UnGooglizing the Industry Debate with Ismael Valdez

Summary

Podcast Summary: To The Point - Home Services Podcast
Episode: UnGooglizing the Industry Debate with Ismael Valdez
Release Date: July 29, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of "To The Point," host Chris, along with guest Ismael Valdez and co-host Tommy, dive deep into the current challenges and future prospects of the home services industry. The discussion spans topics from political influences and labor dynamics to the critical importance of branding and the impending impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.

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1. Planning for the Future Amidst Political and Economic Changes

Timestamp: [01:20]

Ismael Valdez opens the conversation by highlighting the necessity for home service companies to proactively plan for the upcoming year. He emphasizes the importance of anticipating changes rather than reacting to them, especially in the wake of policies introduced by the Trump administration.

Notable Quote:
Ismael Valdez [02:01]:
"We were thinking like, hey man, next year is going to be a really great year for us, you think? Is that you're heading the same place."

Tommy concurs, discussing how tariffs and economic policies are influencing his business strategies, particularly the decision to manufacture products domestically in Texas to mitigate the impact of international tariffs.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [04:52]:
"I'm literally right now, straps to the boots. I'm going to Texas right now and looking for ways to manufacture my thermostat here in the United States. And it's all because of the tariffs too."

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2. The Critical Role of Client Feedback and Online Reviews

Timestamp: [07:05]

Tommy shifts the focus to the importance of client feedback through online reviews. He stresses that negative reviews are indicative of underlying issues within the company's operations and that addressing these promptly is essential for growth.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [08:15]:
"Look, if that client was treated properly and we went through our process from the time we knocked the door to the time we collected the payment, that review would have never happened."

Ismael adds that true improvement stems from embracing and analyzing customer feedback rather than dismissing it, reinforcing the idea that continuous improvement is vital for maintaining a stellar reputation.

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3. Accountability and Leadership in Home Services Companies

Timestamp: [09:59]

The conversation delves into the common issue of lack of accountability among CEOs and general managers in the home services sector. Tommy points out that many operators remain stuck in an employee mindset, failing to adopt the strategic thinking necessary for scaling their businesses.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [10:15]:
"Most of these operators are employee-based operators. They haven't graduated their mindset into being a CEO, into being an entrepreneur, into being an operator."

Ismael echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that leaders must introspect and take responsibility for operational shortcomings to foster a culture of accountability and growth.

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4. Navigating Mentorship and Avoiding Ineffective Guidance

Timestamp: [13:30]

Tommy and Ismael discuss the challenges associated with finding credible mentors in the industry. They caution against relying on unproven gurus and highlight the importance of learning from peers who have demonstrated success through tangible results.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [19:08]:
"You can't be blaming the marketing company, you can't be blaming the weather... They got stuck in a place where they're, it's their own fault and they need somebody to get out there and give them direction."

Ismael adds that diligent research and verification are crucial when selecting mentors to ensure that the guidance received is both reliable and beneficial.

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5. The Future Impact of AI and Automation on the Home Services Industry

Timestamp: [25:06]

A significant portion of the discussion centers around the transformative role of AI and automation in the home services industry. Tommy anticipates that AI will revolutionize customer service, dispatching, and accounting, leading to increased efficiency but also raising concerns about job displacement.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [27:45]:
"Once you have that, imagine it's like having a driver's car now, right? Because it's all there."

Ismael concurs but suggests that government regulations will be necessary to manage the broader societal impacts of robotics replacing human labor in various trades.

Notable Quote:
Ismael Valdez [29:11]:
"I think there's going to have to be government regulations on it. Because they're going to need human beings to like. Otherwise, it's going to be a much larger problem."

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6. Emphasizing Authentic Branding in an AI-Driven World

Timestamp: [35:03]

The hosts underscore the enduring importance of authentic branding, especially as AI tools become more prevalent. Tommy highlights that personal branding—putting a human face behind the company—will differentiate businesses from AI-generated content.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [40:07]:
"The only way to go is go for. Away from vanilla is that personal brand that you're going to be able to look."

Ismael reinforces this by discussing the value of genuine storytelling and personal engagement with customers to build a loyal following.

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7. Social Media as a Vital Tool for Growth and Differentiation

Timestamp: [45:12]

Tommy and Ismael delve into the strategic use of social media for business growth. They advocate for creating engaging, shareable content that reflects the company's unique personality rather than mundane technical details.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [47:00]:
"The one metric that everybody should watch is shares. And this is what they don't tell you."

Ismael agrees, emphasizing the necessity for authentic and relatable content to resonate with a broader audience and drive engagement.

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8. Product Innovation and Strategic Expansion

Timestamp: [53:22]

The discussion transitions to product updates and strategic business expansions. Tommy shares insights into the development of their latest thermostat, improvements based on contractor feedback, and plans to expand manufacturing to Texas and Mexico to better serve a global market.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [55:07]:
"This is a worldwide product, bro. This is the dopest. This is one of the dopest things I've ever done in my life, honestly."

Ismael expresses excitement over the rapid growth and positive reception of the new products, highlighting the company's commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction.

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9. Addressing the Education Gap in Trades

Timestamp: [56:17]

Tommy and Ismael identify a critical flaw in the current education system: the lack of focus on vocational training and recruitment for trades. They advocate for reintroducing and enhancing trade education to attract young talent and dispel the stigma associated with home services careers.

Notable Quote:
Tommy [56:04]:
"We need to fix that educational system. There's no recruitment for the trades."

Ismael agrees, emphasizing that promoting success stories and demonstrating the lucrative potential of trades can inspire the next generation to pursue these careers.

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10. Final Thoughts and Encouragement

Timestamp: [68:46]

As the episode wraps up, the hosts reiterate the importance of taking actionable steps towards growth, embracing technology, and fostering authentic connections through branding and social media. They encourage listeners to invest in their businesses proactively and seek out quality mentorship and training.

Notable Quote:
Ishmael Valdez [70:24]:
"You don't got to do everything, but you got to do something... Do something, that's the end of the day."

Tommy concludes with:
"Reach out to us. We'll do a product demo. I'll make sure that you guys, you know, our customer service is flawless. I promise you guys that."

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Conclusion

This episode provides valuable insights into navigating the evolving landscape of the home services industry. From strategic planning and the significance of client feedback to embracing AI and the necessity of authentic branding, Ismael Valdez and Tommy offer actionable advice for contractors aiming to lead, grow, and sustain their businesses in a competitive market.

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Note:
This summary intentionally excludes advertisements, promotional segments, and non-essential introductory or concluding remarks to focus solely on the substantive content discussed during the episode.

Transcript

[Chris]

Welcome to to the Point Home Services, the podcast where real contractors share real strategies. We cut through the noise and get straight to the point with the contractors that are working in the field right now. If you run a home services business and want to lead, better grow faster and stay sharp, you're in the right place. Now, before we get started, I need you to do one thing. Only 30% of our listeners are following the show. So stop what you're doing, hit follow.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And let's get to the point.

[Tommy]

This is to the Point, a Rhino experience voted one of the top home services, marketing and operations podcasts. Cutting through the bullshit and getting to the point. Hey, what's up, everybody?

[Chris]

It's your boy, Chris.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I'm excited because I got my buddy Ishmael Valdez sitting across from me. What's up, Chris? He was looking at me, now he's looking at his phone. Go figure. It's always good to. To have any of my boys in here, too, so it's just good to have you come in. Thank you, bro. Finally. I know, I know. You wait on me. Well, I know it's usually my fault, but it's also your fault, so it's our fault.

[Tommy]

You know what? We're both busy, and that's the dope part about it, so.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, that's a good thing, especially right now. It's summertime. You're getting a lot busier. I keep seeing the text messages coming through for the stat orders getting. Getting insane. So that's cool to see a thing.

[Tommy]

That's. That's pretty cool.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, yeah, for all the listeners. Most of you guys already know who Ishmael is, too. Former CEO of Next Gen founder, and then now the head janitor for nuva. Head janitor. Which is. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about on this particular episode. But we have other things we want to talk about. Like, you know, we were just talking before the podcast that I was with Tommy up in Idaho this week, and we're just talking about, like, the future of trades and really, what will next year look like? I mean, because, you know, a lot of the. A lot of people who are growing or scaling or like, real good operators are already thinking about 20, 26 plans. I mean, right now it's June or July. What the hell month is it?

[Tommy]

July.

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Ishmael Valdez]

July. Shit. Thinking about what am I doing next year? And not waiting until it gets slow. Like, we're starting to plan. So we were just talking about the same thing. Like, what's next year going to look like? With all the changes that the Trump administration has made, you know, in Congress this year with better interest rates should be, you know, we'll do better interest rates. The, no taxing on the overtime and tips is a big deal. Right. So a lot more cash flow I think for some of the people. So we were thinking like, hey man, next year is going to be a really great year for us, you think? Is that you're heading the same place.

[Tommy]

Dude, I, I feel like it's going to be a really good year for everybody in the trades on it. Obviously, if he, you know, I, I agree with most of the things that he's Trump's doing, but if he stops with this nonsense of deportation and all that. Because whether we admit it or not, 38% of the labor comes from Hispanics and, and Latins and, and, and Mexicans in the trade. So obviously the agriculture got pretty, pretty hurt pretty bad. The restaurants, the, the hotel industry, like those, he had to stop doing that to them. Like it's going to get to the construction and, and like he has to understand like we are a pivotal part in, in, in, in the construction side and in the economy in general. Come up with a, with a good agreement where we could keep the good hard working people of, of, of Mexican Americans here and we could kick the scumbags out of here.

[Chris]

Sure.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So, you know what's interesting is not as I woke up this morning with a white landscaper in my backyard.

[Tommy]

That's the first one, that's the first one in Arizona.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I was like, who the is in my backyard right now? Then I saw him carrying a plan. I was like, oh, okay. But I think that there's some changes starting to happen, but it's still subjective. Like there has to be a definitive rule on who you can and can't go after for deportation.

[Tommy]

Like that's where job sites like go somewhere else, bro. Like, that's the one thing, like those people are working like and they're obviously paying taxes. They're obviously, you know, working like get rid of the scumbags that are in the streets like at 2am Right, doing nonsense. That's the people you want to get rid of. But you know, I, Dude, I, whether, whether we come up to an agreement or not, I know the trades are always going to pull through and we're going to find a way to, to make them better. So I'm excited in general because I think the best years are coming in the next two to three years. You know, there's things that I don't agree with him. But there the things that I do agree with him, like the tariffs and all the, all the things that he's doing for the economy. And, and you could see it, man, you could see you go outside and it's booming, bro. Construction's going on. People are, you know, massive companies down, massive companies are, are flooding into the United States saying, hey, I'm gonna invest and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna look a new too. Like, I'm paying tariffs for shipping them out of the Philippines and Armenia right now. So guess what I'm doing? I'm literally right now, straps to the boots. I'm going to Texas right now and looking for ways to manufacture my thermostat here in the United States. And it's all because of the tariffs too.

[Chris]

You know what?

[Ishmael Valdez]

You know, I think I always really appreciate about, just about you in general is when I think about just even not just forget your next gen journey, because I've known you through, I'd say 70% of your next gen journey is the willing to let the willingness to just grind your ass off. Like, you've been all over the place before you even came in, in here today, and you're flying in today and out today, right? So, but you're here all day long. Phoenix, you know, and, and you have meetings because you're back to, you know, back to grassroots.

[Tommy]

Dude, it is, it is insane, man. Honestly. And I was just talking to Tom Howard about this, I'm like, bro, I hate you. Sometimes when I have to wake up knowing, knowing that I sold my company for a ton of money and I didn't have to wake up anymore, I don't have to like, check what's going on with Nouve. I didn't have to, like, sometimes I mess around with them and I tell them, bro, I hate you. Honestly, like, I could have been in the golf course, I could have been spending time with my girls. I could have been, you know, working. I could have been like, not checking on 200 employees that I have now, I could have been doing that. But on the flip side, like, dude, I've never been excited about a product and about a project this much. So I'm, I'm, I'm good.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah. Because your plan is to, it's, it's. You want to get to this. You got this three year plan to get to a billion dollar value, right? But the cool thing about that is, is how you're like, how you're getting there. Because listening, you, you bust my balls all the time. So like not, not, not like a secret, but I had an opportunity to invest in, in Nuve and I didn't and I still hear about it and I told you what I tell you on text message last week. Yeah, I wish I would. I should, I should have done it because you're, you're done. But I didn't know you as well then either. Like we were just starting to have a relationship, you know. So like it was. I told you I was proud of you because it's like, dude, this thing is on a rocket ship and it's cool. But what makes it cool is because of you're taking the contractor feedback, you know, from first, you know, first gen, and then making the adjustments to it. Like you're listening to the people and making the adjustments and these guys, they want them and listen, they're in here, you see them on my walls. So I think that's part of the deal is like, you know, you have to keep listening to the feedback, the good and the bad, 100% making the adjustments. That makes sense.

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And, and I'll get into more of the new stuff, you know, a little bit later because I have some stuff, like some specifics I want to ask around it and like what you're hearing from, you know, the market and what you're thinking about for Future State.

[Tommy]

To that point though, Chris, honestly, like me going into shops, like I was just in Dallas yesterday, you know, at a, at a shop, helping them with their operations and obviously presenting the new product. Like, but, but to that point, me going into shops, me doing like, dude, I've, I've done probably thousands of one on ones now with contractors that are struggling in their business or they're trying to integrate nuve or whatever the case is. So I've done a ton of one on ones and I've done, you know, group meetings every Thursday, every end of the month. We do mentorings. Like bro, though, like how I see it in my concept is like I'm listening to my contractors. Those are my clients. For you guys out there that are contractors, you guys should never fucking stop listening to those clients that are, that are out there talking about your company. And the best way to do it is through your reviews, right? Reviews, reviews, reviews like Yelp and Google. Don't fucking lie. Because we all have this in our, in our operation, right? We have that one manager that, you know, one star review comes in and they're complaining about a technician, a sales guy and installer, whatever. And they're like, oh well, that client's, you know, crazy. And that client, you know, we already went out there twice and that, like, they're always coming up with something that, to justify that review in enhance you. Me as an operator, I would be like, look, if that client was treated properly and we went through our process from the time we knocked the door to the time we collected the payment, that review would have never happened. So obviously there's something not wrong right there. And that's the attention that these contractors need to start paying and stop excusing, excusing that it's okay for them to go online. And just because it's Yelp, that's the one thing that pisses me off, bro. Like, that frustrates me that when I talk to contractors, they always go back to, well, you know, it's Yelp, right, Ishmael? Like, they're always complaining. No, no, no, they're not complaining. They're complaining because there's something wrong. And you guys need to start listening as contractors and adjusting your operation to make sure that doesn't happen. Yelp, Yelp and Google are the purest forms of listening to your client. Yelp and Google are the purest form to listening to your clients. And these contractors have to do a better job of listening. Of listening. Because look like Travis Ringy, he ran one of the best operations in the industry. 10,000 Google reviews, 5 star rating on Google and Yelp. Like, but guess what? He did every time there was a one star review or every time there was an email, or every time there was a customer calling in to complain, they took care of it right then and there. And that's the beauty behind our operation and behind what we do. We get to listen to our clients and us as operators, we should do a way better job of adjusting. Adjusting and modifying the operation to making sure that that doesn't happen again.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, I think I have an opinion on this too. And before I do want to, I do want to talk about your new Bay Network. But. But this is on my mind. You know, I can't remember who I learned it from. And maybe Ryan, if you remember who was from. On the podcast, it was. Somebody had asked me or said you should always take a look if you're, if you're at the top, if you're the CEO of the business, if you're a general manager, if you're a whatever in leadership, if it's. You just, you're. That you're the technician is. You have to look at any, any of these situations, which by the way, Every contractor up. Like, everybody messes stuff up. We mess stuff up often. And the worst thing we can do is not learn from it, right? Ignore it and ignore it. You can't do that. So. But you also have to think like.

[Tommy]

I, I always have.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I have these conversations with people and I'll say, even though they're like four layers below me and something went wrong, I'm saying, what was my part in this? Like, and maybe it's like very far removed, but I'm still trying to think about, was there something, was there a system I could have put in place better? Should I have checked out more? Like. And it challenges you to think about what is my role now? You might not come up with anything, but. But if you switch your thinking to that way, I think you find more solutions faster. I think that's a really good way for those that are. You're leading to look at you and say, oh shit. They're always looking for like. So you can't just be a technician, say, oh, you know that, you know Mrs. Jones, she's, you know, she's just a. Oh, no. You still gotta like, try and figure out what it is. Now we know that some people can.

[Tommy]

Totally be unreasonable and you're always gonna have that. And that's part of being in business. But the one thing, like you said, you can't ignore it and you gotta do something about it because what's the number one compl. And you. And then this is. Goes to you. What is the number one complaint that every freaking contractor has for you? Where's the leads? Where's the leads? How come I don't have any leads? And it's like, bro, like, how do you expect to have leads when your yelp rating is 3.8 with like 100 reviews and your competitor has 7,000 with 4.9? Like, how do you expect to have leads when your Google rating is 4.4 with 200 views and you have next gen and service champions and Pro Skill and all these guys with 10, 20, 30,000 reviews, right? How do you expect to have that? How do you expect to get leads in the, in the shoulder season and customers gravitate to your company when you, when you're not doing your part, when you're not doing your part or making sure the operation set properly to making sure that every customer has the right customer experience to enable to be able to go in there on Yelp and Google Frictionless and start reviewing about your company. So operators out there that are always fucking complaining, and this is one Thing that I learned in my mentorings, that I'm doing with, with my contractors and the, and the network that I'm growing with nuve is I am learning that these guys have fucking excuses for everything. And the dope part about, like this, I don't know what other networks do or what other mentoring platforms do. They don't bullshit me, bro. That's the one thing. You cannot bullshit me because I've been through that fucking grind. I've grown a company two times already. I know what, what it is when customers are complaining. I know that when you're, you know, coming up, if I come and I say, hey, why do you have 4.2 star rating on Google and only 200? Oh, it's because it's. I'm like, okay, cool, so you. So you're not paying attention. That's what, that's the real business. You're in the U.S. exactly. And I've. And I call them straight up, bro, and sometimes I feel like I go too far for them and then I go, like, man, they're not going to want to talk to me again, bro. The next week, Ishmael, can we have another one on one, Ishmael, or can you show me, like, how, like, bro, some of these contractors need to be called out on their bullshit. And that's what I've been learning the last, you know, eight months that I've been doing these mentoring programs.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, so. So I actually, I want to talk about that real quick because one of the things I was trying to think through is, you know, anytime I do, we do these episodes, I'm always just trying to think, you know, sometimes I overthink on what I want to, what I want to get from it. But sometimes what people need to hear is like, the harsh truth of, you know, the situations and that, you know, we, you know, we talk about marketing companies. We talk about, like, you just said, everybody wants leads. I don't believe, I honestly don't believe that any of the, any of the digital marketing companies that I know that are serving the trades, those that I have relationships with, there's a bunch now, but I know a handful. I don't think anybody is just saying, man, I can't wait to fucking take their money and suck. I don't, I don't.

[Tommy]

I believe I agree with you.

[Ishmael Valdez]

But when you get bigger, it is harder because you have more people that you're responsible for that have to follow a process. Way more pressure, and you have way more contractors. Like, we have something like 1200 clients or something crazy like that today. And a lot of account managers, hardest fucking job in this company I think is being an account manager. Because you're the one managing your feelings as a contractor, trying to manage teams who are actually executing. Oh, that's what it is. So I don't believe it. But where you have the chance to make it right is when the customer complains, you find out, is it real? Is it not real? To them it's real. So you gotta like sift through the truth, of course. But the only way that we get better is by feeling the pressure of those shitty moments.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Ishmael Valdez]

And that's just, you know, I think Peterman will say that's like a chapter in the book. He's like, oh, it just was the shitty chapter where I learned a lot. And then the next chapter was better. So you were working with a lot of contractors as part of the new network?

[Tommy]

Yep.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And doing, still doing one on ones and stuff like that. So I'm curious, in like today's market, you know, because you're how far removed now from next gen? Two years. So you, so you've been doing, you've been busting your ass on nouveau, you're working one on one with these contractors. What are you like, what are you hearing most from them now? Like, what's the biggest pain points now? And I'll bet you some of these are the same pain points that we hear all through, you know, last 20 years. But what are the, what are the most of the pain points that you're having to deal with now or help or help them see that they're doing wrong or fixing or whatever.

[Chris]

Sorry for the interruption to the point listeners. Have you heard of Rilla? Are you using Rilla yet? If not, are you for Rilla?

[Tommy]

Shoot, I did.

[Ryan]

There.

[Chris]

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[Derek]

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[Tommy]

The main thing that most contractors are doing wrong that I'm beginning to realize is that you're a CEO because you're a general manager or you're in charge of an operation. What I'm seeing is that there is no, there's no nobody on top of them to hold them accountable. So lack of accountability is probably, probably one of the biggest things that I've taken away from my new networks. That one on ones and mentoring that I've been doing with these guys that most of these operators are employee based operators. They haven't graduated their mindset into being a CEO, into being an entrepreneur, into being an operator. Most of these guys, dude, and I'm not talking about 1 out of 10, I'm talking about 9 out of 10 contractors that I'm talking to right now that I'm trying to help them, you know, fix their operation or increase leads or you know, grow their revenue or grow their profit, whatever the pain point that we're dealing with. 99 the vast majority of the fall falls in them where since nobody's holding them accountable, there's really no metric for them to follow and they have no direction. So they're just, they're just being employees again. And I'll give you a perfect example. There's this lady in Idra back east, I think she's in Tennessee, a $5 million company. And she just, and she's just having problems with, you know, recruiting and marketing, all this, right? And she shows me an email that she sent to her employees and the email is like fucking three paragraphs with an intro. And I'm like an Idri. You need to stop being an employee. You will never ever catch any real CEO operator. You will never catch Steve Jobs sending a three page email. Our emails are simple, man. We have no explanation to our employees. We just got to give them direction. And that's what I've been learning about these CEOs that CS the fault is most of the fault is in them 100%. You can't be blaming the marketing company, you can't be blaming the weather. You can't be blaming the situation situation that they're in. You can't be blaming cash flow anymore. They got stuck in a place where they're, it's their own fault and they need somebody to get out there and give Them direction.

[Ishmael Valdez]

The.

[Tommy]

Now, on the flip side, where, where, where, where I'm, where I get frustrated is there's a ton of mentors out there that don't know what the they're doing and that they shouldn't be mentoring people and that they shouldn't be, you know, charging people for anything because, number one, they haven't built anything. Number two, they were an employee and they had a successful exit or they, they were an employee and another company, whatever, and now they're mentoring. And that to me is a huge red flag. Like, when you're going to choose a mentor, number one, make sure that there's results in there.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

Because how many people do we know are gurus in the industry now? And what have they done?

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

What have they done? So to answer your question is, look, we have a huge problem of CEOs right now with employee mindsets, and we need to, and we need to put, we need to, we need to start graduating their mindset into, into a CEO. And we have a bigger problem. Cons coming into our industry and trying to infiltrate and leave these people just to take their money. That's the. What that. Those are two problems that we got to face as in the industry right now.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, and we, and me. You like our group. You know, we have, we have influence, but we still only probably influence this much of a massive industry. So, so it is hard to see it because obviously I've seen. Seen it multiple times, a ton of times, and it is painful. And you feel bad for those contractors who are just busting their ass, man, like, get things done. And they're just listening because they're asking for help and then they get bad help. Yeah, it's like, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's always like, I think about, man, when you put. If you made it five years in the business, that was a. And you. Or you get to 5 million. If you made it to 5 million, you went through some shit.

[Tommy]

Oh, yeah.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And you went through some shit. And you've got, you, you've got something here. But they, you know, you, you didn't know how to. Like, I brought on a private equity partner because I didn't know how to grow the business any bigger. And. Well, I should say I didn't think I did. Yeah, I know now I could have done it, but. But you don't know. You don't know.

[Tommy]

Of course.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So I picked, you know, I picked the partner.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And that was my me waving the white flags. And I'm okay with asking him for help. I just think that, you know, we, the, the contractor still has to do some diligence, man, to figure out, like, who am I actually listening to?

[Tommy]

Yes.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Like, let's, let's Google that. Let's chat GPT and find out who. Who am I, you know, who am I being led by?

[Tommy]

Yes.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And, and maybe if you're a small guy sub million bucks and you find somebody that's, you know, know, built a $10 million business, well, that might be okay. But if you're just looking to be a $10 million company, like, that's okay. And that's okay.

[Tommy]

By the way, I would encourage our contractors instead of looking for these fucking gurus or these, you know, these silver bullets out there, I would encourage them to help each other instead. If you're a $1 million contractor, there's plenty of $5 million guys around you that you should be spending time with, and you're a 5 million to $10 million contractor. There's plenty of $25 million guys out there that you guys should be mentor that you guys should be, you know, building a. Did kind of. Kind of like what we did. It's a bunch of hundred million dollar guys trying to make it to the next level. Right. The next level is a billion dollars, and we're all trying to get there.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Tommy]

Which is insane to say right now, but like, I did it at 1, I did it at 5 million, at 10 million, at 25. Like, I've always looked for help in, in our peer group to other successful contractors. I never had like, you know, besides Tom Howard coming into my life in 2019. I've never paid a mentor to grow to 100 mil. I've always looked at people that were already at 40, 50, 180, 90 mil, and I looked at their operation and I went and I mimicked and I took something from them and I brought it. And the most important thing I did as I implemented right away, and I took actions, and that's what contractors need to do instead of always thinking that somebody's going to come and save them. Nobody's going to come and save you guys. Nobody's gonna. Because I'm gonna give you the, the harsh reality. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, bro. Nobody cares. That truth that, that statement has been true in my. Throughout my whole freaking life. Nobody gives a flying. Nobody. Nobody cares. So instead of waiting for somebody to throw a lifesaver at you, instead of waiting for somebody to say, hey, I'm here to help you, instead of waiting for that, look Around, Google it, Yelp it, go on, go on social media and look at who's doing who, who's running a profitable business, who's running a bigger business and go spend a day in their. That's what I would encourage people to do. Instead of always trying to look for somebody that they think that's going to help them in exchange they're taking equity from them.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Tommy]

We know plenty of those people and they're, or they're taking money from them.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And you know what else I think is interesting? I, I know that, you know, people are looking for shortcuts. Like there's only one real way to go and that is just to, you know, you gotta fucking do the work. Like there's no way around it. You have to do it. And there is no, there is no shortcut.

[Tommy]

There is no shortcut.

[Ishmael Valdez]

If there was.

[Tommy]

And there's no substitute for hard work. There is zero substitute for hard work.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, and listen, here's another thing. All the, all these new automation and AI tools and all this, that's out there and there's a bunch right there. And we talk about this frequently on here too. That's also not like a, that's not a, a, an easy button. Like, no, you can't just implement the shit thinking things are going to get better. Like it. That still takes somebody to focus on the integration of whatever the tool is. And there's so fucking many that you can be distracted by.

[Tommy]

And all those tools, Chris, are making it easier, but it's not going to, it's not going to do the work itself. Yeah, right, Meaning before service time, we still had to do everything manually. Now that service time came in, yes, it alleviated a pain point. But guess what? We still have to go inside of the house. We still have to go in there and diagnose the system. We still have to go in there and present the options. We still have to go in there and close the deals. We still have to do that. So all of these things, tools that people are giving us, whether it's chirp, whether service time, whether it's nuve, whether, whether it's. Whatever it is, is. Yes, it's going to help you. Yes, it's going to give you a little bit of, of, of, of, of less friction inside the operation. At the end of the day, you still have to do the work.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Do you have any? Do you have any? So since we're on the, on this.

[Tommy]

Path, like I've told you, this is a badass episode.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I totally went off off track because, because we went down on tangent and that's the shit I love about doing on these podcasts is when we kind of go on a tangent because usually there's some really good shit in there.

[Tommy]

Of course.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Since we're talking about AI and automation, is there any that that in particular stand out to you? This is gonna be a two part question. I'll start there. Because the next part's gonna talk about AI versus human beings in the future.

[Tommy]

Of course.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So. But what stands out to you in regards to AI automation? Like, you know, and by the way, this isn't like, I'm not, I didn't ask Ishmael this ahead of time, like ask him on the fly. But what are the ones that you right now think, hey, these are the ones that I think are people need.

[Tommy]

To focus on making sure that they're keeping up with the customer service side of it, right? Meaning the rep is going to get replaced no matter how we see it. Now, right now it's, it's a little bit iffy. It's not developed yet where it has empathy, where it has common sense, where it has a little bit of backend knowledge on the, on the trades. It doesn't have the human touch of it, but it's going to get there and it's going to get here fast. So what I would tell people, what I would tell people, contractors in general, and this is for roofing, air conditioning, plumbing, every, every single sector in our, in our industry is that the first, the first impact AI tool is going to be the replacing the csrs, right? After we replace the csrs, we're going to replace the dispatchers, right? And I know Service line has been working on dispatching pro for a million years and they still freaking suck at it. And I told this to Ara, every single time I see him, I'm like, bro, all your pro products suck and you need to do a way better job of developing them faster and more user friendly. But the customer service department is hands down going to be one of the first departments that we need to work on in the trades because, because guess what, what's that one company that sells ticket Ticketmasters doing it already. I talked to one of the Ticketmaster's AIs and holy, the whole time I was, dude, I was about to have a full on conversation about life with these people, with these AI agents, right? So AI customer service reps, you guys should be focused on that, keep your pulse on it, Maybe try one, one agent, keep, you know, keep developing it, keep feeding the the data or obviously the AI agents only as good as the data provided to them, right? So that dispatching is going, obviously accounting is going to be probably one of the last features that is going to be done in there. But eventually accounting, you know, your P Ls, your balance sheets, your cash flow statements, everything that, that, that's going to be done instantly. You know what I can't wait for? The live P and L. And I know nobody's ever talked about this. A live P L where inventory, where purchasing, where profit, where your gross real time, where you can see your gross profit go up and down day by day. You can see what triggers the gross profit to go up or down. You can trigger, you can see your labor coming in. Like, how much did I spend a labor today? To the point, to the penny.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Like, like automated. Automated. Yeah, bro.

[Tommy]

Once you have that, imagine it's like it's like having a driver's car now, right? Because it's all there. So I can't wait for the back end support. But look, essentially what we're going to see in the next three to five years is there's going to be maybe four or five people inside the office managing all these AI agents, which customer service, dispatching, accounting, all that and everything. 90% of our work is going to be done in the feel 90 until obviously robotics get here. And for people that don't, for people that think I'm crazy when I'm telling them this, and for people that think that it's not coming, there is no chance. There is no. It is a hundred percent certain in stone. I will bet every penny that I own in my life that robotics is going to replace plumbing, electrical, roofing, barbers, nannies, cleaning ladies. It's going to replace everything. These robots are going to be doing brain surgery here pretty soon. You don't think they could look at a toilet and unclog it for you? You don't think they could have the radar visions where, where the water's coming from and go in there and weld it. You don't think that, you know, they could go to a condenser and know that the capacitor is not, is not functioning properly like it is coming. No matter, bro. The good part is that robotics is going to, you know, change the whole labor in our industry and change the whole labor in the world. The bad part is, as human beings, what the fuck are we going to do?

[Ishmael Valdez]

That's what I was saying. I think, I think there's going to have to be government regulations on it. Because they're going need human beings to like. Otherwise it's going to be a much larger, Much larger problem.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Everything it's going to be. I mean, it is crazy to think about it. I, I used to, I used to do presentation. Like it's probably business before COVID and I would talk about. Do you think there'll be a time whenever you're taking a shower and you run out of shampoo and you just say, order me some more shampoo?

[Tommy]

Yes.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Amazon.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Like it's. And so now it's here. It's. Yeah. And. And. But you could kind of see the writing on the wall coming when that one was probably a little bit more believable.

[Tommy]

You don't think you're going to be able to say, hey, I want to trim my beard today. And you sit down in a chair and start.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Scared the shit out of me. You give a barber, robot barber a little thing to shave my neck.

[Tommy]

Do you know what I'm saying? It's coming though. It's coming. And, and us as contractors have to be. Have to be more realistic and stop being so delusional of thinking that robots aren't going to do it. Robots are going to be re roofing. They're already doing it, but they're going to do it at a more efficient way. Dude, I just saw an episode on. I think I saw a video on Instagram. Instagram. They just built a city in Texas with, with the machines that no labor was required. They, they built 200 homes in Texas. They're selling them for 350 to $400,000, depending on the size of it. No human was ever in that. In that little city that they were building.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Oh.

[Tommy]

And it was all with a, with a robotics machine of just.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I don't know if we just scared the out of everybody on my half.

[Tommy]

Of this conversation and don't take my word for it. There's a city in Texas right now, there's 200 homes up for sale and there's people moving into them right now. And they, you can see they're already moving in. And the other side of the street you can see the machines building the houses.

[Ryan]

Man.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I think three to five years is aggressive. I don't. I bet you it's a little further out than that.

[Tommy]

Whether it's, let's say it's 10 years.

[Ishmael Valdez]

All you're trying to do is create some awareness around it. Yeah, yeah, I got you.

[Tommy]

And urgency too, man. These contractors have no urgency for nothing.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, I don't. I Don't want them to hear. I don't want contractors to hear that and then be discouraged or be, or, or be like, oh, they should be excited. You should just keep grinding. And what happens is like we were just talking about my marketing company as it evolves. Like I have to keep getting better. You know, it's, it's getting, not getting easier, it's getting harder. Well, but I'm also trying to think ahead. Think ahead. Like what's, what do I need to be thinking about? You know, Anna's trying to figure out how do I, how do we become better operators of this business? Like, you know, they have to be thinking about, you know, you don't focus on it. You just.

[Tommy]

I'm not saying go out there and fire your people because the robots are coming. I'm not saying that. But what you do have to do is make sure that you have a. Make sure you have your eye on that. So too Right. You don't. The last thing you want is, you know, an enterprise level private equity company. You know, just order 10,000 Robotics and you're still. And you have no idea it's happening and all these air conditionings are getting installed by robots and you're over there in la la land getting your ass kicked. That's what you don't want. So what I'm telling you is don't focus on it and don't think that it's coming today or tomorrow in three years, maybe not even five years. But guess what? It's coming. So start educating yourself on it. How am I going to deal with it?

[Ryan]

Right. Right.

[Tommy]

When it does come? Just like you.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Tommy]

Marketing is getting harder by the minute for you guys.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Tommy]

AI is essentially going to do things that you guys never thought about, that we've never thought about in the marketing side of it right now. Are all marketing companies going to go out of business? Probably the shitty ones. And I'm. And I hope they do because there's a ton of shitty marketing companies out there. A ton of them. So. And I wish and I hope AI wipes them clean, but there will always be a room for marketing companies and especially actually really, really good marketing companies like Rhino.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Thanks, man. And I think that I'm gonna, I'm actually gonna go back to one simple thing that I know that you're, that you're passionate about and so am I, and that is this the simple thing called brand?

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So let's just switch gears for a second and talk about, like, I, I feel like I've said this the last, you know, five years. But I. Every year it seems like it feels more real. And that is, that brand is the one thing that will never not be important. Right. Like it is.

[Tommy]

Amen.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So incredibly important. Now you know that I was able to acquire majority stake Prolific.

[Tommy]

Thank you.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Thank you. And they, you know, Prolific's done a couple brands for you. They've done a couple brands for me. They've done a shitload data cube.

[Tommy]

They did Legacy.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Legacy. Oh, that's right. Legacy Roofing, which is a dope ass logo.

[Tommy]

Thank you, Ryan.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Ryan. Yeah.

[Tommy]

Thank you, Ryan.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yep, billboard looks badass up on the 17. I drive by it every night.

[Tommy]

Truck.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, I see more and more of the trucks coming into my neighborhood.

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Tommy]

We're expanding into Phoenix right now.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah. Because you guys are up in. Well, because I live, I live so far north, you know, my cab is in Prescott. It's like an hour 15 minute drive. So it's close. But I keep seeing you guys, you know, more and more, which is cool. But, you know, they did our Redbird roofing branding, you know, which is completely different.

[Tommy]

And it came out super clean.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Came out good. Thank you. It's because the picture of me on there and Chad with his big burly beard that he doesn't really have. He wanted to look like a mountain man.

[Tommy]

And his vest, he probably had the vest on.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Huh? Made him take the vest off. Thank you. Thank you. He loves that thing.

[Tommy]

Hey, Chad, the the 80s called. They want their vest back.

[Ishmael Valdez]

He's gonna get you a vest for Christmas. But branding, let's just talk about for a second. You know, you did such a great job with the next gen brand because it was fucking everywhere you drove in Southern California. It was all over the place. But even that, like, you know, people will think about how hard it is to rebrand and they're not thinking about actually the, the flip side of what the rebrand could be. Doesn't even mean. Doesn't mean you need to change the name necessarily 100%. Maybe it's just, you know, a refresh of the brand. Well, if you look at it from a couple different ways, it is one. It can also be really good for the culture of your business for the everybody to be a part of like the relaunch. Right. Because if you're trying to reset mindset, maybe a toxic culture, whatever, or had.

[Tommy]

A shitty year, whatever.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And you need to, you just need to revamp. Everybody. Everybody excited again. That's a great way to do it.

[Tommy]

I agree.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Does it have some cost associated to it.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Especially if you have a lot of rigs you got to rewrap or whatever. But the upside is you have this really, you know, you've got now this brand that you can be proud of that hopefully what. What I. What I loved most about Prolific, and obviously I'm friends with Nantonelli, Kick Charge and all these guys. What I loved about it is when I went through their process, it was a longer process, but it was definitely more of like a. How do they. How do we make the brand, like, more of you? Like, because the biggest differentiator in anybody's business as the owner is you. The individual. Like, you are the difference. And I like that process because to me, I'm like. That feels really genuine to me.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

It's not just some fancy word or like a, you know, which a lot of people do. It's, you know, there's. And people love it, and I think some of them are cool. But to me, what matters most to me is I want it to be, you know, meaningful to me. And how Redbird Roofing worked out was. I live in Arizona. I'm from Indiana. I live in Arizona. I'm a big Arizona Cardinals fan. That's a Red Bird State. Indiana. The Indiana State bird is not Larry Bird. It's actually a cardinal. So it's a. So we didn't want to use Cardinal. We wanted to use Redbird, but the actual logo is a cardinal. So it connected me and Chad, you know, even though we're in two completely different states. And it was just kind of, like.

[Tommy]

Creative, by the way.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And. And the meaning of a cardinal is like, it's good luck. It's like, you know, so there was a lot of cool meaning to it, but. But he took me down that path, and I was like, cool. This felt really, really good when we created this brand, and I could feel really good about telling that story to the employees. You're like, oh, this makes. This makes sense. So a rebrand might be something that you. That you think about for 20, 26, and if it is, I hope you use Prolific or at least give us a shot. But the other part about it is people's personal brands. So I wanted to kind of pivot to that, that I. You start. I'm starting to see more contractors on social media trying to create. Create a social media or their. Their own personal brand. Yep. What's your thoughts on. On a. Like, you know, even if. If you're an owner or even. Let's just say you're even a, you know, A sales rep. You're a whatever, a comfort consultant, whatever. Fuck it. What do you, how do you. What do you think about people creating their personal brands under other comp. Other, you know, different than the company name.

[Chris]

What's up to the point listeners. If you're working with the marketing agency to drive traffic, what happens when a customer lands on your website? Contractor Commerce helps top contractors like Summit Heating who generated over $500,000 in new.

[Ishmael Valdez]

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[Chris]

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[Ishmael Valdez]

Contractor Commerce helps you close them. It's a good one two punch.

[Chris]

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[Tommy]

Look in the world we're headed right now, which is the AI world and you're going to hear our artificial intelligence intelligence for the next 100 million years as the most impactful part of life that we're going to experience right in the, in the world we're headed right now. The AI agents are essentially going to make and look everybody look the same. Everybody. Everybody's gonna have the, the caught the car actions and the, and the, and the in the same slow like everybody's gonna start looking and sounding the same because these AI agents don't know any better.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

The only thing that contractors could do and this is just for contracting, this is for business in general, the best thing people could do right now is start telling your story online, start putting a face behind your, behind your logo, start putting a face behind your company. Because that is the way that you're going to be able to put, set yourself apart from all of these artificial things that are about to happen. Artificial. It's in the word artificial. Everything's going to become artificial. Everything's going to have. Everything's going to be vanilla, right? And the only way to go is go for. Away from vanilla is that personal brand that you're going to be able to look. I'll give you a perfect example. Go on Twitter, go on Instagram, go on Facebook and look at Tesla. They have 1 or 2 million followers. They have 1 or 2 million interaction. Go on fucking Elon Musk. There's fucking hundreds of millions of people following why he is Tesla, Tesla. And the reason why people love and enjoy and are obsessed with Tesla and buy stocks and all that is because of him. I promise you, if nobody ever would have met Elon, if Elon would have never came out of the woodworks and it was just Tesla, Tesla, Tesla. Guess what? He would have been. He would have been another Ford. He would have been another gmc. He would have been another Honda. He like, who the hell's the CEO of Honda? Who the hell is the CEO of Ford and gmc? And who's getting their ass kicked right now? Now those guys are getting their ass kicked.

[Ryan]

Why?

[Tommy]

Because they came from the 1940 mentality of like, you know, we built the best car. Yeah, we get it. You built the best car. But Elon's kind of cool, man. And I love the technology behind and I love look that guy. And this is just one example, right? One example. In a world of artificial intelligence, in a world of bunch of vanilla, you guys need to start putting some flavor behind it. And the flavor is you. And that's the only way you guys are going to be able to separate yourselves from the competition. So start putting yourself out there and look. So some of us are camera shy, which is fine. And some of them, some of us don't want to be on camera. Guess what? There's somebody in your team that is. That is a die hard Rhino. And I'll give you a perfect example. You're the guy that was walking right here. Yes, Mike. He bleeds rhino. He's out there exposing himself. He's out there doing podcasts, he's out there doing road. Like that guy's on camera all day long. Guess what you guys contractors in general, you guys have that same person. You guys have that mic inside your company. If you don't want to be in front of a camera, fine. I get it. You don't have no personality. You don't. You don't have swag. You don't have. You don't have that crispy image that people are going to identify and people are going to be like, man, I really want to use Nuve, because Ishmael's out there talking shit, and I love the way he is. Start looking for that one person, and that person is going to be your brand ambassador. That person is going to be the face of the company. And look, as CEOs, we need to be humble. Humble enough to say, hey, that's not that online, Ishmael. And that social media is not for me. And that's okay. But don't. Just because it's not for you doesn't mean you're going to let your business tank. Just because it's not for you, you're not going to do it. And guess what? Now you're. Now you're wondering why there's no leads again.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

I guarantee you, if you get your name out there, Annie, and people start loving you and following you and sharing your story and people start connecting with you when they go look for your service, guess who they're going to. To come. Of course.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yep.

[Tommy]

Of course.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah. So. So you just said something, and it's going to derail me again, but you're going to want to have this conversation with me because you and I are on the same page about it. So I'm a big believer in the same thing. Like, I've been. I've been. I've been an influencer for a decade.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Because I've been in this industry so long and I've spoke on so many stages and all this shit and, And. And Mike does bleed the core values of this business. And so he's a genuine dude. Dude who is his own personality, but he's living out what we believe this business is and what we do for contractors. He's a guy who, like, legit gives a. Yep. And that's who you want. Like, somebody who really, really cares. And he's really smart. Like, he knows our business well. But I wanted to give him that opportunity, and he wanted to take that opportunity and run with it. So I just keep pushing. I mean. I mean, places I speak at. Last year, two. Two. Like, I was. I barely spoke anywhere on purpose. I don't even speak in my own event Besides, you know, being the mc. But I like to put him out front because he gets to go and represent this business. And though it's good for him when he wants to make a pivot and do his own thing, and I'm sure he will at some point, he'll still have represented Rhino so well that people will associate him with the business. And so to me, that was like, when he started doing so good at it, I was like, sweet, I don't have to go as much now. I still do my own. This is why we have social media teams, right? Like, we have video production things that can still put our content out there, of course, keep us out front. But that's where I wanted to pivot to is, you know, you and I have talked about this around social media, like social media marketing, let's call it that, and it's pivoted quite a bit in this, like, five year, this little five year, you know, stint we had. And the thing that I think that we've, we've struggled with and I've told you this is I tried to build a social media, like, marketing team three separate times.

[Tommy]

It's hard, man, for you guys.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, because what we don't. It is. It's actually very hard for it to make money. And I'll tell you why. Yeah, Because. Because in order to do it the way that I think it should be.

[Tommy]

Done, it cost a lot of. It cost a lot of money of energy and a ton of time.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Time. And it could be travel, it could be. Because if you have these contractors who don't want to get in front of a camera and you got to be the one, well, there's added expense to that.

[Tommy]

You got to fly them out and you got to do the content.

[Ishmael Valdez]

It's like, it's not scalable.

[Tommy]

So I agree.

[Ishmael Valdez]

At least to me, it's not scalable. So. So I couldn't quite figure everybody, not.

[Tommy]

Just to you, to everybody. That's what I've told. How many times have you heard me say all marketing companies suck at social media? We do.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah. Well, I don't disagree. I'm, I, I sucked at it, right? And I'm, and I'm talking about us contracting for the contractor. Obviously, our team does a really great job here at Rhino, but, but if I could duplicate this, because this is all authentic, like it's all us. That's what, that's why I feel good about it. That's what the contractor needs to have is too, is all authentic them. If it's a technician Going to do a unclog a toilet. Well guess what, just do a quick how to on what you're already doing doing if they're comfortable and that's good.

[Tommy]

Like that's an easy one, 100. But what they don't want to do and before you get to it because I think I know where you're going. Look at guys, this is what frustrates me. The out of our contractors when they're filming their technicians working on an AC unit when they're filming their, their plumbers working on a P trap like or they're explaining, oh my God, I can't stand that. When they're in front of a camera and they're like well this is a water heater and a 50 gallon water heater and it's like do you guys understand that nobody gives a flying about that. Like social media is entertainment. Social media I'll give you about. Look, I, I've been on social media right now for the last eight months. I've been studying it, I've been on, on it. I've been putting content, I've been looking at my metrics. I've been looking the one metric that every, everybody if you're, if you're going to start getting into the social media game and you're going to start, you know, doing your own content in house and you're going to start trying to put your brand out there, the one metric that everybody should watch is shares. And this is what they don't tell you, okay? This is what people don't. I had to figure out myself bro. I'm, I am going to become a social media marketing PhD, masters at this dude. I, I built a social media team. Now we have six people in our social media. Juju's one of them. He's, he's following me filming every day, right? Share share shares will give you the substance that you're putting out there. Now when I see these contractors talking about water heaters and talking about an air condenser and a, what a capacitor does and there's no shares on it, that means. Because nobod. Now look, I'll go on my social media and I'll talk about, you know, artificial intelligence or I'll talk about, you know, what contractors should be doing inside their operation to become more profitable and I see 100, 200, 500,000 shares. That means that people are connecting with my substance. That means people are connecting with my content and that's what people need to start doing if you're going to do your own in house social media, which I hugely, and I'm sure you agree with this. I hugely tell you like you guys right now should buy a fucking camera right now or do it off your phone, buy a couple mics and start filming everything. And, and the cool part about social media, you don't know what's going to hit. That's the dope part. I put videos on my social media that I'm like, hell yeah, I'm going to get a, you know, a thousand shares or I'm going to get, you know, 500,000 views on it and it does like, you know, 500 and then I'll put that, I'm just chilling or I'm in my car, I'm talking and 24 hours later, you know, 600,000 views and 2,000 shares and 5,000 likes and it's like what the, that's what social, that's a fun part about social media. So yes, I'll let, I'll let you finish the question but please, please guys, if you are going to do it, do it fucking right. Don't have assing.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, so I completely agree with you because I do, I do. You again, you and I have talked about this topic like specifically and it's, you know, it's, I still believe you have to have your own. Like the best thing you could do is have your own in house social team. Like today I think you have to have that. And if you can't afford to, to grab one of your employees, you can grab an employee. I think that's a good second.

[Tommy]

That's a good grab a, anybody that's in the office that has some kind of personality but all you need is.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Really one person who can coordinate that whole thing. And if you get a social media, a social media manager or a coordinator or whatever you want to call it, who's in house, well then they can manage that for you. Like they'll be the one who sets up the meeting with Jill the CSR to go over xyz. You can approve, you as a leader can approve what the topics are going to be if you want, have them bring them to you. But that's, that's where it's like, man, how have I never been able to figure that thing out? So I've tried to keep an eye on who are the people out there who I think are doing a, a good job, right. And there's not many like in our, in the home services space. I can, I can, Tommy's doing an okay job.

[Tommy]

Like I've I've talked to him about this. I'm like, your social media sucks, bro, but it's better than 99% of people out there. You know, Tom's getting into the game now, and I've seen some of his videos. They suck, by the way, too. Tom. But like, like, nobody is doing social media right the way it's supposed to be.

[Ishmael Valdez]

That's what I'm saying. So here's what I'm getting with that. The bar is low. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't think that. I love that you bust Tommy's balls. I think Tommy's team does a great job. He's got a big team, too. But I'm talking about who's an actual, like, social media marketing company who's out there trying to do it right now. And I can only think of one person. And I won't say anything other than, like, I think the bar's still really low. So there's such an opportunity there. So I'm like, do I give this thing another go? And I'm not going to do that with. With Rhino. I would do that with Prolific because it's.

[Tommy]

That's a good plan.

[Ishmael Valdez]

It's brand. That's a good thing. Be more about. It's like, right into, you know, we rolled out the email. I, you know, I was able to get the president, Zach, over to run to be the president of Prolific, who brought his email marketing with him, which plays right into our brand message messaging.

[Tommy]

That's a good thing.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And I was sleeping on email marketing until he showed me what he was doing in his service type with the marketing pro ship for all the contractors. And I was like, okay, now he does it for Rhino, but there's a whole play there to. To build out Prolific and personal branding. Personal branding and social. And it's gonna have to. We'll come up with a plan and then guess who will buy it.

[Chris]

Yeah, right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I mean, it would make. That would make a lot of. A lot of sense to me for longevity of the business. Maybe it doesn't play out that way, but that's the way I'm thinking about it.

[Tommy]

And you gotta. And you gotta try it, though. You got to do it now because you're you, bro. This social media wave is. It's just started, by the way, like, I know people think that social media has been around forever and, like, no, it's been around forever, but nobody's really capitalizing on it and nobody's really doing it properly. It Just started right now. Like for the last year, people are addicted to social media. If you look at everybody's apps, I guarantee you 80% of apps are being used on social media or social media is 80% of their usage. The other one is text messaging and calls and all the, you know, all the, the things that they need to. But social media is 80 to 90% of people's usage. And guess where everybody's at right now in their freaking phone. You go to the, you go to the airport, guess what they're doing. You go to the gym, guess what they're doing. You go to the grocery store, get. Everybody's addicted to their phone. And us contractors have to do a way better fucking job of getting inside that phone. Which leads me to the custom apps.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Tommy]

One of the dopest things that we came up at nuve was the custom apps. Like having a custom app inside that home. Not, it doesn't say nuve. They don't even look for nuve on the, on the app store. They're looking for next gen. They're looking for service champions. They're looking for whatever company you own. They're going to go on the app store, they're going to look your name, they're going to download that app with your logo and control their third thermostat. That is what contractors need to focus personal branding. How do I get and stay on this phone? This is not going anywhere, by the way. Yeah, the fun, the fancy glasses are coming and you know you're going to be like, this is still going to be around.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah. So, so let's actually just transition into some new based stuff real quick too because I do love that on 4th of July you could send your personal messaging. Like I saw some of those. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. So I love, I love that you can personalize it to the individual contractor.

[Ryan]

Right.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And they can personalize their own message in it. Which is, which is cool. I do like the, as the, has the, the new, the new gen model rolled out already?

[Tommy]

December, December version 2.3 comes out. It is the sexiest thermostat in the market. It's thinner, it's, it's got a sleek aluminum bezel, is a round screen. It's got a CO2 sensor in there. It's got a 5G. It's got a ton of dope for you guys.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, it looks, it looks, and it looks cooler, I think, I think it's less abrasive on the wall. Right. Because it's much, it's much smaller. And skinnier. But you can, you know, you can modify like the color bright, all the fun things. So it is a. It's. It's progressing. And I'm assuming you got some of this feedback from, like the, you know, the contractors, and you're like, okay, these ones make sense. This one don't.

[Ryan]

Y.

[Ishmael Valdez]

But you have to. It's more than just, you know, to me there's. You have to pay attention to. It's. This is more than just selling stats to be able to hit your billion dollar valuation. Like, you have to have good customer service, you got to have good technology updates, you know, product production, a ton of investment. I thought that, I thought that Armenia, and maybe this is. Maybe it's industry specific, but I thought Armenia, you didn't have to pay tariffs on.

[Tommy]

So Armenia is the software side of my business. And then the Philippines is where I manufacture and produce.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Oh, got it.

[Tommy]

Okay.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Which.

[Tommy]

That's where the tariffs come in.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Got it.

[Tommy]

They kicked my ass and I was pissed. And, you know, obviously I had to pass on that savings to our contractors, but at the end of the day, and I told this to a ton of my contractors, they're like, how come you're, you know, the tariffs? And I'm like, look, guys, I love what he's doing for our company country, and I love that he's doing it. But. And in order for me to keep selling my product here, I am okay paying a tariff, but guess what? Then you guys have to pay for it too. So it's manufactured in the Philippines right now. I'm actively going to move it into Texas.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

I love Texas. I was just there. I'm going to actively move our manufacturing plant. I'm going to keep the Philippines going because, you know, I got invested a ton of money over there, but the Texas is coming. Then I'm going to go into Mexico too. We just launched like three contractors in Mexico, which I'm super excited about. And we're going to put, put a manufacturing down there too.

[Ishmael Valdez]

That's cool, man. I didn't know about that. Congrats.

[Tommy]

Yeah, Canada's open. We got about nine contractors in Canada. Mexico's open. United States obviously is open. Next we're going to attack Australia. We got a ton of contractors that are reaching out to us, saying, hey, we want the product. So this is a worldwide product, bro. This is the dopest. This is one of the dopest things I've ever done in my life, honestly.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And then after you're done with nuve, you're Moving on to the education world. And then you're going to go in. Yeah. I'm just saying, like, if I remember from our conversation, it was you, your plan is, you know, your third year plan, your thermostat is like the focus. But then you'd want to make an impact on education overall. And then also you want. I know, I know you're super passionate about wanting to get in Mexico and start doing what you can do.

[Tommy]

We need to, man, we need to fix that educational system. There's and, and look, it's simple. There's recruiters for college in, in every campus in high school. There's recruiters for the marines, the army, the Air Force, everything in there. There's no recruitments for the trades.

[Ishmael Valdez]

There used to be, it used to be be called, you know, you take, you take trade classes when you're in high school.

[Tommy]

They took them out.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah.

[Ryan]

Yeah.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So I mean, I had, I had them, but I'm a little older than everybody had.

[Tommy]

Wood class and sheet metal class and all that we had in our high school too. They took all that out, Chris. They took all that out. There's no more. None of that. So the way we fix what we have, which is the biggest problem, when we talked about us in our group, the biggest problem we have in the contracting world is nobody wants to be a roofer, nobody wants to be a plumber, nobody wants to be an AC tech, nobody wants to be an electrician. We are looked down upon.

[Ryan]

Why?

[Tommy]

Because they don't know how much money we could make. I guarantee you, I guarantee you. And look, I'm not trying to show off. I guarantee you right now, you start magnifying the, the message of like, hey, there's a young Mexican kid in Southern California, just sold this company for over $100 million and it's a plumbing and air conditioning company. And you give that message to every kid in America, they're going to jump off their seat and be like, hey, how do I sign up? Where do I sign up? How can I get employed by it?

[Ryan]

Right.

[Tommy]

But the problem is, is nobody knows about us.

[Chris]

Yeah, we.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And we've been, we all, you know, thankfully. I think our group, our group, our, our little peer group has a ton of, a ton of influence, industry influence across, all across. And we're all yelling this, but how are we not? Yeah, it's like we, I feel like we still aren't making like there's no impact happening. And it is crazy to think about how, like, why did they make the decision to take the to take this, the technical stuff out of the schools in the first place. First place.

[Tommy]

They didn't consult me.

[Ishmael Valdez]

You know, they probably didn't look to me for a consultant exactly.

[Tommy]

They just took it out. You know why? Because they, some smart guy looking at a P and L, right. Looked at and said oh, that's expensive. We should put it somewhere else. And that's what they did. Damn smart guys. CFOs. I love you guys.

[Ishmael Valdez]

By the way of super important role by the way.

[Tommy]

It's super. Fuck yeah. Controller, cfo, accounting, you guys.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, dude, listen, I want to make sure that I, that we're about an hour into this thing. I just want to make sure that anybody who's listening who's maybe either been on the fence with, with nuve, you know, maybe what's, what's. Well, one, we were. When we're talking about the new network, some of the. I think Ellen, Roger, next one coming up, the end of the month doing some of these training. I think Tommy was before that. So you've been bringing in, you know, some of the people to help with trainings.

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Do they have to be a part of. Okay, so that's how you get the extra training is because you are a.

[Tommy]

We started off as a thermostat company and a software company and now we're available. We're. We're developing into the fastest growing mentoring company. And at first I didn't want to do it to a huge massive group, but then I find, then I started doing one on ones and I started doing group meetings and mentorings every month. And the problem's there, man. There is a huge problem in the industry. And, and, and there is no direction for these CEOs. There's no direction for these employees that haven't grad into a CEO. And, and that's why I'm, I'm sticking to it. That's why I'm growing that platform. In order for you guys to get the mentoring in order for you guys to get. Look, we're building a, the first digital library on our, on our platform called nuven NUVA Intelligence where they, they have if, if you guys join Nuva Networks, they have access to all the videos that I've done to all the videos that the mentoring classes that we've done. There's. They get a login to our website, they go in there and they want to know about financing. They want to get a refresher coast. Click on Tom's video. Tom goes through a P and L and tells you exactly what percentages, what chart of accounts, what, what you should be tracking, what you should be doing. You want to know about marketing, you want to know about growth with Tommy, you want to know about whatever you want to know. It's, it's going to be in that mentoring library. So yes, they have to be part of the nuve networks. That's one of the, one of the, of the decisions we made as a team. They got to be part of nuva Networks, they got to be installing our thermostat. And this is how I look at it. Look, if I'm going to take the time of my, time of my day and time of my life to be able to mentor you and guide you the right direction, the least thing you could do is help me with my thermostat.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Ishmael Valdez]

I agree. I agree. So, so then how, how is, let's say somebody, when, when somebody wants to come on board as a newbie contractor, what's the, what's.

[Tommy]

So they go on nuvithome.com or they could hit us up on social media on any of the, of the platforms and just shoot us a DM. They get a 30 minute demo on the product, basically showing you how to use the software side of it. The installation side is the exact same thing as installing an Echo, Be, a Nest, a Honeywell. We don't need to train your technicians. That's, that's one of the things that I, that I, when I was designing the product, I made sure I don't want to start hiring a bunch of trainers to teach you guys how to. I didn't want to do that. So installation process and troubleshooting and everything is the exact same way as a thermostat. The 30 minute onboarding that we do is to show you what the features do, the messaging, the remote start of the, of the systems, the alerts, all that we show you in a 30 minute. And the next day they're already getting the thermostats and installing them. Like today was a perfect example. Larson Heating and Air Conditioning here out of Arizona reached out to us Friday. They got their onboarding on Monday, right. They signed up on Tuesday. I came over here just to say hi and, and congratulate them and they're already, dude, we pumped up their team. They're probably going to install 50 to 60 thermostats today. So the onboarding, super simple guys, you reach out to us on Nuvehome.com we'll get you a, we'll get you a, a product demo. Right there is a Mentorship. There is a subscription fee behind it. Obviously, software is super expensive, and people, they're the custom. Us developing the custom app for every contractor costs money. All the features that we have cost money. So there is a subscri tied to the thermostat. It's not a lot, right? Every car, every contractor in America could, could, could afford my subscription. But the subscription covers you. The mentorship covers you the software and covers you the thermostat. So it, it. Look, at the end of the day, there's nothing better out there. Echo B is not doing it, Honeywell's not doing it, and Nest is surely not calling you and saying, hey, how can I help you with your business? Or hey, do you need financial helps or do you need me to teach you how to operate and grow your business? They're not doing it. They don't care about it.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

So it's the best product out there. We're priced around the same price as an Echo being and an S. And, And I encourage every single contractor out there to get on our platform. Get on our platform. Because guess what? You guys need to do a better job. We need to do a better job as contractors, as retaining the client. Otherwise, we're always going to be investing 12, 13, 14, 15% of our marketing spend into. Into marketing, because we're always chasing new clients instead of retaining clients, cleaning them.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

The alarm company got it right, man. The alarm company got it right. They are. You go to your panel and they have, you know, that ADT logo or that bell logo. Guess who you're calling them.

[Ryan]

Why?

[Tommy]

Because of the low. Because of the, of the, of the monitoring that they have in there, right? So they got it right, man. So look, reach out to us. We'll do a product demo. I'll make sure that you guys, you know, our customer service is flawless. I promise you guys that. So I'm, I'm here to help you guys out for sure.

[Ishmael Valdez]

That team is growing. Like that thing keep. Continues to keep growing.

[Tommy]

Yeah.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Is there, is there a minimum unit order that, that.

[Tommy]

No. Most contractors are ordering two boxes to start, and after they, after they install their first ones and they get their customer feedback, they. They start ordering by the pallets. You've seen the text messages. I get like 3 to 4,000 units per week now or every other week coming in. And they're sold out before they even get here. I got customers that are pissed off. Semper Fi. I'll get to you right now. December is pissed off at me. Cono is pissed off like all our top 100 dealers that are ordering by the pallet now are pissed off because we can't keep, keep up with it. But I promise you guys, we're you know, maybe a week away from getting 5 to 10,000 a week now every single week. So I'm, I know it's insane. I know. I told you. I told you. But you know what, I should have been more transparent with you of telling you like bro, I am about $20 million deep into this project so I am not like here to like hopefully it works. I am going to make sure this project works and I am going to make sure we take it with worldwide.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I, I will say like over the last few years when I've gotten to be a lot closer with you, I for sure would have bet on you. I didn't know you as well then, but I'm super happy for you. It's, listen, it's cool. We put them in here. We have, we have the, we have.

[Chris]

The attention to the point listeners. Branding has never been more important. Is your brand in serious need of an upgrade?

[Ishmael Valdez]

Do you have a new company and.

[Chris]

Need a new brand but don't want to wait six months or pay a ridiculous amount to get a job 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 to the driveway. Prolific Brand design can help you be.

[Ishmael Valdez]

More of you because you are the.

[Chris]

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.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Or costing you money.

[Chris]

Just ask some of our clients like.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Ken Goodrich, Ishmael Valdez, my boy Chad Peterman and even myself.

[Chris]

Olific Brand design is the creative pros behind some of the best home services, logos, truck wraps, websites and now email marketing campaigns.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Wouldn't you love it if your email.

[Chris]

Marketing open rates were 30, 40, 50%? And don't go into the spam folder. Hell, that's how we roll at Prolific Prolific. So check them out@privific brand design.com and ask for the to the point promo. Prolific Brand Design.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Be more of you. Be prolific. You're spending thousands to make the phone ring, but if your CSRs aren't picking up or converting, you might as well light it on fire. And what are the largest businesses in the country doing about this? They use Avoca, the leading AI platform.

[Chris]

Platform in the trades. Hundred million dollar businesses like H.L.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Bowman are operating with only nine CSRs.

[Chris]

Because Avoca handles up to 80% of the calls. Plus Avoca follows up with your leads.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Grades your CSR calls, and helps you strategize. So my suggestion, go with the leading company. Check out Avoca AI.

[Chris]

That's A, B, O, C, A AI.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Click the link below. Link. We have the most current model that's in, that's in here, you know, around the Rhino office. And they're glowing orange and blue.

[Ryan]

Yep.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Depends on the day how I feel. But it is cool to see, you know, to see you pushing this thing. And I legit think it's awesome. Like, I think it's great. And I think the contractors are starting to obviously see that as well, because, shit, you get 4,000 unit orders, you know, this way. I saw the one you came through. That's incredible.

[Tommy]

Our goal is for, to do 50,000 units this year and then our goal for next year is250units. If we could install250,000units next year. Holy. We are gonna kick Google's ass. We're gonna kick Echo B's ass. We're gonna kick those guys ass. We are, we are against those tech companies. We're gonna kick their ass all day long.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Well, listen, dude, I appreciate you coming in Phoenix just to see me and me only, and then you made time for the others because you're coming in to see me. I think that's, I think that's how that really goes. But it is always good to have you in here. We always, anytime we do a podcast, so I feel like it always is always good. It's always good try to help them. And, you know, I think that tell you, you know, to all the listeners, it's, you know, I, I've, I've seen the results of the, even the. Just the new day, just the new day network stuff that's happening and the volume of people actually attending it and staying, you know, is. Says a lot about, you know, the quality of them. It's not just some, another, you know, another random call.

[Tommy]

I appreciate it.

[Ishmael Valdez]

So it's cool to, you know, it's cool to watch you, you know, scale this.

[Tommy]

Congrats on Prolific, though. Honestly, Prolific is going to, it's going to do some amazing things. I've said it before. The, the, the one thing that, the one thing that, that can happen to another company is competition.

[Ryan]

Right?

[Tommy]

Competition is what makes companies light a fire under their ass and actually become a better company. Perfect example. Service time. Service time has been service time for the last three, four years and they don't seem to get their ass out of. Get their head out of their ass because they don't have competition. I guarantee you right now, if there was a competitor to service time, those guys would keep their app and keep developing their software and give us everything that we need as operators. Instead. What's their competition? House cop? Bro, it's like, you know what I'm saying? There's no. Well, the same thing. Same thing with Google. Google has been Google for the last 15 years. And until somebody comes in, which. Chad. Chad. GPT Gronk, all those guys are coming in, which I'm not saying they're going to replace them, but they're now, they're now. What's his name? Sergey. He came out of retirement. Retirement. He came out of retirement because he knows he's about to get his ass kicked. That is the one thing that I love about what you're doing with Prolific. There's, you know, a couple companies out there that had led the way and that, you know, have gotten comfortable and you know, own most of the market share and I can't wait till you kick their ass. And I know Tommy owns some of it, but it's all friendly competition. It's only going to make his company better and it's going to make you better too.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Yeah, I mean, listen, he bought it.

[Ryan]

He.

[Ishmael Valdez]

They bought a marketing company and rolled it in. So like we, but we're buddies. We don't care by minds. Money, it's bigger.

[Tommy]

Exactly. And we're here to. Dude, I guarantee you one thing. Tommy or myself or anybody that that's close to you will not do something to make sure that you fail. We will do anything to make sure that you succeed. So you bringing on Prolific and, and however we can help you as, as contractors or whatever we can do, obviously we're here to help you, bro.

[Ishmael Valdez]

I appreciate that. Well, listen, I, anytime you want to come in here and do this, I'm always down because you always see some good. Like we. When I, when I talked to Ishmael beforehand, like literally we didn't prep. We just said, hey, let's come in. Like, let's just shoot the. And.

[Tommy]

And that's what it turned out to.

[Ishmael Valdez]

That's when these are most. Like I said these. That's when these are the most fun. So I would encourage all the listeners, you know, give it a shot. Like, what do you have to lose? The worst case scenario, you got a, you got a great mentoring group that you're gonna get some education from and you got a cool looking thermostat.

[Tommy]

Amen.

[Ishmael Valdez]

That you can send specific messages to your clients. You're gonna read that message on their thermostat and have to clear it. So, you know, they got to clear it so they're going to read the messaging. It's pretty cool. You can send whatever you want.

[Tommy]

We're about to. And look to end it off where we're at in, in our journey. We just landed a full integration with service time. They're going to treat us as one of our marketing sources now, just like an email, just like a text message, they're going to be able to schedule a technician from the thermostat and their app. Meaning if you have a technician close by and they need you 1pm today, click confirm. Technician gets dispatched all the way to the board on service time. The call gets logged in into whatever technician is close by and it gets. It's automatically assigned to the. The technician. So we just landed that we're going to announce our huge partnership at Pantheon, and we're rolling out version two at Pantheon. So I'll see you guys there.

[Ishmael Valdez]

Oh, yeah, I'll be there too. Well, let's look at quick recap. Whether it's, you know, nuve thermostats, if it's, you know, you're focusing on AI, we talked about social media, whatever it is. Like, you know, figure out which one of those, you know, you, you want to run with and just, and, and don't half asset like find one and actually go in and, and, and, and actually do something with it. And if you find it up, you know, change up how you're doing it and try it again. You know, keep listening to podcasts, you know, keep, you know, trying to reach out to people who, who can, you know, help you. If, if you want to reach out to Ishmael, you know, Ish is, you know, he makes himself available to pretty much everybody, but, you know, do something, that's the end of the day.

[Ryan]

So.

[Ishmael Valdez]

But you don't got to do everything, but you got to do something. No. Zero days.

[Chris]

Welcome to to the Point Home Services, the podcast where real contractors share real strict strategies. We cut through the noise and get straight to the point with the contractors that are working in the field right now. If you run a home services business and want to lead, better grow faster and stay sharp, you're in the right place. Now, before we get started, I need you to do one thing. Only 30% of our listeners are following the show. So stop what you're doing, hit follow.

[Ishmael Valdez]

And let's get to the point.