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The Home Service Expert Podcast
E440 Unlocking Buyer Psychology: The Key to Sales Success with Joe Cunningham
00:41:44
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- [00:00]
A
I thought, well, if we could just find an app that I could give to a technician and he had to go through there and do the checklist and if he didn't do it, it wouldn't let him finish a job that would be the coolest thing in the world.
- [00:11]
B
Welcome to the Home Service Expert, where each week Tommy chats with world class entrepreneurs and experts in various fields like marketing, sales, hiring and leadership to find out what's really behind their success in business. Now your host, the home service millionaire, Tommy Mello. Before we get started, I wanted to two important things with you. First, I want you to implement what you learned today. To do that, you'll have to take a lot of notes. But I also want you to fully concentrate on the interview. So I asked the team to take notes for you. Just text notes N O t e s to 888-526-1299. That's 888-526-1299 and you'll receive a link to download the notes from today's episode. Also, if you haven't got your copy of my newest book, Elevate, please go check it out. I'll share with you how I attracted and developed a winning team that helped me build a $200 million company in 22 states. Just go to elevateandwin.com podcast to get your copy. Now let's go back into the interview. All right, guys, welcome back to Home Service Expert. Today a good buddy of mine happened to pass by. He's in town, Joe Cunningham. And he we had lunch and I said, let's go do a podcast.
- [01:29]
A
That sounds great while you were in town.
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B
So, Joe, tell us a little bit about I've known you now seven or eight years. You've been in the home service sales game. You've done a lot of stuff. Tell us a little bit about your history.
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A
I'll give you a little bit of feedback. My first trade was actually as a plumber. I worked for my uncle and I didn't like digging ditches enough to stay in that. So after that I ended up doing some carpentry and framing work and I ended up selling home improvements and we sold everything door to door. So that's how I learned I was a canvasser first for a company, then I became a salesperson and we went and we had our own leads. So I stayed on the east coast for a while. I moved to Houston, Texas in 1981, went in the home improvement business there. And again, same thing. You know, we didn't have any Leads. There was no Internet. There was just the yellow pages. And the yellow pages was kind of a strange deal for me. And I didn't know any other way to do things but knock on doors. Well, I was selling home improvements and I put in a room addition for a lady and she asked me if I could put an air conditioning system in for. And I didn't know if I could or not. So the guy that did my framing for me, his brother was air conditioning contractor. So I called him up and he comes out there and he looked at the job and he said he'd charge me. I don't know, it was like 720 or $30 a ton for air conditioning. And I said, well, that's really good, but how many tons do you have to put in? He says, well, get in a truck, I'll show you. So we drive around the block. Says, one like that needs 2 tons. One like that needs 3 tons. A big one like you're doing, you gotta put four tons in there. He says, do you know how to check the electrical service? I said, yeah. He said, well, if they don't have 100amp electric service, you gotta charge them for that. And here's a guy's car to put in for 500 bucks. So I started selling air conditioning door to door because I told this lady I could get it put in for. And I charged her $1,000 profit. She said she'd pay it. I thought, this is a hell of a deal. So I started selling air conditioning door to door the same way. Now, I was one of the first people that ever sold a million dollars worth of replacement equipment in a year. It's not a big deal anymore. We got selling 6, 7, 8, 9 million. But there was almost nobody did it then. But I didn't have an air conditioning company and I didn't have any technicians, and I subcontracted everything. So from that, the guys that subcontracted from me, they'd never installed that much air conditioning before. The distributors they were buying from because my subcontractors supplied equipment. They asked him how they sold that much stuff, and they gave him my card and they said, we don't sell it. We put it in for this guy and he's the one that sells it. Go ask him how he sold it. So all the distributors and manufacturers would come by and said, how do you sell this much air conditioning? And I told them, I said, you know, every day I get in my truck and then I drive across town and I pull up in a neighborhood and I park and I get out. And then when I get out, I walk down the street and I knock on people's doors and try and sell this stuff. And you know what some of them do? Some of them buy it. They said, you can't sell air conditioning like that. I said, I know I can't, but that's what I do. Well, after about three years, they figured out I really could do that. So I was contacted by Carrier, who always wanted to sell me equipment, but my goal was not to buy equipment. My goal was to sell air conditioning. And they said, look, we know you're not going to buy equipment from us, but we got these two contractors that owe us a whole lot of money, and we're really afraid they're going to go broke before we get paid off. And if you would just go teach them how to sell the way you sell and get us paid off, we'll give you this much money back. Then what they wanted to give me seemed like a whole lot of money to me. So I agreed to do it. So I went, worked with them for six months. We got Carrier paid off. They paid me. Then Carrier asked me, you know, you did this with one company. Could you do it with more? I said, yeah. They said, why don't you put a seminar together? So I did. Our seminar grew from four to six to eight hours. All the distributors in the state of Texas came to see what I was doing, all the carrier distributors. And they asked me to go to work for him. So I did. And I.
- [05:13]
B
What year was that?
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A
That would have been 1988. End of 88, first part of 89. Okay. And I started working with them. I traveled all over the state of Texas and I wrote a program for them called Texas Tough. Well, Carrier, at the national level saw what we were doing in Texas and asked me to help them with a. With a nationwide program. So I did. And we've put together a program called Value Added, selling value Added service. And a lot of the guys, if they watch your podcast that are old time Carrier, American Standard Dealers, they've probably seen those programs and they became pretty successful. So through that, I went from there to a company called RetroTech who was bringing out some new technology. They were selling diagnostic equipment that they showed me, and I thought that would enhance your sales more than anything you could do. So they offered me a distributorship, which I took, and I started selling blower doors for them. As I did that, I also went all up and down the east coast and gave seminars for a lot of the major manufacturers And a lot of the guys back then were joined in this new organization that was being formed called Contractor Success Group, which Jim Abrams and John Young had started. And they said, you know, the stuff that you talk about in your seminars, that's a whole lot like the stuff we talk about in our meetings. You need to meet Jim Abrams and John Young. So I flew to St. Louis. I met with Jim and John. They asked me to run what was called Future University for them, which was their educational arm. So I was president of Future University for about, oh, two years. I wrote a bunch of programs for them, delivered a bunch of programs, and then they wanted to start Service Experts. Jim called me one morning, said, look, we're getting ready to do Service Experts. We'd like you to help us. So I went to work for Service Experts before there was a Service experts. We put the first 13 companies together when we went public, and my job was to make sure everybody hit their numbers. So every day, all the different companies, there was no service titan. There was no consolidated software. People were just using, like, Peachtree Software or Excel spreadsheet or whatever they had, and they just fax it over to us every day, and we'd look at their numbers. So if you didn't hit your numbers for two weeks, my job was to go to your place and spend a week there and work with you and fix your numbers. And then next week, I go to another part of the country. Next week, I go to another part of the country. And we eventually grew that company to where we had 137 companies, and I was on the road every week. So I got kind of tired of it, and I told Abrams I was going to quit. So he said, what you quitting for? I said, because I never see my wife and kids, man, you can't pay me enough to do this job. He says, well, it's all you want off the road. I said, yeah. He said, well, we got a deal for you. Now, I think you know Jim, but.
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B
I don't know him personally. I know everything about Jim.
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A
He's a pretty amazing guy. But the one thing that I learned is if he says, we got a deal for you, you shouldn't just say yes. But I did. I said, okay, if it'll get me off the road, I'll do it. He said, okay, we got 137 companies now. And I talked to the people over at the train air conditioning company, and they said they got four TV stations, and you could use one whenever you want. You've been wanting to do your Training by tv. So we'll make everybody get a satellite dish and receiver and you can go to Tyler, Texas, once a week and you can just broadcast out of there. We'll send in like a great big uplink truck like they use for the football game. We'll just beam you up. He said, that'll get you off the road. You want to do that? I said, yeah, that'd be great. He said, okay, you can do that. He said, well, we got one other little thing we need you to do. What's that? He said, well, we got these two companies. They're not very big. One's only doing three and a half million and a half, and they're both losing money and both managers just quit. They're only 100 miles apart and you got to go fix them. You can do that, can't you? So I agreed to do that. I took those two companies, one from a negative 4 or 5% net profit to a plus 9% net profit in about six months. I did the TV show at the same time. They found two new managers, put them in there. I did the TV show for another six months. They wanted me to move to Nashville, and that just was not in the cards for me. So I started doing more and more consulting work, and that business has kind of grown. I work all over the us, Canada, Australia. Do a whole lot of stuff in Australia. I know some of your friends from over there. That's a really fun place to go. And I help them grow their business. And it's also expanded my. My scope again, working with the best practice groups over here, like Service Roundtable and Service Nation, because it let me go back to work with plumbers and electricians and all those different people. So it's been a pretty interesting ride. And then, you know, meeting you and watching you, what you've done with the garage doors was interesting. And then when we got to talking that time and we just talked about the checklist, that's even more interesting. I'm having a great time with that.
- [10:04]
B
Yeah, no, we talk about a lot of stuff. We'll jump into that in a few. I got a couple questions.
- [10:08]
A
Okay.
- [10:10]
B
I'm just going to ask you about a few names. Okay. I'm sure you got great things to say. The Godfather, the original OG Ron Smith. I had an opportunity to not only meet him several times, but he was on the podcast HX Spells Wealth. He was in Southern Florida back in talking about this stuff. And I feel like the 60s.
- [10:35]
A
Yeah, Ron was a pretty amazing guy. I met Ron probably In the mid to early 80s. And he had been down there, he had modern air conditioning company, but he also opened up a best practice group. It was called, what's it called? Service America. And he opened that up. And I helped a couple of the guys that worked for him do that. And Ron and I became very good friends. And, you know, Ron did a lot of going out in the field and helping people, too. But through our association and what I did with him, when he couldn't go, he just called me up and asked me to go. And, you know, he was a great mentor, you know, as far as helping me figure things out that these companies needed. And we had such a long association that before he passed, he would call me up and say, joe, I got this company in wherever the heck they were, and they need you to help them. What's wrong? And he tell me what's wrong. He said, what do you want me to do? He said, you know what to do, Just go. So I did. And he introduced me to a lot of people. Brilliant guy. And he was the first person that I know of that ever brought the retail side to any home service as far as in the trades. Plumbing, electrical, H Vac, you know, there had been home improvement companies remodeling and stuff like that, but there had never been anything like he did in the air conditioning business. And he turned that industry upside down. There was a lot of naysayers when he started, you know, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't charge this, you can't charge that. And he proved them wrong. He proved all of them wrong. He was an amazing guy and a great friend.
- [12:23]
B
So Jim Abrams, I think one of the stories. I went out and visited Terry Nicholson and I heard story after story after story. I mean, I spent a couple days with him and he worked with Tom Hopkins. He was the roadshow warrior where he could go out and sell from stage. And you now him and Jim, and who's he working with in that best practices group? It's Terry. Jim Abrams. And I'm brain farting. But anyway, tell me a little bit about Terry. I heard he could be a hard ass, too.
- [12:57]
A
If you don't know him, he can. I'm the first person Terry ever worked for in the heating and air conditioning business. I met Terry when I was with Carrier and he was working with the Tom Hopkins seminar, and I actually met his cousin first. Now I was helping Carrier with their contractors, and I was also helping him with their salespeople as well and their Salespeople, their territory managers didn't have very good selling skills. So a big full page ad and I was a Tom Hopkins devotee for a long time. Full page ad in Houston. Chronicle came out. Tom Hopkins is coming to the new George Brown Convention Center. Call here for tickets. So I thought, well all these guys need to go. So I went and talked to the sales manager, said all these guys need to go see this. Going to be a George Brown Convention Center. Here's the date I think they ought to go. He said, okay, call them up and see how much tickets are. So I called up buy them on the phone. They came to you to make a presentation. So Terry's cousin Greg Buffington came out there to make the first presentation. So I met with, with Greg and he says, well this is what it is, it was going to be about and we have to send our sales manager out here to meet with you. I said, you don't need to send anybody. I said, here's all you got to tell me. How much to make the check for. I need this many tickets. I can't do that. Why? Well, the salesman, that's how we do it. The sales manager has to come sell you. I said, well he doesn't have to sell anything. We'll just buy. Tell me how much money you want. Yeah, no, we can't do that. So we agreed to let Terry come. So Terry comes and I told him the same thing. I said, Terry said, well I need to make a presentation. Everybody says you don't need to make a presentation. The only presentation you need to make is I'm going to bring the check out and you need to tell me how much to write it for. That's all you got to do. No, we can't do that. So we had to sit through, set Terry's presentation. So we all went to Tom Hopkins deal in Houston. I've been to Tom Hopkins boot camps probably five or six times. If you listen to some of his big recordings, you'll hear me on there. But later on if we fast forward. When I got done with Carrier and I went with that Retro Tech company, my territory was actually Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas. But since we had no representation east of the mississ, I handled the whole eastern half of the United States. Well, it was too much for me to do myself. So Terry's cousin Greg lived in Houston. So I called up Greg, I said, look, are you still doing the seminar thing or you want something to do that's really cool? I'll show you how to do it? He said, yeah, I'd like something to do. So he came over there. I showed him how to make a presentation for blower doors and how to sell them. And usually I just sell them, and then he'd go deliver them and do the training. So he did that for a while. And then during that time, I met Jim and John. Well, they asked me to come to right outside of St. Louis in St. Charles and run Future University, because that's where the school was. So I got things going. I wanted to add indoor air quality to it, and I thought, well, Greg knows all about indoor air quality. After the blower door deal, I'll call him up. So I called Greg up. I said, I got a really good gig for you, Greg. I'd like you to come up here and do IAQ classes. He said, well, I can't. I'm selling real estate now. That's what I want to do. He said, but you remember my cousin Terry? I said, yeah, well, he lives in St. Louis. Call him up. He'll do it. He doesn't know anything about iaq, so just tell him what to say. He'll do anything. So that's how I got with Terry. Terry came to work doing seminars for me, and then we ended up after he went through all the classes, putting him into a company and letting him operate. And then during the service experts period, Jim got out of service experts, and he had a no compete, so he couldn't do anything. Later on, I got out. But because Terry wasn't an insider when he got out, he didn't have to sign a no compete. So Jim called me up one day. He said, look, we're getting ready to do this airtime 500. You want to come help us? I said, I can't do it. He says, well, do you know how to find Terry? I said, yeah, I know how to find him. He said, tell him to call me. So I called up Terry and he went over there and did it. And Terry's done an absolutely amazing job. Terry has a capacity for work that would kill a damn mule. He can produce and do more than 90% of the world's population, I believe. Yeah, he's an incredible guy. He's very energetic, and I think being short helped him because he feels like he has something to prove. Yeah, and. And he does. You know, some guys say he's pretty tough. Well, you know, he has a goal, you know, and people ask me about working for Abrams, and Abrams was very easy to work for. A lot of people didn't Believe it. But if you were Abrams and sitting here with me, you'd say, joe, I want to do this project. This is what we want to do. And do you think you can do it? He would accept no. Can you do it by then? Yes. Okay, do it. That was it. That was our agreement. He would never, ever ask me, maybe ask me a question and pass it in the hallway how things are coming. He would never ask me for that. And I always had the project done early, so we got along great. I mean, I couldn't have thought of an easier person to work for. He never bugged you about anything. But I will say this. If you were ever to pick a guy in the trades that you wanted to learn something really quick and have it worth invaluable amounts of money, it would be to have a meeting with Jim Abrams. You will learn more from Jim Abrams and take notes when you go there in 30 minutes and you learn from most people in six months. He's a brilliant man. Brilliant. And he just tells you, yeah, he's done a lot.
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B
I mean, he's a tougher guy to get a hold of now, but, you know, that's. That's how it goes.
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A
Yeah, well, you know, he's kind of semi retired and he's enjoying that. You know, he's got the kids and the grandkids and he's kind of enjoying that. And he pitches in, helps Terry, and, you know, that kind of consumes his time.
- [19:13]
B
So you're working a little bit. You worked with Ken Goodrich, you're doing some stuff with him now. Ken's a great guy. I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot from Leland. I've learned a lot from Paul Kelly Keegan when he was in Florida with the H Vac company. I mean, I've. I've gone out to all these shops, I've been all over the country, and they each had something kind of different. They're each a little bit different, entrepreneurial in their own way. So much information. But I want to talk a little bit about sales. Okay. Where you think you fixed a lot of shops? Where do you think? You told me when you walked in today I could teach, but I can't execute because I don't have enough time to go there, run every business. So you need to have somebody good in there that'll take with what I have and not make friends with everybody, but execute. So where do you think the biggest mistakes, the most common things that you need to get good at?
- [20:08]
A
Well, you know, sales training. I Can teach people the processes and procedures because it's all proven sales is a numbers game. Statistically speaking, this process works better than that process. So do this one more often and then perfect that people only buy from people they know and like and trust. So you got to spend a little time doing that before you execute the process. There's three or four things about sales that a lot of people don't realize. I call them the truisms. Like, nobody buys a solution for a problem they don't know they have, and too many salespeople just get there and they try and sell something without bringing up the problem that it'll solve and just making that important. Number two, nobody buys anything for themselves that they really think costs too much when they buy it, because if they did, they wouldn't buy it. And a lot of people don't believe that. But I'll ask the guys in a seminar. I said, how many of you, when you go out and you're looking for tools or maybe you're a gun nut or something, and you already got 15 or 20, and you find one that you just really like, do you just go ahead and buy it because you like it? And then when you take it home and show it to your wife, what does she say? What are you buying that for? You already got 37. Well, this one's different, baby. It does this, and then you get in the argument. But doesn't your wife buy a whole lot of stuff that costs way too much? Oh, yeah, it all costs too much. Why do you think what your wife buys costs too much? But what you buy is always a bargain, right? You know, you didn't want it. It could really be a bargain. But nobody buys something for their self that they really think costs too much. And if you remember those couple of things, that makes it important, and the third one is really important also is money is only important when that's all a customer understands, you know, which is super important to remember. When I'm going into a house and we get into a conversation and we're talking about air conditioning, plumbing, water heaters, generators, it doesn't matter. But we're talking about a product. And during this conversation, I bring up, well, Tommy, you know, a generator is a pretty big project. Let me ask you something. Have you gotten any other opinions on this? Never say the word bids or quotes because the customer gets defensive. But they'll tell you all about the opinions. Oh, yeah, we had five people coming out. Okay, well, why didn't they buy from them? And shouldn't you find that out before I ever give them a price, because I'm going to ask him to buy before I ever make my presentation. So I'm going to get all my objections out front, but you got to ask that. And if I don't, if I don't ask that, what's going to happen at the end when I present my price? Well, I already had five guys. Now we're right back to selling commodities because I didn't know the guy was really interested in this or that or why he didn't buy from that competitor of mine. And then the fourth truism is saying no. It's just a defense mechanism. People are just trained to say no because they find their money as being security. And I might not have that really cool thing that Tommy's talking about, but at least I still got my money so I'm safe, you know? So you, you have to overcome all those four things, and they're there on every sale. I don't care what sale you're making and, and what product it is you're selling, those four things are there every single time. So you've got to build your presentation around that. And then most people try and rush through the presentation and they really don't like the role play. You know that I don't like the role play. And then they don't have somebody that implements all these pieces in the learning of it. You know, when we did service experts, one of the things that happened was Jim and John were convinced that the companies we were buying to start with were so successful because everybody was doing what they taught them how to do. Well, that wasn't really the truth. They were so successful because these guys had a super strong personality and he did some of the stuff. And as we start buying more and more companies and they were getting less and less on the program, we had to figure out a way to keep them doing it. So we developed a position in those companies called the implementation coordinator. Now, that person didn't know how to do a damn thing. They just knew how to nag your ass until you did it. They had the list. Tommy, did you do this? Tommy, did you do that? Tommy, did you get this done? Tommy? Or the guy's role playing? So that's the way that worked. And the sales went up, the productivity went up, the closing ratios went up because somebody was there driving the pieces and driving the pieces. If I make a guy do the same thing every day, he will become good at it. If I leave him to his own devices, he will practice Doing the stuff he's really good at, and he won't do the stuff that he's not good at. It's just like, if you're a great golfer and you can really drive, but your putts suck, but you don't like putting, so all you do is go practice driving, you never be a better putter. Yeah. And that's how it goes when you leave your company to its own devices and you don't fix those little parts in your sales department. No.
- [25:23]
B
It's powerful stuff. I agree with all that. I think time is. One of the most important things, is spending time with people. One of the things I always look at is, wait a minute. You were there for 20 minutes and you started the estimate. I mean, especially on a new equipment sale. Is this like, did you even go to their kitchen table? Did you talk to their family? Did you figure out if anybody else was going to be part of the decision making? Did you. Did you know what kind of budget they were looking to spend? Like, you're asking questions and they're not. Yes or no questions. And when you hear, why didn't you buy from the other guys?
- [25:56]
A
What.
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B
What's the most common answer?
- [25:58]
A
What?
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B
What? You know, as you got other opinions, Joe, why wouldn't you. What caused you to just.
- [26:04]
A
See, I don't. I don't whack him with that question. I build up to it. I say, tommy, you know, that's an interesting way to do business. Now, one thing I found out long ago is I can ask anybody a question about anything. If I preface the question by saying, that's because the customer's sitting there. And he said. When you say that, he says, damn right. I'm glad you noticed how interesting I was. I was wondering if you're gonna notice that. So it kind of pumps him up. So if I say, tommy, that's an interesting way to do business. But let me ask you something. Why didn't you do business with one of those guys? If he's had four or five, then I'll say, those four or five people you got the bids from, Tommy, were they. Did you vet them out? Were they all reputable companies and do they all have good reviews? I'll ask them three or four of those things. Oh, yeah, they were just as good as. You had the same amount of reviews. Well, let me ask you this.
- [26:52]
B
Years in business type thing. Yeah.
- [26:54]
A
Why didn't you do business with one of them and then shut up? You know, and the typical answer is this. We just wanted to make sure we Made the best deal. What the hell does that mean? See, you've got to get them to qualify what that means. If you don't get that customer to qualify what he thinks is the best deal, you still don't know where to go, because now you're assuming something. Now, most green salespeople will think that means price. So you've got to bring that up and say, tommy, I hear that all the time, and a lot of people have different interpretations of what that is. What do you mean by the best deal? And then I usually get this answer from them. Well, I just want to get the best equipment at the cheapest price. You know, that's an interesting combination, Tommy. It really is. But let me ask you something. Have you ever, on a regular basis, been able to get something that's the very best at the very cheapest price at the same time and shut up.
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B
Shut up, shut up.
- [28:00]
A
When you ask the question. Shut up. And it gets uncomfortable. But silence is pressure. You have to get good at it. Now, most people weaken right there, and they start to talk again. You just lost the sale. And everybody says, first one speaks, loses. No, he doesn't lose. The first one that speaks is going to own what we're talking about. He's going to be a winner because he's buying what I got. But when I ask that question, and he said, well, no, I haven't. Well, you know, heating and air conditioning, plumbing and electrical generators, garage doors, a whole lot like that, it's going to be really hard for me to give you the very best at the very cheapest price. What I think you're really trying to tell me, Tommy, is that you want to make sure that you and your family get the most value for the money. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Say, well, let me explain what we're going to do. Well, I understand that, Joe, but don't try and tell me the most expensive thing you got. I said, well, Tommy, that'll be the last thing that I do tonight. And it will, because if you buy it, I'm not going to ask you to do any damn thing else. But it gives me a chance. To do what? Back up, even if I missed it the first time, and go through all the reasons why this is the right thing. Now, if I did it right to start with on this table, I asked him all these questions. I fill out forms. A lot of people like to go to nothing but tablets and iPads, but sometimes you need paper. I want all the reasons this guy said he wanted to buy sitting right here I want whatever analysis I did sit right here so I can refer back to it. It just becomes very easy for me to say, well, Tommy, remember right here when you said this was important?
- [29:34]
B
Well, consistency. Yeah, that's. Robert Ciardini was just in here last week. When you talk about that, people want to stay consistent. You told me you wanted this to last. This is your forever home, didn't you?
- [29:45]
A
Yeah.
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B
You told me that safety was one of your main concerns because you've got kids. You also told me that because Tommy sleeps upstairs, Tommy Jr. You wanted this to stay quiet. You know, these are some things that I think is super important to you from what you've told me.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah. And it is. And it becomes 10 times more powerful if I have that form in there and say. And one of the things you told me, Tommy, was. And I read it off, because when I was asked, I either wrote the words down that you told me or I have it on my list and I put a check mark there when you told me. It's harder for me to say. I didn't say it. If I got the list right there. It is incredibly powerful.
- [30:27]
B
How many guys are still doing that with paper?
- [30:30]
A
Not as many as they should because the younger ones are taught everything in the iPad, everything in the iPad, everything in the iPad. But all your shit disappears.
- [30:39]
B
I love this stuff. So let's. I could talk to sales for hours, but we've got about 10 minutes here, I think let's jump into this checklist because we both got really excited when we started talking about checklists. And I've always had an idea to be able to show a client the good, the bad and the ugly and do a comprehensive analysis. Like, you don't tell somebody they need a part. I've always done show and tell. Take it apart, let them touch it, let them feel it. Sometimes the client just didn't want to touch dirty parts. And I get that. But talk to me about the power of a checklist, because this has been something you talk to service titan about, but this is. We're talking about a much more comprehensive checklist.
- [31:19]
A
Okay. You know that checklist deal. I've always done checklists for years. But the problem with a checklist, and I've given thousands of companies a checklist, is if I've got four, five, six technicians and I give them the checklist and I say, can y' all do this on every job? Yep. So you're gonna fill it out and do everything? Yeah. So then I give them the checklist and they go out and you know yourself, when I give a tech a checklist, he does the stuff that he really likes to do and the stuff that he doesn't like. There's always an excuse. It couldn't happen today. Like, I mean, it was too hot, it was too cold. The moon's in the wrong phase. I don't know why, but that happens. So I wanted to find a way to make sure that they did it. So the first thing we did on checklists was there were certain things I required pictures on, and that helped a lot. But guys can get very creative with pictures too, so it wasn't helping as much as it should. So when I was talking to you when apps came out, I thought, well, if we could just find an app that I could give to a technician, and he had to go through there and do the checklist, and if he didn't do it, it wouldn't let him finish a job. That would be the coolest thing in the world. Well, I called about 10 app building companies to try and get it done. None of them knew what the hell I was talking about, but a couple of them said they did. But I got prices, like from 350 to 300,000, so I didn't know what the hell the price was, but that was too big of a rang. And then when you and I got to talking about it and you said you'd like to have a app like that too, that's when it really happened. Now, what this app does and why it's so powerful is in the app. When you open it up, it's got a template for almost every trade, everything a text should do. So if you're in a certain part of the country where that template doesn't match yours, the templates are completely customizable. Like, you're in the Northeast and you do oil heat. Well, there's no oil heat for the guys on the South. So you just add oil heat in there and you take off what they use that you don't do. So you customize this template. But the real magic is this. The stuff that you absolutely, positively want done, no matter what. As you're going through your template and you set it up, there's a button on there you can hit that says mandatory. That means this guy has to do it, because this is what happens if it doesn't. If you put a mandatory mark there, the guy has to perform these tasks. We've got every task related to working on heating and air conditioning system, a plumbing system, electrical system, whatever it is, he has to Go through there and perform every task. But if it's marked mandatory and he doesn't do it, when he goes to summarize the job at the end, it takes him right back to it. And when it says mandatory, if you put it in there, mandatory, that means he has to grade that piece of or that component, and he has to take a picture and he has to put a comment there. So when he finishes with everything, just like I said, at the bottom of the checklist, there's a button that says summarize. And you hit summarize, AI will write you a summary of everything that you found wrong. All your pictures are in there, everything you found wrong with the equipment there, everything that he checked in, the condition for the whole system. Now, here's where it really becomes powerful. Let's say we're using greener and greener text because trained texts are hard to find, and guys that are really thorough are hard to find. So we're going to hire some greener techs. And as you know, I have a trade school. We train techs and we take very inexperienced techs and do this, but because we have taught them to find and work on every component, they don't miss anything on their list. But he doesn't have great communication skills yet. When he hits summarize, then there's also another button on. It says send to office. So now he sends that over to the office. My senior service advisor picks it up, and he sees exactly what's wrong. My tech calls him to get any advice. And if my tech can't call, they do all this while the guy goes out to the truck. Then the senior service advisor says, tommy, well, give me about two minutes and then head back into the house. And then the senior service advisor calls the customer and says, hey, Ms. Johnson, this is Joe. I'm the senior service advisor over at Joe's air conditioning company. My tech, Tommy's at your house. And while he was working on your system, he found some things that he's really concerned about. So I had him send me some pictures. And quite frankly, when I saw those pictures, I was pretty concerned myself. Would you mind if I shared that with you? 100% of the customers say yes, 100%. We have never had a customer turn us down. Then he gets to make the presentation. But really what really makes it even more powerful is because you now come in. When he makes that statement, the customer says, share it. So I'll say, is, Ms. Johnson, is Tommy gotten back in there? Yeah, he just walked in the door. Well, Turn your speaker on. I'd like him to show you what, what we're talking about. One of the things that's wrong with your plumbing, your electrical, your H vac, whatever it is, is this. Tommy, why don't you take them and show him what we're talking about? So you're doing the show and tell. You're not really good at communicating, but you can show all the parts. So he's getting an orchestrated sales presentation that's customized to him. And then we sell it over the phone. The tickets go through the roof, our callbacks drop to zero. Our conversions are amazing, you know, and it's working in little places that you wouldn't believe. We've got a customer in Henderson, Texas. Res air conditioning. I went to his place, we put it in place, we set it up, we even built him a template. We call before troubleshooting because he's got really green text. Tommy, go out there and take a look at this system and see what's wrong. Okay. Well, when you get there, you have to hit the. Before troubleshooting. It says you don't know enough about air conditioning to be on your own. Check this, check that, check this. Power here, power there, power. So you fill that out, then you send that in, and a service advisor will tell you what to do to fix it. If it's a repair, or he'll tell you, go ahead and do a tune up and check the rest of the system. It is amazing. And right now I'm in the middle of building a knowledge base. So we'll have another button in there. So if. If you're the tech and you get to a spot because you're green, say, shit, I forgot how to do that. There's a little button, the shit, I forgot how to do that button. And you click that in a PDF or a video, come up and show you how to do it. It's an amazing tool and it works in every single trade out there.
- [37:40]
B
Well, you know what's interesting is you think about it. The more comprehensive the checklist, it's like you got all the evidence. I had a client, we do some simple things in service time, but it's not like this. And there's so many different things that this is capable of. And it's cheap.
- [37:58]
A
Yeah.
- [37:58]
B
I mean, you make one sell, you paid for it for the year, practically one good sell. I think the coolest thing about it though, is just where it's going. And you do allow everybody to do a comprehensive. You make them do the job. And if there's a manager on the other side saying you got to upload the picture, you got to take the picture from scratch and you know you'd want to and you want to have the evidence to show the client, this is what we did and here's how we did it. Because I've had clients call back and say, I don't think you sold my mom anything. And we've gotten all the pictures. We say, look, this is all the before, this is the job. So I think it's super powerful. What, what other things about the checklist? I mean you went pretty comprehensive, but it just basically conformity and giving the evidence. It's evidence based solutions.
- [38:43]
A
It is evidence based solutions and uniformity of the performance that you're going to get from every single tech. Every single tech will be able to operate at one level above where he normally is. And I mean like the guy I told you about in Henderson, he's got two new techs at my trade school now, they'll graduate tomorrow and he let them run with some of the guys that are using the checklist. They both said they'd never seen anything like that before to make the jobs go right. And when we went there, he was doing a lot of $79 tune ups. He's doing a lot of $1,200 tune ups now.
- [39:14]
B
I love it. What's the most comprehensive checklist? How many items?
- [39:18]
A
You know what? I don't remember the exact number of items, but I guess if you use the entire H Vac template, there's probably 70, 80 items to touch on. You know, if you do all the components in there and you can pare it down or build it up however you want, you could add, subtract, you.
- [39:35]
B
Could get serial numbers, you could add anything.
- [39:37]
A
You get everything. Oh, all that's on there, all the serial number model numbers, everything's on there. So you just click mandatory on that and they have to take a picture of it.
- [39:44]
B
I love it, I love it. I got a lot of things I'm thinking about right now. So it's homeservicechecklist.com that's right, homeservicechecklist.com and if they're interested, just go there, fill.
- [39:56]
A
Out a form and just fill out a form and we'll get you introduced to it, show you how it works, help you build your template and get it implemented in your company. It's amazingly easy.
- [40:07]
B
What do you think of the minimum? And I know you can't say this, but if they do everything you tell them to do, and you do a small training with them. What do you think? This impacts the number of closed deals.
- [40:17]
A
And revenue conversion rate the guys and just take service. Your average service ticket's gonna go up about 40% because you're doing everything. And that's what's happening. Your conversions from fixing old stuff to replacing it. Because a lot of guys don't know how to do that. And it gives your inside guy all the information he needs to do the conversion. That will probably double on what you're doing now. It's amazing what happens.
- [40:45]
B
Oh, I love it, Joe. I wish we had more time. I got a run here. But if you guys are smart, you reach out. It's homeservicechecklist.com yes, it is. And Joe, I appreciate you coming over.
- [40:58]
A
Thanks for letting me come, Tommy. I had a good time.
- [40:59]
B
This is great, brother. I appreciate. I learned a lot. We're going to do this again.
- [41:03]
A
Good. Looking forward to it.
- [41:04]
B
Thanks, buddy. Hey there. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today. Before I let you go, I want to let everybody know that Elevate is out and ready to buy. I can share with you how I attracted a winning team of over 700 employees in over 20 states. The insights in this book are powerful and can be applied to any business or organization. It's a real game changer for anyone looking to build and develop a high performing team like over here at a one garage or service. So if you want to learn the secrets that help me transfer my team from stealing the toilet paper to a group of 700 plus employees rowing in the same direction, head over to elevateandwin.com podcast and grab a copy of the book. Thanks again for listening and we'll catch up with you next time on the podcast.