
Loading summary
Zach
From previous life I worked at Amazon and one of the things 14 core leadership principles I argue maybe the most important is customer obsession. And the idea of that is stay really obsessed and do what's in the best interest of the customer. And so I think it's really that focus on for us to build the best product and to be as useful as possible. We really need to understand the problem and also have the humility to be in the field and to watch someone use our tool and to see where they struggle.
Tersh Blissett
Today's episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, upfrog.
Joshua 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 @UpfrogIO I want to give a huge shout out to Marcus Storm for sponsoring today's episode.
Joshua Crouch
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?
Tersh Blissett
That's where Market Storm operates.
Joshua Crouch
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.
Tersh Blissett
And often to chat with a team about how they can help you grow your business. Visit marketstorm AI 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 next to virtually next to my co host Joshua Crouch and we have Zach with Mantle on the podcast today and we actually had this scheduled a couple other times but it's crazy holidays and I appreciate you being patient with us and working working around our schedule. But but basically if you if you haven't heard of Mantle before it's we're going to get into a lot of details about it and but it's going to help you close deals in the home.
Joshua Crouch
And one what what I'm really excited about too is we're going to talk about a pretty detailed study that Zach and his team have done to understand what homeowners want in the home when when it comes to selling like it's going to be some really useful dab. We've looked over the report. It's really useful information. So if you're Listening to this, Take note of this, really read the report. Implement, implement. I repeated it.
Zach
I'm.
Joshua Crouch
Your audio is not broken. I'm implo. I'm literally saying it three times. Implement. What you learn from this to change your marketing approach because consumer behavior is changing. We'll get into some of that stuff.
Tersh Blissett
Some of this stuff that we need to be putting on our website. Do you know.
Zach
And even, and even marketing and how to think about getting customers to your website. It might, might influence a little bit of that thinking as well.
Tersh Blissett
Welcome to the show. Zach, if you don't mind, would you introduce yourself and you're a little bit about yourself, your background and what all Mantle is doing.
Zach
Yeah, I'm excited to be on. Longtime listener, first time caller. I would say that at a high level Mantle, we partner with the best contractors, plumbers, electricians, H vac techs, garage door companies to help them close more and delight homeowners. And really my experience and how we think about it is I used to work at Amazon. At Amazon, we were even talking about it before we started recorded. Really easy to find and buy what you want. I got into home services because my mom had a bunch of contractors in her house. Being the dutiful son, I was like, sure, mom, I'll help you with this. And quickly my head was spinning with sear ratings and refrigerant and variable speed. And the thing that I was struck by when I took a step back was it didn't feel like a shopping experience. It felt like we were getting lectured at and shown one or two options by the strange person in the home.
Tersh Blissett
And they're probably more just as confused too, half the time.
Zach
Totally, totally. And if you take two or three of them together and the different answers you're getting across all of them, you're like, wait, how do I make sense of all this?
Joshua Crouch
Exactly. Talking to three digital marketing companies, you're just, you're more confused after you talked on the third one than you were before you started.
Tersh Blissett
And you get. Everybody gets a report and every report's different and you don't know what any of them mean.
Zach
Totally, totally. And I think like taking a step back, and I think it really came from this homeowner centric view. And this customer centric view is just, hey, like it's actually a shopping experience. Like, how do you let homeowners feel like it's personalized in the terms. Feel empowered to make the choices. And more than anything, right. We can talk about all the features and functionalities. The concept's actually really simple, if not hard with. Without the right software to execute, how do you just let the homeowner be the shopper again?
Joshua Crouch
You know it's interesting you say that because we talked about this right before we went on because we're all big fans of Marcus Sheridan and I was just at a two day training and the question is first training, which is one of his companies was all about. It's not about telling someone what to do. It's about asking the right questions to get them to self discover or in this case buy to make the purchase. Because I mean most people have buyer's remorses because they were either sold or they weren't really ready to buy. Like they, they're pushed into a decision they weren't really ready for. If it's something that you know you want and you have personally made that decision and you click the button and you did the thing or you handed in the card like it's your decision, you own that decision. And it's the same thing when you self discover through questions. You made the discovery, someone didn't tell you what you had to do. You came up with the idea yourself. And that ownership I feel like has such a big piece of any of these things that we're talking about today because that ownership is. It's a big expense. Like I mean some of these systems, I mean one of my team members was quoted last week by a really large H Vac company here that they've had a service contract with. And with the price, it's been a few years since I've looked at pricing of H VAC systems. Since I was in the trades, dude.
Tersh Blissett
And I'm like, just run the other way.
Joshua Crouch
Hell, I'm like, is that for the furs too? Because we don't need the heat much here in Arizona. And she's like no. But I'm like what size is your system? And you know Arizona, everything's bigger here because we just like in Georgia where tersh is, you got to have a bigger system. It was like a five ton system was like 15 grand. That was the, the retail was like 18. I'm like for just the AC and it blew my mind because I was like, man, I remember building price books four or five years.
Tersh Blissett
Remember we could buy a system for 900 bucks.
Zach
Yes.
Tersh Blissett
Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
13 seer. Yeah. And it was like my goodness. And, and I'm thinking she's asking me about the price and all this and it's kind of like rejog my memory of all this stuff. And it was Kind of crazy to think about where we've. Where we have gone. That is a huge purchase for somebody to make that.
Zach
Yeah. Third most expensive purchase most Americans will buy in their lifetime. They'll buy it 2.4 times. Is a heating and cooling system. Unlike number purchase number one home or purchase number two car. Typically there's some excitement around the car, around the home.
Tersh Blissett
See it after the fact.
Joshua Crouch
Zach, you're telling me when you helped your parents, you were not excited? I was three to five companies and buy a new heating and cooling system.
Zach
Here.
Tersh Blissett
HOA says I have to put a fence around this thing. Oh, hell no. I ain't putting the fence around. Everybody's gonna look at this thing. It was expensive.
Joshua Crouch
It better shine.
Zach
Exactly, exactly. I better. Like, would I bring guests over to my home. But we're gonna take a detour outside to look at this condenser.
Tersh Blissett
Next to the front door. That way everybody has a look at it right when they come in.
Joshua Crouch
Hang on. Let's go up in the attic when it's 150.
Zach
Come on.
Joshua Crouch
Just come see this air handler I got.
Zach
That thing is pristine. It's funny you mentioned the condenser in front of the front door. Second ride along I ever, ever went on very early in my days in home services.
Tersh Blissett
We.
Zach
We show up at a home and the condenser is literally right by the front door. Like, it is literally in the center. And at that point, I'd only ever see two homes in this context before I was like, Well, I guess 50% of the time, the condenser is right behind the front door.
Tersh Blissett
That's funny. Well, at least you know, it's there. If it happens to be in a rough neighborhood, like, you know, it's not stolen yet.
Zach
That's true. That's true.
Tersh Blissett
So I didn't realize this, but you, You. You weren't able to read until 10, is that right? But still ended up in law school.
Zach
Yeah, I'm dyslexic, so I didn't read until I was in the four best Buds.
Tersh Blissett
We are going to be best buds.
Joshua Crouch
There's going to be no reading. It's going to be all voice text messages.
Zach
Yeah, totally. Totally. Yeah. So I. It took me a little bit longer to.
Tersh Blissett
To.
Zach
To learn how to read. And I think through a lot of, like, the support of my parents and a couple, like, teachers, I'd say took me longer to get there, but once I got there, d said add in. And so I. Yeah, I went to law school in a previous life, and there's A lot of reading there, I think, though, more than anything. And tertiary, I'd be curious to hear about your experience. I think more than anything, sort of dealing with dyslexia, I think two things became really clear to me. One is just the value of persistence, right. Just like if you keep chipping away at something, maybe it takes you longer than the next person, but you can make progress. And two, there's a lot of different ways to, like, get to the final goal. Right.
Tersh Blissett
Like, I was adult diagnosed, so.
Zach
Oh, yeah. Oh, that's incredible. Yeah, we're two entirely different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least at a relatively young age, I was able to understand or be able to put a word around why reading was hard and why I didn't seem to be tracking with peers.
Tersh Blissett
My.
Zach
Yeah, I did well.
Joshua Crouch
My, my first was just totally slow.
Tersh Blissett
And the craziest thing is my junior and senior year, I was at Georgia Tech. Like my junior, senior year of high school, I was at Georgia Tech. Um, so I was dual enrolled and I learned. I learned spatial awareness, like, very young. I didn't know that. That's what I knew. I could tell, like, math. I was, I was okay. I mean, I was good at math, good enough to do engineering, but I was. Had I been. So my mom was a. My mom was a doctor in education. Like, she's a teacher. My whole life she's been a teacher. And so for me, it was. She helped me just work around. I mean, I was never, never even considered going to diagnose because I was still doing a lot better than classmates were. And I learned a lot of workarounds. I learned all about how much I loved automation because I didn't want to have to read it three times. And it's one of those things where somebody, they would ask me to get up in front of the class to read and I was like, look, I'll take an F. I will straight up take an F because I know I can pass the test, the rest of the test, I can pass the homework, but I am not standing up in front of this class to do this. And then I ended up. I stood up at graduation in front of 7,000 people and I. That's the reason I started the podcast. I had. I have the speech impediment, which honestly is. Is more so the delayed diagnosis of the dyslexia. Honestly, that's part of what it is. And so, Yeah, I was 32, 33 when I was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADD.
Joshua Crouch
And dude, that was like 25 years ago.
Tersh Blissett
Right.
Joshua Crouch
Look, it's not often I get to make conversations. Always points out that I'm, like, there.
Tersh Blissett
70 years old.
Zach
Okay. Okay, boys. Okay, boys. Let's.
Joshua Crouch
Let's stay.
Zach
Let's stay friendly, you know, tourists. Was just me vulnerable with us. And I really appreciate you. You sharing.
Joshua Crouch
He's vulnerable. That's my time to strike. And that's like Cobra Kai strike. No. No mercy. Yeah, that's Josh.
Tersh Blissett
That's Josh.
Joshua Crouch
Awesome. So.
Tersh Blissett
Yeah, go ahead.
Joshua Crouch
No, Zach. I was. So it's interesting. So overcoming that. That obstacle, like, what. What was your experience, especially as a kid? Because kids. Kids are harsh.
Tersh Blissett
Yeah, totally. Totally.
Zach
I think for me, it was just this idea of really early. Be like, I'm different. Like a. I did pull down an hour a day. Well, I mean, it's kind of funny, like, how initially my parents were like, yeah, maybe something's up. We're on a road trip somewhere. They hand me a book. I, like, read the book, and they ask me about it, and I tell them it's like, oh, it's about a dog and the story, blah, blah, blah. And then they asked me, and I.
Joshua Crouch
Get it, all right?
Zach
Like, I understood everything that was going on, and then they asked me to read the book to them. And my mom got a little bit of a clue that something was off, that the book was actually upside down. Oh, the entire. Because I was just going off of the imagery and context and able to, like, figure it out. But, yeah, I mean, I got pulled out of the room. I'd get an hour a day of sort of individualized, like, tutoring. And in hindsight, like, two things can be true. One, really difficult experience in third grade, what do you want? You just want to be with all of your friends. But on the second side, it's also, like, really grateful that it was identified. I was able to get the help right relatively early on. And I think. I think one of the things that really left a lasting imprint to this day is how do you really try to meet someone where they're at, to help them go to wherever you're ultimately trying to go to. And I actually think in a strange way, it's even applicable to what we do here at Mantel. It's like homeowners have a wide variety of prior knowledge about their heating and cooling system. Usually very little, but, like, there is. There is some variety there. And so how you try to craft a place, personalized experience that meets that homeowner based upon what they care about, based upon their home, based upon what's important to them, where they're at to ultimately get them to the promised land of hey, here's a great system for you and Josh to your point earlier. If you get them, if you inform them, if you get them there and if they're the ones driving it, you won't have a lot of next day rejects or cancellations. Right. Because they were really bought into it. And so I think that was a really seminal learning from that, that early, early experience.
Tersh Blissett
You know, really quick two statistics that I'd love to share. So 80% of homeowners, when asked what Brand H vac system they have in their house, they say Honeywell because that's what's on the wall, that's the thermostat. And then 90% of all statistics are made up per George Washington.
Zach
I heard 95% tersh. So I might have to challenge you on it.
Joshua Crouch
But you know, I mean we actually use that on a slide in our breakout just to get some laughs and stuff because we get like a couple stats of automation stuff or whatever and it's like, yeah, and all these are probably made up.
Zach
But I have been on ride alongs and one of the things that we feel really strongly about at Mantle is spending a lot of time in the field. And so like any given week, 30, 40% of our of our team is in the field with contractors. Headcon ride alongs were straight up the CA or selling tech will be, hey, like tell me about your existing system. They're like, oh yeah, that Honeywell is really good or that ecob. And of course, I mean the CA are looking at each other be like okay. But it's understandable because like for most homeowners.
Tersh Blissett
Yeah.
Zach
They don't have to thermostat. Yeah. Hopefully they don't have to deal with it until it stopped working and some stranger came to their house and told them it was going to be $15,000 just to replace the AC to replace.
Tersh Blissett
Everything that's on my wall. I didn't, I mean until I got into air conditioning, I had no idea the thing that was up in the attic did anything. Didn't have a clue. I thought that somebody just left it there. I mean I was, I was ignorant when it comes to air conditioning for sure.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah. So a question for you is curious. So you guys are software company and education company, but what, what about having your team be in the field?
Zach
What.
Joshua Crouch
Why was that so important for you?
Zach
Yeah, yeah, I think it was partially informed. Previous life I worked at Amazon and one of the things 14 core leadership principles, I'd argue maybe the most important is customer obsession. And the idea of that is stay really obsessed and do what's in the best interest of the customer. And while we can be in our office and we can be with other sort of tech people, ultimately we are building for a really different user, right? Either a 20 year plus comfort advisor selling tech or some really nice old lady like my mom who's not even trying to interact with our software. And so I think it's really that focus on, for us to build the best product and to be as useful as possible, we really need to understand the problem and also have the humility to be in the field and to watch someone use our tool and to see where they struggle. Like, I think one of the more humbling moments for me as someone who like at the end of the day build software is when I'm riding with a tech and they tell me about all of their software on their iPad and they tell me about all the things that they like don't use, right. And I think that idea of like really meeting that frontline user where they're at and of course like the thought that's going through my head is like, I wonder what they say about us when I'm not writing with them. And so it's really focusing on that and focusing on making sure that we're building software that is usable and useful to the end users.
Joshua Crouch
That's awesome. I, I really like that approach from a software side, especially not being in like inside of these home service companies because a lot of times software companies will come in like you guys need to do this. And they're like, well, do you even know what we do on a regular basis and how we do it? You know, So I think there's the, the customer obsession. Super important on that end, especially if you don't know this, if you haven't been inside these businesses.
Tersh Blissett
So can you share about the report that. I mean, because you have a.
Joshua Crouch
Well, yeah, I was just going to transition into that because you put together a report serving over 400 homeowners about how they go about shopping for a new H Vac or new piece of equipment, essentially. I guess first of all, before we go into the findings of that report, why did you decide to do this? Because that's a huge undertaking to collect the data, know what questions to ask, figure out the purpose of the whole thing. Like it's, it's a major brainstorm just to even get started on this. So I'm curious as to what you guys were trying to solve or what you guys were trying to find or why you guys did this?
Zach
Totally, totally. I think that gets to another thing that's really deep in our DNA, which is how do we use research, qualitative and quantitative, to one, build the best product and experience for homeowners and for contractors, but two, also, like, give back to this industry that has been so incredibly generous to us and letting us do ride alongs when we had no business being in the field where we had no. Like, we didn't know the difference between a condenser and like a furnace. Right. Like, we were as acknowledgeable about Turch being like, why are we going up in the attic, the thing that does the heating and cooling outside. And so I think part of it's also an act of giving back. And, and, and Josh, appreciate you recognizing it was a big undertaking. We surveyed over 400 verified shoppers. So people that in the calendar year 2025 were actively shopping for a new home service appliance, primarily H Vac, but also some water heaters and some other things. And it was really this idea of trying to get inside the mind and figure out the attitudes of the modern homeowner. Right. We've heard a lot and we've seen a lot about how different things are today than they were five years ago or 10 years ago, whether prices going up, whether it's concerns about macroeconomics, whether it's technology. And we wanted just to get to ground truth to be like, what do homeowners today think and where are they being served and where are they having issues? And so that was really the background behind it.
Tersh Blissett
And it was all done in. You said in 2025, it was all folks.
Zach
The survey was conducted late summer, early fall, and was for all people that had been in the shopping experience in 2025. So all relatively recent shoppers.
Joshua Crouch
How do you, how do you find people that.
Tersh Blissett
Yeah, well, I'm also curious if it's changed a lot because lord knows, think 2020, moving forward. Things have changed crazy. And I feel like this is a feeling. I don't have statistics. I have, I haven't, I haven't done the research, but I believe that we made bank in 2020, 2021, 2022, because we were selling systems that should have been sold in 23, 24, 25, 26, and now we're filling it. So I'm curious, obviously you do this in 25, but I'm curious if it's. If the habits have changed between then and now.
Zach
Yeah, yeah, I Think one of the things that we're really excited is given the incredible reception that we've gotten from contractors and also some of the things it's allowed us to focus on internally. This will now be something we'll do every year. So few years ter we'll know the definitive answer to that. I. I think broadly what you'll see is, I think you do see there are certain maybe lasting truths that this calls out how focused homeowners are on pricing. Right. I actually don't think that's actually changed that much, even though I think often as an industry, we need to be reminded of that reality. Yeah, we can, we can dive into it. But I do think, like just some of the trends around how homeowners discover contractors. Right. Like ChatGPT. Claude wasn't around four years ago. Right. So that has changed. And so I do think that there is this interesting juxtaposition of some new truths, some new revelations, while also just really underscoring some things that probably there have been sort of the founding fathers of our industry who've been for many a years telling us that price isn't the most important thing, regardless of what we might think.
Tersh Blissett
Okay, I agree with you 100% on that one. Where as contractors, are we making the biggest mistake right now?
Zach
Yeah, that's a great, great question. I think three things, really.
Tersh Blissett
I don't know if you have the answer to that. I don't have any idea.
Zach
Yeah, no. I mean, I could tell you what the data says. Right. And for this, we'll focus really on the report, even though we also have a bunch of other data, by the nature of our platform. I think the biggest thing is we think price matters a lot more than it actually does. 69% of homeowners say that price isn't the most important thing.
Tersh Blissett
What do they say is the most important thing?
Zach
It's depends on the person. Right. Comfort, quality of install, energy, efficiency. Like a depends. But it all gets to value rather than just price. Yeah. Do you think, do you think, do.
Joshua Crouch
You think the reason that's on the top of people's mind is because, like, when they call, the first question they're asking is, what's a ballpark range for something? Because they're. Because they don't know the answer. And so they start this. So the contractor's like, all they care about is price. That's all. All they ever ask me. So I feel like there's almost like some recency bias of like, that's all they ask. So that must be all they care about. But when a homeowner has to fill out a survey and actually think through these things of like, what is really important to me and my home and my family, it's like, well, I don't want to have to keep calling back the H Vac guy because they did a shitty install. I want their new system that I invest in to last a long time because I'm going to be in this home. Like, there's just a, a lot of different things go through their head that contractors is like, well, all they do is ask about price. They don't ask about the quality of the piece of equipment or the quality of my team. And so I feel like there's just, that's where some of this divergence happens. And there's just different things that they think because they see it, but they don't actually have a survey such as this to dive into those numbers.
Zach
I think that that definitely contributes to it. I also think of the old adage of price is only the most important thing when you don't understand anything else. And if you truly. When me and my mom knew nothing about navigating this purchase. Yeah. What is, what is it for that low load sear 2 right now it's even more confusing then what can we compare it to price? Right. I know that 7,000 is more expensive than 5,000. And so I think that as an industry, and I'll be straight up, right. Like it is easier to sell toilet paper on Amazon than it is to sell a heating and cooling comfort system to a random home that you're, you're walking into. It's a complex purchase.
Tersh Blissett
If, if it's 115 degrees outside and nobody else even answer their phones. Yeah, that's, that's a shoe one. That one's a shoe in. But right now, this time of year, you're right. 100%. Totally. Totally.
Zach
And so I think it's just there is a lot of educating that when it happens. It makes it really clear to the homeowner and they are empowered to make the right choice for them. I think something else that we haven't really talked a ton about, but maybe the second mistake. One is we think price matters a lot more than it does. Two, as an industry, typically we present at homeowners, we basically lecture at homeowners. Right. I'm going to give you a 20 minute spiel right over there. On the other side of it, you'll get to spend $20,000 with me. Right? Like what else do you spend? $20,000. That you have to deal like a monologue to get through it. And so I think making it interactive and really empowering the homeowner, giving them choice, making it personalized is the second thing and the third thing. And it's not rocket science. It's responsiveness. It's that reviews and reputations matter. It's how quickly are you responding back to folks. Are you following through, Are you doing the basics, that it's really easy that when times are really Busy and it's 115 degrees in Georgia. Right. To. To let that stuff slip through the cracks now. Yeah.
Tersh Blissett
The education side that you mentioned.
Joshua Crouch
Do.
Tersh Blissett
We need to be like, I'll bring my mom up again. She has a doctorate in education. Do we need to have that? Or is this. Are you referring to we need to start educating before they've even called us?
Zach
Yeah.
Tersh Blissett
How do we know what to educate them on?
Zach
Yeah, I feel like. I feel like Josh might be able to share some thoughts on one part of it. I think the reality is that most homeowners know very little when they start these journeys. Right. And so they don't need a five hour lecture on the basics of thermodynamics and how heating and cooling systems work, but five or ten minutes of the basics and just even asking them questions about like, what is the trade off? So one of the things that stands out to me, sitting around one of our, we don't have customers, we have partners. So one of our partners offices and someone calls in and they just bought a brand new variable speed, very high end system. They call and they're like, it's not working. And of course, the person that's picking up the call is kind of mortified. Like, this person just spent a lot of money and they're like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. Like, why is it not. Or like, how is it not working? You're like, we can't hear it. And we could hear the old system, but we can't hear this one. At which point they were like, oh, like, ma'. Am. Like, it is. It is working. It's just. This is now quiet. And so that's part of education, is that a lot of times homeowners aren't even aware what's possible. Like, their system doesn't have to sound like a freight train going by their patio when it kicks on. Yeah.
Tersh Blissett
That actually is a common conversation that I have with people that like. And I've had that one for years, since they first came out with variable speed blower motors. I mean, and Then the inverters came out or they became mainstream and people are like, my unit never shuts off. They're looking at the fan, outside the physical fan and right. Well we don't want it to shut off completely. We just want it to ram down, just slow down. So it's like cruise control in your car and like your car's cruise control speeds up, slows down, you don't have to put your foot on the accelerator. And it's honestly having a conversation just like that, framing it in a mind that they are familiar with like cruise control or what is it, what do they call it? Intelligent cruise control. Where like it sees a vehicle in front of you and it starts slowing down automatically.
Joshua Crouch
That just scares me all the time, dude.
Tersh Blissett
I want to get closer to that car. Like I want them to know I'm back here so they get out the way.
Zach
So you know what's, you know, waymos like, you know, the autonomous taxis and sf they originally were incredibly like polite where it was known that you could kind of cut them off and they'd always take it. They've recently changed the setting to make them confidently assertive. That's the official term where that they're now not quite being so polite and constantly getting past because they were like proverbial old lady driver. Which I, I also like love that evolution. Right? Which is like we are now making our robots like a little bit more assertive and slightly less polite.
Tersh Blissett
Yes.
Joshua Crouch
That's like most humans, 100%.
Tersh Blissett
The option to flash your light sound too. Hello, home service professionals. Do you want to maximize your marketing budget? Then you need to be using call tracking from Call Rail. Let's say you've noticed a spike in new leads this month. To find out what's driving them, you just log into your CallRail dashboard. Is my new Facebook ad outperforming my other ads or is paid search knocking it out of the park? Or maybe it's time to retire those newspaper ads. Since CallRail assigns a unique phone number to each of my marketing efforts, I know where my best leads come from and which efforts to scrap. CallRail shows you your most cost effective marketing channels so you can get back to business. Go to CallRail.com sbmpod and try it for free.
Joshua Crouch
Today's episode is powered by Ciro Systems.
Tersh Blissett
Sira is all about removing the clutter and unnecessary touch points to run your home service business profitably.
Joshua 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.
Tersh Blissett
Get a tech upgrade for your business at. Get Sarah Tech service Business mastery.
Joshua Crouch
Zach, I got some. Some questions because as you and Tersh were talking and the. The report in the background, just to get a little deeper into it. So you mentioned the. The piece about price that we, the contractors, think it's a lot more important than it really is. Let's dive into how homeowners that you surveyed are finding contractors, because I know a lot of contractors really care about this. And this will get into some deeper questions, but I'm really curious as to what the. The survey mentioned when it came to, like, how do we find who to work with or who to let in our home in the first place?
Zach
Yeah. Well, Josh, it sounds like you've done your homework and maybe I did it.
Joshua Crouch
30 seconds ago, so.
Zach
No, it's great. But I only asked because now Tertia's like, it sounds like church baby is slightly less. Less.
Joshua Crouch
I'm a fast reader, so I'm the opposite of you guys. So I can read it really fast. Be like, okay, co.
Zach
Still talk. We're still. Ter and I are still on the first sentence, but we'll eventually read the whole report. But Ter, here, here's my question to you. What percentage of homeowners do you think who shopped in 2025 found their contractor via, like, Geni? So Claude Chachi, BT.
Tersh Blissett
I don't know, because that's. I mean, depending on what age group we're talking to, I. I would probably say 5%.
Zach
Good guess. It was 3%. Yeah.
Tersh Blissett
Look at me go. I wanted to say 50.
Joshua Crouch
So.
Tersh Blissett
Zach, that wasn't right.
Joshua Crouch
And. And anyone that knows me on the marketing side has seen even see my post earlier today on Facebook. If you haven't, go check that out.
Zach
But.
Joshua Crouch
So what you're saying is I shouldn't throw my marketing dollars into AI search just yet.
Zach
What I'm saying is that Most likely tomorrow, 97 of your prospective homeowners will not find you via AI search. You might then beg the question, be like, hey, hey, but Zach, you know, I'm in a. I'm in a young community, right? Like, I've got all these millennials around. At which point I'd say, like, okay, okay, fair point. It is slightly different. Millennials. It's a whopping 4.5%. Well, you still doesn't really. I mean, you.
Tersh Blissett
You probably remembered this more than a lot of people, but there was a period of time where Amazon was really trying to get that market share and they wanted to be Able to say hey Alexa or whatever. That's his name. Right. Send a service technician here. My air conditioned brute sends somebody out here and it just didn't catch on.
Joshua Crouch
That's because the contract industry freaking hated it. I remember when that Amazon Home Services came out and it was like a thousand dollars to install your air conditioner. I'm like, oh dude, this is not gonna go well. I get it. But again, they probably should have done a little more research and ride alongs to figure out that that was gonna hit a. That was gonna hit a brick wall. But I am interested to get back to the survey.
Tersh Blissett
So.
Joshua Crouch
Okay, so we've established that AI search isn't really mainstream yet. Where are they finding these people? And what. Because the avenues are. Not everyone would probably be like well 97's Google then.
Zach
Right.
Joshua Crouch
Because that's where everyone else finds everything. But it. I know it's not that. So what. What did you find in the survey?
Zach
Yeah, so Google is the leading source, but it is 33, 34. Right. So it is the leading source, but it isn't even the majority previously used. Right. Had some previous relationship with that contractor. Nearly neck and neck with that is was a referral from a friend, a neighbor. Right. Social media and other sort of 10%. So what you see is Google still the largest chunk, but it's not a majority. Right. It is basically Google. It is. I've interacted with them before. It is. I've heard about it from someone in my community and a few percentage of the time it's. I found it on ChatGPT. Yeah.
Tersh Blissett
Like and then branding. They're com more comfortable if they recognize the brand and sure. And trust it. Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah, that's super interesting. And I think how does, how does the reput. You mentioned reputation just a little bit previously. How does that play a part into how they select who comes in the home?
Zach
Yeah, it's great. It's a great question. Over 50% of homeowners say that online reviews was really critical for the contractor they ultimately selected. Right. And so that is really important. And what is your presence and what can homeowners understand about you and about the experience they'll have with you. And so that's a really important factor along this experience and sort of paired with that. Sure there's online reviews, but it's also the reality that over half of the time the reason why they are choosing a contractor is because they used them before relationship. Or they heard about it from their friend or their neighbor. Again, relationship. Right. So I think.
Joshua Crouch
And A lot of that relationship ties into reputation because if they had a good experience, they're going to refer. So it's not maybe not an online review, but it's a personal review of hey, I worked with Tersh's company. They were great sent. They had made sure to have them out.
Zach
Totally, totally. Which jumping ahead a little bit like that also means that for the homeowner, our industry really focuses on replacement. It makes sense. Big ticket really moves the needles for most contractors, 60 to 80% of their revenue. And so when a homeowner lets you know, hey, we're not moving forward, like one, do you ever find that out? And we talk about mechanisms to ensure that. But two, what is your response then? Because while they decided not to go with you if you've treated them really well, particularly in that final moment.
Joshua Crouch
Right.
Zach
I always like to say the mark of someone's character is how they respond when you give them bad news. Right. For sure. We're burning this whole thing down. Yeah, yeah, I'm coming and I'm burning your. No, I'm glad that's not recorded or anything. No, but, but I think that that's also really important, which is like, what do you do if things don't work out? Because that does build your reputation. And so what systems do you have in place to ensure that you are really treating every homeowner phenomenally and no one's falling through the cracks? We do these interviews with homeowners, send them down, 30 minutes, etc. Etc. And I asked one homeowner, I was like, how many contractors did you contact? She was like, six. It's like six. That's a lot. She's like, yeah, yeah, I, that was my reaction.
Joshua Crouch
She was like, who wants six contractors in their home?
Zach
Well, I mean, here's the interesting. She was like, I expect three of them wouldn't call me back or wouldn't show up. I was like, okay, so, so, so how many showed up? She was like, three. I was like, makes sense. And so I think that drop off throughout the entire process. And that's where you see responsiveness and promptness and follow up and communication is really important as well, is commonplace. Today is a lot of balls are getting dropped. And that's where I think it's really important that you have a sales process and a sales platform that ensures that no one slips through the cracks. Not in an annoying way, but in a personalized way that is aware of the interactions that have happened to ensure that every homeowner has a phenomenal shopping experience. All the way through whatever decision they ultimately make.
Tersh Blissett
Okay, so I'm just assuming because I don't know the answer to this, you are able to do that with Mantle.
Zach
You are, you are correct. Yeah, absolutely.
Tersh Blissett
How long is the follow up process?
Zach
Yes. Yeah, good. Good question. So it depends on the organization, depends on the homeowner. The way we think about it is like we are all about trying to create a really phenomenal shopping experience. And part of that's what happens in the home. But it's also what happens before and after the seller ca. Selling tech leaves the home. And so for our system, we are able to generate in conjunction with the seller. Right. We still believe that, hey, you know, we send trained professionals into homes for a reason. They play a really important role. We, we shouldn't just be sending some generic message from some generic phone number that a homeowner's never seen after someone leaves the home. Instead, let's have it come from the seller, let's have it be personalized, the conversation that's already happened, and let's have the cadence be determined by the interaction so far.
Tersh Blissett
So you're saying that they actually correct me if I'm wrong. They're pulling in the conversations that the technician had with the homeowner.
Zach
We are pulling in all of the phone calls and text conversation that happened either before or after the, the in home visit.
Tersh Blissett
So then phone calls, transcriptions.
Zach
Okay.
Tersh Blissett
I didn't know if you were able to like pull in like a, like a limitless or applaud or something like that and be like, you know, we mentioned this in the conversation that we had when we were talking about your Porsche that was in your garage. That'd be dope, by the way.
Zach
Totally, totally. No, I love, I love, I love, I love that idea. And I think there's a lot of really exciting places to expand into over time.
Tersh Blissett
Yeah, as long as you follow the lulls per state.
Zach
And you also get a lot of like pushback and whatnot. And so, you know, in home recording, there's a bunch of different nuances to it. One of the things that is really interesting, regardless of whatever the verbal conversation that's happening, you are at some point going to an iPad or a laptop and you are showing options in your creative sales experience. All that's recorded and there's no recording compliance that's needed there. And so now you actually, for the first time can see what options were presented to the homeowner. And did they spend time on all of them or do they just race to the Lowest option. Right. And that's really important data both for the seller tech after they leave the home, for the manager, for the owner, but also for the system to understand. How do we think about the follow up in the cadence in the case where it's not closing at the kitchen table? Because on the replacement or new install or new system sales, we're commonly seeing 60 to 70% of the time the person is leaving without the deal closed yet. Right. And so therefore it's really important what happens after you leave the home.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah.
Tersh Blissett
Did you, were you able to track that in your report as well?
Zach
We actually can track that via a bunch of other data that, that we have, that we have access to.
Tersh Blissett
Got it. Yeah.
Joshua Crouch
That's so powerful just to know that stuff. I was curious, I, I would just because we, we mentioned pricing at the beginning. We went into some other topics but you know, we mentioned that we think that pricing is like the most important thing that a homeowner goes through. But it just because it's maybe not as important. A lot of people still search for it.
Zach
Totally.
Joshua Crouch
Can we go into that just a little bit? Especially being all Marcus Sheridan fans and pricing up front and all this kind of stuff. I feel like this is super interesting as well that listeners would want to hear from is like what are they searching for when they do find a contractor's website? What kind of information is important to them when they're doing that initial search before someone's in the home?
Zach
Yeah, it's a great, great, great question. And I think the results are both unexpected and surprising at the same time. I think the unexpected part, given all of Marcus Sheridan's work, given a bunch of other work, is 69 of the time homeowners are actively looking for price and shopping before anyone comes into the home. And so that means a vast majority.
Joshua Crouch
Did you guys ask any questions? And I don't know what's exactly what the survey looked like and stuff about what were they like what were they hoping to find? Like just, just to get a ballpark, like what were, what were they trying to find? Were they trying to find like oh, ten thousand dollar system, I'm gonna go install that and hire that person.
Zach
Yeah, it's good question. We, we asked a version of that which was, hey, is what you found, was it useful and was it clear? Right. Because different people can look for different things. And that's the part that is really surprising to, to us or at least was, was, was, was, was for. Was for us was that only 15% of homeowners said that what they found was like useful and clear. The very vast majority, they looked for it, but their appetite didn't really get satisfied. Right. They couldn't really find the information they were looking for.
Joshua Crouch
So 7 out of 10, which, whatever that is, over 420 some people, 7 out of 10 wanted to find some semblance of pricing information in less than 2 out of 10 actually felt like they walked away. Like, hey, I have a pretty good understanding of what it's going to cost me when I go down this road.
Zach
And shop for this.
Joshua Crouch
So that's a huge discrepancy of people.
Zach
Massive. Which also means it's a giant opportunity. And I think it's emblematic of something more broadly, which is homeowners come into this experience looking for certain things and I think historically they leave it having very few of those men. Right. They're looking to understand, they're looking to have a responsive person on the other side. They're looking to be empowered and to really have choice and to navigate through it and to understand what's happening in their home. And historically, I think that we haven't done a great job delivering on that.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah, and I, I completely agree with you. Being in the trades prior to owning a digital marketing company, like, it would have been fantastic to have data like this to help me, especially because I was doing a lot of the marketing strategy and the pricing strategy and everything else and having data that could actually, I could like, okay, let's where, you know, just like anyone in any business, where should I spend my time? We're talking about most, most people in H Vac industry are plumbing. They all want to sell the big ticket items, whatever those are. And I, my guess, my hunch would be whether it's, let's say it's something like drain cleaning, which is a, can be a really big ticket item for a plumber or an electrical panel or things like that. An electrical side or a whole, whole home electrical rewire. My guess is the process is very similar for big ticket items like an H Vac system where it's. I'm still looking for the same information. I'm still talking to friends and relatives who you've used in the past, all like the big ticket items. My guess is humans are very similar regardless of what industry you're in. So if you're listening to this and you're an electrical, you're in roofing, you're in whatever industry I guess is the buying experience and the information from this report is going to be very similar to your Industry just applied a little differently versus what it is for like the H vac industry. That would be my hunch obviously when I'm data to back that up. But humans are human. We have this similar behavior for certain types of things that come into our life.
Tersh Blissett
Totally.
Zach
And we actually do have a bit of data where of the 422 most rage facility, not all, there are water heaters, there were electrical panels. And so you do see this broader trend across home services. And I think it does really support your point which is that this is something as an industry, right. That we really have an opportunity to do better on. And I think also one of the things that to the question around motivation was where we really wanted to get to is like okay, so going into the new year, right, as we all are probably doing our budget planning, figuring out how we're going to rock 2026 regardless of whatever happened in 2025, like what are the sales tactics? What are the sales strategy that will actually work with the modern homeowner? And so in addition to the report, there's also six sort of data driven insights we can direct people online to, to go grab them about what really will work, informed by this data and about what's really key. And so I think that's one of the other things that we're really excited to sort of like give back if you will to, to the industry that's given us so much.
Joshua Crouch
Yeah, that is so awesome that you guys put this together. Like being in the digital marketing side of things. I love seeing stuff like this and data because I've, I've done a lot, I mean I've seen questions on Facebook groups is, is our digital marketing agencies dying and all this kind of stuff, you know, because it's, it's the question everyone in mind is this stuff, especially if you're even somewhat familiar with anything with AI is what's going to happen. Everyone, everyone, it doesn't matter. The industry like Tesla, I mean Elon Musk has got this big proposal of a trillion dollar package to get all these robots and homes and all this like robots and homes are going to be able to fix stuff at some point. Like all of these things are going to get impact because their fine motor skills will continue to improve. So it's just, it's so interesting to see where we're at now. And what will be even more interesting is when you have a second year's worth of data and then we can compare where things are headed because then you start seeing trends and you're like okay, this one was small here or this one was big and maybe it's not so big anymore. Let me shift my attention a little bit because at some point this isn't going to be a really big thing. And I think it's really cool what you guys have started. And obviously I, I mean just me glancing at this report, I'm saying glance like five minutes was like oh, this is really good stuff. Like I, I create a whole bunch of content around like this is great. I can help my contractors or my clients. So it's really cool that you guys put this together for people that want to get their hands on this report and read it in its entirety and really study it.
Zach
Where do they go do that? Yep, you can just go to our website, use mantle so us e m a n t e l.com forward/survey and imagine we can work together to get that into the, to the, to the show notes. So just u s e-m a n.
Joshua Crouch
T e l.com like man, like mantle in your home.
Zach
Like the mantle in your home. Just like use mantle.com. okay.
Joshua Crouch
And I'm assuming that's the same place they can go if they want to get a demo of your guys software. They can just, they can go book there and figure that.
Zach
Absolutely. And yeah, I think one of the things that commonly questions and reactions that we've gotten is like, okay, it's clear now what homeowners want. How do we now go execute and deliver on that? And that's more than anything what we're really in the business of is helping really phenomenal contractors close more and delight homeowners. And I think one of the really humbling things as we sort of reflect back on 2025 and we're a relatively young company is to see the impact that we've been able to drive for our contractors. As you can tell, we're a pretty data driven organization. One way to say is like we're a bunch of nerds. But, but, but, but, but, but separate from that. Like I think if you think about reliable comfort using our software, they are making 40% more on every sales appointment they are running adjusting for inflation. So the CA is bringing home 48% more and the owner is bringing home 48% more. And we feel really privileged that we get to help them do that.
Joshua Crouch
Isn't that something? When you stop trying to sell something and let someone buy something, they actually buy something more expensive. I've always thought, I've, I've, I've heard this numerous times through a Bunch of different things. And it was always so interesting, fascinating me. But then I realized, like, when I started searching online for a car, I start searching online for anything. I'm like, you see something, you're like, oh, there's a better one. And what's. What's the better one? What's the difference? And if it's really a big difference, you're like, oh, yeah, like, that's more interesting to me than this one, because this one solves all my problems. This one only solves, like, half my problems. And I just. It's. It's wild to me when you present people with options, because even. Even presenting options is like something in the trades. It's taken a long time. People, like, they only give the one option that they think the homeowner should go with instead of, like, present a few, Let them pick just little things like that that are so. It can make such a difference in their average tickets, in their revenue and their profit and everything else that comes along.
Zach
And also in the homeowner's experience, right? Like, homeowners walk away and they are happier, right? They or their needs are better met, they feel better seen, they feel better served, right? And I think that's really core to the ethos, which is if you do this really well, it is good for the homeowner and it's good for you, right? And I think you mentioned options, which is huge. But also, how do you let someone be empowered to add or remove an air scrubber from that option, right? And to understand that an air scrubber will deliver fresh air and likewise, you leave the home. How do you make sure that homeowner doesn't fall through the cracks and that they are getting followed up with. And also in this is the part that I, like, I almost have to give like a heart attack warning to owners, which is one of the powers of our platform is you get visibility into how quickly your text, your sellers are responding back to homeowners, right? When they get texts, when they get called. And you can see when things are slipping through the cracks. And so I always warn owners, like, you're going to see some things, and it might cause a little bit of a reaction because what they would like to think is like, hey, we've done all this work, we've done everything right? And we die out to the home, and we paid $1,000, whatever, to get out to the home. We do all of this, right? And then the homeowner calls us a day later and we're not picking up, right? And so that visibility and ensuring that we solve that, I think is really, really key to it.
Joshua Crouch
I can appreciate that a lot because when I was in the trades, we didn't have the technology quite yet because I got all the trades in 2021 and with digital market. So, like, all of our calls with clients are recorded with Fathom. All of our emails are recorded with HubSpot. All of our text messages are like, every single way they communicate with us is recorded. So I know if somebody's not doing their job and the client's not getting back to them and just different things like that, it's so important to track that stuff. Especially now that we all have the tools and resources. It's so enlightening to realize who are actually the team members who actually care about your core values and carrying your company's mission versus the ones that are like, they just, they're here for a job. They don't really care if they're going to take care of a homeowner or not. They just want to get paid and really be insightful and also create a culture of people that actually want to respond quickly and do the thing that you need to do. So it's super cool to. To see that being built into a software for the trades.
Zach
Specific. Yeah, 100. 100%. And I think one of the things that we feel really strongly about is if you think about what it's like to go buy a iPhone online, Right. And how easy, how slick, how informational, how educational it is. Like, we're really on that motion of how do we bring what is table stakes across any other purchase or the sales tools.
Joshua Crouch
Right.
Zach
Like, as someone who sells software, there's all these tools that I have. How do we bring that to the trades? Right. How do we help sort of bring the trades forward from sort of being in the past by 20 or 30 years. And so we're really on a mission. I think one of the things that we recently launched that just, like, the reaction, I don't know. Like, I think at times, like, you know, Mantle feels a little bit like my, like my baby. And so, like, occasionally, like, it does something just like, oh, that's like, really special. I think one of the most fun features is when you used to be in the. In the trades. Josh, do you think your proposals were ever shared with other contractors?
Joshua Crouch
Oh, I know they were my. So quick story on this. And I know we're. We're coming up. We're actually past time, but that's okay. This conversation's been great. My wife Worked at. So my wife was in sales H Vac companies. I actually brought her into the trades, and then she worked for a couple other H Vac companies over a period, about six years. She. The last company she worked at was about a $10 million company. They had, like, six or seven salespeople. They literally would give the homeowner $25 off of their system install to get the other people's proposals.
Zach
Amazing.
Joshua Crouch
At that time, a lot of them were still handwritten. They weren't stuff, but they would look, and they had a stack of them in their office, so they knew everybody's price.
Tersh Blissett
Sure, sure.
Zach
And here's the crazy thing is, if you're that other contractor, you have no idea who's looking at it or any visibility into it, right? Like, you know what happens? Just, like, you know, the kids are awful. Like, do whatever the kids are doing, like, after hours. But you didn't have visibility into it. And so we launched a feature called Radar that actually tells the seller, right? Tells the organization when their proposals are shared with competitors, and also gives you visibility into who it was shared with and what they're looking at. So now if we take that stack of paper, right, like, you now know it was shared with XYZ competitor in town, right? And you have that visibility. You also have the visibility when the homeowner opens up or when the homeowner shares it with their husband, right? And I think it's that ethos, right?
Joshua Crouch
That.
Zach
Which was sort of relatively commonplace when I was at Amazon or on Shopify. That is what we're trying to channel every day in. Into it. And I do have one quick, funny.
Joshua Crouch
Story I can tell, like, you're proud of this. This baby, like, to start taking steps, and now you're like, oh, my God, this is the coolest baby ever.
Zach
Yeah. Yeah. And then sometimes it's still, like, you know, like, boo itself and, like, throws up on the cell, but, like, yeah, you know, it's not. Not fully grown up yet. But it's funny. I showed. I showed radar to one person, and. And they're like, you know, Zach, you know what I'm gonna do with it? It's like, no, what? So I'm gonna reach out to that salesperson, and I'm gonna offer him a job, right? You now also start to see who are the other really good sellers in your market.
Joshua Crouch
That's as. That is a great strategy, actually. Always be recruiting.
Tersh Blissett
That's what I've always recruited.
Joshua Crouch
That's awesome, Zach. This has been fantastic. Anyone listening is even if you don't feel like you got a lot going on, you don't want to implement all this, at least go read the report. You may be incentivized by what you find inside that report. To do something, especially as we're talking through 2026 and if anything, if we know anything from the last few years, it's all going to change. Like everything's going to change and it's and it's going to continue to adapt and don't until we figure out whatever the new normal is with all these different things. And maybe the new normal is just people find us in a multitude of different ways and we have to be prepared to show up on all of those those ways in a way that speaks highly to our reputation and our brand. So, Zach, really appreciate you hanging out with us today. It's usemantle.com it's man t e l.com and for you guys listening, thanks for hanging out with us and we'll see you again next time.
Zach
Thanks, Jeff.
Joshua Crouch
Thank you for listening to this episode of Service Business Mastery. Now that you are equipped with essential business advice from this impactful conversation, you are one step closer to becoming the successful owner of your dreams. If this episode has been helpful to your business journey, don't forget to subscribe to the show, leave a rating, and share it with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.
Hosts: Tersh Blissett & Joshua Crouch
Guest: Zach (Founder of Mantle)
Date: January 14, 2026
This episode dives deep into what homeowners truly value when hiring contractors for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and major home service projects. The conversation pulls insights from a major 2025 study conducted by Mantle, surveying over 400 homeowners about their buying experiences. The discussion covers myths around price sensitivity, the importance of reputation and responsiveness, homeowner education, and how modern tech—including automation and AI—can help contractors meet evolving customer expectations. Tangible, data-driven guidance is offered to help home service businesses transform their approach, improve customer satisfaction, and increase sales.
"Stay really obsessed and do what’s in the best interest of the customer." (00:00, 17:19)
"How do you just let the homeowner be the shopper again?" (04:21)
"It’s not about telling someone what to do, it’s about asking the right questions to get them to self-discover—or in this case, buy." – Joshua (04:52)
"69% of homeowners say that price isn’t the most important thing." – Zach (23:17)
"It all gets to value rather than just price." – Zach (23:21)
"Most homeowners know very little when they start… but 5–10 minutes of the basics and just even asking them questions…" – Zach (27:24)
"Most likely, tomorrow, 97% of your prospective homeowners will not find you via AI search." – Zach (33:17)
"Over 50% of homeowners say that online reviews was really critical for the contractor they ultimately selected." – Zach (36:00)
Pricing Transparency:
"7 out of 10… wanted to find some semblance of pricing information… less than 2 out of 10 actually felt like they walked away with it." – Joshua (44:04)
Clear Value Proposition & Educational Content:
"When you stop trying to sell something and let someone buy something, they actually buy something more expensive." – Joshua (50:54)
This episode is a must-listen for any contractor aiming to stay competitive, deliver what today's homeowners care about, and thrive as the home service industry evolves into 2026 and beyond.