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Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
The Business Consolidation Tactics for SaaS Leaders to Scale Multi-Brand Platforms - Josh McCarter
00:41:19
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- [00:00]
Josh McCarter
If you don't have any of that going on in your business, where do you start as a business that's as large as we are? You know, I mean, we have literally hundreds of thousands of customers. And so thinking about, all right, how do we start embedding AI into this? For us, it was a logical choice to go and buy somebody that already had AI voice, that had AI agents very specific for fsm, and start being able to embed those into our technology. And so we're already off and running now. We've got it integrated already with Service Fusion for our invoicing products, Joist and invoicesimpl.
- [00:33]
Podcast 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 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 goals guide you in owning a thriving, profitable and ever growing business. Here are your hosts, Ter and Josh.
- [01:19]
Ter
Today's episode is brought to you by.
- [01:21]
Sponsor Voice
One of our show partners, upfrog.
- [01:23]
Sponsor Representative
Upfrog is the OG when it comes to pricing transparency online. They find system replacement leads through paid ads and have developed an entire system to drive those hard to find system replacement opportunities. Nurture the leads and book them into solar old systems before your team arrives.
- [01:38]
Ter
To help you grow your business. Learn more @UpfrogIO. I want to give a huge shout out to Market Storm for sponsoring today's episode.
- [01:44]
Sponsor Representative
You've heard of Google Ads, Facebook ads and SEO, but did you know that there's an entire ecosystem like 80% of the Internet that ads can be served on that you've barely heard about?
- [01:53]
Ter
That's where marketstorm operates.
- [01:54]
Sponsor Representative
They leverage data science and AI to build customer profiles for your ideal customers and get your ads in front of prospects before they are ready to hire a pro. Planting your brand in their minds early.
- [02:05]
Ter
And often to chat with a team.
- [02:07]
Sponsor Voice
About how they can help you grow your business.
- [02:09]
Ter
Visit Marketstorm AI all right, we're here.
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Josh Crouch
Live at Service World Expo 2025 in Las Vegas, surrounded by innovators, leaders and people shaping the future of the trades. And joining us today is someone who's been driving transformation across multiple industries, Josh McCarter, who's the CEO of EverPro. Welcome to the show.
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Josh McCarter
Right on. Thanks for having me, guys.
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Josh Crouch
So, Josh, could you fill us in a little bit? About what your background?
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Josh McCarter
My background's mostly been in technology. Got out of colle and started with this thing called the Internet and selling cars online. I was at a business called Autobytel. It was the first online automotive car selling service. And we really brought car sales to the Internet and was there for about six years. Started out as a, you know, an sdr. Grew my way on up into biz dev and then started raising capital and setting up joint ventures around the world. So it was a great way to launch my career. And then from there I went into vertical software and SaaS. And so that's, I guess, a bit of what we'll be talking about today.
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Josh Crouch
How did you get like into the trades? You know, because that's, that's a whole.
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Josh McCarter
Different, totally different space. I mean, it really came out of vertical software. So before I was CEO of mindbody, I had built a business that was software services and payments in the wellness space. And so we were selling to, you know, everybody from blow dry bars to spas and salons. And then I sold that business to mindbody, who was really one of the first vertical software companies that started in the wellness space. Public company, had about 65,000 customers around the world. Ended up becoming CEO of that business after I sold my company to it. And so that really kind of gave me the foundation of working with small and medium businesses and helping, giving them the tools to really, you know, grow their business and engage with customers. And after I left mindbody, I got contacted by PE firm, the big investor in Ever Commerce. And they were looking for somebody to come in and help scale up this part of Ever Commerce that focuses very specifically on home services. And that's EverPro.
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Ter
Can you explain? Because I know I've been asked this question 12,000 times today, probably ever commerce and EverPro. Yeah. And service Nation.
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Josh McCarter
Like how's it all related?
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Podcast Narrator
Yeah, yeah.
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Josh McCarter
How that it is a little complex. Well, I mean, taking a step back, so EverCommerce started out as a payments business that was called Pay Simple. And they started scaling this payments business up and started seeing that they were losing customers to people that were on vertical SaaS with payments. And so the founder said, hey, maybe I should go buy a couple, you know, vertical SaaS companies, put my payments on the back end of that and see how the business grows. And they started scaling really nicely. And ultimately over the course of five years, bought 54 companies across multiple different verticals. So home services being one of those, but also marketing automation software, EMR, EHR. So like Dr. Office type software, fitness and wellness businesses. So there was a whole kind of collection of different businesses and software that EverCommerce ended up buying. And then as that business started scaling out, they started looking at, okay, how can we group these more logically together? And so the two that are really the big bets that Ever Commerce are making, one is Ever Pro. So that's what I'm running, which is all of the home services and payments. And then there's another part of the business that's called Ever Health and that's the one that's focused primarily on emr, EHR type software.
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Ter
So with that being having so many different platforms, does that spread you thin or does it help be more innovative? Because, you know, sometimes you have all this other stuff, you get confusion going on and then other times you're like, oh, we have the perfect person over here that can do that, teach you how to do this.
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Josh McCarter
That's a great question. And so within, let's just focus on EverPro, because that's the part I can speak to the most. So 17 acquired companies, 20 different brands. Service Nation is one of those brands as well. And what we've started looking at is how do we start consolidating within those 17 companies and 20 plus brands into just like a little bit tighter focus. And so exactly what you're talking about is, yes, it got to a point where it was a little bit too sprawled and now we're bringing it back together a bit more, you know, tight and focused. And so just as an example, like Service Nation is a perfect example of a business that primarily has focused on plumbing, H Vac and electrical. But on the Ever Commerce ecosystem, we've got pest control programs, we've got security and alarm. And so we're looking at now saying, okay, hey, how can we bring some of the best practices that we have in Service Nation? Because building a small and medium service business, whether you're a security and alarm dealer or you're a plumber or H Vac contractor, like those businesses are very similar, right? Because you have a lot of the same kind of growing pains with hiring your team, scaling your team, marketing, generating customers, engaging with your customers, the technology platforms. And so that's where we're looking at how can we leverage that across more and really get bring the benefit of some of the products that we have, like Service Nation out to other parts of the EverPro ecosystem and at the same time looking at areas where we might have two or three products that Basically do the same thing and then how do we consolidate those down? So here as an example, we have Guild Quality and we also have a product called Listen360. Guild quality is primarily for contractors. Listen360. I've got fitness Studios and Jiffy Lubes. It basically it allows you to get feedback from your customers. So think ratings and reviews, reputation management. But Guild Quality is even more specific. Rather than sending out, hey, you know, do we get a five star review on this? It actually asks you questions about the service that was performed. How did they leave the job site? Were they there on time? Did they, you know, what did you think about their professionalism when they showed up? So it's, it's more of a questionnaire and actually somebody's just like review system. Exactly.
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Josh Crouch
You can actually get into how is the performance, how was, what was you, what did you feel throughout each part of the journey.
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Josh McCarter
Exactly right. And so it's just like that one level down. So now we're looking at and going, okay, let's consolidate those tech platforms so that we can have just one stack that we're managing and offer a better product to everybody.
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Josh Crouch
We'll dive a little bit more into software because obviously this is like tertia and I's love language here.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
Talk about software, AI, automation, stuff like that. So you've been a part of a lot of SaaS companies, so you know where that's coming. You look around the room.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
And there is a ton of software options. But it can also be very overwhelming for today's contractor because if we talk like a 1 to 5, 1 to $10 million contractor, they still have a lot of hats on. They're trying to figure out what software is right for my business. They're throwing money at something thinking it's going to solve a problem and maybe that isn't solving the problem.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
What are you guys seeing with the software adoption and what successful contractors are doing when it comes to that?
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Josh McCarter
The first thing was just coming into this industry. I was really blown away by how advanced people are with software usage because coming in from the wellness industry, I mean people were literally still doing pen and paper. I hardly hear you should have came.
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Josh Crouch
Into the industry like five years.
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Ter
I was going to say I was down. Yeah, yeah.
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Josh Crouch
Five years ago, like we were still. What's a CRM?
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Ter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
What's a field service Management software.
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Ter
Right.
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Josh McCarter
But that's how it changed. Right. It's, it's changed fast. And now even just talking with people here at the conference, everybody's interested in AI, they want to know about it. And they're like, you know, on one side, I've heard some people that were a little bit concerned about it, and on the other side, people are going, man, this is really like a new technology that I can harness that's going to streamline my operations and make it so that I can scale my business without hiring so many more people. And so I think that that's really the thing that we're seeing with, you know, with software is that it's something that people are engaging with and that they're trying to figure out how they can use that. But put it more in the background. Right. Like, you don't want to become an expert programmer.
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Ter
Sure.
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Josh McCarter
Or an expert in software. You just really want it to be able to support you so that you can be there, you know, engaging with your customers and growing your team. And so it really depends on the, you know, the size of the business that you have. If you're just kind of a, you know, a single truck, the software that's going to be fit for purpose for you is very different than if you've got 10 or 15 trucks and you're managing multiple people in inventory and so forth. And so I think that's the thing that people really need to understand is, is like, how do they find the right software that's going to be fit for purpose for what they need at that point, and then that can also grow with them. Because one of the worst things to go through is changing software. Like, once you're on a software system that's changing over, that is just a brutal process. And sometimes you have to do it because you do outgrow software that you're on or because maybe your software is not keeping pace with some of the innovation. And, and so that, that's one of the things that I really highlight for folks is, is find something that fits for you now, but that you can grow, that will grow with you. And also look for things that are going to help you with your operations as well as with your marketing. Because the more that those can be inte together because, because these days it's really, you know, operations and marketing is so intertwined. Right. And so having those combined is really important.
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Ter
Josh talks about that all the time. He has a digital marketing agency and we do, we trade automation pros, build out automations for these companies. And this so often that people are like, let's automate this, automate this. And our, our presentation yesterday literally was, I need to optimize it first. And Then you can automate it and then, you know, delegate it. A lot of times people will call us and ask us, what do I use? Yeah, there's, there's, there is a lot of confusion. Like you said, Josh, in the, in you come here and you're like, wow, that's a lot.
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Sponsor Voice
Like, I don't even know where to start.
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Ter
Yeah. And it's, it can be very confusing at times with you and with Everpro in general. How, how do you stay on? Because you mentioned, like, is your FSM keeping up with the technology? Like, because it's a large company, how do you ensure that, that, that you're, you're keeping up with the pace of the, the changes? Because, like, Josh and I talk about this all the time. If you, if you tried chat GPT a year ago and you hated it, try it again because it's completely different. Yeah. I mean, if you tried it six months ago, it's different. If you tried it weeks ago, two weeks ago.
- [12:04]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Ter
I mean, the beginning of October days and they announced all kinds of things that they, you know, so like, how, how with it changing so often, how.
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Josh McCarter
Are you able to even keep up with that con? Yeah, I mean, especially AI, Right. I mean, the saying I heard that I, I love is, AI is never as bad as it's going to be today.
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Ter
Right.
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Josh McCarter
Like the next day, it just keeps getting better. Right. Usually what I find is, is that you've got to stay plugged in with your customers, Right? Because you're, you're going to hear what's working and what's not working from your customers as well as from your team. Right. The people that are supporting and selling. You're going to hear where there might be gaps from, like the competitive dynamics or just certain things that people are like, hey, you know, I'm having a challenge with this in my business. Help me figure out how to solve it. It's a lot better to get that than to have a bunch of programmers come to you and say, hey, here's a bunch of things that we should deliver that we know people are going to love. Because, you know, half the time that misses the mark, right?
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Ter
Oh, yeah. They're not out in the field, they're not doing work.
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Josh McCarter
Exactly. And so, you know, we'll come up with ideas where we can say, okay, hey, like as an example, with AI in one of our products, we have something from a field note standpoint where somebody can dictate a field note, it'll go through AI. So it might be a little gibberish. Or it might be chicken scratch that somebody just types in in text.
- [13:16]
Josh Crouch
That's a big one.
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Josh McCarter
And then we can turn that, we talk about, then we can turn that into something that's actually a good, like a well thought out comment on an invoice and it's automated. Right. And so like that type of customer is not going to come to us with that. That's something that we're going to be able to bring to them, but they're going to come to us and say, God, you know what, at the end of the day, I've got to close out 50 different invoices. And when you go through most of the FSMs, you're dragging and clicking and doing all of this. Well, now you can have an agent that goes in and does that and closes out, you know, 50 different jobs, sends the invoices out with payments, links. Somebody doesn't pay it, they can have a go into a follow up. Yeah, exactly. And so that's the kind of stuff that's so cool now.
- [13:54]
Josh Crouch
Well, to your point, you just mentioned all these touch points.
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Josh McCarter
Yep.
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Josh Crouch
I feel like a lot of times because we're so busy wearing multiple hats, we don't actually zoom out so we can see what the journey looks like and where those actual drop off points are.
- [14:06]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
It's the same thing with the market.
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Ter
You listen to the presentation yesterday that we did?
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Josh Crouch
I did. I learned, I learned something in your own presentation.
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Ter
I love it.
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Josh Crouch
But it's so true because like we don't take the time.
- [14:19]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
Because we have a problem. So we go fix the problem, then we go to the next problem, the next one, the next one, the next one, and we just keep fixing problems instead of like zoom out.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
Take a day, take a couple days. And just what am I really trying to fix? And what. Because typically if you zoom out, you're gonna fix probably three or four pain points with one solution.
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Ter
Right.
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Josh Crouch
But if you don't zoom out, you don't know what that is, how, what is possible for that.
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Ter
Yeah.
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Josh McCarter
And, and that's what we hope as people come to the show. Right. That they're going to be able to get, they're gonna sit in a session like yours or they'll sit in other, you know, topics that we have throughout the week and learn something different about how to run their business or new technology that's coming out or a new their business. I mean, if you guys are doing, you know, online marketing right now, the change that's happening in SEO with it, you know, with aio and everything that's happening, you know, with chat GPT and perplexity and so forth. Like that's radically going to change online marketing over the course of the next couple years.
- [15:13]
Josh Crouch
We got some actually really good. We did a really good, really interesting study because we have about 150 clients and we literally had a virtual assistant go through all these different keywords for all these different clients. Look at ChatGPT, all the sources documented, all the sources for perplexity, all the ones for AI overviews. And it is so wildly different. I've told multiple people this church probably had probably ad nausea herbace. In two or three years we're literally going to wish we can go back to the days where Google was the.
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Ter
Only complain about Google all the time.
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Josh McCarter
Change every two months.
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Josh Crouch
But you know, it's like, it's funny with. I feel like it's with marketing in general. Email marketing's dead. This is SEO is. It's not. It just evolves. It's evolving. So the way it was is not.
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Sponsor Representative
The way it is.
- [15:56]
Josh Crouch
But it's getting harder.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
Which means you need more. You have to invest more in it. Which is not what people want to hear. They're like, oh, I can't just. I want goal and get everything I need. No, now we got to rank here, we got to rank here. We got to rank here. We got, we got plans for all of those things which require more resources.
- [16:11]
Josh McCarter
More people, more time, different strategies for all of strategy.
- [16:14]
Ter
Yeah.
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Josh McCarter
Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
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Ter
So one thing that I you were talking about with Everpro, the, the staying ahead of technology and ahead of the times and stuff like that, the more you grow. We talk about this a lot because you're talking if you're pro pe, anti pe, whatever you like the small business or you prefer a large company and one of the benefits of a really small company is typically you can pivot a little easier. Is it with EverPro being as large as it is and having as much, is it really hard to pivot whenever that has to happen or is it something like you. You pre plan for the pivot?
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Ter
How does that even work?
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Josh McCarter
This year for us has really been a transformation year because I came in about a year ago and then ended up recruiting a whole new executive team at the ever pro level because there wasn't one. Right. Everything was kind of down more into. Into smaller silos. And so that new executive team has really been planning out kind of the future. And where are we going to, you know, invest more? Where are we going to pull Back investment. Where are we going to reallocate investment? And so that. That's really giving us the ability now to be a bit more nimble than just, like, having, like, one huge enterprise. We have a lot of different bets that we can make. And, you know, one of the ones that I was probably the most excited about really leaning into was AI. And so, you know, I mentioned yesterday on the main stage that we bought a company called Zyra Talk. Yeah. And. And we were, you know, here we are, we've got a bunch of companies that we've acquired, and then all of a sudden it's like, all right, man, we've got to really lean into AI because as you look at AI Voice and kind of the revolution that's happening there and then all of the AI agents that are happening, like, if you don't have any of that going on in your business, like, how do you. How and where do you start as a business that's as large as we are? You know, I mean, we have literally hundreds of thousands of customers. Yeah. And so thinking about, all right, how do we start embedding AI into this? For us, it was a logical choice to go and buy somebody that already had AI Voice, that had AI agents very specific for fsm, and start being able to embed those into our technology. And so we're already off and running now. We've got it integrated already with Service Fusion for our invoicing products, Joist and Invoice. Simple. That's going to be the next area. And we have on those products right now over 500,000 customers that are on there. So those are a variety of different field service, you know, everything from pest control to snow removal and so forth. So bringing that type of capability with AI agents, we think is really going to kind of accelerate the growth on those businesses as well.
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Josh Crouch
How do you guys make sure when you're. You're lean into AI that you guys keep the human element?
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Josh McCarter
Yeah, yeah.
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Sponsor Representative
And one.
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Josh Crouch
Like, your team isn't like, are they trying to replace me? Like, yeah, because that's. Yeah, it's on people's minds.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
And I know how we feel about it. Like, honestly, I'm ready. I ready to keep adding people. Like, I'm.
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Josh McCarter
Yeah.
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Josh Crouch
People. That specific focus of things.
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Ter
But especially if they're good.
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Josh Crouch
Yeah, if they're good and they're good people. But how do you guys do it? I mean, you guys got a lot more. Yeah, we do. So how do you. How do you guys approach.
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Josh McCarter
Well, I mean, first of all, you need people to sell AI, right? So like there's a lot of, a lot of sales. And one day or in one day it might, but it's definitely not there now. But I'd say a couple of things. So first of all, like when you adopt a new AI feature, something that's going to be automated, and you guys were talking about this a little bit yesterday too, is that you have to babysit it at the beginning. You have to have somebody overseeing it, making sure that if it's safe for AI receptionist, that the answers are correct, that the data that's going in there is correct. And you have to go through and test that thing for a week where you're giving it a lot of the prompts, you're giving it the hard edge cases, the things that are tougher for your average CSR to be able to answer so that you can train it to be able to do that. And so I think that oversight in the early days is absolutely critical. And then you always have to have an eject button where if somebody's in the middle of talking with the AI and it's not getting the answer, or it's somebody that's just getting really frustrated, they have to be able to say, let me talk to a person, right? And be able to kick out so that somebody else can pick that up and run with it.
- [20:21]
Ter
Hello, home service professionals.
- [20:22]
Sponsor Voice
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- [21:47]
Sponsor Representative
Today's episode is powered by Ciro Systems.
- [21:49]
Sponsor Voice
Sarah is all about removing the clutter.
- [21:51]
Ter
And unnecessary touch points to run your home service business profitably.
- [21:55]
Sponsor Representative
They use AI dispatching to get the right tech to the right call automatically and job time efficiency to ensure your entire team runs like a profit generating machine.
- [22:04]
Ter
Get a tech upgrade for your business at. Get Sarah Tech service Business mastery. This is in the early days of the voice agents. It's been a while, but this goes back to. You need to monitor the tools that you're using. Well, this AI voice agent, like, okay, so a technician calls me or he texts me and says, hey, listen to the phone call that, for the call that I'm headed to right now. I was like, okay, whatever. I, I listened to it and he was like, no, you did not. I was like, I did. In reality, I listened to like the first 30 seconds of it and, and the, the voice was right. The tonality was correct. It wasn't like, it was like a robot sound like, you know, mess up or whatever. He was like, no, you didn't. Because I, I called him and he's. And he hung up and he said, call me back whenever you've listened to it. And I said, okay. Like, then I'm worried. And so I listened to the whole thing and about four minutes into the conversation with this homeowner, the AI voice agent starts singing. Singing and not the.
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Josh McCarter
Did it have a pretty pitch or not?
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Ter
I mean, yeah, much better than me, but she, her name was Sarah and she started just like, okay, this is what I've got so far, blah, blah, and start singing to the customer. And the client did not acknowledge it at all. Like, just kept going with the conversation and so awkward.
- [23:32]
Josh McCarter
She didn't know what to do.
- [23:33]
Ter
Yeah. And, and so then I was like, all right, Tony, don't. I start calling back. I was like, what in the world? He was like, yeah, you listen to it. I said, all right, Tony, do not say anything to the customer, but just fill her out and say, what do you think about the technology that service companies are using? Like something generalized question just, just to see if she says anything about it. And he, he calls me after the call. So the service calls finished. And he's like, she didn't say anything. She didn't acknowledge it or anything. And I was like, okay, I got to find out. So call the customer, call the client. And like, did you notice that our AI voice agent was started singing to You. Oh, you have an AI Voice agent. Well, first off, it says, I'm. My name is Sarah. I'm an AI Voice agent.
- [24:17]
Sponsor Voice
Right.
- [24:18]
Ter
But, you know, people don't always acknowledge that at the beginning. Listen to that. But she was like, no, you know, Service emperor does some weird things sometimes. So I just figured y' all were gonna try out singing, and I was like, oh, okay, okay, okay. So that's it. But, yeah, that.
- [24:34]
Josh Crouch
You almost should have. You almost should have leaned into that.
- [24:36]
Josh McCarter
As a marketing site.
- [24:39]
Ter
Right. But it really. I sent it over to the developers, and they were like, yeah, we'll fix that. And I was like, yeah, we probably.
- [24:45]
Josh McCarter
Don'T want to make a habit, right?
- [24:46]
Josh Crouch
Not a habit, for sure, but that speaks to the. The issue. Like, if your technician wouldn't have listened to the call, nobody would have known that. And it could have happened multiple other times when nobody's even listening to the call and finding out, because nobody's over. Over having oversight technology.
- [24:59]
Josh McCarter
Exactly.
- [25:00]
Josh Crouch
So it's. It's a. It's a challenging thing, because then it's like adding one more hat.
- [25:04]
Josh McCarter
One more thing to do somebody. Yeah.
- [25:06]
Josh Crouch
But at some point, the technology will get to the point where, like, you don't have to oversee it. You can spot check. You don't have to see. Oversee it for. You know, I think one of the. I saw one of the banners, like, like, performing better than. Maybe it was. Maybe it was evoker, someone performing better than average CSR after, like, three months. And so it gave us that.
- [25:23]
Ter
Like, after three months.
- [25:24]
Josh Crouch
Yeah. So, like, working with it for, like, three months, and then it's like, okay, it'll perform better than the average csr, so. Which was interesting. I didn't. I've never seen that before, but, yeah.
- [25:32]
Josh McCarter
I mean, when we were doing diligence on Zyra Talk, it was amazing to see the percentage of calls that go unanswered, like, just before something goes on.
- [25:41]
Ter
Oh, you're gonna trigger.
- [25:42]
Josh Crouch
You're gonna trigger me?
- [25:43]
Sponsor Voice
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:43]
Ter
This guy over here.
- [25:44]
Josh McCarter
It's crazy. I mean, all the money on driving the leads, and then nobody' answer legitimately.
- [25:49]
Josh Crouch
Josh, I'm gonna walk away.
- [25:50]
Ter
We legitimately created a program for that reason, because inside of their platform, they were like, oh, yeah, we have a 90% booking rate on the calls.
- [26:00]
Josh Crouch
You don't even answer 90% of their phone calls. Right.
- [26:03]
Ter
And then you're not converting 90%.
- [26:05]
Sponsor Voice
Exactly.
- [26:06]
Ter
And then you're the person that's in charge of marking whether it was a convertible call or not. Is the person that also gets judged on their conversion rate.
- [26:15]
Josh McCarter
Right?
- [26:15]
Ter
Like that.
- [26:16]
Josh Crouch
You know what, what's worse? I was on, I was at a digital marketing conference week and at a client that was, hey, we're slow. And I'm looking at the call volume like, this is like one of the best months you've had with us. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. So I started listening to their calls in. In Service Titan, it's a husband and wife team. So the wife's in the office. The wife is the one excusing calls where people ask about pricing. Excuse it, not a lead. And I'm like, and this has happened multiple times. I'm looking at the length of the calls and typically you can tell if it's like a three, four minute call. You're like, it's usually a pretty good call. It's not a solicitor spam. So I listen to those ones and I'm seeing excuse, excuse, excuse. And I'm like, but their booking rate says 85 or 86% in service side and ours says 60. And they're wondering why they're not busy and their board's not full. And I'm just like, you guys have to be honest with yourself. You like, you can't. The manipulation of the data inside of these field service management softwares is a big problem.
- [27:07]
Sponsor Voice
Garbage in.
- [27:07]
Josh Crouch
And people hear it, but they don't actually, oh, that's not me. Because they don't do an audit. They don't have like a even get. This is a great example. We talk about delegation yesterday, you know, optimize, automate, delegate. You can't automate the data auditing, but you can delegate exactly what you want to see and clean up all of that stuff so you actually have good data. You know, I mean, being a cfo, CEO of a big company, like if you don't have good data, you're going to make bad decisions. And those bad decisions could cost millions of dollars for the bottom. For top line.
- [27:38]
Ter
And bottom line, we literally had one client that we could listen to a lot of phone calls. We don't personally, but we have a team that, that's doing it to fact check our platform. And there was a customer that had. They were like, we can't take your call or we can't book the service call because we're booked out for two weeks. And you look at the schedule and it's like two weeks of maintenance calls. And the person that called in said the breaker keeps tripping on the Outdoor unit, which means we have a grounded compressor on a 25 year old system. That's a system replacement.
- [28:13]
Josh McCarter
That's a big number.
- [28:14]
Ter
Let's move that. It doesn't make sense to not book that call. Yes, the next available technician is coming your way, you know, and so not. And that's, that's the situation to where you're like, okay, it's not a bookable call or it's a bookable call, but we were busy, blah, blah. And you need to know that information just as much as you do like the unanswered calls because then you could say, okay, I need another technician or I need to slow down on these loss leaders. If I, if I'm like putting out loss leaders right now because I actually have some other no cools or demand calls that are, that are being missed because I'm filled up with these 29 tune up, you know, gets us in the door type deals. So yeah, that's. So I, I do want to ask a question though. As you're bringing on the companies you're acquiring, these companies, are the, the companies only going to be available inside of your ecosystem or would they still be available otherwise? And do they like, do you like engulf them as like, I don't know, that's probably not a good word. But they come in under you, right. And then you like, and then you.
- [29:23]
Josh McCarter
Shut them off to the outside.
- [29:24]
Sponsor Voice
Yeah.
- [29:25]
Ter
And yeah, remove their name or anything like that. I mean I see on the logo right there, you have to talk up there.
- [29:31]
Josh McCarter
Exactly.
- [29:32]
Ter
And zyratalk's still on there.
- [29:33]
Josh McCarter
No. So the plan for things that I would say already integrate with third party systems. So Zyra Talk already integrates with Service Titan and Jobber and Housecall Pro and so forth. So the plan is, hey, we've got customers that are there, there's demand already that's happening outside of our ecosystem. We're going to continue investing in that and improving those integrations, building up sales and support teams that are going to go after that. And then we're also going to obviously integrate it deeper within our own system so that we have some extra special sauce that we can, you know, because we can control all of the API development for our own systems. So there's certain things that we'll be able to automate that will do better within our systems. But from the standpoint of like, we do want to be able to compete with the same folks that you, that you see here, the Broccolis and the Evocas and Nexus and so forth. Forth because we think we've got a top tier product and, and we want to get that into the hands of as many service professionals as we can.
- [30:27]
Sponsor Representative
Thank you to companycam for supporting today's episode.
- [30:30]
Ter
These guys are changing the game for contractors with their smart photo app.
- [30:33]
Sponsor Representative
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- [30:39]
Ter
Try that for free for 14 days.
- [30:40]
Sponsor Voice
And get 25 off of your first.
- [30:42]
Ter
Two months at companycam.com forward/sbm this might be a weird question for you, putting you on the spot here. How, how does it feel having a product and then having the event with competitors products at the right. At the same time. Because you're very fair. You mentioned that you want to be able to have them here and.
- [31:03]
Josh McCarter
Right.
- [31:03]
Ter
Like how does that even.
- [31:05]
Josh McCarter
So the way again like when you look at kind of the broader EverPro ecosystem and then you kind of drill down into Service Nation. Service Nation Switzerland, man. Like we want to make sure that this is a, okay, industry wide event that we can a variety of different partners that are going to, you know, partners that are competitive with one another, you know, various technology providers that are competitive with one another. And, and we have to play in that market. Right. Because that's what the market is. This is, we're, we're in a capitalist society here. Right. And so we have, we have a free market approach when it comes to that. And so we want to be able to highlight and really at the end of the day it's like, may the best product win. Right. Like because everybody's going to come in and make a decision about what's right for their business. And you know, Zyra talk. We think the reason why we bought it was we think it's the best product in the marketplace. But there may be something that one of the other products does a little bit differently that might fit for customer A that's different than customer B. And so everybody should be here and kind of being able to, you know, to make their own decision about what's the right fit.
- [32:04]
Josh Crouch
Nothing ever fits for everybody.
- [32:05]
Josh McCarter
That's right.
- [32:05]
Josh Crouch
It's always a different. And honestly, competition drives innovation. It makes you work harder.
- [32:09]
Josh McCarter
Yep.
- [32:09]
Josh Crouch
Because you guys were the only game in town.
- [32:13]
Josh McCarter
Okay.
- [32:13]
Josh Crouch
We'll just keep collecting our check and not really building anything new. But now you're like, I got to keep building because I know they're building, I know they're investing.
- [32:20]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
- [32:20]
Josh Crouch
And I think it makes a better product for all of the end users for sure.
- [32:23]
Josh McCarter
And also for Service Nation and for Service World Expo. We want to be able to be the thought leader here, right, where we're bringing new and innovative ideas and new and innovative companies to the forefront so that there's a reason for people to come back here every year, right? We want to see this conference grow. This year I was really happy to see that we surpassed not only last year's, but 2023's registration numbers. And so that was really great to see and especially for all of the exhibitors that they have an opportunity to see new people, because we had more new people actually show up this year as well over the last couple years. So the more that we can drive new blood into this, we can drive, you know, new eyeballs coming in, talking with the exhibitors, experiencing the various different tracks that we have. That's how we think that this is going to grow and add value to the industry.
- [33:08]
Josh Crouch
So we had a few minutes left. I want to transition a little bit into leadership because I know you've had a lot of leadership positions over your career and trying to bring all of these different things together. So you're, you're rowing the same direction is not an easy thing to do. The bigger you get, the more brands you manage, the harder it is because you got people with different backgrounds and things like that. How do you approach that and how do you get everyone rowing the same direction so they see the big overall picture, but their piece of that picture.
- [33:37]
Josh McCarter
It's not easy. It is definitely not easy. I mean, Again, this was 17 acquired companies and 20 different brands, and everything was really run in different silos. And so as we came in, the first thing was we had to paint a vision for like, hey, where are we taking this business? And, and why does it make sense? Like, you got to paint that kind of vision of, of where you want to go and then you talk about the strategy, about how you're going to get there, how are you going to prioritize, how are you going to organize and really make people be able to see how do they fit in that, Right? Because if, if they don't see, if they don't connect with the vision of where you're taking the business, and then they don't see themselves in the strategy or within the priorities, then they're going to disconnect, right? And, and especially in this kind of day and age where, you know, most of the world is operating in a hybrid environment, right? And especially this business that acquired companies all over the country and then Covid hit, right? And then they closed down a lot of a Lot of different offices. We're a remote first business. And so really getting everybody to feel kind of connected and excited about that future and then building a culture around that. Right. And. And I would say that we're just in the very early days of building the. The Everpro culture, and a lot of it is going to be driven by the new leaders that we're bringing in. And so you've got to have kind of like, you know, your. Your company values and your cultural norms and how you want to engage with people, because that's either going to attract people or it's going to push people away. And, you know, as an example, like, one of the things that we're really trying to push is speed of execution and accountability. Well, that's not for everybody. Right. And so we'll see some people that are going to probably decide to exit stage left and we'll bring in new people that are aligned with that, you know, with that direction of where we want to take the business. And then kind of throughout, all of that is communication. And how do you bring people along and make sure that you have transparency in your communication? You're telling them, you know, frequently, because you always have to say the same thing over and over several times. And you got to say it a little bit differently as you're talking with folks to really bring them along and make sure that they're staying connected with. Okay, here's the vision of, here's where we're going now. We're on this path, and here's where we are on the path, and then here's what's coming next, and here's how you fit in with that, and here's how, you know, we want to. Want you to show up with the team and how we expect you to engage and. And that's really how you kind of bring everything together.
- [35:53]
Ter
It's almost like you optimize the process prior to delegating it.
- [35:57]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
- [35:57]
Ter
Yeah.
- [35:59]
Josh Crouch
Just in case you weren't at Arduino yesterday and didn't hear that 18 times.
- [36:04]
Ter
Talk about repeating it constantly.
- [36:06]
Josh McCarter
Right.
- [36:07]
Josh Crouch
For people listening to this, because we have a lot of. Of managers, owners, business leaders that listen to this podcast from your career. Just your experience in general, not necessarily related to Everpro, but any leadership advice for people that maybe they're not a great leader, but they're aspiring to be a great leader and really lead the vision of their company forward and.
- [36:26]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
- [36:26]
Josh Crouch
And where they should put their focus and energy.
- [36:28]
Josh McCarter
I'm a big believer in leading from the front. Right. And it Sounds obvious, but it's not. Everybody leads that way. Right. And so that's really about, you know, how you show up to your team. You know, how frequently are you communicating? Are you doing town halls? Are you rallying your team? Are you a culture carrier? Do you care about the culture in your business? And I had to, you know, if we go back to mindbody, when I was leading that business, Covid hit right here. We've got 65,000 customers around the world, hundreds of thousands of users that are logging into our system. And then almost overnight, like, you couldn't go into a gym or a spa or a salon. And so all of these businesses closed, and we ended up actually having to lay off, like, 600 people in our company within weeks of when Covid started causing shutdowns in the U.S. what we saw really quickly is that, you know, people are looking for leadership in those really difficult type of situations. And it gave us an opportunity not only to lead our team, but really to lead the industry, because we were able to come out with, you know, information about, okay, hey, where do you go as a spa or salon or fitness business to find out what's going on in your community? How do you start engaging with your customers through virtual activities and really bringing that leadership and being visible and present? I think that that's one of the most important parts of leadership. And the second thing, you know, people historically, you know, talked a lot about servant leadership. And what I like is a word called empowerment leadership. It's really about empowering your team to make decisions and to execute and to be okay to fail. Don't fail a bunch of times on the same thing. That's a problem. Like, be okay to fail and pivot and learn and then go back and execute again. And when you give people the responsibility and the accountability and you clear the path for them, like, that's also super. That's empowering for them. Right. And so that's a leadership style that I subscribe to.
- [38:12]
Ter
Ownership of the task.
- [38:14]
Josh McCarter
Yep.
- [38:14]
Ter
Like, we always talking about the ownership mentality. And I wish more people would own this. If you micromanage them and then swoop.
- [38:22]
Josh McCarter
In every time there's a problem, they.
- [38:24]
Ter
Don'T own it, Then it's like, why would I care? Yeah, you're just going to take it away from me if I'm successful, and then berate me if I'm not successful. Like, whatever. I'm just here to do my task.
- [38:35]
Josh McCarter
Tell me what to do, and I'll just go do it. Yeah, they're not Thinking for themselves or innovating.
- [38:38]
Ter
We talked yesterday. 80% is perfect. Like 80 is enough. Whenever somebody good or it's good or enough.
- [38:46]
Josh Crouch
Then that's in South Georgia.
- [38:48]
Ter
Yeah, right. So it's one of those things where you have to let them fail and then don't berate them whenever it does happen. And then there's a lot of times where like we talked about allowed others to start delegating or delegating things to other team members and all of a sudden it's like, boom, they're amazing. They're way better than anything we envisioned. And they coming up with ideas and like, hey, let's do this. We have a. One of our podcast managers. She literally is like, hey, terse Josh, what do you think about doing this? And we're like, that's a great idea. Yeah, let's do it. And so. And if it fails, it fails. Yeah, you know, it's what it is.
- [39:21]
Josh McCarter
You want to solicit ideas from your teams. I mean, I always find that some of the best ideas that we get either come from our customers or come from a frontline employee. It comes from somebody that's on the phone with customers, whether they're in sales or in support, because they're going to pull things out of what's happening in the day to day that you don't hear. Right. And unfortunately, especially as you get into a bigger company, the further up you go and the further away from the customers, you know, from a day to day, you just don't hear those things as much. And so that's what we really want to pull that out of our team.
- [39:48]
Ter
People want to learn more about Everpro and how to connect with the products that you have. What's the best way for that?
- [39:54]
Josh McCarter
Yeah, so here at the show, you've got a nice booth over there. And so that would be. We have people representing multiple aspects of Everpro and so that would be the best place to stop by. But if you're listening to the podcast and you're not at the show, go to everpro solutions.com and that will be. That's kind of the home site of all of our different products. We're actually in the process of going through a big rebranding. So, you know, by the time we reconnect next year, we'll have a new website and we'll have new content available for people to take a look at and check out Zyra Talk too, because it's super cool. I mean, what these AI agents and the AI voice reception, they're doing these days? It's really amazing stuff.
- [40:29]
Ter
Yeah, we've had. We've talked to Bradley Date several times. Yeah.
- [40:32]
Josh Crouch
Yeah.
- [40:32]
Josh McCarter
He's a good dude.
- [40:33]
Ter
Dude.
- [40:33]
Josh McCarter
Yeah.
- [40:33]
Ter
Yeah. We appreciate you hanging out with us. Everybody that's in the crowd. We appreciate y' all hanging out with us as well. Everybody again, soon. Thank you.
- [40:40]
Josh McCarter
All right.
- [40:40]
Josh Crouch
Thanks, guys.
- [40:40]
Josh McCarter
Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.
- [40:51]
Podcast Narrator
Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with 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.