← Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Service Business Mastery for Skilled Trades: HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical Home Service
Why Promoting Your Best Technician Almost Always Backfires
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A
It wasn't until I finally had a service manager that I started to really invest in teaching him what to do and how to do it and give him the tools to grow. Now I felt like I was pretty good at the leadership side, so that's kind of how this whole thing was built and developed. How do you take someone and teach them the skills? Because it's leadership. Once I started to really be able to get some things off my plate and the service manager was able to do what a service manager is paid to do, it allowed me the ability to start working on my business and grow my business. And now I could work a little on systems and I could think about the future of the business because today's.
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B
Episode is brought to you by one of our show partners, Uproar.
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C
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.
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B
Learn more@upfrogio. I want to give a huge shout out to Marketstorm for sponsoring today's episode.
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C
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A
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C
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B
A team about how they can help you grow your business. Visit marketstorm AI hello to everyone out there in podcast world. Hope you're having a wonderful day. You're listening to or watching Service Business Mastery Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Terse Blissett, sitting virtually next to my co host Joshua Crouch. And we have another podcast host on the podcast today, Justin Dees. And Justin and I met a couple years back and forth, formed the almost instant friendship and we're going to talk a little bit about some stuff that Justin's got going on the Service Manager Academy to be specific. But he's got a lot stuff going on in the past and for those who don't know who you are, Justin, can you share a little bit about yourself, your background? You are very similar in like Josh and I. Well actually not myself anymore as far as having spouses in the business all the time. So mine got a promotion. She's in D.C. now and we'll see how long that lasts.
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C
She's off saving the world.
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B
She's out saving the world, you know, doing that stuff. But so I don't have. Julie's not here in the day to day operations anymore, but she does get that text message at 4:00 every afternoon. Hey, I can't remember how to do this, how to do that. But with that being said, Justin, share a little bit about yourself, your history.
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A
Yeah, absolutely. First of all, guys, appreciate you guys having me on. This is a cool experience. Both of you guys have come on and hung out with me on my podcast, which is Freedom Blueprint Podcast. So I think our instant bond was that we were podcast nerds and we were nerding out about all the technology and then my wife got mad because every time we talk, I go buy new stuff. Yeah. Which that is the same as when.
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C
We came back from service, by the way.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Justin, I don't know if you know this, but I don't think I've shared this with you. Tersch will, he'll be like, yeah, that's crap. I'm. He literally like the next day an Amazon truck delivers like the new gear for me and I'm like, what did he send me now? Like, like he just, he has my address. I should have never gave him my address, first of all, because I literally.
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B
Have it saved in my Amazon account.
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A
Right, well, so next time that shows up here, I'm gonna tell her tear shouldered it.
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B
Yeah, yeah, right. Like, hey, you got that package, right? He was like, no, I didn't get a package. I was like, I can see it. It was on your. Delivered on your stuff, you know, before.
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C
I know because you probably get the alert. And I'm like, wait, the front door is literally right up behind this wall, but I have no idea what's happening because I can't see it.
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B
Yeah.
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C
Anyways, sorry, Justin, go ahead. You were, you were sharing a little bit about your background.
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A
Yeah, no, yeah, I've been in the home service space for, gosh, 20 something years. Feels makes me feel old. I mean, really during that time, I've, I've done a lot of stuff, I've bought, I've sold, I've grown, I've scaled and it's been, it's been a pretty cool journey. It certainly has not all been wins, but you know, it took me, it took me a good five or ten years to figure out which way was up when it comes to the home service space. And yeah, I Do feel like I got. I got pretty good at. At growing them, and then once I got good at growing them, I got good at selling them. So that was always fun, too.
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B
Now, Church mentioned your, your background is what, trade in service industry?
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A
Well, so it actually started out an appliance installation. Like, how about that for a niche?
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B
Yeah.
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A
Once I got that business to a. To a point where it didn't need me anymore and I didn't want to be needed, I jumped into plumbing because to me it was like that same kind of plugin. Like, I mean, it's. We're both dealing with water and so. Yeah. So it started out appliance installation, then it went to plumbing, then it went to. Also added H vac as well.
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C
Yeah.
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B
Sorry I cut you off. What were you saying?
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A
Well, so you mentioned earlier about spouses. So my wife and I have been business partners this whole time. And I've been, I've been really lucky because my wife is amazing at finances and numbers. And that's certainly not my strong suit. I. I tell people often, if it were my job to pay the irs, I would probably be living in a country that they couldn't come get me or no extra.
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B
I think that's.
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A
Yeah. So. So my wife and I, about five years ago, we actually wrote a book called when youn Business Partner is your Spouse. And it's all about working with your spouse. Because it's definitely a unique balance of, I don't know, business partnership. Right. Because it's hard to turn it off because it's always, you know, you're always going through the battle.
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B
Literally, you learn how much you didn't know about your spouse. When you start working together, you're like, man, I really loved you about an hour ago. Now I don't so much.
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C
It is interesting though, because, like, I think about. So Brittany and I take a lot of walks together and the conversation we have on that 45 minute walk will bounce so many times between business life, kids, what we want to do at the house, travel, business, employees. Like, it's just like a roller coaster ride when you actually reflect on, like, what are we talking about in the last 45 minutes? I'm like, man, we change subjects a lot in 45 minutes and we're talking about all these things. And of course you're not trying to keep it all on work, but sometimes work, if it's just a stressful time, it consumes both people. And it's just like, that's all you guys can think about. And then there's no time for like a date night or anything else that comes after that.
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B
You don't.
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C
It's just, it can be difficult to really separate those things, especially if you're really stressed out.
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A
Very difficult.
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B
Yeah, it's. So we have, we don't really see them very often anymore. We have life coaches, John and Joe and their spouses in business. He has a degree in business. He was a pastor at a mega church actually. But she has always been a counselor therapist. I don't know something. But that we started seeing them. Oh man. 10 years ago or longer. And it was, we, we were at that age where we had babies, little ones, like baby babies. We had two boys that were playing travel soccer and they were really good at travel soccer. So good. So that because they weren't in the same age bracket, they ended up completely different regions. And so we literally, like, I would go to, I don't know, North Carolina on Friday and Julie would go to Tampa, Florida. And then, you know, as soon as Memphis got to where he could semi play, then grandma would have to take him to a soccer game on the weekends and so did you pick your.
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C
Favorite child that you wanted to see play?
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B
For me, it was.
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C
Which you laugh because you thought about it, didn't you?
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B
Shortest trip for me, like, because I, I.
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C
Okay, so you're like whoever's closest to where I'm at. That's where I'm going, honestly.
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B
Okay, so let's be honest. There are parents that I liked on one team and there are parents that I was okay with on the other team. And so I always.
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A
You're not going to name which one?
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B
It was Bryce and Mike Gruber, my dentist, who's. He's now my dentist. He is one of the parents, like, and I just seen him yesterday. Anyways, whatever. Squirrel. One of the things that. Thanks, Josh. One of the things that, that John and Joe emphasized was how life is like a rubber band. And it really is. And so like you take a rubber band. I just happen to have one right here. And you take. And you could stretch it out. Well, you got a, A BMW car payment and. Well, actually it was a suburban and then. But I really wanted that BMW, that little. The M3 or whatever. And so they're like, all you have to do is, you know, work a little bit more and then you stretch it out a little bit more. And then, oh, now Memphis wants to play soccer. Just stretch it out a little bit more. Adeline wants to do dance. So just stretch out a little bit more. Well, even if it doesn't snap. Like if you hold it like this for a really long time, what happens when you release it? Whenever you finally are like, all right, enough is enough. We're done with homeschooling. Oh yeah, I forgot we were homeschooling the kids. Julie was also a professor at college and doing full time work as a nurse. Plus she was in the Air National Guard, so she was doing all those things. And then I was, you know, running two businesses and the podcast and traveling all the time. Once you decide enough's enough and you decide, hey, let's stop doing this, then you, you basically have taken things out of this rubber band. Well, the rubber bands, none stretched out. And then, then you have a relationship that's. That's like soggy. And there's only two things that will happen there. You either you can heat up that rubber, that rubber band, which you have really tough conversations. You learn to say, no, that's your, that's the way one way you can heat it up, or it gets so brittle and it snaps and you end up in divorce. And that when they said that the way they said it to me, I was like, wow, okay. And it was about that time was when Julie's had left the hospital because it was Covid and they were putting her on the COVID floor every single time. Did she go to work because she was a float nurse. And so she came to work with us full time in the H Vac company. And one of the things that, that John and Joe mentioned was, oh, and the fact that much like Josh, our business we ran remotely. So we get up together, get dressed together, walk down the hallway together, sit in the office together or next to the offices, next to each other. And then you.
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C
Probably a lot of people listening to you right now is like, I don't want to do that with my wife or some, or even a female listening. Like, I don't want to do it with my husband.
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B
Yeah, like I need that 8 hour break away from him. But honestly, we were, we would lay in bed and just like, oh, did you remember to type that invoice to send to so and so? No, I didn't. You know, I, I'll make a note right here to do it. But like Josh said, when you do date night at that point, like what, at what point does work turn off and, and personal life turn on? And for some people, they don't want it that way. I've had this conversation with some people and they're like, no, I need to have that, that brain dump. In bed. Our rule that we came up with through our, our coaches was that no business ever crossed the threshold of the bedroom. So the moment you cross the threshold, if it's work related, hey, can you come out here real fast? And we'll go to the hallway and have a conversation, but you don't bring it into the bedroom. And that man, that instantly turned around because it got to the point to where I was like, I don't want to work no more. I don't want to work with you. I don't want to be at work.
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A
Because that forces you to be aware. You know what I mean? Like, you got to be intentional now about having those conversations as opposed to just willy nilly whenever you're having to be intentional about them and go outside.
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B
Exactly. And, and during the day we forced ourselves to have. Okay, now we have a two hour break that we're going to talk about this because we don't talk about it in bed anymore. We don't talk about it in the evening anymore. Now we're going to talk about it at this set time of the day every day. And it, it really, it really helped out a lot.
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C
And news flash, for anyone that's thinking about, like, I could do that and we could, you know, talking about work when trying to go to bed, that's not, that, that's not very sexy. It's not going to help you in other departments. So just keep that in mind. Like, it's not, it doesn't help you. So like having some sort of like asking about payroll. Yeah.
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B
It's like, hey, I need you to transfer some money. We don't have enough money to cover payroll this week. Great.
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A
Anyways, that'll, that'll turn it on.
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C
John's totally right, by the way. Julie does win most of the time and she has a great argument usually that comes with that. So.
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A
But I can remember early in those times us doing the date night because our, our kids were small and growing up in the business and us, you know, setting, trying to set boundaries of we're going to have a date night. And I can, I can remember sitting down going, what do we talk about? Like, yeah, our whole world is our. Because that was the rule. It was like, you don't talk about kids and you don't talk about business and you sit down, you go, there's literally nothing else in my life. So some people are okay with it and some people aren't. And I think it's just a matter of figuring out what, what Lane are.
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C
You good with like, yeah, conversations though, right? Because, like, so, yeah, I've been with Brittany for 13 years. Until a year ago, I had no idea she wanted to do a bodybuilding competition. She never told me. I never asked the question. It just never came up. But we started getting in shape and she, she started following some of these, these groups and seeing this stuff and talking to these ladies and she's like, I want to do this, this. And I'm like, okay. It was by, by her 40th birthday. So that's her goals. Get on stage for a 40th birthday, which is next year. I probably shouldn't have said that out loud, but I don't think that's okay. Ter makes fun of my. It's fine. I'm older than she is, so it's all good. But we're totally going down a rabbit hole because this stuff is so interesting too.
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B
Yeah.
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C
But we really brought Justin on here because. And you guys, if you guys, you're watching this, you can see the ticker on the bottom. You're like, oh, we're talking about service managers. Aren't you guys talking about working with your wives? But this is actually something that's really cool and I'm really glad that Justin has decided to, to get into this because Church has been a service manager. I've hired service managers and worked with them and made some mistakes.
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B
I made terrible mistakes as a service manager.
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C
And so many people bring on, hey, you're the million dollar producer. You're doing the best. But that person doesn't want to keep working in the field, and you know that. So you don't want to lose them. So what do we do? We bring them in as a service manager or unite them in supervisor, whatever. Yeah, unite them. And then so now they're managing the team and they completely suck at it. They have no people skills for managing other people. They're really good at managing themselves and producing for themselves because their paycheck depends on it. But then they also think they're going to get a raise when they're used to making commissions.
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B
So it's a, that's a conversation that I love seeing in the Facebook groups. I don't see it very much anymore because I don't, I don't scroll through the Facebook groups like I used to, but I used to see it in the technician groups all the time. Like, hey, my boss wants to make me a service manager. How much of a pay ratio I asked for? Like, well, I chimed in a couple times and got just eaten alive because they don't like to hear the other side of the truth.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I was like, why would you get a pay raise? You should get a pay cut. You literally don't know what you're doing. Like, you're, you're doing a brand new job, just like a brand new apprentice would be coming on, picking up a bag of tools. Like, do you know how to write out formulas in the Excel spreadsheet? No. Okay. Somebody's got to teach you how to do it. You got to learn how to do.
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C
It, you know, and that person also has to be okay sitting at a desk mostly now they can still go out in the field here and there, but it's not the same where you're in a. You're, you're. Because. So I talked to my. Who became our service manager at the last company that we worked with because he was our best field tech and he had the longest tenure. He had all the, all the boxes checked.
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A
All the. Yep. Proverbial boxes. Yeah.
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C
And just.
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B
Man, they become tech support.
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C
Yeah. And constantly answering phone calls and like, what he really. What I. I noticed like when we, we had high demand times and he had to go back, jump in the truck and take the calls, you feel like that superhero cape is on. Right. Because that's, that's kind of the high that you get from doing that type of work is you get to help one person through a really tough time and you feel like you are on top of the world. You're wearing that. That s. Across your chest. You know, chest puffed out. You're like, you feel amazing because that person is so thankful that you were able to take care of their. Their need when it's 10 below zero. When we were in Wisconsin. So I'm really curious to hear more.
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B
So what's your fault, do you think? The exact opposite. That we should be putting in the. The best technicians as service manager.
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A
I mean, it's. It's not to say that they're not. That they can't be good technique. I mean, good service managers. The. The challenge is it's different skill sets. It's two completely different skill sets. And the. And I'm guilty of this. Right. So, so how this whole thing came about is as I was growing my business, the first couple years I was buried, I would.
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C
Had.
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A
I wore every hat, I had to do every job. And I. It wasn't until I finally had a service manager that I started to really invest in teaching him what to do and, and how to do it and give him the tools to Grow. Now he was my top producing service tech, but he didn't know what to do when we got there. Well, I felt like I was pretty good at the leadership side. So that's kind of how this whole thing was built and developed is, you know, how do you take someone and teach them the skills? Because it's leadership. Yeah. It's not, I mean there is some selling to it, but it's leadership at the end of the day. And once I started to really be able to get some things off my plate and the service manager was able to do what a service manager is paid to do, it allowed me the ability to start working on my business and grow my business. And now I could work a little bit on systems and I could think about the future of the business because my phone wasn't ringing 400 times a day, which, that's a different problem. But so really the this. So I've built a service manager academy and this entire thing has come from what I've done in our businesses over the last 15 years. It's the tools that my service managers used at the forms they use. This is very much a plug and play they get. It's not theory, it's not, yeah, it's not hoorah. We'll, we'll pump them up a little bit. Yeah. But it's more where the rubber meets the road kind of thing. Like you hear people say, well you got to have a good culture. What the heck does that even mean? How do you do that? So there's some forms and some things in place that will help them be able to teach their team and hold them accountable without screaming and yelling and throwing them out. And a lot of people think accountability only means fire. Yeah, there's like nine steps, 10 steps that happen before, before the fire.
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B
Yeah, that's, it's so true because when I, I was a top producing technician and then moved right in as a service manager, one advantage that I, that I had was that I was a nerd. So like I liked the spreadsheets. That's when I started all.
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C
We all know you, we all know this to be true.
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A
So there's like, how do I automate all this stuff?
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B
Oh yeah, yeah. Well, what actually happened was I was given a, a binder, a like a six inch thick, three ring binder and said here, here's our processes and procedures. Just do them. I was like, okay. And I didn't have any other habits. Like I didn't have bad habits to break. So like I just did what the book said to do. And. And it was very successful. The downside was I did not have any leadership, quote unquote, leadership training other than the Air Force that I had. And that, like, I was not an NCO at that point. Like, I was. I was the bottom of the barrel. Like, I was the grunt down there getting kicked.
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C
You were the one getting the orders.
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B
Yeah, I didn't give orders out. So, like, I didn't have true leadership skills at that point. So I. I did burn bridges there because one of the things that the owner of the company told me, first thing he told me was, you can't be friends with everybody that works for you now. And I was like, oh, man, that sucks, because one of them lives in my house. He's. He's my roommate. And I, for real, though, I took it to heart and I was like, sorry, bud, we can't be friends no more. And he's like, but I live in your spare bedroom. I'm like, all right.
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A
Well, oh, yeah. Also, you know, you pay your rent.
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C
You'Re still good, but we just can't be friends.
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B
But it did. It turned into like, all right, Tertia isn't giving me any leeway. And so, like, we're not going to hang out anymore.
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A
And how many business owners do that too? Like, they. They hear that and they're like, well, how friendly can I be? Or can I be friends with my employees? That. That is a conversation that comes up.
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C
Is that really difficult line between being friendly and being a friend?
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A
Like, yeah, but the thing that is the like, that is that's got to be your line. Be friendly, not friends.
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B
Well, the thing about this is, like, we were gearheads together too. Like, wit had the same year Mustang that I did, and we literally would tear down Mustangs on the weekends and go for rides and go to car shows and drove to Daytona beach for turkey rod run, and it ended. I was alienated.
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A
I would say there's an exception every.
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B
Rule, so sure, absolutely. But I didn't. Like, I was hard and fast. Like, it's black and white, no gray. Because that's how it presented to me.
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C
Church, I'm curious because we'll get into like, Justin's thought your people, but you went from top producing tech to service manager to then owning your own company. What do you feel was the hardest transition or the p. The piece that really was the hardest for you? Transitioning from top producing tech to service manager.
- [23:59]
B
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- [24:43]
C
Today's episode is powered by Cirrus Systems.
- [24:46]
B
Sir is all about removing the clutter and unnecessary touch points to run your home service business profitably.
- [24:51]
C
They use AI dispatching to get the right tech to the right call automatically and, and job time efficiency to ensure your entire team runs like a profit generating machine.
- [25:00]
B
Get a tech upgrade for your business at Get Sarah Tech Service Business Mastery. It was the leadership aspect of it, the people people side of things. Because I was on performance pay. So we were a flat rate company. I was a service technician and I was flat killing it. Like I knew exactly which repairs I was going to get the most hours from. I knew how to be as efficient as possible. I knew like my van was spotless and I knew like the min maxes of every single item on there. And so like that that's where my nerd, you know, transitioned over in there because I knew that if I didn't have everything on that van, I wasn't getting paid to drive to the supply house because I was only paid performance. And so like, but I didn't know how to teach someone who's very unorganized that method because I was like, what? Why are you a slob?
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C
Like, I don't.
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A
Right. It's just natural, right?
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B
Yes. Why do you have junk all over your dash? It makes you look bad and then it in turn makes it harder for you to sell to the homeowner. And they're like, well, I'm not a salesperson, I'm a technician. I'm like, here we go. You know, here's this conversation again for the second time this week, every single week.
- [26:23]
A
And then that's what, that's what happens to most of the text, right? Like most of the texts, when. And again, I'm guilty of this and I know so many owners out there are guilty of the same. Thing is we take that top producing tech, we knight them in, we go Yep. He man. You're he man now. So. And the first thing we do is we tell them, just go do what you do. Well, they don't know, right? Like, because to them, it's natural. So sales comes natural. And being organized, you're an exception to that rule. Most technicians are not that organized, but it's just a natural thing for them. And a lot of times that just gets. That gets missed because they don't know what to do. They get frustrated because they're like, I mean, just clean your truck. Like, how freaking hard is that? Clean your truck.
- [27:06]
B
Yeah, once a week. Don't carry the water hose on the outside of the truck. Yeah, like that. We have to talk about that. Like, come on, come sense. And then, like, for me, it's. I did. I did a lot of training, but the problem that I have. And actually it was I didn't really change my mindset until several years after this podcast had a guest on here who was a psychologist, and. And he's actually who I decided to go to school for psychology because of this guest on the show. And I told him, I was like, hey, man, I'm a wartime hero. I mean, I'm a wartime leader. And, you know, I took some of that from the military. Like, that was kind of my thought process on that. And he was like, wait a minute. Let's revisit this. What I just heard you say is that you're looking for trauma, and that's. You're waiting for the next thing to crash, and that's when you. You thrive. I'm like, no, I am calm as a cucumber under pressure. But the moment I have automated everything that can be automated, and I am sitting here twiddling my thumbs, I am bored on my mind, and I am.
- [28:18]
A
I'm done.
- [28:19]
B
Like, I. I want to quit now. That's literally how. How I transition from GM service manager. I install manager. I literally optimized all the processes and everything, and I got super bored. I was like, I gotta quit. They're like, no, just move over here to install manager. I was like, I'm gonna go from service manager to install manager. Like, that's a step down. That's a demotion. It was like, is it though? Because your pay is the same and you're gonna be optimizing processes. I was like, fine, I'll do it. And it's like a year later, warehouse is perfect. Everything we have, we brought in. What was it called? What's it called? The outside inventory. And they. They did all that. I Was like, wait, you can have them do that? I was like. I asked. That's the ignorance in me. I was like, hey, why don't y' all put Yalls warehouse in our warehouse? And like, yeah, we can do that. I was like, sweet. And then somebody else comes over to there, to the warehouse, and they're like, what'd you have to do to make that happen?
- [29:20]
A
It's like, made a phone call.
- [29:23]
B
I just asked and I said, I'll only buy from you if you'll do this. And he said, that worked. Yeah, worked. My ignorance, it helped. But the thing about is, is the moment everything was optimized properly, I was bored out of my mind, going stir crazy. But that guest on the show, he was like, look, what. What I hear you saying is that you're just looking for something to fail. You're looking for the next failure right around the corner. I was like, yeah, maybe so.
- [29:56]
A
Yeah. So many. So many of the guys and girls that are. That are transitioned from top tech to field manager and service manager, they're used to the chaos, right? And. And they go in and they're ready for the chaos, which is why they let their phone ring 8,000 times, and they answer it every single time. And they give their people the answer, even though their people know the answer. Like, it's just that. That constant firefighting and chaos, a lot of it's because that's just all they know because they've. They've never been taught how to actually manage and run and lead a department. It's just more, hey, go be the firefighter and go teach them what it is you've. You've been doing to be a top.
- [30:35]
B
You're so good at juggling the phone calls and everything else. That's. Service manager. I did that for years. Install manager. Hey, they shipped the wrong parts. It's broken. Don't worry, man. I got you. I gotta figure it out. I'll take care of it. I saved the day. Just like Josh said, we're in Superman, you know, your badge on your chest. And then Josh knows the story about. I was sitting at my desk, and I was like, man, I feel like I'm getting a lot of phone calls. This is after I was a business owner, and I was still a service manager. Install manager, because we were still small enough for that. But, I mean, I had, I think, four or five technicians at that time. And I mean, I can't remember the exact number because it's been years ago now, but it was something like. I mean, it was an astronomical number. It was like 300 phone calls. 350 phone calls in one day. And I was like, I don't really. Like. I think I don't get that many. I literally. I went on Verizon's website, and I looked at it, and the straw that broke the camel's back was that a technician calls me. It's like, hey, man, what you think the problem is over here? I don't know, dude. What you think the problem is? I was like, what's your pressures? What's all this? It was like, oh, I ain't there yet. I was like, you. You just want to call and track. You just want to cheat, yet you don't want to have any actual help. And so I.
- [31:56]
A
Our affirmation or blame. So when it. When it goes wrong, they're like, I don't know. I did what Tersh told me to do.
- [32:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, not my fault. But that's that literally. So what you're describing right now, at this moment in my life, I. I learned. I was in the middle of. I was really hot and heavy in listening to podcast, and I was at that point getting ready to start this podcast, and I listened to. It was Mike Michalowicz and entree leadership. I think it's Dave Ramsey that did entree leadership or.
- [32:35]
A
Yep, that's who it is.
- [32:37]
B
And so I. One of the things they said was, stop answering the questions. Like, help them learn. And I was like, you know what? That's a good idea. So I literally brought everybody in. I was like, hey, look, guys, no more am I answering phone calls because I can't grow the company. Like, thankfully, I had a business partner, and he was bringing in tons of leads, so I didn't have to do that side of things. But I told him. I was like, hey, look, when you. When you give. When you call me, I will help you as long as you provide me with three solutions to the problem that you have. That way I know you've at least put forth enough effort that to think of three solutions to the problem that you have. I said, if you don't give me three solutions, I will hang up the phone on you. The very. I mean, 30 minutes later, they left the office for the meeting, and it's. A guy calls me up. He's like, hey, man, I need some help on this thing. I was like, all right, cool, dude. What do you think the issue is? What do you think the. The solution is? He was like, oh, I don't know. I ain't even got my gauges on it yet. I just hung up on him. Like I didn't even say bye or anything. I just hung up on it. He calls me back immediately. He's like, I think we got this connected. I said we did click. And then he had the message literally. Then that following the week later it took a week for him to finally get out of the habit of doing it. But that next week it, they literally it went to 12 phone calls the whole week.
- [34:08]
A
I mean set boundaries with people. If you don't set boundaries they'll, they'll walk all over like because they don't know there's boundaries to be set. And again that's kind of the thing with service managers, especially ones that are promoted from within as top techs. They don't even know what boundaries to set. So that you know, well, they might.
- [34:25]
C
Not have had boundaries to help them, they might not have had good boundaries set by their leader. So they're just carrying on the tradition of not setting good boundaries and are having those conversations. And then I mean this is just me just knowing, you know, we've all been in business long enough. So you see the interaction between males, females, male to male, like guy, like guys doing one on ones together. I feel like unless you are trained on how to ask better questions it probably isn't going to go real well. Like they're gonna shoot the about something or a football game or a car or like whatever they did on the weekend, like what they're drinking that weekend or whatever.
- [35:04]
B
Like it just, I've been guilty of that myself.
- [35:06]
C
Oh, I've, I've had means with that because I wasn't trained on doing those, those types of meetings or the annual reviews and I'm like, I don't know what to ask. And we didn't have chat, GPT or Claude at that point. So I'm like where you could spin up some questions and like help me out here so I can get going a little bit. What I'm curious because I know we got maybe like 10 minutes or so left Justin and, and we, we mentioned Service Manager Academy. I want to give you some runtime here to what is Service Manager Academy? You mentioned why. But what is it and what, what is someone going to get out of coming into or sending someone that they'd like to get into a service manager position through your academy?
- [35:47]
A
Yeah, absolutely. So it is a 12 week virtual training and it is virtual and it's live. So I know that's a little live and virtual seems a little. Yeah. So, so what we're doing is one day a week, we're doing live training. The second day of the week we're doing a open office hour. So for anybody who has questions about it, they can come on and ask real time coaching, what do they need help with? Each one of these classes is limited to 20 people. So you don't get too many people where they can hide. The, the point is to get these people that are going to be in the service manager role equipped to be service managers. Right. So when you talked about not knowing what to do in a one to one situation, there's an entire form that's already built so they don't have to think about what questions to ask. It's already filled. Out. Another beautiful them. I go a little bit into one to ones because it's like one of my favorite topics and it's something that really helped me in my business is when you fill out a one to one, you sign it, the other person signs it and. And now you have documentation. And so many people think accountability is swinging a hammer or you just have to fire somebody. This one to one form becomes your written documentation. So doing that annual review is not as necessary because what happens when you tell somebody, hey, we're going to do your annual review? What's the first thing that's in their brain?
- [37:09]
C
They're scared or, or they're like, yeah, or they talk about raise.
- [37:17]
A
Right. So if you're doing consistent one to ones, it becomes one of those things where you're giving your team the space to be able to find out what's going on. Like what's going on. Why is your close rate where it is? What can I do to help you? This is very much centered around kind of a servant leadership. Servant leadership. Centered is really what it is. Doesn't mean there's not accountability on them. It's what now they also know where.
- [37:40]
B
The goal post is too.
- [37:42]
A
Correct? Yeah, correct. And so now as you're doing these things, if you're having the same conversation month after month and it's the same thing not correcting itself, I can tell you personally myself and my service managers have had so many times where texts have not been able to meet it and you just say, you know, clearly I can't help you. I keep asking you how I can help you. You're telling me you don't need any help, you're not hitting the goal. What do we do from here? So many times we've had texts that'll say, maybe I'm not a good fit you know what? Maybe we're not.
- [38:13]
B
I appreciate it in that situation.
- [38:15]
A
Yeah.
- [38:15]
B
You know, it's, it, it, it's hard to find good help and I hate to use this term but the world needs ditch diggers. Like everybody can't be the super tech. How do you sat. So also a B player is worse than a C player because you know what a C player is and the B player is good enough to hide and ends up can cost you a lot of money, time and effort and calls Riffrath in the company. So I'm not saying you, you know, you should keep them.
- [38:58]
A
You have a scorecard. I mean here's the deal. As, as an owner, how long are you going to keep a C player? Like at some point enough's enough and you're not making money on them. You got to move on with your life. You got to move up. And honestly this, this really, this whole system teaches people when it's upgrade season because it, you should always be looking. Now I am going to 100% disagree with you on this. There is a ton of good people out there that want to work and can work. We as an industry, we got to do better at showing that next generation of what it's like to be a plumbing, a plumbing tech or a plumbing installer. And H vac service tech is a cool job. And listen things like podcasts and YouTube, we're, we're making it where it looks cooler and so that's a good thing. But that next generation, man, they just don't know how cool this industry is. I, I know that the three of us has absolutely changed every one of our lives. Yeah. For the positive.
- [39:59]
B
Yeah.
- [40:00]
C
Yeah. That's 100 true.
- [40:02]
A
We just have to teach them. We have to teach that next generation how to do that.
- [40:06]
C
You know, you can have a training program for them like even just like your, your service manager academy being able to train them. Like I always go back to this because it sticks out so vividly in my mind. At professional service we were same thing I did the prior to H Vac companies we always experience tax. Experience tax. We want someone that can get in a truck in a week. We hired a guy who was a college theater teacher. He was 45 years old. His contract ran out. He had a five year contract with UW Milwaukee and it ran out and they just didn't renew it or whatever. 45 years old, New industry. It's handy ish. But not like, not, not a gearhead like tersh.
- [40:41]
B
Right.
- [40:41]
C
And he comes in but his communication was so much Better than all of our other techs because you know how to communicate and connect with people. Our. I kid you not. When he started getting we. We trained him. We use interplay learning and obviously did some role play and other stuff in internally. But he would get reviews that literally were this long on Google consistently. People would spend $20,000 with him and they'd still get reviews like this because he was. He spent time with them, he listened, he heard them. So he had a different skill set, but he was still able to accomplish the same mission. And he just did a phenomenal job. But like the way that we used to hire. I remember for some of the first job applications I put up unlimited overtime. Come here if you want to work 80 hours a week. Thinking about that now makes me laugh every time because I'm like, I would want to work in a company where you like, they want you to work 80 hours a week now they want this to be your entire life.
- [41:36]
A
Back in the day, that was the generation.
- [41:38]
C
I know it was crazy.
- [41:40]
A
That's not it now, but that's not it. Connecting the wise is so much more important now than it's. Than it's ever been. Back in the day, it didn't. Nobody gave a About your why like 80 hours get the job.
- [41:51]
C
That's for like the corporate places. Like the exact.
- [41:54]
B
When Simon Sinek's book came out, I was like, I love Simon. I love the way he teaches. And I was listening to audiobooks a ton then I was like, he also is a very good. He expresses the meaning very well. So I'm gonna listen to it. But this is dumb. Like the why behind stuff. Because I said so. That's why I'm like, it's like maybe that was the military in me. I don't know.
- [42:21]
A
But like, you want a good job, you got a paycheck on Friday. And I mean, honestly. Yeah, 15, 20 years ago, man, that was. That was how it rolled. That is just. If you run a business that way now, there's no good people, nobody wants to work for you. You got constant turnover. And it quite frankly would be an awful place to be.
- [42:41]
B
It would be. Yeah, you're right. Justin, we always love hanging out with you. I mean, so much so that we do hang out with you. But for those who don't know you and don't know how to get in touch with you, what's the best way for that to happen?
- [42:57]
A
Yeah. So if you want to find out more about this training or connect with me, go to search servicemanagertraining.com it's got all the information on there. There's even a link on there for discovery call so you can click on the link. You can connect with me even if it's not. Even if you got a question that's not about the service manager training, you can just go to there and click a discovery call with me and we can jump on and shoot the breeze. And I'm happy to answer any questions that I can answer.
- [43:23]
B
If you want to know about podcasting equipment, just ask him.
- [43:28]
A
Ask her. No, I get all my information from ter.
- [43:30]
C
Don't ask her because then you will end up with stuff at your doorstep and you don't even know it.
- [43:35]
B
That's good. That's good stuff. We appreciate everybody. We appreciate you, Justin, for hanging out with us. If anybody has any questions at all, don't hesitate. Reach out and and and ask Justin. He is a wealth of knowledge and even better, he's willing to share. So that being said, I hope you have a wonderful and safe week. Until we talk again next time. We'll see you.
- [43:55]
C
See ya.
- [43:57]
A
See you guys.
- [44:00]
D
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 with other owners as well. Visit servicebusinessmastery.com to learn more.