The Smart Tech Plan for Contractors to Budget 3% to 6% and Stop Overspending with Jenny Benbrook

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service

Episode: The Smart Tech Plan for Contractors to Budget 3% to 6% and Stop Overspending

Guests: Jenny Benbrook (Powerhouse Consulting Group), Hosts: Tersh Blissett & Josh Crouch
Date: October 22, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Tersh and Josh talk with Jenny Benbrook, co-founder and CEO of Powerhouse Consulting Group, about how home service business owners can revolutionize their tech investment strategy. Jenny dives deep into budgeting for technology (allocating 3-6% of revenue), avoiding redundant software stack costs, effectively implementing automation and AI, and overcoming resistance to tech adoption in skilled trades businesses. Her insights are grounded in almost two decades of experience in the trades and in guiding contractors through the fast-changing tech landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Rapidly Changing Tech Landscape in the Trades

• Explosion of Tech Options: Jenny describes how the number and pace of new technology solutions, especially for SMB contractors, has dramatically increased, changing the field so quickly that many haven't yet mastered their primary FSM (Field Service Management) platforms.
  • "The entire tech landscape has come completely changed... before most contractors have had a chance to get really comfortable with their primary FSM platform." (05:30)
• Marketing’s Evolution: The shift from simple, creative yellow pages ads to complex, data-driven and algorithmic digital marketing required a “whole new skill set.”
  • "You could no longer do this own as a contractor unless you really set aside that time to learn, to build. And that's a tremendous amount of dedication." (09:04)

Building and Auditing a "Smart" Tech Stack

• Redundancy and Overspend: Contractors often buy overlapping tools—particularly in marketing platforms—without realizing their FSM (like ServiceTitan) already has equivalent features.
  • "You might have a case where you want Marketing Pro and Hatch or Chirp... but most of the time, you’re paying for tools you’re not using or have redundancies." (23:32)
• Conducting an Audit: Powerhouse Consulting does a business and budget discovery—identifying goals and matching the tech stack, then auditing for redundancies and creating an implementation strategy.
  • “Do you have redundant tools? That’s a big one... Are you double paying, or do you have tools available... that you’re not using?” (23:19-26:32)

Notable Process Steps:

• Business & Budget Discovery: Analyze needs/goals vs. current stack
• Audit: Identify overlap and unused features
• Implementation Playbook: Assign project champions and clear roles so tools are owned and monitored, not “set and forget”

Change Management and Adoption Barriers

• Tech Anxiety: Resistance to new tech comes down to comfort zones (e.g., a large contractor still using pagers, pen and paper, manual invoicing).
  • "If I move away from this beeper that I’ve had for probably like 30 years... then I’ve got to implement this behemoth of an FSM platform and I’ve got to learn that." (30:27)
• Internal Champions: Avoid “super user risk” where only one person knows the tools—power lies in cross-training and shared ownership by department.
  • "We focus on really training and building the development internally to mitigate that risk or limit the exposure that a contractor might face." (14:27)

AI and Automation in the Trades

• Adoption Resistance: Many employees fear AI will replace their jobs, but Jenny reframes AI as an enhancer, not a replacer, especially in people-centric industries.
  • "If we can help a CSR understand the value of an AI agent in enhancing their productivity... then we can typically really gain adoption." (34:22)
  • "If you use AI as a tool... and you adopt it... all of a sudden you’re a hero." (36:20)
• Perceived vs. Actual Efficiency: Tech only improves margins if fully implemented and monitored—not just purchased.
  • "I've started to refer to it as perceived efficiency, where contractors are buying or signing up for all these products... but the misnomer is it takes work. You have to implement it, train, and then start over again as updates are released." (37:16)

Tech Spending—How Much Is Enough?

• Building a Tech Budget: Just as marketing budgets are set as a % of revenue, allocate 3-6% of revenue toward technology for proper enablement and scaling.
  • "Think about your tech in the same way and allocate a percentage of your growth goal to your tech because your tech is helping you achieve that growth goal. So it ranges 3 to 6% is what we find on average." (00:00, 46:03)
• Overspending/Underspending Triggers:
  • Underspend = can’t keep up or scale properly
  • Overspend (10-15%) = redundancy, lack of plan, profit leaks
• Evaluate regularly by running a cost-benefit analysis and removing duplicative spend (47:16)

M&A, Enterprise, and Future Trends

• Complexity at Scale: Consolidators and PE groups must standardize stack across locations, often involving pre-acquisition audits for tech compatibility/migration costs.
  • "We’re brought in quite often during the diligence phase to run that analysis because that’s factored into the valuation and the total deal. What does that lift look like?" (49:31)
• No Silver Bullets: Value comes from maximizing the tools you do have, not constantly switching.
  • "If you're using 1% of ServiceTitan, but you're using 90% of FieldEdge, that makes a difference." (51:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Tech Budgeting:
  "Allocate a percentage of your growth goal to your tech because your tech is helping you achieve that growth goal. So it ranges 3 to 6% is what we find on average." – Jenny (00:00 / 46:03)

• On Change Management:
  "A lot of what we do... is breaking down the resistance to change. And a lot of that is just the fear of the unknown." – Jenny (31:19)

• On Avoiding the "Super User" Problem:
  "If you have one individual who knows the product... if anything happens—maybe not even if they leave, but if it's a family emergency—so we focus on building multiple ServiceTitan super users departmentally." – Jenny (14:27)

• On AI’s Role in the Trades:
  "AI can be utilized as a productivity enhancer... We do need options... We are so people centric, so I don't think AI will ever completely take these roles." – Jenny (34:22-36:20)

• On “Perceived Efficiency”:
  "Contractors are buying or signing up for all these products... but the misnomer is it takes work... treat your tech as a team member—invest in it, understand it, grow with it." – Jenny (37:16)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00 & 46:03] - Jenny explains the 3-6% tech budget rule for SMBs.
• [05:30] - Discussion on how fast the tech landscape is changing for contractors.
• [14:27] - The dangers of relying on a single tech "super user".
• [23:19-26:32] - How to perform a tech stack audit and build a thoughtful implementation plan.
• [31:19] - Jenny describes the importance of change management and coaching for adoption.
• [34:22-36:20] - Overcoming skepticism and achieving buy-in for AI and automation.
• [37:16] - The concept of “perceived efficiency”—purchasing software vs. actually realizing its benefits.
• [49:31] - How M&A teams use tech audits for due diligence.

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Conclusion & Takeaways

For Contractors:

• Start thinking strategically about your tech investment: Aim for 3-6% of revenue, review and audit regularly, avoid redundant tools, and focus on implementation—not just purchasing flashy new software.
• Cross-train teams to avoid losing key operational knowledge, and use tech as a tool to enhance—not threaten—people’s contributions.
• Work with specialists (like Powerhouse) to get the most out of your investment, especially as tech gets more complex and critical to business success.

Connect/Next Steps:

• Contractors can connect and get free advice from Powerhouse’s office hours or reach out via their website (MyPowerhouse Group).
• Jenny and her team are open to questions and are focused on education as much as implementation.

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Contact Powerhouse & Jenny:

• Website: MyPowerhouse Group
• Free office hours and Q&A: Available on their website

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Transcript

[Jenny]

Think about your tech in the same way and allocate a percentage of your growth goal to your tech because your tech is helping you achieve that growth goal. So it ranges 3 to 6% is what we find on average. And that's really For SMB contractors, it's much different if you're looking at enterprise or private equity. But for SMB, look at about 3 to 6% of your total revenue goal and allocate that to toward your tech budget.

[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 creators 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]

Mark your calendars right now. October 27th through the 30th Service World.

[Josh Crouch]

Expo is back in Vegas for its 10th anniversary and we're going big.

[Tersh Blissett]

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[Josh Crouch]

And when you get to Vegas, come find us at booth 2403.

[Tersh Blissett]

We're dropping an AI automation keynote that will change how you run your operations. Save a hundred bucks by using our code SBM100.

[Josh Crouch]

You and I are doing a keynote on AI and automation contractors absolutely need to hear this stuff. This isn't just another trade show, it's.

[Tersh Blissett]

Where contracting businesses transform.

[Josh Crouch]

We're not just attending, we're taking over the podcast stage. Don't miss the 10th anniversary. We'll see you in Vegas. Today's episode is powered by Ciro Systems.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

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[Josh Crouch]

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.

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Sarah Tech Service Business Mastery. Today's episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.

[Josh Crouch]

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 sold systems before your team arrives to help you grow your business.

[Tersh Blissett]

Learn more at UPFROG IO. Hello everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You are listening to or watching Service Business Mastery Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Tersh Blissett, sitting virtually next to my co host Joshua Crouch, the much older looking fellow over there. Congratulations on 40 under 40, which I wholeheartedly believe you lied. I feel like you're 65, not 40, but no, I'm just kidding.

[Josh Crouch]

Matt Tyner asked me to prove my birth certificates anytime that stuff comes out about me.

[Tersh Blissett]

I have sworn that you were swapped at birth you someone else. Like it took you back like 4 years old and said hey, give him a new birth certificate because it's not the right one.

[Josh Crouch]

I'm just hoping by the time I'm like 60 or 70 I look like I'm 50 because everyone always thinks I'm almost 50. Now I'm like I just turned 40, like just this year. So Terrible jeans.

[Tersh Blissett]

We want to welcome Jenny on the show today. Jenny is the co founder and CEO of Powerhouse Consulting Group Service Titanium Partner and the first Field Edge Consulting partner. Congratulations on that. She is nearly two decades of experience helping the skilled trades businesses maximize their field service software investments. Under her leadership, the firm recently launched something that's really interesting, a contractor resource planning CRP service offering contractors a comprehensive tech audit and tailored Power Stack playbook to enhance the efficiency and profitability. So you are right up our alley here with this. So welcome to the show.

[Jenny]

Thank you so much for having me. I have been very excited to join your podcast. Of course. I've been a listener for a long time and there's so much alignment in the topics that you speak on, the businesses that you operate for contractors and what we look to accomplish for contractors here at Powerhouse. So thanks for having me on.

[Josh Crouch]

We're such great hosts that we let Jenny know about five minutes before this that it was live on social media.

[Jenny]

Surprise.

[Josh Crouch]

So yep, surprise. So hopefully you don't screw up too.

[Jenny]

Bad or I mean you'll have to forgive me in advance. I have a gaggle of animals all around me, so sometimes a cat will walk by, a dog will bark and you won't be able to edit it out.

[Tersh Blissett]

So tell us about you yourself and why build out the, you know, the Tech Stack connect.

[Josh Crouch]

Why is that such a problem? What are you guys seeing? Especially since you guys are consultants on all these CRMs, you guys probably see this stuff more so than most and it's changed.

[Jenny]

Technology continues to evolve, but also what's coming into the market as solutions for a contractor's business has really come at such speed over the past few years that the entire tech landscape has come completely changed. Honestly, before I think most contractors have had a chance to get really comfortable with their primary FSM platform. So I'll share a little bit about my background and what led us to powerhouse on the software consulting side because I think that story lends itself well to recognizing the need for contractor resource planning or tech stack claiming. Unfortunately, I did not make the 40 under 40 list as Tertia's introduction suggested. I've been in the trades for a while, almost 20 years, and I've seen so many iterations of technological advancements. So like you guys, I come from a marketing side of the trades. Back when we used to place ads in the phone books and, you know, and it was easy, digital marketing wasn't even a thing. But I was right at the forefront of that. So I started like right around the time that contractors.

[Josh Crouch]

I tell people this now because like, everyone's like, oh, Google's like a love hate. I'm like, I'm telling you in like a year or two, we're gonna wish we could go back to the day when Google was the only beast we had to conquer. Because the omnipresent approach that we're gonna all have to, it's gonna be intense. Like, you're gonna have to be a marketer that runs a trades business, not a trades business owner that does marketing. Like, you're gonna have to change your approach. But that's a whole different topic for another day. The phone book days, we all miss those too, because it's like it just placed the biggest phone book ad in the front and call yourself AAA Heating.

[Jenny]

And Cooling AAA or A1. And they were double truck ads is what we place, right? And that was like 10k a month. And gosh, I remember that shift when I work for a firm that partnered with carrier a long time ago and we did group marketing packages for contractors and it was, you know, the same package was sold to every contractor and it was, you know, meant to build the brand in the market, but also give the contractor affordable space. And a part of those packages were websites. And you will probably appreciate this or not, but every website was identical. The only thing we did was switch the logo out. Same content, same layout. Because like, those algorithm rules were right. And so we saw that first iteration where marketing became more complicated, it became technical, it veered away from just creative placement or you had to have almost a skill Set in order to be found. And we saw this consumer shift where they wanted the ease or the trust of finding and researching a contractor online. And if you weren't online, you started to lose business. But it was a really hard shift for contractors because you went from being able to run marketing internally or, you know, maybe have like your yellow pages rep or something like that, to now needing to know and understand the complexity of an algorithm. And, you know, so many jokes about algorithms.

[Tersh Blissett]

As soon as you figure it out, it changes.

[Josh Crouch]

Yeah, yeah. I don't even know if the people that create the algorithm know what the algorithm wants.

[Jenny]

I think it's all, yeah, I think it's.

[Josh Crouch]

It's all literally trial and error.

[Jenny]

But it was this big shift where you could no longer do this own as a contractor unless you really set aside that time to, to learn, to build. And that's a tremendous amount of dedication. It's not that it can't be done, but it's where do you prioritize that time to learn this new skill, to be competitive in an entirely new field where your customers are looking for you, where you're building your reputation. And so we saw that first shift and it was then building trust with contractors to help them to understand. And I've always had knowledge is power. Individuals understand what needs to be done. If we can properly set expectations, have a thoughtful dialogue and then explain, this is what it looks like, this is what you can expect, that eases their comfortability. And so we focused on that over the next couple of years is marketing is no longer something you can do in house, but now think of it like a technical skill and you want to outsource that. Then we saw this next evolution and that was where we're going from like, you know, DOS based to cloud based CRMs or FSM platforms. And that was like another like, oh my God, what about my Rolodex moment? You know?

[Sponsor/Advertisement Voice]

Yeah.

[Tersh Blissett]

F7, F11.

[Josh Crouch]

Worse is nobody knew how, what keys did, what you start pushing them. The Internet wasn't as strong to have videos on, like how to use all this stuff back then. So you like had to go find a manual somewhere or go buy one.

[Jenny]

Yeah. Or call, call your children. My dad's a contractor, he does kitchen renovations. And he called me one morning. We're both early risers. It was like five in the morning. He's like, jenny, there's no semicolon on my keyboard. And I'm like, all keyboards come with a semicolon.

[Tersh Blissett]

Got that shift button.

[Jenny]

But it is, it's an overwhelming experience to know that something that is so important operationally and from a profit standpoint to your business is not something that you keenly understand. You don't know what questions to ask, you don't know how to implement or manage. That can be a very overwhelming position for any business owner. And so when we saw this next tech wave of really Service Titan, I think changed the game, offering a true end to end solution for contractors. There was an interest and adoption, there was a genuine intent to want to operationalize a business by using tech and what was available then. But it's some of the same problems that we see across implementing any new technology, which is if there's not a thoroughly built out, full intentional plan, we're going to have hiccups and roadblocks as we progress. Some systematic issues, whether it's how was it implemented or set up in the beginning, or perhaps you've had labor changes, new CSRs come in and out, workflows change, processes aren't followed. So over time it starts to snowball. And what we understood was how important that data was. What we began to understand was how important important the data was in order for us to make business decisions. Whether it was increased training or financial.

[Tersh Blissett]

Forecasting, the accuracy of that, that information as well.

[Jenny]

So just like everyone else who started to implement Service Titan at the time, I was working with several larger contractors who had implemented and we sort of had to peel back the onion to figure out why is the data not giving us what we need or what we can trust. And the first problem solver was memberships. Right. Nobody knows what their memberships look like. The never ending question, how many memberships do I have?

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah. And how many are active? How many were like a one time thing and you forgot about it.

[Jenny]

How many, you know, their credit card expired and you know, we've been going out for three years since and you know, so I. And so that was the big focus. And what was really interesting is you almost see it unfold where it's this wonderful ecosystem where so much is built upon each other, starting from, you know, the first interaction, how what is your call booking workflow that affects everything down the line. And so it was a really interesting process as we began to clean up and optimize some of these accounts. And without oversimplifying the origin story of Powerhouse, one of my contractors had internal service titan super user and she left the company to go to a competitor. And you know, we've all heard that before.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh yeah.

[Jenny]

And so he saw it as a risk to bring on another individual who held that special skill set.

[Tersh Blissett]

They offer that to employees of companies who are using Service Titan. And I've often wondered, has that ever anybody by allowing employees to do this, it's exposure.

[Jenny]

If you have one individual who knows the product who was probably the lead on your implementation. Right. So they went through all the Service Titan trainings and migrated the data and that became your Service Titan super user if anything happens, and maybe not even if they leave, but you know, if it's a family emergency, something like that. So we focus on is building multiple Service Titans to for users departmentally focused. So we focus on really training and building the development internally to mitigate that risk or limit the exposure that a contractor might face. But it also helps individuals specialize in roles that are important to their job function where they can focus on more revenue producing activities instead of trying to be like, you know, your call center manager, manage the inventory module.

[Tersh Blissett]

Right?

[Jenny]

Yeah, right. So you want to make sure that there's alignment there.

[Tersh Blissett]

But when we have this conversation with business owners, we say, okay, so you need a champion of that process of Service Titan, let's say Service Titan, they need to understand it immediately. There's that risk versus reward. Like all right, me as the business owner, do I have to be that champion? Does that mean that now I have to learn Service Titan inside now? Or do I hire someone to do this? But then what happens if they leave and they have all this information and blah blah. And so it becomes almost a stressful conversation of like what if scenarios. And you've brought up some really valid points there.

[Jenny]

Precisely what we build out for contractors is developing that implementation plan and assigning key stakeholders who will own certain parts of the software. I don't think it's ever a great idea for the owner operator.

[Josh Crouch]

Maybe know enough to be dangerous, but probably not be the main person.

[Jenny]

Yeah, well, and for a lot of reasons, you want to know what it is, what it does and you want to know the data that's coming from it that you know, an owner operator has so much else that they focus on from running the business. It would simply be overwhelming to really move Service Titan or any platform that intimately. And so you have to rely on your team. Right. Your A players make sure that you're investing in their development.

[Tersh Blissett]

I couldn't imagine having to learn Service Titan from the beginning to the end right at this moment because whenever we onboarded with them in I want to say like 17, there was a lot to it, but it was nothing like it is today. And like, I look at it now, even with like an update comes out, whenever we get sent an update, I'm looking, I'm like, I just could not imagine starting fresh right now and not knowing anything about the inside of this program and trying to figure it all out. Like, yeah, that's just mind blowing to me.

[Jenny]

Yeah, it is. It's incredibly mind blowing. And I, I'll share a personal example from Powerhouse. My partner and I, we're quite literally software experts. Software implement. I mean, that is what we do. We built an entire company and served hundreds of contractors. We outgrew our payroll software last year and chose to migrate to a full HRIS platform. And that was, you know, it's a big investment. It's a big move for the company. And we went in knowing, how do you build a plan, right? How do you. Who's doing what, how are we migrating the data? Who's going to set up, you know, performance report processes? And so we had this plan, but what we realized is we weren't experts in that particular platform. We were not certified in that platform. We don't monitor their release notes or stay on top of their updates. And so here we are almost a year later. We migrated in September of last year. We're still finding little surprises like, oh, didn't know it could do that, you know, or oh, that feature costs extra. Man, I wish I would have known that in the sales process.

[Josh Crouch]

And that's the team that actually knows how to like, understand how software typically works, especially like a CRM and stuff. So if that's not your cup of tea. And honestly, a lot of people, I see that in the Facebook groups where they're like, yeah, what about this software? This software? And honestly, most of them these days, there's so many features and they come so fast, especially with some of, I'm sure some of these coding teams that are developing and stuff are using AI so they can code faster now and they can launch things faster. There's just so many features. Like, just to try to keep up with that and to use the full scope of what's available to you is tough. It's really tough. That's just one software to run your business. I mean, we all know, I mean, I have no idea what the average is, but I would guess Most companies have 10, 15, 20 different software that they probably operate different things for different use cases. But in that's in field marketing operations, HR with applicant tracking systems and stuff. Like, there's just so many things out there and then none of them Talk together. They're all in their own little buckets and nothing works cohesively to talk to one another.

[Jenny]

So that brings us to where we are today with Powerhouse. So we launched focusing specifically on Service Titan. You know, back to my buddy and client who was in the tight spot and he said, can't I just outsource Service Titan to you? It's less risky. I wouldn't be bringing on a full time employee. And it made a lot of sense. So we, that's really, that was the catalyst for launching Powerhouse was there was such a need in the market for that level of expertise with the software. So. But another really important part is trades expertise.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Jenny]

And I'll tell you, you know, it's one thing to know a software, but if you don't understand the trades or contractors business, you're going to have a very limited view of what you understand.

[Tersh Blissett]

Why they want this to connect, like why does that even matter?

[Jenny]

Right.

[Tersh Blissett]

That makes a big difference.

[Jenny]

Yeah. And so my partner and I, we both come from the trades and that was tremendous when we first launched because were able to leverage both sides. Both, you know, well, how do other contractors build it out or help me to anticipate? What do I need to look out for? What if I sign up or implement this module? What does that look like for my team or my business? And so that we carried that as our hiring best practice. So Powerhouse is very much a trades organization. Very quickly, like we came in grew with Service Titan. You know, Service Titan, of course, focusing on traditional mechanical, electrical, plumbing, contractors on residential. And now the software today, as you stated, Tersch looks completely different not only in, in the features and functionality, but also the segments of the market that we're serving. So we've been able to grow with them. And that's been such a great experience. But then as you just pointed out, I would say really in the last like two and a half years we have seen seen an absolute explosion of third party tech integrations that are offering solutions and awesome solutions. I mean the level of innovation is really impressive. And what we can now leverage with all of these, you know, AI solutions or is really upping the game for contractors engaging with homeowners in the way that they expect today. Just like, you know, 20 years ago when we built a website when contract or customers wanted to engage that way. But what we're seeing is it's a shaky foundation that we're putting all these tools into. And so if a contractor is not keenly aware of what's available in their fsm or erp, the core of what they're paying for that's running their business. They could be buying tools that are redundant.

[Tersh Blissett]

And I see that a lot too. Where you're like, why do you have. Don't you. Why are you doing this? Yeah, you have three subscriptions here that all the same.

[Josh Crouch]

Which one? I see the most common and maybe it's because I'm on the marketing side. They have Marketing Pro and then they have Chirp or Hatch and then they sign up with us and we have a messaging platform there. So they have three messaging platforms that all.

[Tersh Blissett]

And they're a train with their train.

[Josh Crouch]

For all of these things.

[Tersh Blissett]

They're a trained comfort specialist. So they get podium for free or no extra charge that they forgot about. And they're like, oh, yeah, I forgot I had that. That on as well.

[Jenny]

Yeah, I think marketing is one of the more egregious products. I mean, we have, we've identified several that are overlapping, but this is actually where a business analysis comes into play. And so what we've designed in contractor resource planning or CR is first a business and budget discovery. A business discovery is imperative because you might have a case where you want Marketing Pro and Hatch or Chirp. I'll give you a great example. Working with a contractor out of Australia. And there's a limitation in SMS messaging through Marketing Pro in Australia. And so we thoughtfully have to bring in this other app in order to fill that current gap. And so we do a cost benefit analysis when we're going through that business discovery of where's your company at today? What are your goals, your growth goals, expansion, you know, vertical new markets, you know, simply just selling more maintenance agreements. It could be something as easy as that. But really understanding what a contractor needs and then evaluating their tech stack against that. So what do you need? What do you currently have? And then we can audit and confirm. Do you have the right tools in place? Do we need. Do you have redundant tools? That's a big one. You know, are you double paying or do you have tools available to you in your FSN that you're not using that we could utilize that before we bring in another paid tool. So it's a really thoughtful approach to building a tech stack that makes sense for a contractor as opposed to I'm going to buy the next shiny object or you know, this tool sounds really cool or I read about this one on Facebook. But really ensuring that there's an intention behind the plan. So that's number one. But then number two is what is your implementation strategy. And this goes back to what we were talking about earlier. So it's one thing just to identify the tools that you need, but if there's not a plan to implement and to build it out, who will manage it? Who's going to review the data? You know, like there's these great sales coaching AI tools and they're phenomenal. You know, cutting down on sales managers, times, ride alongs, things like that. But if you have the tool and your techs are using it, but nobody's watching the data or coaching toward it, right? So then the second part of that deliverable is is let's make sure you know how to implement this. We'll put together that strategy, assign key roles and ownership and then tell you how to manage it on an ongoing basis. So you have this like playbook and implementation strategy for your tech.

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[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

How often do you run into it a situation where the company that you're speaking with, they're not even on CRM at all so far. Like they have no tech stack at all.

[Jenny]

That's fewer and fewer. I actually did just have a conversation with. It was a territory manager for one of the OEMs and he wanted to call on a contractor who is apparently quite a large residential contractor in his area. And they are still 100 pen and paper.

[Josh Crouch]

He ran into someone who was about. They had like 23 texts or 23 employees. Yeah, we had a kind of a discovery call to talk about how we can help them, like streamline stuff and do some automation and some other things. And we kind of almost fell over our chair because they were. No flowery pricing.

[Tersh Blissett]

No, they don't price it on the job.

[Josh Crouch]

They don't even. Yeah, they weren't even.

[Tersh Blissett]

They don't send an invoice from the. The job. Like, yeah, the office does that.

[Josh Crouch]

They would invoice them like three days later after a virtual assistant looked up the prices, marked them up and sent them. I'm like, hang on a Second, is this 2020, no quotes or 2005? Like, yeah, this is.

[Jenny]

Yeah, this is.

[Tersh Blissett]

And that's not even the kicker. They still use a pager for their after hours calls.

[Josh Crouch]

In our breakouts and our presentations, we do, we put a picture like we share, like where the trades have come and we share a picture of a pager and like Zach Morris on Saved by the Bell with the big old cell phone and some of these other things. And we always get a bunch of laughs because Church is. When he was first place, he was out on call. Like he had nightmares about like waking up to missing a page. And most people laugh. And then we run into this guy that's like, yeah, we still use a page. And I'm like, what? Like, what are you doing, man? We have moved significantly beyond the capabilities of this pager and things can be extremely instantaneous. But it was interesting nonetheless.

[Jenny]

Gosh, I think that's such a great example of change management. I actually still use my pager code on a lot of my. Like you need a four digit code and I use my V for code, but I don't because it's comfortable to me. I know it. It's something I remember. I don't have to think about it. So if I'm on the phone with like T Mobile, I'm like, oh, beeper code, you know, and I'm able to give it to him. But so a lot of what we do and, you know, planning, tech, optimizing, service titan, building a tech stack, all of that is really, really cool. And we're specialists in that. We're certified. But really the heart of what we do is change management because none of that matters if the teams don't buy into it, if the owner operator doesn't understand it.

[Tersh Blissett]

So you're actually going in and coaching the team, essentially.

[Jenny]

Absolutely. And that's a big part of it is breaking down the resistance to change. And a lot of that is just. It's the fear of the unknown. So, well, if I move away from this beeper that, you know, I've had for probably like 30 years now in every. So if I move away from this, well, then I've got to implement this behemoth of an FSM platform and I've got to learn that. And I read on Masterminds, it's a nightmare. And so surely it'll be a nightmare for me. And so we have to break that down or helping cross departments understand the why. Gosh, that we raise adoption so much just by helping to paint the bigger picture of what does it mean for you to close out a job in the field. Like, let's walk you downstream what that means.

[Tersh Blissett]

There's so many times, like our technicians where they. I've been with them in the field and they're like, yeah, we'll get that later. And I'm like, it seems like it's not a big deal. And I understand your thought process because I immediately thought the exact same thing. But let me explain to you why what you're wanting to do at this exact moment creates a royal pain for the office. And they're like, yeah, but they're just sitting in the office, they're not doing anything. They really are doing stuff. Like it. The perception is they're not doing anything, but they really are busy doing things because we wouldn't have somebody, like, we wouldn't just pay somebody to sit there and do nothing. So, like once. And then once they're like, oh, okay, I get it. So, like, if I skip this step, it really does create a pain point in the rest of the process. And then like something as simple as putting equipment in. Like, yes, it takes a few minutes to put equipment information in. And there's times where I'm like, all right, we got two more calls. Let's go. Like, we gotta go. They're like, no, we gotta stop and put this other, this equipment into the system. I'm like, let's. All right, let's get it and let's.

[Jenny]

Go to my own processes.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, absolutely. But then, like, I, I, so I totally get why they would skip doing it. And then later on we'll look at a job or we get to a job and we've been there five times and there's no equipment in there. And we're like, this is why, like. Or they'll have three systems and we don't know which system they worked on because the equipment's not matched up. Yeah. So then we're like, see, this is why we need it. And this isn't even office related. Like, this is field related. So imagine the things that could happen in the office as well. So, yeah, wholeheartedly. What do you tell people as AI is moving in and you have like, AI voice and like, I've talked to clients and they're, they've said things to the effect of like, the owner of the company is all on board with using AI voice. The employees are like, people here are in their 60s and 70s. They're not going to talk to somebody on AI, and that's their perception. They haven't tested it or anything. What do you say to something like, that's the error. Immediately they put up that wall.

[Jenny]

AI is scary. I remember some of my early conversations about it and I thought, no, it's fictional, it's not going to happen. But I mean, here we are, living it day in and day out. And so again, breaking down those barriers is helping to understand the wifm, what we call it here, the what's in it for me. So if we can help a CSR understand the value of an AI agent in enhancing their productivity, allowing them to focus on more complex calls or, you know, I don't know, unhappy customers or close appointments. AI can be utilized as a productivity enhancer. And if we can explain that and show or break down the fear that it's not going to take over your role, rather, see it as a gift to enhance it, to free up time to give you more insight or knowledge, then we can typically really gain adoption. From a homeowner standpoint, I think that's a valid concern. I think you're always going to have a portion of the market that's going to be reluctant to AI. And so as a business, you want to have options. I don't Think we're there yet where we can have 100% AI chatbots taking our calls. We do need, actually, I don't know if we'll ever be there. That's a whole other thing we can talk about. Will AI completely replace some of these departments? I think one of the cool things about our industry is we are so people centric, whether it's the customers that we're serving, the homeowners or the individuals that work in the office. And so I don't think AI will ever completely take these roles. But it's important as a business owner to diversify because you want options for your market and you are going to have older generations that don't want a bot, that want a live person.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, I think that's the perception that, and this is my belief perception is that these AI agents are going to potentially replace individuals. And so then as long as they can hold out and resist, then they're good, they're safe with their job. But in reality, it's enhancing your job. If you're not using AI to help redundant tasks, the things that are just monotonous work, that's busy work for you, then you will be replaced. If you use it as a tool to help you become a better csr, a better dispatcher, a better whatever it is that your position is, then you adopt it and then all of a sudden you're a hero almost. And so it's, it's the best case scenario for you if you'll just be an early adopter to it.

[Jenny]

Yeah. You know, you said something that, that I think is really important and that is if you use AI as a tool, and this is, is something that we see not just with AI, but really with a lot of the tech is, I've started to refer to it as perceived efficiency, where contractors are buying or signing up for all of these products. You know, whether it's service titan or, you know, some of these awesome AI tools, signing up for them because they understand what it can do. Right. They see the value that is presented in the marketing or that their buddy told them about, so they understand technology equals efficiency. Technology will increase my profit margin if it's used, if it's used. And that's really the misconception is I'm going to buy it and it's going to fix all of my problems. But the misnomer is it takes work. It takes work, you have to implement it, you set it up, you train, and then once you've done that, you start all over again because you know they released a new update or and so it's this living breathing tool that needs to be monitored and nurtured. It's not some of it is set it and forget it. But for the most part you don't want to do that. You want to treat your tech as a team member. This is something that you invest your time in that you get to know that you understand that you grow with. And if you can look at it like that, it does become an efficiency producer, not a profit killer.

[Josh Crouch]

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[Tersh Blissett]

Two months at companycam.com forward/svm. When you do that are are you personal like or your team somebody setting up meetings as if you were like a cmo, a fractional CTO of the company where you like have a monthly check in type thing?

[Jenny]

Absolutely, yes. That's exactly how you can think of the team at Powerhouse and we designed it intentionally that way. My past life I was a fractional CMO and that's how I knew to work with contractors is I knew I have to become an extension of their business. If what I'm going to do is to be effective, I have to know their business to help them anticipate changes as it relates to them. Understand if one aspect of your business is underperforming, how are we going to shift our strategy? Same concept with your tech is because it's continuously evolving and it impacts so much of your operations. It, it's important to have an extension of your business that not only understands that tech in the industry but most importantly understands your business. And so that's how we designed our services is where we're not only on the surface titan side for example auditing, building a plan, you know, building out price books or whatever it is but we're also.

[Tersh Blissett]

It's a never ending process right there.

[Jenny]

I know, I know. And then you've got all these different tools for price books too and but we're also what I like to say where their eyes and ears on the account and that's not just with the primary FSMs. But hey, I just learned about this new tool. I think it could solve one of the problems we're talking about. Like those are really important conversations.

[Tersh Blissett]

How would you possibly remember every client's potential problem? So whenever you come across a product like this, you're like, like, oh, that would sell so and so that would solve Mr. Smith's problem over there.

[Jenny]

And you're like, how we built the business, how we built powerhouse. One thing that's unique about us is capping the number of contractors that our consultants work with because we have such deep and extensive relationships with them. We do have a team of specialty consultants. So like you said, tersh prize books are never ending and nobody has a good one. So it's like one of the biggest projects. Contractors come to us for price books and inventory.

[Tersh Blissett]

Oh yeah, I can imagine.

[Jenny]

Yeah. So we have a team that focuses just on that. So if a shop just needs us to build a price book or implement the inventory module, we have a team that can do that. But we have a team of our fully certified service time consultants and we cap the number of contractors that they work with because of the importance of that business relationship. And they have to have the capacity to manage the accounts on top of the work that they're doing in the accounts, you know, the build out the trainings and so on top of that we have internal processes where for example our CRP team, this is our team that does our tech stack planning and evaluation. They're continuously meeting with our team of service titan consultants to educate them on the new products that are in the market and help them to understand this is how it works in field edge. These are the benefits. Why would a contractor want this? So we have our.

[Tersh Blissett]

That's a full time job on itself.

[Jenny]

Yeah, it is, it is and it's necessary, you know, because we have to have that, that intentional level of knowledge so that we are articulating the proper solutions to contractors.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah, absolutely. Josh, you got anything? Oh, we're, we're kind of a little bit over our time. A little bit.

[Josh Crouch]

But I think the next frontier for and that's why we started trade automation Pros is all this stuff is to streamline tech. Tech is going to be, we're all going to be tech companies that do certain services and we're going to have to streamline all of it, make it talk together, optimize. There's just so much that's going to be going on there now, you know, to send for people to get deep inside of their CRM. Like I know there's stuff that we're still uncovering. We use HubSpot and ClickUp for task management and for. This is for relentless. There's still stuff that we struggle to find and we have like we've been on HubSpot for almost three years now. But HubSpot is like service titan and like sales course, it's just a massive. There's so many features, you just can't possibly stay on top of them. So if you really want to implement something and learn how to get it all the way implemented so you can actually use. Because these programs, HubSpot's no different than service site. It's not cheap. Like these things are very expensive. So if you don't utilize them, they are. You are just wasting your own money. That's the nicest way I can put that.

[Tersh Blissett]

We are running H Vac companies and we're running plumbing companies. Hiring someone like powerhouse is going to be in your best interest. Like, sure, it's another expense to the line item, you know, to your P and L, but you can focus on plumbing and let the experts focus on the technology side of things.

[Jenny]

The way that the market is going because of how complex and overreaching technology is, it doesn't, it's not a benefit to know it at that level internally. There's a lot of risk associated with that. But, but quickly. And I know we're over time, but I think you said something really important that we focus on. A giveaway I guess to your listeners is start to think about your tech budget because that's something that most contractors don't plan for. The tech budget is just arbitrary. It's whatever these tools cost is what I'm paying. But Josh, you'll appreciate this on the marketing side, contractors have marketing budgets and those marketing budgets correlate with their growth goals. So you know that whole 5, 7, 9% of your budget rule. And I think it's probably a little different today, but a little bit more. You're allocating a percentage of your total revenue growth goal to marketing to help you meet that goal. Think about your tech in the same way and allocate a percentage of your of your growth goal to your tech because your tech is helping you achieve that growth goal.

[Tersh Blissett]

So we know what percentage is the good percentage.

[Jenny]

So it ranges 3 to 6% is what we find on average. And that's really. For SMB contractors, it's much different if you're looking at enterprise or private equity. But for SMB, look at about 3 to 6% of your total revenue goal and allocate that toward your tech budget. That's a great starting point. So evaluate all of your spend, add it up and see where you're at. If you're only at, you know, you asked this question earlier for A contractor who doesn't have anything. Well, if you want to compete in your market, you're going to have to up your spend. What tools are you not using? What features or enhancements could benefit or streamline your operations or help you to close more business? But if you're wildly spending, which unfortunately is more the case, if you're at like 15%, then we need to evaluate and we need to think like, what do you have? Is it serving a purpose? Let's run the cost benefit analysis. What's your return on it? Is it something you're already paying for? This is where we get into removing the duplicative spend. So that is a helpful starting point. If you're wondering like what's the health of my tech stack, that's including what.

[Tersh Blissett]

You'Re using already or like correct. That's not like every year we should be spending an additional 3 to 6%. Like that should be your total amount you spend. 3, 6%. Okay, last question that I have for you. How has VCPE world coming into our world changed things for you and the tech stack in general?

[Jenny]

What it's changed?

[Tersh Blissett]

I know that's a complex question, but.

[Jenny]

Yeah, you know, we have a sort of a niche specialty in working with that enterprise market because it's just a total. It's a totally different level of complexity because you're thinking about now multiple layers. So let's take an M and A business. So you have the platform company and they're going to have their own tech stack. So you know, you get into conversations. Let's go back to service titan. So do you have a tuck in model? Do you need to go on the enterprise hub? Once you've identified that, are you centralizing services, your call center, your marketing? There's a thought process that goes well, why would you want it? Why would you want to centralize marketing? Do you need Enterprise Hub if you want to centralize marketing? And so you go through that thought process at the enterprise level, but then you also have to evaluate the tech stacks at the PLA or the location subsidiary level because here's where you're going to have to trim down redundancies, tools that aren't supported by the platform or don't provide value or you may need it depending on that company's build out. And so it's a completely different evaluation process because we're not looking at one single company or instance. We're now looking at more of a network and developing an operational strategy.

[Tersh Blissett]

Is there ever a time where M and a group or whatever Group comes to you and says, hey, this is their tech stack, is it really bad? Are we going to have to spend a lot of time, effort and money to get them onto our platform? And it's not worth the investment into.

[Jenny]

That company all the time. We're brought in during the diligence phase.

[Tersh Blissett]

Gotcha.

[Jenny]

To run that analysis because that's factored into the valuation and the total deal. What does that lift look like? So we're brought in quite often first to evaluate if they're on primary fsm, Service Titan or Field Edge. We evaluate that, that setup, how well are they using it? You know most contractors really only utilize.

[Tersh Blissett]

A portion of a very small portion.

[Jenny]

Yeah, like 30% and which is alarming because you pay for 100% of it. And so we first evaluate that. So where's the opportunity there? What is the investment going to look like to roll that company up into the operational strategy? So whether it's rebuild or training, workflow development, but then also evaluating the tech stack. So what tools are they using, what are they not using? How much is it going to cost to bring on more licenses? So we're brought in quite often a pre sale to evaluate and provide that information.

[Tersh Blissett]

So Field Edge is acceptable to have as fsm. Whenever you're going in there, I'll just ask you. The reason I asked that is because like, for us, like one of our pain points is an open API and we don't have any access to Field Edges API. So when people ask us questions about building out automations it's like, sorry, like if you can send an email, we can scrape the email data, like the information from your email but if it's just pulling API calls we can't do that.

[Jenny]

So I know there's a lot of changes coming with the openness of their API. Yeah. So I think that that should get more partner friendly. It's a great product and it certainly has its limitations. Like any software, a lot of it is understanding what the software can do and then identifying how you're going to fill those gaps. So I'm asked that quite often which is better? You know, neither really. It's all in how you use it.

[Tersh Blissett]

If you're using 1% of Service Titan but you're using 90% of Field Edge, like that makes a difference.

[Jenny]

Yeah, definitely. And so it's being confident in the tools that you're using, understanding the cost to change, the cost to flip to new tools. And we see that so much, you know, not just in software but you know, everything is replaceable. Now. Right. So, like, oh, my gosh, I had one bad month on marketing. Like, I'm switching marketing companies. So it's really trying to develop that trust and understanding of, you know, what can it do? Setting the expectations and then making sure you're getting the most out of that partnership. Because they're all partnerships.

[Tersh Blissett]

Yeah.

[Jenny]

The companies have to work together, understand each other to develop the best outcome.

[Tersh Blissett]

Absolutely. Jenny, where's the best place for people to go to learn more, connect with you, and ask questions they may have after the fact?

[Jenny]

We love answering questions. We're very much educators here, so reach out to us anytime. Our website is that's MyPowerhouse group. When you're on there. We do host a series of office hours. Those are completely free and great places for contractors to get in, sign up, and get to know us better. Or if they just have, like, quick questions about their software, they can log on there. So all that can be found on our website as well as our contact information if they want to reach out one on one.

[Josh Crouch]

Cool.

[Tersh Blissett]

Sweet. We appreciate you hanging out with us today.

[Jenny]

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. It was fun conversation.

[Tersh Blissett]

Absolutely. We could talk for hours, days, probably. I know. If anybody has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to Jenny and her team. If there's anything that Josh and I can answer, don't hesitate to reach out to us as well. We'll put all of our contact information and Jenny's contact information in the show notes. With that being said, I hope everybody has a wonderful, safe week and we'll talk again later.

[Jenny]

Bye, everyone.

[Tersh Blissett]

See ya.

[Podcast 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 success, 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.