Naylor [34:22]
  • “You need people that are comfortable talking to strangers. If you can’t talk to someone with a fishing pole in your hand, you probably aren’t going to be talking to someone well with a tool set.”
    — Ryan Naylor [34:35]

Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• “B players will pose as an A player. They'll take credit of the A players, and they will drive the A players out of the business.”
  — Ryan Naylor [07:50]

• On culture fit:

  “Having coming up with events that give people that’s just a little bit outside the norm…can showcase personality is a great way to attract A players but keep the low quality candidates away.”
  — Ryan Naylor [34:39]

• Reference checks, the “killer question”:

  “If the opportunity presented itself again, would you hire [Tersh] again?”
  — Ryan Naylor [09:53]

• On employer branding:

  “Be transparent about who you are as a company and what your North Star is as a business… tell the people side of the story.”
  — Ryan Naylor [24:21]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00 – A vs. B players: behavioral differences in candidate interviews
• 06:08 – Why B and C players are more expensive than A players
• 09:07–09:53 – Reference checks: what to ask and why they matter
• 11:29 – What is an ATS and how does it benefit small business hiring
• 16:42 – Are there too many steps in your hiring process?
• 23:19–23:25 – Market data: hundreds of HVAC jobs open in Phoenix—speed is critical
• 24:21 & 26:26 – Crafting a job posting that attracts the right talent
• 29:14 – The “detail” test for A players vs B players in interviews
• 31:15 – The “why” question, illustrated with a Cinderella Man story
• 34:22–34:54 – Team-involved hiring: the “fish-off” as a culture fit test

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Final Takeaways

• Relentlessly pursue A players and don’t compromise just to fill a seat; B and C players are costly, toxic, and drive away your best.
• Modernize your hiring process with an ATS to automate, screen, and communicate—level the playing field with big companies for a fraction of the price.
• Tell a story in job postings that focuses on who you are, what you do, and why you do it. This attracts talent who want more than just a paycheck.
• Move fast: In competitive markets, contact hot prospects within 24 hours, or risk losing them forever.
• Involve your team in culture fit evaluations—casual group settings can reveal much more than a formal interview.
• Always ask, “What is your why?”—and don’t settle for candidates who can’t answer.

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Resources Mentioned

• AVA HR: Job posting templates, interview kits, and free resources for optimizing your recruitment
  ava.hr
• Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS): Streamline hiring, boost applicant quality, and automate follow-up
• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber: Referenced as foundational for understanding business growth beyond technical skills

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This episode arms service business leaders with modern, practical frameworks and technology tools for identifying, attracting, and keeping the high-caliber team members that truly drive growth. If you’re a home service business owner frustrated with endless hiring cycles, this is the blueprint for breaking the pattern and building a “rock star” team, the right way.

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Transcript

[Ryan]

A Players remember great experiences with detail. B Players will come up with something and they're foggy in their details. That is the tell. Ask them to tell a specific experience when they help overcome a customer's biggest fear.

[Narrator]

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 channel 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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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Sarah Tech Service what's up friends? Never miss a call again. So our partners with free to grow their world class AI Voice CSR platform is designed specifically for trades businesses with industry leading integrations, dedicated onboarding team. You'll never have to worry about missing calls or losing leads again. Whether it's booking, rescheduling, answering customer questions or escalating to your internal staff, their AI handles it all 247 and not only that, it can book directly into your fsm. So stop wasting time and money on leads that get fumbled. Let free to grow. Turn every call into a book job. Hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching the Service Business Mastery Podcast. I am one of your hosts Tersh Blissett sitting virtually next to my co host Joshua Crouch and we have Ryan on the show today with Ava hr. Is that right?

[Ryan]

That's right.

[Tersh Blissett]

A little bit about like hiring a players and not just hiring them but keeping them on board because we all want the A players until we get the A players because in my opinion, an A player has standards on certain things that are probably non negotiable for them. How bad a B player is on your team versus an A player in my, in, in your mind, you're like a B player's a step below an A player and it's better than a C player. So why wouldn't you want a whole bunch of B players and just a couple of A players on there? Because it's like in some business owners minds who are price conscience or cheap, hey, I can get a B player for you know, 10 bucks less an hour or 5 bucks less an hour than this A player. And in reality we'll, we'll talk a little bit about that. But with that being said. Josh, you have anything you want to add before we get started?

[Josh Crouch]

No, I was just going to make fun of you.

[Tersh Blissett]

Good. Because I didn't want to listen to it anyways. Ryan, tell us a little bit about yourself, your, your story and, and kind of how you got into doing what you're doing right now.

[Ryan]

Yeah, I'm excited to be with you guys. You know, I've been an entrepreneur for 17 years myself. I've hired hundreds of people, been through a lot of the ups and downs of being a small business owner. And I relate a lot to all those out there that are struggling with employees. One of my favorite things that I ever did was 2011, 2012 here in Arizona we had double digit unemployment rate and we decided to build a job board to kind of help bridge the gap between the national job boards and Craigslist. And at the time you think of like the monster, the career builder and then there was Craigslist and employers didn't know where to go. It's really expensive on a national job board, but locally they didn't want like their jobs next to like used couches and lawnmowers. And so we decided to build a local job board called localwork.com and in Arizona we helped a hundred thousand people get jobs over the next four years through our platform, partnering with like local radio stations and media outlets and building job fairs and renting out State Farm Stadium. And at the time it was a state farm, but you know where the Cardinals played. And it was incredibly insightful as to what it really takes to hire a players because we saw firsthand there's a lot of businesses hiring, but they were just taking anybody and we knew they were hiring again and again and again.

[Josh Crouch]

That's how that was My introduction to the trades, I literally took anyone that had a pulse. I'm like, oh, you've been in H Vac. I need. I need you to fill that van. So can you please just jump in there and take some service calls for me?

[Tersh Blissett]

We call them the mirror foggers. As long as they can fog a mirror and they got a seat in the van.

[Josh Crouch]

I feel like a lot of people are like that in the trades, though, because we got vans to fill, we got calls on the board that need to get taken care of. So it's like, hey, you know how to read gauges and read a wiring diagram? There you go.

[Tersh Blissett]

It feels very reactive. Instead of being proactive.

[Ryan]

Yeah, we're all. I mean, you go back to like the Michael Gerber, you know, book E Myth. Like, we're all good at our craft. Nobody went to college to be hiring experts that's in H Vac, that runs an H VAC company. Like, we just weren't. That wasn't the skill.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh, yeah.

[Ryan]

So we have to kind of learn through those mistakes and cut our teeth in. In different problem sets. And sometimes it's cash flow, sometimes it's people problems, sometimes it's operational problems and efficiency. But I found through my own experience, my own anecdotal insight was C players tend to be three times more expensive than A players. If you paid an a player 30% more willing to pay that 10 bucks more an hour, as you said dirge, you're actually saving money.

[Tersh Blissett]

Can you explain that concept?

[Ryan]

You think about a C player. Just visualize your worst. Not. Not even your worst. I say your mediocre employees that you've always had. Are these consistent getting to your customers? Are they ones driving the most reviews for your Google my business profile? Are they the ones that, you know, magically overspend on their gas card or reporting their mileage or there's a dean and then that didn't smell. I didn't see that there before. It was there. It was there. I don't know what you're talking about. Like, they're the ones that always.

[Tersh Blissett]

The whole door fell off. I didn't even realize the door was missing.

[Ryan]

Exactly. We've all had those moments in the business, and it adds up. Not only do those mistakes add up, it's the opportunity, cost of loss opportunity. That extra effort at the client's job that would have gotten the three extra referrals with their relatives around corner who have the same problem you just treated, but they just have a hard time doing that because it wasn't a buttoned up experience. That's what I'm talking about is A players in the long run are significantly less expensive than a B or C player.

[Tersh Blissett]

Makes a B player so bad, the.

[Ryan]

B player will pose as an A player. They'll take credit of the A players, and they will drive the A players out of the business. They tend to be the loudest people that are out there talking about their self the most. Their egocentric. The most tend to be our B players because they're not backing it up with real results. And they're going to run your A players out the door. They don't want to be around egocentric individuals. They want to be around other A players who. Who are kind of the humble braggers, meaning, like they're humbly getting after it and letting their numbers speak for themselves. That tends to be the difference between A player and a B player. But the danger of B players is they push your A players out.

[Josh Crouch]

Once you have someone on staff, it's a little more easy to determine what that is. But the interview process, the hiring process is a very difficult thing to weed out because people will lie. They'll embellish on their resume. They will say that they have 18 years of experience when they have five. Like, and who. I mean, honestly, I don't think most, especially in the trades, I don't think too many people are doing background. Like, they're calling old employers and verifying job details and stuff like that. So how can we protect ourselves from. Or how can we. Is there a way for us to figure that out before we hire someone during the process?

[Ryan]

It's like you watched my TV segment on Fox this morning, Josh, this is like the perfect setup. Question. Two things that I highly recommend employers can implement literally today, and it will cost you nothing, and it will help you prevent getting the wrong person in your company. Number one, reference checks. Reference checks. Reference checks.

[Tersh Blissett]

You have got literally the thing that Josh said, nobody does.

[Ryan]

You've got to literally do that. You've got to do three of them.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

You've got to say, you know, you got to ask the right questions. You've got to get into. And here's the biggest question I will always ask when I'm doing record checks for growing my company, my staff. If the opportunity presented itself again, would you hire Tersh again?

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh, and if they hesitate, yeah, the.

[Ryan]

Story has been told.

[Tersh Blissett]

How about with existing employees? Would. Would I rehire Timmy?

[Josh Crouch]

You're saying, like, if you have 10 texts and you look at all of them and you're doing like a quarterly review. Be like, would I hire them if they left? Would I hire them if they let columns like, oh, using that as a guide. Is that what you're referencing? That's actually a pretty nice exercise that people should probably do.

[Ryan]

Fantastic exercise. But I think when you're calling the new candidate reference checks their previous employers, that's also the question you gotta ask.

[Josh Crouch]

You know, it's funny, I, I remember getting a reference check by someone I would have not hired back. And I said, I said yes. So they got a job and got off unemployment.

[Ryan]

We've all thought about doing that.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, he admitted it at least.

[Josh Crouch]

I'm not gonna tell you who though.

[Tersh Blissett]

Admit admitting it is the first step, Josh.

[Josh Crouch]

Otherwise, I feel like some people just, they literally go somewhere, they, they talk themselves up, they get a job and then they are terrible and they just collect unemployment in between. That's what it feels like sometimes. I haven't had that happen in a while because our hiring process is gotten a lot better. But one of the things that we did. I share this story with you guys, but I've never used an ats, an applicant tracking system, which actually before I ask the question, can you just for those that are listening, like ATS applicant. What. What is that? Can you just like give a brief overview of what that is so people understand?

[Ryan]

Super easy to understand. It's a CRM like we all have. See, we know what a CRM is. Tracking leads and prospects in our pipeline. The CRM for hiring, it's keeping your candidates organized, centralizing your notes. You can do SMS or email to the candidates in one inbox. Makes it all easy. Most people don't understand is an ATS allows you to get free published visibility on all the major job boards. Indeed. ZipRecruiter, LinkedIn, all these premium job sites people are paying big dollars for. They don't realize they can actually supplement all their job seeker traffic for free when it's published through an approved publisher. And that was one of the biggest reasons why I flipped into the ATS space, because as a job board owner of local work, you know, I, I ram it on the other side of the table. I realize there's a lot of small businesses out there who don't have the budgets like a Fortune 1000 company. I mean, ATS is in the. Back in the day were 80, $100,000 a year when you're working Oracle and you got to build this big infrastructure and they were getting all the free visibility and the small business owners Were the ones paying the premium, all the job corps. I'm like, that doesn't make sense. So we wanted to build a product that gave them the same rich perks as corporate America got, but at a fraction of the cost. So that's kind of an ats. Like the. Why it's, it's, it's really about job posting visibility from an organic reach.

[Josh Crouch]

Well, and what I like about is it's able to. It splits like, you don't have to put all that data into like we use HubSpot for our company or the obviously trades people are familiar with like Housecall Pro Servicing. It's split like you don't have to keep the same records in there. It's completely separate. Nothing's going to screw up between your customers and then the applicants. And then when you have new job posts, you can literally, like, even if you, all that information is stored in there, you could send out a text message to the last 200 people that applied and see if they're still interested, they're still looking for a job.

[Tersh Blissett]

Are we saying that the bottom desk drawer, that's not an ATS system? Right?

[Ryan]

Some people's ATS involves that.

[Josh Crouch]

But one of those.

[Ryan]

One of those.

[Josh Crouch]

Banker boxes with all the applications filed, Maybe it's maybe 10 years ago May.

[Tersh Blissett]

And then like it July, August, I still remember. Pull it out and like, all right, let's start going through them.

[Josh Crouch]

It's, it's funny when we say stuff like this terse because it brings back memories of like I literally when I was the first H Vac company I worked at, we were on paper service tickets. Like a lot of people were 10, 12 years ago.

[Tersh Blissett]

But we had to go back a hundred years ago.

[Josh Crouch]

Well, we never entered. Josh, we never entered our stuff into like a ESC or Desco or some of the other ones that have been around for a while. And I can't think of the names, but I have to go back, like to do follow ups on estimates. We didn't have like no tracking, so I had to go literally one invoice, one paper ticket at a time. Be like, okay, read through it. Try to understand what the hell our technician was saying because he couldn't write very well. And try to figure out, should I follow up with this? Do I need to do anything? No, that one goes over here. So it's, it's nice that we're at a point now.

[Tersh Blissett]

The DOS based system with the printer with the holes down the side of it and you could print out your entire customer list. And it would show, like, the last visit you were there, like the date. And we, like, would go through with a highlighter. All right, we. This one's. This one's been a six months. This one's been a year, man.

[Josh Crouch]

I don't. I don't miss it. I don't miss any of that stuff.

[Ryan]

Not at all.

[Josh Crouch]

But, Ryan, one of the. What I was getting at before you asked you about to explain an ATS is about a year ago, we brought on an ATS for us because we were going to hire an HR manager, like, like somebody literally to do this stuff on probably $75,000 ish annual salary because it was so overwhelming. Because for relentless digital, all of our workers in the US or all of our team members are remote. So we hire from all over the place and manage that. And then the resume and then the application questions and all the little things that you get before you get to the interview. It was just an email or it was on. Indeed. And like, trying to cobble it together. Like, did I like this? I literally had to have a va. Put together all of this stuff on a spreadsheet and try to, like, put the answers to the questions and all these other things in there to try to like, disqualify people or people that were just lazy and didn't fill out the form. Form or they only one word answers on a long form application question. So that was one of the best things that we ever did because now our hire process is so much easier. Like, we just put an ad up yesterday. We have like 40 applicants. We already have like four people already to like, a certain point where it needs to get reviewed and it's all automated. Like, it's. We don't have to do a whole lot of work, which is great because it filters down those applicants that are just like throwing their resumes to 50 different job postings. And we don't, like, if you just want to.

[Ryan]

We want.

[Josh Crouch]

Someone wants a career, someone's actually going to do the steps that we asked them to do, which we do have several steps to try to disqualify people, but I think there's lots.

[Tersh Blissett]

Is there a point, Ryan, based off what Josh was even just talking about, is there a point where there's too many steps?

[Ryan]

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think if they understand where you're at in the labor market, you know, over the last five years, it has been an absolute talent squeeze for the trades.

[Tersh Blissett]

Are you seeing a shift in that?

[Ryan]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're. We're definitely seeing a higher turnover and applicant quantity per job than what we saw even last year. It's gone up across the board, including the trades. But I think, you know, they, they say for each click you're going to lose 5% of your conversions. So, you know, having too many steps in there could, could be a too big of a bottleneck to where it's just easier to go apply somewhere else. So that's something you have to consider. I I don't know what Josh's process looks like. It sounds like it's super efficient to kind of, kind of get rid of some of the ones hello Home Service Professionals.

[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

It's like three steps. It's like three or four yes or no questions like are you, do you live in the United States? Just like basic stuff. If they answer yes to everything, it automatically goes to the next step which is like three or four long form answer questions and then we do one way video interview and then we get to the interview. So it's like three steps essentially.

[Tersh Blissett]

Very first long form answer or video answer is why is peanut butter the best condiment? Is that what it is? Yeah. And then they have to give a video response of why peanut butter?

[Josh Crouch]

I should, you know what I should do on, on a, on a video interview question, I should ask them to explain how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It's like show me.

[Tersh Blissett]

That's funny.

[Josh Crouch]

Oh man. Like to your point, Ryan, to understand the labor market like we get for a client success manager, because it's a remote position. Those are highly sought after. Ever since COVID we get 400 applicants in a week. Like the trades don't. It's an inverse problem for the trades. Like sometimes they have hard time even getting a few decent applicants. So for us it made sense. Like a human can't possibly look through all of these on a piece of paper on a resume and be like, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no. So we had to do some additional filtering. But for the trades, I probably would probably do more like almost immediately. It's like a one way video interview. And then probably get them in person just to see how they communicate. Because if they're going to communicate to customers or they're on the phone, like we kind of want to know if, like can they speak decent English? Do they look presentable before you waste your time having them come in and they're like super gruff and they just look like they haven't showered in a week. You know, stuff like that.

[Ryan]

I think knowing some data is really helpful. You know, just give you some perspective. Your average candidate will apply to seven jobs per session that they sit down and look for work. So if they're diligent and they're getting in there two or three times a week, they're applying to, you know, 20, 30 jobs.

[Josh Crouch]

15, 20 jobs. Yeah.

[Ryan]

You know, over time. Now, if you know that data and you're in the H Vac world, you're in Phoenix, Arizona, like, like we are. And it's super hot. I just looked it up. There's about 390h vac technician job openings on indeed right now in Phoenix.

[Josh Crouch]

If you're a technician listening to this, you know where to come work, you know.

[Ryan]

Yeah, that's right.

[Josh Crouch]

Smokes.

[Ryan]

So there's 300 and change pretty much all summer long openings. So if you know that, why would you wait more than 24 hours to call in a candidate? Because if you don't call them back, someone else will. Oh yeah, and you just lost your A player. To your point, Josh, there might only be a few good players that come in. You better be ready to pick up the phone and call them and invite them into your office real quick. Build that emotional connectivity. And that's kind of the framework of culture marketing that we're trying to help kind of the contractor space understand is that it's more than just a job posting. It's more than just name on a resume that applies to you. It's how do we tell the right culture story so they can't stop thinking about I Don't want to miss an opportunity to work at that company, even though this other company just gave me a job offer.

[Tersh Blissett]

How do you do that, though?

[Ryan]

It starts with a couple of things. Number one is we realize that telling the right story matters. Everyone says in every job posting we're looking for a rock star to come in and join our rocket ship company. Like, stop it. They don't care. Be transparent about who you are as a company and what your North Star is as a business. A lot of times people are hiring for a job, they're not hiring for an individual. So you got to individualize it. You got to tell the people side of the story. And then my biggest complaint, and this was from years of running this job board, is how few companies open up their job posting with the three critical factors. Who you are, what you do, and why you do it. You have to tell the story. And a lot of times, most employers open it up with, here's what you're going to do for me and you better look like this and you better have this experience. If you don't, I don't want to hear from you.

[Josh Crouch]

I totally. I, I know I went up back many years ago. I remember seeing job postings like that and it was like, well, you disqualified. I mean, they probably were trying to disqualify people. But I'm like, this doesn't sound like a place that someone that I don't want to work. You know, it's like very stringent and strict, like, I don't want to work here. That's a good point. And honestly, you, Ryan, you would have liked our. Right before we came into the room with you, we were literally talking with someone who's a brand story implementation specialist.

[Tersh Blissett]

Story brand.

[Josh Crouch]

Story brand. Sorry, I, I use those interchangeably with story brand. So it was all about telling the story because we were talking about business owners. And, and I mean, in this instance, contractors don't know what differentiates them. There's something that's unique about them and they really, they either don't know how to persuasively write that, or it is just like everybody else. They took it like some. There's some other big company in town, they're like, yeah, that's us. They just take the kind of the same things off of their website because they're $20 million or whatever.

[Tersh Blissett]

Really quick, Ryan, who you are and then what you do, is that right?

[Ryan]

Yeah. So what do you do? And it's kind of the clock framework we try to incorporate. So we tell them who you are as a business and maybe some validation been around for 20 years or done this, have service 5,000 homes, 10,000. Whatever it is, who you are, what you do, we serve, we provide XYZ service and then why that matters. What's your why? We empower dads to have their weekends back by doing their landscaping for them so they can spend more quality time with their family. Like that was a company that I just worked with and as soon as they told that story, they're empowering dads to spend their Saturdays with their kids. Not only did their conversion rates on their website explode, their applicants bought into the vision and they're like, I support that. I'm not just chasing $19 an hour to be a landscape technician.

[Josh Crouch]

Do you think the challenge of writing something like that or thinking like something like that is as a whole, like in the trades we don't really have a lot of specialists. Like everyone does heating, air conditioning, ventilator, like they do everything. We, we don't want to like remove this opportunity to really specialize and hone in on like the specific thing that really makes us unique.

[Ryan]

I, I and that's all. I could talk for another hour on a whole different topic there about the power of specialization while still being a generalist. I, I think there's a lot of authority built if you could specialize in one particular minutia area. But from a hiring standpoint, the why should really dig into like a purpose driven North Star. I was just talking to, you know, they, their statement was all around creating a five star experience that you're excited to tell your wife about when you get home. Right. Tap into that sense of accomplishment. Again, back to A players. B players have a job. A players do the same function and they have a career and they're proud of it. Social gathering, a niece's, you know, birthday party, whatever it is, they're proud to say, this is what I do and this is who I work for. That's the kind of person you want.

[Tersh Blissett]

Earlier you mentioned like speed to hire, Speed to respond is important activity. Yeah, yeah. How can we tell that that's an A player versus a B player? And what happens if we like, how do we avoid hiring that B player? And then next thing you know, the next day an A player throws their application in the, in the ring, you.

[Ryan]

Know, seasonality matters, you know, on speed to hire. If you're right now and you're looking into summer and it's time to go and we got to hire people like you just get in the office and you got to start having those conversations. A lot of people throughout the rest of the time of the year can really dig into a 20 minute phone interview to be a little bit more efficient with their time. And they ask questions that reflect on a story. A, players remember great experiences with detail. B, players will come up with something and they're foggy in their details. That is the tell. Ask them to tell a specific experience when they helped overcome a customer's biggest fear. Or, you know, I don't know what it is.

[Tersh Blissett]

What happens if you're in a market where you're like, it's a smaller market and like Savannah. Savannah. It's a good, good one.

[Josh Crouch]

Not Phoenix.

[Tersh Blissett]

Not Phoenix. And the applicants that you're that are applying, then none of them are telling a good story. Like none of them are. Are able to recall the details of the story. It's very foggy. Like you mentioned. Do we just hold off and say, hey look, we're better off not hiring someone than hire a B player.

[Ryan]

I still want to lean into someone that can articulate a why. Maybe they're fuzzy on it or maybe they're new to the trades too. I mean, I'm getting a lot of new techs coming in or maybe they're switching career paths. They're like, I was going to college for this, but I realized I can make good money space. Maybe they're jumping in so they don't have it. Do you guys remember the movie Cinderella Man? The boxer movie?

[Josh Crouch]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

The Depression.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Josh Crouch]

Was a great movie. Yeah.

[Ryan]

You know, the main character is getting interviewed right before boxing match and they ask him, what's your why? And he looks at the reporter dead in the eyes and he says, milk A like what? He goes, my why? I'm not joking up. I literally just have something in my throat. But my why is I'm here to feed my family.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

I will literally go die in the ring and willing to take that last death blow to feed my family. So I always. This is my book of Ryan. You know, I'm interviewing, I'm growing. I ask that question every single time. What is your why?

[Tersh Blissett]

There's too many times if you can.

[Ryan]

Articulate that I don't want them.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah. There's so many times that people do not self reflect enough to know kind of their why. Like it's like, and. And you're right.

[Ryan]

Quit on you. That's the person that jumps ship for $0.50 dollars, $0.50 an hour more. You don't want them to begin with.

[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

That's literally one of the things that used to drive me. The biggest pet peeve in the trades is when I would have those conversations and then if I gave one guy a raise, the next guy came in like less than a week later. Like, oh, so and so got. It's like because they talk like. But then again, that was also a par. The first company I worked at was not very well run, so there was a lot of problems there. But is there any other, you know, tips? And, and you, you brought up some really great questions to ask throughout this process and some of the things to do on like the reference checks. That's a great tip because I can't promise, but I almost 99% sure most people don't do anything with those because I know we don't and I don't ever hear anyone talk about those things. What other tips you got? Like any hiring tips or questions or things that can really help source an A player from a B player?

[Ryan]

I like leaning into the team to help be part of the hiring process. Let them take accountability for who you're bringing in. Let me share an example. This is one of my favorite stories. I feel bad. I tell this story way too often and this company's probably like losing their unique sales advantage of recruiting people. But you know, when they're going through a big rose growth ramp up and they need to hire a lot of people, they'll open up Thursday evenings and they'll do a fish off at the local community pond and they'll bring in a barbecue and have a bunch of burgers and some hot dogs. They'll keep it cheap, maybe some pizza, have a bunch of fishing poles out and everyone's out there trying to catch as many fish as they can. And they'll do a hundred dollar gift card to Bass pro shops for whoever wins it. And they invite all of their candidates that they're trying to hire to the fish office. And now all of a sudden you got seven, ten new faces that show up who are mingling with your current employees and you get to see real quick the personality who's jiving with who, who's kind of standoffish and somewhere.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, that's what I was going to.

[Ryan]

Say and then you as a service based business you need people that are comfortable talking to strangers and if you can't talk to someone with a fishing pole in your hand, you probably aren't going to be talking to someone.

[Tersh Blissett]

Well with tool set, yeah that's a really good point.

[Ryan]

Having coming up with events that give people that's just a little bit outside the norm, that can showcase personality is a great way to attract a players but keep the low quality candidates away.

[Tersh Blissett]

It's great. Like I've been taking so many notes here. Sometimes I wonder why I take notes because they don't really go anywhere and we have AI that does the whole note taking process after the fact. But I really, I mean those things like you had some golden nuggets in there for people who want to follow up with you, learn more, connect with you. What's the best way to make that happen?

[Ryan]

Yeah, I mean our website, AVA hr, you know, it's an ATS job posting, but what's cool about it is we really are centered around free content. So anyone out there is, I know it's a crazy season right now. Having the right job posting built how we just talked about. We have about 2, 900 hiring templates ready for you to copy. Interview kits, job description templates, email follow through templates, SMS follows or templates your job offer. Like all the templates you need, jump onto ava.com use them. Like don't reinvent the wheel. Use those as a framework to plug into AI and then say model this and write it for my company here. And you're going to find that having the right framework to start with is going to help you attract better people a lot faster.

[Tersh Blissett]

We appreciate you hanging out with us. I shared the URL in the the comment section and we'll put it in the in the show notes as well. So we really appreciate it. Everything that you've, you've shared, you've been so willing to share with us here too. I guess with that being said, Josh, you want to add anything before we close up?

[Josh Crouch]

No, I'll just reiterate that like I said, one of the best things that we ever did for my company was to get an ATS system. So I would highly recommend taking a look, doing a demo and seeing if it's a fit for you. Because it's it. Hiring has always been a painful thing until we implement ats. Now it's easy. It's like, yep, as soon as we talk with our leadership team about the next hire, it's like, okay, cool, put a job post up. It's not like not a burden at all anymore. It used to be like, oh crap. Now we got two, two and a half weeks of like work I don't really like doing and I'm not really the most seasoned at. So I would definitely take just at least do a demo. At least understand what it is so you can make an informed decision because it's changed how we view hiring completely here.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah. Cool. Good job, Josh.

[Josh Crouch]

That's all.

[Ryan]

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you having me on the trades. Anything we can do, we'd be here to help.

[Tersh Blissett]

Absolutely. If you have any questions at all, don't hesitate to reach out to Ryan until we talk again next time. I hope you have a wonderful and safe week. We'll see you.

[Narrator]

Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with essential business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating, and share it with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.