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To The Point - Home Services VIP Room Podcast
The Leadership Gap Costing Contractors the Best Young Talent
00:49:30
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- [00:02]
A
This is to the Point a Rhino experience voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the and getting to the point.
- [00:18]
B
Hey, what's up to the Point listeners. It's your boy Chris, along with my homie Jab. Peterman, my homie.
- [00:24]
A
What's up, man?
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B
My whole me.
- [00:27]
A
That's right.
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B
Chad. Chad. It was a rough night last night.
- [00:33]
A
Yeah, it was. Yeah.
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B
I didn't sleep well.
- [00:37]
A
You didn't?
- [00:38]
B
No, because it bugged me, man. Like our boilermakers sons of got beats.
- [00:46]
A
The second, second time in a row. That second time in a row they lost to Iowa State. Indiana won the Big Ten championship that night and then they lost to UCLA last night after Indiana won the entire thing the night before.
- [01:01]
B
So, yeah, it doesn't feel good about. But I'll tell you what, I don't feel like, you know, me, Mason flew over to watch a USC game. We didn't play a great USC game. They haven't been playing. They haven't been playing great. Like there's no, like I feel like there's no cohesiveness. Like something's off with the team, you know, Know it's. We aren't the same. Like something's off. So hopefully this is like a big wake up call. I'm like, guys, get your together. Even though what's his name was like lights out, hitting everything what dent.
- [01:28]
A
But yeah, that's. They ran into Iowa State. They could not miss. I think they're shooting like 70 from the field of snuts.
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B
Crazy. So it'll be all right. I mean, we'll be fine. I mean, better now than March.
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A
Agreed. Yeah. You got a month, month and a half. Ish to round into form.
- [01:45]
B
That's right. Okay, so enough. I know you guys don't give a about pretty basketball. Yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and jump into it. This is gonna be just me and Chad today. I'm excited when we do these episodes and clearly so our listeners too. So this one's going to be around the topic of the younger generation, the technicians, so the next generation of talent, something which you've had to experience, Chad. I've also experienced when I was still working at Rhino, so I've had some experience trying to lead younger talent, how to keep them motivated. That's half the battle. Because not all the young talents motivated by money. There's other things that come into play. So we're going to hit on this whole younger generation, you know, of talent, how to keep them motivated. What Chad's experience with it how to lead, you know, younger talent, how to motivate younger talent, how to train younger talent, things like that. There is it. There is a difference. Maybe not a big difference, but there is a difference. You need to be aware of it. But first, Chad, but first, we're going to check out another popular metaphor, or idiom, as some might call it, where they came from, to educate not only you myself, but also the listeners. Okay? Now, don't pull an aura and chat GPT this while I'm talking to you about it, okay?
- [02:58]
A
I won't do that. Hopefully you got a young people's one that neither of us understand and then we can really dig into what the heck they're talking about.
- [03:05]
B
You know what? God, if I was a better marketer, I would have thought about that.
- [03:09]
A
Yeah.
- [03:10]
B
So here's the one we're gonna go with today. Very popular metaphor, which is Cut to the chase. Huh? Cut to the chase.
- [03:19]
A
So this based on last episode. I'm gonna guess that it probably doesn't have anything to do with what you would think it would and it's just gotten misused maybe.
- [03:28]
B
No, well, I. I actually think that when I read through it, it does. I mean, it does make. It does make sense. I think this is too far off from what you're thinking because the point of it is like, hey, let's. Let's get to the point. Right? Let's cut to the chase, you know? You know, same like the podcast, which.
- [03:46]
A
Yeah.
- [03:47]
B
Which we, we rarely do, but we're. So I'm not going to cut to the chase just yet. So here's where the phrase comes from. So it actually originated from early Hollywood films, call it the 1910s to 1920s. Like, when there was like, no sound. I just, just. Just acting. So these silent movies is kind of where this whole thing originated from. And it was because they had these long, slow plot developments.
- [04:14]
A
Right?
- [04:14]
B
So you're watching it. No sound. And it was taken forever to get to, like, the exciting part, so. And typically what would happen is the most exciting part in these films was like the chase scenes. You know, cop car chasing the bad guy or whatever that was. I don't know. Wait, was there cars in 1910s? Hang on.
- [04:31]
A
Sing it.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
- [04:32]
A
Horse and buggy.
- [04:34]
B
Anyway, you get to the exciting part where it's usually the chase part of it, which is where they would say, okay, let's skip past all the boring and let's just cut to the chase scenes. So that's where it comes from. That was the actual origination from it. So skip right past the boring buildup and get right into what the audience really wants, which is the good stuff. So, Chad, let's cut to the chase and get to the podcast. You like the segue?
- [04:58]
A
Let's do it. Perfect.
- [04:59]
B
Let's go. Okay, so now we all know, you know, 19, you know, early 1900s Hollywood. Okay, let's get to this. Younger. Now, first off, let me go ahead and start off by, by asking you this question. And in a close percentage, you'll be fine. If you know. If you know. But, like, what would you say is like, the percentage of technicians that you guys have at Pierman brothers, that's like 25 or under?
- [05:21]
A
I think it. If you widen the gap to like 20 to 30, I think it's like a good, like, if you just look at, like, people in the field, 20 to 30. I don't have the exact number, but I think it's got to be like 30, 40%, I would think.
- [05:37]
B
Oh, that's. Okay. So that's actually bigger than I thought you were going to say, because when I think. When I. And actually you made a good point. When you think about that, that 10 years, I think there's a difference from that 20 to 30. That, that 25 to 30 number actually think is slightly different from what I've experienced than what you're experiencing from 25. Like, I look at my oldest daughter, Casey, now 25, and how she is versus some of the other folks I've worked with or I've worked with that are 25. And they're very different. Like, very different people. And I don't know why, but once you go above that, it seems like maybe it's a little bit. I'm have. I've had a little bit less of, you know, of a adjustment to do to lead them, but still, that's a. That's a big percentage that you guys have to manage. Now, I can remember if you and I have talked about this before on, like, on. I know we've talked about, on the podcast before on how to. How we have to change as leaders to, you know, to be heard or understood or, you know, or for them to listen to us, to want to continue to do the thing or to, to learn or whatever. So we, we talk about. There's always been this thing, like, especially within the marketing space, too, of how we can get a lot of talent in here, and they don't necessarily care so much about, you know, the money as they do, like, the, the luxuries of the Business, the days off, the ping pong table, the whatever, like whatever. Or if it's project based stuff, like it's just less about the money and more about the purpose, I guess, or whatever you want to call it now in the technical field, you gotta try and find ways to move. Now money still has to be a factor, right? They want to make a certain something and sometimes that something is way more than they're actually worth making, which is a whole other conversation. But when younger techs, you know, have you seen them, you know, or what maybe. What have you run into when you, when you, when you pay them? Maybe more than what you know, to get the talent that you think is good talent. But then they still leave like, so what are you running into there with like this pay with the younger team or are you doing anything with it? Is it kind of like. No, we're treating everybody the same Doe, how's it looking?
- [07:46]
A
Yeah, so I think there's two things to point out that I think are important for, for people to take note of. So one would be is we're all concerned about retention and, you know, turnover and all of this stuff. There's a part of me that in this age bracket, call it 25 to 30, 20 to 30, whatever you want to call it, they haven't had the opportunity to work a lot of places. And your place may be actually the first place that they come to work. And what we know about young people of today is they are somewhat indecisive. They want to move up quick, they want to, you know, chase the new opportunity. All of this stuff where we have probably found the most success with a lot of these guys is when they leave, is reaching out to them about 612 months later and asking them if the grass is greener on the other side. We have had last year in 25. I don't know the exact number, but I'm going to go ahead and ballpark and say probably, probably 15 to 20 of our technicians were what we call boomerang hires. Where they left then either we reached out or they reached out about coming back. And I think that that's only human, right? It's like, hey, let me go try this other thing. They are promising me a lot of stuff. It looks different. I've got a few issues here that I think are, you know, I don't understand why they can't fix them only to find out when they get to the other place that not all of those shiny things were there. And that place probably has the same issues because there are probably issues that are just part of what we do and it just kind of sucks. And so what I think is important there is not trying to burn a bridge. It's always been my philosophy that if someone leaves here, my hope is that we've prepared them to be excellent at their next role. Whether we wanted them to leave, whether it was contentious, whatever it is, we want to leave on good terms. I think that the flip side is true is if you are a field pro out there and you are thinking about leaving somewhere, putting in a two week notice, returning your van, returning your uniforms, returning your iPad, returning all the stuff and leaving on good terms is probably the best thing that you can do because you just never know. There's also this thing in our industry called consolidation. So you may end up working for that same company after they buy the company that you just left. So I think that is an important piece of it on both sides of the coin and I think the other piece and how you keep people motivated today, I think there's a lot of, you know, kind of like what I'd call like ancillary rewards outside of money and different stuff like that. But I think the biggest thing or the thing that we have seen work the best is having a path to progression. A path to progression is basically like, hey, you, your skill set, both execution and your technical aptitude are here. You are what we label as a maintenance technician, level two, that has a pay band of this to this. That's where you'll be paid, continue to progress and then you can move up to level three. Then you can move into service 1, 2, 3, 4, whatever it may be. I think the biggest thing that people are looking for is how do I make more money? Like it's it. I think they've gotten labeled as this. Like, oh well, they think they're worth more. I think it's more. So they just want to be told how to earn more. And oftentimes in contracting businesses, we don't tell anybody how to earn more. They basically have to cross their fingers. Come March, April, when it's review time, they got to cross their fingers, hope their manager likes them and that they give them a raise. Whereas putting KPIs in place and giving them a path to like, hey, you gain these skills, you execute at this level, I'll pay you more. When we first leveled up, so we rolled this out 20, call it end of 24. When we rolled this out, what we what There were times when we gave people six dollar an hour raises because they had Come in as a young tech, not really knowing what they're worth while all of a sudden. They picked up on this stuff pretty quickly. And now they're, now we're like, oh, my God, I'm like really underpaying you compared to all your peers who are performing at this level and you're performing at that level. So for me, that has been the biggest thing in our business. Is everybody, from a field standpoint, we're working on all of admin to have KPIs, and they know where they're at, they know how to make more money. But all of our field pros have a scorecard and they can see that every day. It's on their tablet. They can see it in real time and they know where they're going, what level they're performing at, so on and so forth. So they know what to work on.
- [12:31]
B
Yeah, you, you guys used to have. With. I'm not sure if you still are doing it, doing a variation of it or whatever, but with, with the top tech where you'd bring people that were completely green.
- [12:41]
A
Yep.
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B
Like.
- [12:42]
A
Yep.
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B
From the jump. I mean, are you still doing that stuff?
- [12:45]
A
Yeah, we, we graduated a class last June of 11 technicians. And then we have a new class starting first week of February, another 10 or 11 starting that have no experience whatsoever.
- [12:58]
B
Right. Which is super cool. Like, I mean, and that, that, that is a. There's a real training process to that that actually make it successful. I mean, you learned quite a bit over the last couple of years just of, of flirting with that whole thing. But here's one thing I said whenever I was, whenever I was talking to the entire Rhino team, when I was, you know, on my, you know, it's kind of like my exit, you know, my goodbye speech to them was, you, you, you can't. You're never going to love 100% of your job.
- [13:25]
A
You're.
- [13:25]
B
I mean, it's rare that someone loves 100% of their job, but if you love 80% of it, like, 20% is probably not going to be what you love to do. But guess what? Like, rarely is there a perfect job out there for you. So if you get 80% of the way of loving it, like, don't jump around from place to place because of it. If you're getting the support that you need to get smarter and better, to your point, like, you're coming in, you're becoming you, you're getting more talented, you're learning more skill makes you more valuable. So if you leave, you're more valuable than you were when you came in. That's the job. That's what we, we provide as leaders to these guys. To these guys or girls. So I'm a big believer in, in that and the whole like I love that you do the reach back out thing, you know, after a certain amount of time. Because when someone comes to you to work for you first, they got nothing to reference it against. It's like that's like whenever you know, I was always didn't never wanted to be somebody's first marketing company because they had nothing to compare against. Right. Like it was like we just had a standard that they thought was normal. Right. And it was a different. So but yeah, I think about that with you know just with, with these younger kids on they just don't know. Right. And. And then you have to learn how to get them to understand. So yeah, you kind of answered the next one of the next questions I was going to ask around like this, this. You know, when younger techs think like what is a career going to be for me? They don't quite understand. You have to like walk them down the path where, where are you? Where are you at on that path? And we'll figure out how to support you where you need help on that path. Okay, quick question. When a call a 22 year old quits a good paying job. 22, 23, 24, 25, whatever. Quits a good paying job from your opinion or what you've experienced, what are they really leaving over? Like what are they craving that maybe most shops aren't providing that that's why they're, they're leaving and when they're even when they're getting paid. Well is there another. You know, is there like you said, you can have a path for them. They can measure where they're at. You might be what are you experiencing that there's, there's fallout for some of the, the younger folks. Sorry for the interruption listeners. I want to give a quick shout out to our title sponsor of Rhino X 2026 evoke AI also to the point sponsor. We're grateful for them. In my opinion the best AI answering service in the game that actually keeps a human being us based on in the loop. So if you hit 0, you can get to a human being. When I put these guys up against the other competitors, they won hands down. So again, shout out to our title sponsor for Rhino X and our TTP sponsor Evoka AI the best AI agent in the game. Check out the link below for Evoke AI in the show. Notes to the Point listeners, listen up. What if the biggest thing holding back your business isn't marketing or hiring, but your bennies? The benefits for home service companies, a better 401k can be the difference between great techs and losing them to the shop right down the street. Basic Capital, our newest sponsor, is the only 401k built to actually put your team on a real path to retirement. Companies that switch over see higher participation, happier teams, and dramatically low turnover. Because your crew finally gets a plan that's a true benefit, not just a checkbox. Don't wait until your best people walk. Make the move and click the link below to get 12 months with Zoom. 0 employer fees when you join Basic Capital.
- [16:41]
A
Yeah. So, you know, what, what are, what are these young kids missing? Why are they leaving jobs? Why do they think that, you know, the grass is greener.
- [16:50]
B
Even when they're getting paid well? And they kind of got this, like, path you've got them on and the measuring tools, all that stuff. Like, what are you seeing?
- [16:56]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think the path, you know, if you, if you don't have a path, I think it's easy for them to leave for, you know, say, a dollar an hour more or something like that. When it's pretty black and white like, hey, you're not performing, and we both can see that, then, you know, what's the deal? I think that you made a great point earlier when you were talking about, no job's perfect. I have sucky parts of mine that I have to do. I don't want to do it, but it's just no one else is going to do it, so I got to do it. It just is what it is. I don't get to do 100 of the things that I just really am just fired up about every day. And I think a lot of them will leave for that 20% thinking that, oh, it's got to be better over here, when probably at another company, maybe they have a few of those things figured out, but there's probably still a 20% that isn't fun, that maybe this other company already had figured out. So there's always going to be a 20%. No company is perfect. If it was perfect, I wouldn't need all the managers that I have. I would just run it by myself because. And I just sit here, played in tiddlywinks in my office because everything's perfect. Everything works like it's supposed to do. We never make a mistake. Like, it happens.
- [18:05]
B
Chad, real quick, I'm, I, I gotta cut you off a 25 year old does not know what tiddlywinks is.
- [18:11]
A
That's true. I'd be sitting here gaming or doing something, you know, something, whatever they do. But yeah, I mean I, I think a lot of them leave because of that. I think another thing is what I've seen with young people is praise in the trades is not something that comes easy for especially the older generation. I hear it from my guys all the time. No news is good news. You know, I just don't want to, you know, I don't need to talk about. I just want to go out here and I just want to go out here and be a plumber. I just want to go out here. Well, you know what, like yeah, I get it and I'm grateful that you're a fantastic plumber, but also like I want you to be better. I hope that you yourself want to be better. Like let's work together and make you better. And so I think that the praise piece is a piece that I think we often overlook. We go into one on one meetings and it's all about what are you doing wrong? And two, I think there's just a lack of, you know, of a willingness to help. It's. Well, you know, I'm the plumbing manager, I'm the H Vac manager and I've done this before and he ought to know how to do that. He ought to know that. Well, it's apparent he doesn't. So what are we going to do to help him so that he can do that? So I think there's a lot of things, I think they're all little, they're little things that, you know, people are just either one, thinking should be perfect or two, just not doing when it comes to developing our people and continuing to make them better so they can, you know, earn more money and the company can earn more money.
- [19:45]
B
Yeah, you know, some of the, like, you know, some companies will take these, you know, these green technicians, they've done a little bit of training and stuff and they just throw them in the trucks and they shadow and they do these things. It's kind of like, oh, they're gonna eventually figure it, figure it out. And like I think that we should. That a lot of times that's, that's not like the best, that's not like the best solution for, for I think right alongs are great. I'm not saying that it's just got to be more than that. There's got to be some sort of, you know, there's, there's got to be some more regiment to it than just putting them in a truck and figuring it out that way and trying to learn from, you know, Frank or Bill.
- [20:19]
A
Yeah, the old way doesn't work. All right, the old way is crap. It is. Yeah. Throw them in a truck and. Okay, Gary, let me know in five years when Tristan's ready to go out in the field by himself. Well, like I always say, like, if I ever get that, it's like to one of these older, more seasoned techs, it's like, if I would have given you the training and resources that we currently give our guys, how good would you have been? Oh, I would have been awesome. Well, okay. Well then give it to them. Like, let's give it to them. They don't know. I can't. What I tell every top tech class kids that I go, here's the deal. I'm going to train you on the basics, but I can't train experience. You're going to have to go out there and get that on your own. And that may take some of you a couple years. It may take some of you six months. I don't know what it's going to take you, but really that's, that's in your control. I'm going to give you all the basics and the skills and the tools to be successful. But you're gonna have to gain experience out there. That's how these trades work.
- [21:11]
B
Yeah, but you have the playbook for them to run the plays. The plays are already designed for the training. The trading system is in place, and that's half the battle. I like, I think for sure what people do is they don't actually really have a true training regimen for that person. And putting them in the truck is like the, you know, like, we don't quite have those things figured out. Let's put them in a truck and we'll see what they can learn from this person, which is like, it's, that's winging it well.
- [21:36]
A
And I think too is a lot of, a lot of owners and GMs, ops managers or whatever, they're kidding themselves if they think they offer training. Like, because what I've seen is that, like, just because you have a service meeting every Wednesday doesn't mean you're actually training. Like, you're not. Like, are they retaining it? Are we measuring that they retain it? What kind of tactics are we using for adult learners to get this information and then be able to go use it? And so that's why I've always encouraged people like, your service manager is great and he serves a role, but he may not be your trainer, may not be. And that's okay. We're not all good at everything. I'm not great at training, but there are people out there that are good at training. They may not have the technical expertise, but, like, how can you involve those people? Or who is the best trainer in your organization? How crappy are your meetings? Like, like, go sit in a tech meeting and ask me how, like, how much, like, value we got out of that. And then really, to piss yourself off, measure how much you pay them per hour and then add that up and that's how much that meeting just cost you if it was no good.
- [22:43]
B
I've had these conversations before. Yeah. Especially when you have big, you know, higher role, higher salary meetings where there's. You add all that up and you're like, what did we just accomplish? For what.
- [22:56]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [22:58]
B
Hey, let me ask you this question. I'm kind of curious to know about it. You know, when people ask, you know me about what marketing looks like in three to five years, I think it was easier five years ago. Today it's like the AI, you know, stuff makes it kind of. I don't really know. I mean, it's probably going to be. I don't think Google's going away and like, people are like, oh, yeah, it's going to take over. It's going to be a minute before that actually even potentially happens. But with technicians, especially on the younger side, do you guys ever set the tone for like, down the road? Right? Like, because sometimes it's hard for younger guys to see three, five years down the road of what their job could look like? Do you guys go that far and kind of set the tone for what it could be, like, that far down the road? Is it even impactful from your experience? Like, what do you, what do you see?
- [23:45]
A
So are you talking for, like, just in a traditional sense, what you could look like three to five or just because of technology? This is what it could look like.
- [23:53]
B
Because technology. Because anything. I'm just saying in general, thinking of their career path of three to five years, like, do, do. I guess the real question I'm asking is one, do you do that? Two, do they care?
- [24:03]
A
Yeah, so we do with our, especially with our top tech guys, because they're us. They're like, well, when can I get in service? When can I start running opportunity calls? When can I start doing all this? And we kind of give them like a, you know, it's different for every person. But like, hey, you're probably going to spend in maintenance level one and two, you're probably going to spend 12 to 18 months. So like, don't think you're going to be getting like the, you know, the best calls in the world. You're going to get, you know, kind of the lower end calls. And we also tell them that, hey, once you're in maintenance level three, we have 1, 2, 3 and then 1, 2, 3, 4 in service. And so like when you're a maintenance three, we're going to start feeding you some of these lower end service calls, see what you can do. Like, you're never going to learn how to run a service call on a maintenance call. So we got to give you some service calls. But do know that just because you get to maintenance three and you're the, you know, you're the head honcho in the maintenance department, when you go into service, you're going to be at the bottom of the totem pole. So you're going to get the, you know, drippy faucet, the thermostat that the customer can't operate. Like you're going to be getting these. And so one of the things that we learned from Morris Jenkins that we haven't implemented yet, but like is basically scoring these technicians based on the level of call that they're running. So like, if you got a service level one, it's not really fair to compare him to like a service level three because the call quality is so drastically different. It's not like, oh, well, you're a service level one, I expect you to have this average ticket. Well, like your service level three, if you gave him those type of calls, he's not going to, you know, he may do a little bit better, but he's not going to be doing what he's doing right now because you're giving him the, you're giving him the 14 year old. No, he call like, yeah, he should be able to reform and he's proven that he can. So move on. But like really bucketing the call types I think is another piece. Like you can bucket your technicians and say what level they are, but are you celebrating the service level one and two because of what they're doing with the call types that they get? Like what they're doing, like, oh, you may be the top of that little bracket there. And so that's one of the things we're working on this year so that we can start celebrating more people like everyone no one likes. We're like, we get It, Bill and John are the best techs we got. We get to say how great they are every single month. I'm never gonna get there because, well, they get all those calls and I don't get any of them. And I think that's especially important in, like, a smaller company where, you know, Right. Tech to write call. Well, if Bill's the best, you're gonna send Bill on as many calls as he can run that are the best, and you're not gonna give them to anybody else unless Bill takes a day off or calls in. Like, that's the only opportunity they get. So, like, can we start celebrating these people who are kind of in the middle or just transitioning to a career, into the career or, you know, maybe you're just greener and, you know, learning and stuff like that. Can we celebrate them too, to keep them motivated? They're like, hey, man, I get it. You're getting, you know, if we had to rank the calls from five being the best to one, you're getting a lot of ones and twos. So go perform on ones and twos and then maybe we'll give you some threes and fours.
- [27:11]
B
Yeah, you talked about that makes total sense. I think that one. That's really good for our listeners to. Just for some cadence. But you said celebrate, which I think is important. Now some, you know, some owners will talk about, you know, love saying they have great culture. I got great culture in my business. But that might actually mean something different to the. The younger technicians. So from your perspective, again, like, how do you think the younger jet nations would define, like, culture?
- [27:41]
A
Hey, Chad Peterman here. I've been all in on Bluon for quite a while now. And it's not just me. Contractors all over are seeing similar results. Tony at Just In Time Heating says their support calls dropped immediately once they rolled it out. His techs get reliable answers from Bluon's AI faster than what they get from the OEMs and their parts guy. He's loving it too. It's made his job way easier. They're saving time, solving problems quicker and feeling more confident in the field. Bluon just become part of the process. And yeah, Peterman Brothers is definitely seeing that impact too. Click the link in the description and book a quick demo. You'll get it.
- [28:24]
B
Sorry for the interruption, listeners. I want to give a quick shout out to Rhinox 2026 keynote sponsor, ProBook AI. It's Pro. Pro Book AI. You can check them out in the link below. Pro Book AI finds the money you're Losing without you having to do anything. It scans your books to catch missed invoices under build jobs, leaks, all kinds of stuff. So let it do the hard work for you on finding out where you're leaking money. Thanks again to our keynote sponsor, Rhino X 2026 Pro Book.
- [28:50]
A
Yeah, so I think that's interesting. I think that, you know, while I think the, you know, we've talked about it, the path to progression, I think that's a huge piece of the culture. Like, I know where I'm going, how to get there, you know, from a celebrating perspective. I think that, you know, we've got. We do a COO town hall every first Friday of the month, where we have every technician, every field pro that's out there jumps on a zoom call. Some are in person if they're where, you know, our COO is, but, you know, and then we're celebrating top performers and different stuff like that. I think the other piece that is big is the feedback loop. Like, I think that a lot of younger people, they have a lot of great ideas, but also they're kind of like Sam. And I think everybody can remember when you're younger, like, your ideas don't count for much, even if you're smart and you figured a few things out, like, oh, I think it would be better if we did things like this. And so what we have is, we have. Literally, they have. They have the ability to give feedback. We're working on this piece. It's almost finished. Basically, there's a button on their tablet. Like, if something goes wrong out in the field or they think that something can be better, they can hit that button and type in the feedback right there. And it goes straight to. Go straight to our coo. And then we parse it by department so that we can answer those questions. Because a lot of it is just misunderstanding. Like, hey, this broke like this. Like, oh, no, no, no. That's actually how it's supposed to work. You just hit the wrong button. Okay, cool. At least I know. So I think that feedback for this younger generation is extremely important. So any way that you can facilitate that feedback and then act on it, I think is key the next time. So literally every first Friday, we'll take a handful of topics that we feel like, hey, these speak to, you know, a bunch of people have this question so he'll talk about, okay, hey, this was brought up in the feedback. Here's what we did to fix it. Or, hey, actually, this seems to be a big misunderstanding. Here's what's actually going on. And it's like, oh, okay, well, that makes sense. Move it on. So I think the feedback loop is critical for our younger generation because they have a lot of great ideas. We just sometimes don't listen.
- [30:58]
B
Yeah. So some acknowledgment, like whether you adopt or don't. Yeah, got it. Makes total sense. Yeah. There's like, I forget what all. What all of them are, but you've got words of affirmation, you know, like, like I forget all the different, you know, things are of that, you know, people like for positive feedback.
- [31:13]
A
Yeah.
- [31:14]
B
And I think them just be. Just being heard is a big win. Right. Because most time it gets dismissed. Yeah. That's critical now.
- [31:23]
A
But I think it. Oh, I was gonna say just real quick, I think another key piece. So there's a book out there, some of you that are married have, may have read. It is the. The Five Love Languages.
- [31:32]
B
That's what, that's what I was trying to do.
- [31:33]
A
Yeah. Five Love. So they made one for business too. So, like, you know, like Physical Touch is not in the business book. It is in the marriage book, but, you know, but they made one for business and I think that's important too, because to your point, our younger generation, not even really younger generation, could be the people in the same generation. They just like stuff differently. Some people may not like being paraded up on a stage and get in. In front of everybody, but others may love that. Others may just be like, hey, just send me a thank you note. Just tell me. That'd be great. And so I think it's. It's about. It's about giving acknowledgement in different, different fashions because people respond to it differently.
- [32:12]
B
I'm looking, I'm looking it up. I'm looking it up.
- [32:16]
A
The business one who wrote that, isn't it like Chapman or something? I think is his last name?
- [32:21]
B
Yeah, Chapman. 1992.
- [32:23]
A
Yeah. It's a red book, I believe. I think I got on my shelf over there somewhere.
- [32:27]
B
I can't read. Physical Touch is not one.
- [32:31]
A
Not one that'll get you in trouble with hr. No Physical touch out there in the workplace.
- [32:36]
B
I can't find it. All right, well, I can't. I can't find it. I just read an article about it anyhow. Okay, cool. Yeah, I think that's good. That's still actually good to know what those are. I found it. You got it?
- [32:49]
A
Yeah, I told you. It's a red book. And it is Chapman. Gary Chapman.
- [32:53]
B
How about that?
- [32:54]
A
What a memory. The five languages. The five languages of appreciation in the workplace.
- [32:59]
B
Got it. Five languages. Appreciation, workplace. There you go. If you're on YouTube, you can see it. Okay, well, there you go. A little book promo.
- [33:06]
A
Yeah, a little book promo. Thanks, Gary.
- [33:08]
B
Thanks.
- [33:08]
A
Appreciate you. Thanks.
- [33:09]
B
Big G. 1992. Chad was in fourth grade.
- [33:16]
A
No, God, not fourth grade. I was only, I was only six years old. I was like pushing kindergarten.
- [33:20]
B
Kindergartener, kindergartner, maybe I was in fourth grade. Fifth grader. Anyway, whatever. Okay. Okay. So actually I'm gonna flip it just a little bit. I want to talk about accountability because when you have whole, you know, when you have younger technicians and you have to hold them accountable sometimes, I'm not saying everybody, but sometimes it'd be a little softer on holding them accountable. Or do you. Or do you. So you know, what have you kind of learned about holding them accountable without, you know, running them off? Right. Because sometimes you don't know how to understand how to respond to, you know, what's perceived as negative feedback versus constructive. And you know, then. Or micro like it, then it might, it might scare them off.
- [34:04]
A
Yeah. So I think there's, there's two key pieces and we kind of touched on them. There's. There's one is you got to be able to know what is good and what is bad. So you got to have KPIs. Like, they have to know. It can't just be your opinion of like, hey, you're not very good or hey, you screwed that up. Yeah, you got to have that. And then I think the other piece is consistency. Where oftentimes in these businesses, when do we have a one on one? We have a one on one when something screwed up yesterday. Hey Bill, you want to stop by in the morning before you run your call? Oh, what the that mean? Like, am I. I'm sorry I said that for.
- [34:31]
B
It's always negative.
- [34:33]
A
Yeah, what's that mean? Like, oh, what's going to happen? And so like we train all of our managers when it comes to your department, set your one on one schedule. You know, Tristan should know that he comes in every other Tuesday at 7:30 to meet with his manager. And it's not because he screwed something up because I already scheduled it out through the whole year. So it's every other Tuesday all the way through the end of the year. You know that you're coming in and that's your time to bring feedback to like, hey, what do you want to work on? What are you struggling with? Where can I help? Do we need to jump in a ride along whatever it is so consistency. And they got to know what winning looks like. That's why we built the dashboard on there. Like they have an app. Like they can go into service Titan or they can go into their Peterman app. And their Peterman app basically gives all their KPIs that are on their scorecard. They know how they're trending, what they did over the last 30 days, how they're trending, all of that stuff so they can see it. So they know. Because what you want in a one on one is you want them bringing what they're struggling with. You don't have to point it out. I mean, make it easy on yourself as a manager. You don't want to be the one pointing out all the flaws. Let them bring it to you. Let the scoreboard actually dictate the score. Like then you're not yelling at them. The scoreboard is, hey, you're not hitting this KPI. Let that. I mean, like I always tell my managers, like, make it easy on yourself. Like when you get feedback and you're like, oh crap, this is a major problem. Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to bring it to the service meeting and say, hey, a lot of you guys have come to me with this problem. How should we solve it? Make them solve it. Yeah, like it's their problem. You fix the problem and we'll see if we can make that come true.
- [36:04]
B
Sorry for the interruption folks. Want to give a quick shout out to our Rhino X day session sponsor, Chirp. Also a to the point sponsor, Chirp. Oh, I love Chirp. I love Ryan Finn, I love Justin Judd. Those guys are fantastic. The virtual ride along game, they are the best and they integrate directly in with service time. What more could you ask for These guys, You guys are the best of the best. Check out the link below in the show notes. Attention to the point listeners. Branding has never been more important. Is your brand in serious need of an upgrade? Do you have a new company and need a new brand but don't want to wait six months or pay a ridiculous amount to get it done? If your brand looks like everyone else's, well, guess what, you are everyone else. But prolific. They build brands that dominate from the first Google search search to the driveway. Prolific brand design can help you be more of you because you are the unique difference that sets you apart from all your competitors. So let's be real for a second. Your brand is either winning you customers or costing you money. Just ask some of our clients like Ken Goodrich, Ishmael Valdez, My boy Chad Peterman and even myself. Olympic Brand Design is the creative pros behind some of the best home services. Logos, truck wraps, websites and now email marketing campaigns. Wouldn't you love it if your email marketing open rates were 30, 40, 50%. And don't go into the spam folder. Hell, that's how we roll at Prolific. So check them out at prolific brand design.com and ask for the to the point promo. Prolific Brand Design be more of a. You be prolific. Hey you. You said. I, I guess I didn't realize you had a Peterman app. Peterman Brothers app. Does, does, does that dashboard have like a. I mean I don't know if this is something you can or can't do. So if not, not a big deal. But do, does it have some where you could like share a screenshot of what, what the, like what it might look like? That's a scoring mechanism. I mean I don't know if you have something like that.
- [38:02]
A
I could get one. But basically just think about it like this. They click on this button and then like, like in a traditional app it like these little buttons pop up and one of the buttons is cape. Well actually the KPIs don't even pop as a button. They pop up, up top and it's all, it's the 10 KPIs that they're measured on. It shows them where they are and they can, they can slide the little cursor month to date, year to date, whatever they want to do. But then below it's got all of their stuff like anything that they need. What do we know about technicians? We ask them to do so much crap and then we complain we when they don't do the 800 things that we asked them to do on every single call. So I was like here's the deal. We want to put everything in one app so they see everything. So they're going there, they're checking their KPIs. They can go there and find the directory for the entire company. They can go there for our refer. For our cross selling tool. It's all right there. They go there to, to alert dispatch that they're done with the call. It's all right in one place. And I think our motto here is to how do we make the life of the people in the field easier? If you are an, if you are an admin person here, your job is to serve the people out in the field in whatever way possible. We are not building processes to make their life more difficult. They're doing the hard work. So we're going to make it as easy as humanly possible for them to operate. So I don't have like a picture, I don't have the app because I don't, I don't have any field KPIs, but if I did I'd be terrible. But, but yeah, it's just. And we're working on building out more stuff. One of the cool ones that I think is when we talk about younger generation, we're building out a total comp calculator in there so that they can see like what they made over the last month. And then like if they keep on that pace, here's what Your year end W2 is going to look like. Or like if you cricket up, you know, click it up, hey, here's what it could look like if you pick up an extra turnover, if you sell another membership. All of these things they can like basically plug and play to get to the dollar amount that they want.
- [40:02]
B
God, that's pretty. That's really cool.
- [40:04]
A
Yeah. What do they want to know? They want to know how do they get there? Well, just show them. Give them a game. They love games. And we're going to gamify it and all this stuff. It's going to be really cool. That should be done by, in the first quarter.
- [40:14]
B
That's pretty cool. That's actually a good idea. Yeah. Sweet. Well then they got something tangible there too to like, you know, follow, you know. And the constant reminder for them too.
- [40:24]
A
Exactly.
- [40:25]
B
Hey, hey, let me flip it up a little bit too. Now we talk about like all these things that you can do, you know, to, to help manage the younger, you know, the younger technicians properly. But like, what are things? I mean, you do a lot of different coaching across a lot of different size businesses. What would be one piece of advice that you could give to owners or, or GMs or whoever that are like leading these businesses that they should stop doing immediately with these younger techs.
- [40:50]
A
Stop doing immediately with these younger.
- [40:52]
B
They stop doing immediately like with these younger technicians. And we probably covered a variation of these things in, in different ways. But like something that stands out to you, like, okay, just because they're young doesn't mean you do X or hey, you know, stop doing these things immediately.
- [41:07]
A
Yeah, so the overarching one is stop complaining because guess what? However old you are, the generation ahead of you complains about you because you're different. And you complain about the generation ahead of you and the one behind you. And everybody's going to complain about every generation of people because they're different. So if they're different, the one thing you can first stop doing is complaining about how they are lazy and how they don't understand and all this stuff like that. One of the mottos that we've taken is to we want to lean into that generation and meet them where they are. So, like, one of the policies that we rolled out, I stole this from Alicia Green over there in. I can't remember where she's at. North Carolina. South Carolina. Yeah. Go Green. Where they at? They're in.
- [41:52]
B
They're over in North Carolina somewhere.
- [41:54]
A
North Carolina. So I stole this from her. I saw her advertising unlimited vacation. I was like, hold on a second. So I texted her. I was like, tell me more. What are you doing here? It's like, well, we were talking to people and like, they just want to know that they can take the time off if they want to. Like, they don't even really care that they don't get paid for it. Because again, as you stated, like, it's not all about money. It may be just like going to on a hike or going on an experience or a buddy called me up and wants to go somewhere or whatever it is. So we rolled this policy out last year. It's only been out there for a year. So I don't know that it's like the end all be all. I'm not. I'm still kind of vetting through it, but it was, it was in an effort to meet them where they were. So I started asking like younger techs. I was like, hey, would you like if. If you had your PTO so paid time off, you're going to get paid for this time you take off, but then you had an extra bank and there's like blackout dates and you got to give us so much notice and all. You can't just like, oh, I feel like. Or I went out last night and got drunk and now I need to take tomorrow off. And I was taking a little bit of vacation. Don't work like that. There's some caveats to it, but it essentially allows them to, if they want to take the time off, they can take it off. They're not going to get paid for it, but it's gives them a benefit that they can use. So, you know, your question was, what do we stop doing? I think complaining is the biggest one and I think complaining obviously trickles down into some of the things we do to like assert our generation's way of thinking about this is like the. It's the best way to Go. And no one else has anything. It's like, well, that's. You can think like that all you want, but you're going to really kind of narrow your recruiting window quite a bit.
- [43:36]
B
Got it. Okay. Those are pretty. Those. Well, those are. Those seem like. I guess they seem pretty straightforward, but it's not for a lot of people.
- [43:47]
A
It's hard, like. And I want to complain, and I'm not saying I'm, like, perfect and, like, I don't complain about the, you know, younger generation or whatever, but I think if you're really wanting to scale your company, you're going to need people from every generation to contribute. And so if you want that, well, then you're gonna have to. You're gonna have to undo a lot of your biases and, you know, ways of thinking to, you know, meet people where they're at.
- [44:10]
B
Yeah. I mean, listen, and you kind of got, you know, with some of the younger generation, they think that. Think about some things differently, which also has a lot of value if you can unlock certain things. And I mean, part of what, you know, part of what being a good leader is learning how to lead, you know? Yeah, different. Different personality types, different ages. It's like the older guys, and you're like, oh, they're stuck in their ways. Like, I'd rather get somebody new who's not gonna come with all the bad habits. Like, that's the same thing of talking up versus talking down. But. Yeah. Okay, so. So I'm gonna ask you this last question so I can get you. So I can get you out of here.
- [44:38]
A
Yeah. Yeah, you're good.
- [44:39]
B
So this is going to be like a. A owner mirror moment. Right. So they're looking in there.
- [44:44]
A
Okay.
- [44:45]
B
And they're saying, you know, a contractor is listening and saying, you know, this isn't us. Like, this isn't a problem, you know, for. For us. Like. And they made it this far. Congratulations. But what's one question they should ask their text this week to prove. To prove it that this isn't us? Like, we don't have this problem. Like, think about one question they could ask one of them to. To. To prove that. That, yeah, you're right. They don't have a problem.
- [45:11]
A
To prove they don't have a problem.
- [45:13]
B
Yeah. So, yeah, well, could you go and, like, you say, hey, we got it all figured out. We know exactly how to lead the younger generation. And I'm saying, okay, well, to prove it, what's one question you can go and ask? What are you. Like, somebody's listening Right now. And they want to go and ask whether 25 or under or 30 and under technicians like a question to verify that? Yes. Right. They don't need anything else to do. They got to figure it out. Sorry for the interruption, listeners. I want to give a quick shout out to our evening sponsor at Rhino, x 2026, good leap. I love Good Leap. They've been a sponsor for multiple years. They are the best financing option in the game. I know that Peterman Brothers uses them. Redbird Roofing uses them. Rhino has used them as their vendor partner because they're that dang good at getting contractors clients approved. So thank you to Good Leap for being a sponsor yet again for under X 2026. Check out their link below in the show notes. Tough question, huh?
- [46:12]
A
So what I'm thinking about, I don't know if this answers it specifically, but I've got it written on a posted note because this is what we're trying to figure out right now. Yeah. I don't know if it answers this question, but I'm gonna have a hard time thinking up that question on the fly. But here's what I. Here's what I would say. Like, if you want to. Like if you feel like you're connected to this younger generation, 20 to 30 year olds, I would ask them what would have to be true for you to run. For you to want to run another call outside of the. Your normal capacity. Tommy and I were talking about this not too long ago. Like, what would have to be true? Like, would it need to be a reward? Would it need to be whatever? Or you're just going to tell me. Oh, shoot. Well, I normally run like four calls a day. Like, yeah, I'd take five and six and seven and just keep running. Well, no one's going to say that.
- [47:06]
B
Yeah.
- [47:07]
A
So to me it's like, how do we str. How do we get this gener. I think if we can get them bought into that, it starts to unlock a lot of things. Like some of the things that we're thinking. I know I'm totally derailing your question here, but I'm not sure the exact question, but I'm just going to kind of give you some things that we're thinking about in the way of connecting.
- [47:26]
B
To this younger generation while you're doing it. I'm going to actually chat GPT and see what its response will be, but go ahead and let it rip.
- [47:32]
A
That's so much smarter than I am because I use it every day. Some of the things that we're Thinking about right now are, you know, where we struggle are, you know, the, the little things like inventory, clean uniforms, clean trucks, so on and so forth. And some of you guys may have this figured out. Like, you're like, oh, yeah, we have perfectly clean trucks. Our guys, when we open up to inventory, they're perfect and they're super clean. Guys are having clean uniforms and so on and so forth. And so, like, for us, it's like, how do we establish like, the culture and the reward system that is attributed to. Well, if you, if you have perfect inventory, if your inventory is within a certain SKU or your truck's clean, when we inspect them, like, then you get dollars towards getting uniforms or tools or whatever, but just know that the culture is going to be. You have clean uniforms because you'll be doing those other things. So, like, for me, it's like, how do we tie all of this together? How do we tie this reward system together to get the behaviors that we want out of these guys and gals if we can get the behaviors that we want? And it may not be monetary, you know, it's not like, oh, go sell more stuff. It could just be like, hey, if you can do this really well, you're actually going to save us a ton of money. Like, if our inventory is correct, like, we're going to save millions of dollars. So, like, I'm willing to split that millions of dollars with you so that you can have the stuff that you need to be successful. Because if you show up with a clean uniform and a clean truck, your chances of selling something are probably a little greater and that puts more money in your pocket. So, like, for me, when I think about the culture and like, trying to figure out, do I got it? Do I have all the pieces aligned to where all of my, really every generation. But yeah, especially that younger generation, since they are such a big part of our population, do they feel like they are, like, not incentivized is the wrong word, but do they feel like they're motivated to, like, do all the things right? Not just like, go sell more or increase my conversion rate, like, do all the things right that we know at the end of the day, while, you know, not having a clean uniform isn't the end all be all. But as you scale, how much money could that be worth if you converted three more customers? Because clean uniform, they like the clean uniform. Like, what does that start to look like?
- [49:50]
B
Yeah, listen to this. This is interesting. I chat GPT did just to see what it would, it would give me. I Read through a couple answers, but this one stood out to me the most. It says, if your younger tech can't describe a future with you, they won't build one with you.
- [50:08]
A
Oh, I like that.
- [50:09]
B
That's good, huh?
- [50:10]
A
Yeah.
- [50:10]
B
If your younger tech can't describe a future with you, they won't build one with you.
- [50:15]
A
Yeah. What I tell every. So we had an orientation class this Monday. We onboard every other Monday. And the one thing that I start out by telling them, and then I do, like, this big, long pause for, like, five seconds. It's very hard because everyone wants to talk, but I do this. Hey, guys, I really appreciate you putting your trust in us. It's my job. My job every single day to make sure that you have a place that you feel welcome and then you feel like you can grow. It's also my hope that this is your last first day ever. And then I pause. I just let it sink in. Yeah, you just let it. Yeah, that was good. And then you just let it sink in. This is your last first day ever. And I say, because it's our goal to continue to grow this company so that you have every opportunity in the world to be a branch manager, to be the coo, to be the best damn plumber that ever walked the street. I don't. I don't. I don't care what it is that you want, because everybody wants something different. What I care is that we have a place that. That you can always do that there are no ceilings that are holding you back. I mean, we've had. I bet we've had one, two. Two people here recently that I can think of that left for an opportunity somewhere that I didn't have. And to me, I was like, that's my fault. That's my fault. They left because we did not grow fast enough for them to have that opportunity. Now, were they both ready for it? Verdict still out. But they felt like. Or someone offered them some other opportunity that I couldn't offer them at this.
- [51:43]
B
Time, which is the point. Whether they're still not the point. Point is, is actually shed light on a gap that you are responsible for creating. Yeah.
- [51:51]
A
Yeah.
- [51:53]
B
Perfect. Well.
- [51:56]
A
Good.
- [51:57]
B
Good episode, man. I thought this was pretty solid. We had a couple technical difficulties, but, yeah, pretty solid.
- [52:03]
A
But I think this is the stuff. I think this is such a great episode. Obviously, you could tell by the. As much as I want to talk about it, but, like, I think these are the businesses that if we start to think about more as opposed to, like, how do we get more revenue how do we increase conversion? How do we get more leads? Like, yeah, that is all important. But like, this part, if you can get it right, you've already got the leads, your conversion rate will soar, your average ticket will soar if you get all of these things right. But these are the hard things because you're trying to tap into people's, like, motivation, which is extremely difficult.
- [52:39]
B
Well, you've been through it, buddy. At scale, still going.
- [52:43]
A
That's the best part of my job every day, trying to solve these problems.
- [52:48]
B
Well, I appreciate you, dude. Let me do this on the fly. Like, just so you guys know, like, Chad had zero time to prep for this because I only said, hey, this is the topic, not what I was going to ask him. So, like, I could you let it rip right from the start. So I knew this is going to be a good episode for you.
- [53:03]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [53:05]
B
Well, it's good to see you, buddy. I appreciate, appreciate all the insight from you on here. And I thought this was just a little peek into what it looks inside the walls of the Peterman Brothers training facility. And you know, how you guys, you know, how you guys, you know, teach your young technicians to, you know, fit in, to be part. To be part of the family. So.
- [53:24]
A
Absolutely. We're not perfect at it, but we're trying hard.
- [53:27]
B
You're getting there. Well, yep. Obviously, Chad covered a ton of stuff on here, too, and, you know, I'm not going to recap all this stuff. I mean, go back and re. Listen to it, but, you know, but just take a look at the mirror, maybe say, like, are you really. Do you really feel like you've. You've got a. A welcoming place, a good place for the younger technicians to feel like they're a part of it? You know, they're. They're a part of it. And they feel acknowledged, you know that. You know, they hear, they feel heard, and they feel important. So, like I say, man, you don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. No. Zero.