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Successful Life Podcast
Self-Improvement Podcast for Contractors that want to learn about how to grow their business through management and marketing. Develop business ideas to improve your business experience and be successful. Real stories from real business owners.
Successful Life Podcast
Building Trust in Home Services with Joe Crisara
Unlock the secrets to a successful sales career with Joe Crisara, a home service industry veteran boasting over 47 years of experience! Learn how Joe went from a humble service technician to a business owner and trainer, all while developing the revolutionary Total Immersion Sales Process. Discover why believing in the value of your services is crucial for effective communication and sales, and hear Joe's insights on the power of self-belief and trust in building lasting customer relationships.
Ever heard of "commission breath"? Joe addresses the pitfalls of desperation in sales and emphasizes the importance of maintaining integrity and confidence when discussing pricing with clients. Uncover strategies to avoid creating confusion and mistrust by confidently presenting your prices and standing firm. Joe also delves into the ethical implications of price manipulation and the critical role of genuine belief in your product for sustained success.
Building trust is paramount, and Joe shares effective communication techniques to establish strong personal connections with clients right from the start. From addressing customers by their preferred names to thoroughly explaining product features and benefits, Joe provides a roadmap for ensuring customer satisfaction and well-informed purchasing decisions. Embrace industry changes, master call-by-call management, and leverage audio learning tools to boost your revenue and professional growth. This episode is packed with invaluable tips and real-life anecdotes, making it a must-listen for anyone in sales or the home service industry!
What Should We Do?: How to Win Clients, Double Profit & Grow Your Home Service Sales
https://a.co/d/9RFbxFG
https://www.audible.com/pd/9-Simple-Steps-to-Sell-More-ht-Audiobook/B0D4SJYD4Q?source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=library_overflow
https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Steps-Sell-More-Stereotypes-ebook/dp/B0BRNSFYG6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OSB7HX6FQMHS&keywords=corey+berrier&qid=1674232549&sprefix=%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-1
https://bit.ly/4bFz4yc https://www.housecallpro.com/successullife
https://www.facebook.com/corey.berrier
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Joe Pricera. What's up, Joe?
Speaker 2:Hey, how you doing, Corey? Well, thanks for inviting me here. Definitely, it's a pleasure to be here today and to share all the as much knowledge and information as I can. So home service professionals can ethically differentiate themselves by creating high-value communication skills. That's what I'm here to do.
Speaker 1:Love it, my man. I think it's going to be a great conversation. Joe, for those of the people that may be listening that don't know you which probably is not a ton, but just for those people, could you just give a little bit of background about what you do and serve as MVP and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about what you do and service MVP and all that good stuff. Yeah, you know. You know there's a, basically there's a. I've got over 47 years of experience and, you know, since 1977 in the service industry myself, I was started as a service tech or the helper and I have been a service tech, installer, service tech, sales manager, service manager, sales manager, owner for 15 years of a company on my own and I learned a lot of lessons about things to do wrong and things to do right and one good thing I was very lucky at doing somebody gave me the advice of documenting the things that both go wrong and the stories of things that went wrong and the stories of things that go right, you know, and documenting those things which I had written several books back in the 90s just to operate my own company, kind of like Al Levy manuals on how to operate your own company.
Speaker 2:I had went through the e-myth, you know, michael Gerber, and how to design your business. When I had my business, one of the things is documenting everything that you're doing, the operation system, and so by doing that I documented this system, I do teach today, which is the total immersion sales process, which is, again, it's a it was called pure motive service, which is the behind that process, which is an ethical way to differentiate your services from low price competitors or low-value competitors, because we teach people how to communicate high value. So, as the prices are increasing, we try to teach people how to communicate at a level that's above the price so that the general public, the employees and the team feel like the services are worth it. Does that make sense? And I would say that when you believe your service is worth it, then nobody can stop you, but nobody on the other hand, nobody can sell something they don't believe in.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense? So try to give the individual employee, the team of the company as well as the client. Everybody's got to believe that the solution is more valuable than the price I'm paying, or else there's no way to do it. I know it sounds very simple when I say it. I try to outline it that way, but truthfully, a lot of times people who teach communication skills get lost in trying to make it more about scripts and all that kind of thing. And truthfully, I would say when you believe in something, the right words will come out of your mouth at that point. Does that make sense there, corey?
Speaker 1:It does make sense. It is almost impossible to sell something if you don't believe in it. And, quite frankly, you mentioned ethics. It's very unethical to sell something if you don't believe in it. It's just going to be a hard road to try to go. Um, you know, I think, you know, I think when people genuinely believe in not only what they're selling but also they got to believe in themselves. Cause if they don't that's true.
Speaker 2:That's true. I think you know and you know, looking at you, even Corey, it's like you're a guy. I think everybody, as soon as they meet you, you know you believe in yourself, right? There's something there. Now, of course, if I would be able to coach you, I would say I think I have coached you before and I said you know, corey, I know you want to get in the AI solution, but you need to firm up the solution a little bit better. I know you believe that, whatever people do with you, you're going to create value, like you believe that, right, and that is true, and that's why people do hire you and why they do it. And I think that's the same thing with service providers. Even if they're not sure of the solution that the provider is doing, they definitely believe in the service provider. That, yeah, if this guy says we need to do all this stuff, I'm not even sure what it is he's saying. Of course, it's better when you believe in the guy and you also understand the benefits you're going to get from the solution more clearly, right? I think that's a lot of, if an element of that is missing. It's interesting because sometimes you could sell the solution without being trusted, because people just need it. Even if they don't like you, they're still going to buy it because they got no drains or whatever. So I'd rather wish I wish I could get prices right now, but it's Sunday and this guy came out and he's the only guy here. I don't like this guy, but I'm going to buy it anyway. So I've done that before, but what it leaves me feeling is a feeling like I shouldn't have bought from that guy. I knew it wasn't going to be good because I didn't believe in him. But I bought the solution because I bought it, because I believe in the guy, and then I feel bad for the guy because he didn't have the solution down right. But truthfully, it's like when you have the right solution and you've ethically and morally compiled the solution that you think is better and different than other people, and you can communicate that solution clearly and you believe in that solution, that's when the magic happens and where really high-end sales can take place. Because the solution has clarity, the problems have clarity, the person believes in it, has clarity and the fact that I can manage this project and those three things take place. The problem is communicated with impact and clarity. The solutions are communicated with impact and clarity. The solutions are communicated with impact and clarity and the person believes in all that, both, because when you believe in it, then the customer starts to believe in it, because it was so clear Like here's the clearly the problems, how it's going to impact your family. Here's a solution, how that's going to impact your family. And you can believe me, I'm going to manage this project to get it done. I'm not going to leave you, I'm not going to leave this one go, I'm going to personally manage this project as well. Those three things when they're in place, you know what?
Speaker 2:What the magic, I would say the magic happens is that you didn't really sell something. People sold themselves. Does that make sense, sir? You know there's nothing that Corey or Joe is ever going to do to sell anybody, to do to sell anybody. It's something that you have put the pieces in place and people magically.
Speaker 2:And that's really what the book you know, the book what Should we Do, which is the book we just released, is all about. It's how to do that pure mode of service by putting the right blocks in place that allow people just to sell themselves, so you don't have to, you know, push things across the goal line or push people into things, and I would say this for salespeople or people who have to sell their services when you feel like you have to push your services, you probably have not put the blocks in place the right way and you're trying to. You start trying to push it too hard. You haven't created something that is magnetically drawn to you. It makes sense that opportunity gets drawn to people who have solutions that are the problems are clearly communicated, the solutions are clearly communicated and people believe in both the problems and the solutions. Magically, people just make purchase more of it in that way. Does that make sense, corey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does make sense and you know, if you're trying to, if you're trying to sell somebody something, at the end of the day they're going to feel that commission breath is what I call it, and people don't want to buy from people that are trying to push something, because it makes you not believable yeah, it's like why is this guy so desperate to sell this stuff?
Speaker 2:he, he's doing it for his reasons, not mine. So when you push people into things, the consumer kind of sees the battleship coming over the horizon. They start defending themselves. That's why you get. So I would say that salespeople who always face like they just say no, I'm going to get like five other estimates on this thing. They probably felt smelled that commission breath and they're kind of letting the guy know that pump your brakes here. I'm going to check it out and see if I can make, because I'm kind of feeling that you're just trying to sell this at a higher price. They don't see the motivation that the salesperson has, which is I don't care about the price, I care about your family. Does that make sense? I care about your company. If I'm selling something to a company and if people sense that the salesperson is uptight about the price, like the salesperson has a hard time like hey, let's go over the price, like it should be, like let me show you the prices to get this stuff done, and then you go over it and you just drop 55,000 on somebody and you're like yeah, that's the price. Oh, that's the price. Huh, yep, that's what it's going to take to do the project. So what should we do? Oh, okay, is there any wiggle room on the price, joe, if I could have wiggled the room, I would have done that before. So what should we do If you start looking for a discount?
Speaker 2:When somebody asks you for a discount, that shows you didn't believe in the price. Right there, that's proof that you didn't believe in the price, because you said, well, what if I take out $5,000? We got a deal. See, that's slimy. So even if somebody did say yes to that, there would be buyer's remorse because like, yeah, why did I only ask for 5,000 off that? I should have asked for like 10,000 or 15,000. Why did I only ask for 5,000? So the worst thing you can ever do to show the disbelief is to change things around once you've created the solution, to start backpedaling on the investment to get it done. So I really don't believe. I always believe full sticker, no dicker. If I could have lowered the price, I would have lowered the price. Does that make sense there, corey?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because it causes confusion once you're trying to scramble and change the price and you break trust Because, like you said, if I could have given you a lower price up front, why wouldn't I have done that?
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly and in a way it already shows the kind of like you're being. The consumer is being gaslighted. The guy's speaking like this is the price and this is the solution. And then when you ask for a discount, they go well, let me check with my manager. Oh, so that's not the actual price. So if that's not the actual price, how can I be confident that that's the actual solution? So here's a solution which he's explaining very confidently, and here's the price which he's not quite as confident. So I asked for a discount and he starts entertaining one, even if he just says well, let me call them. If I call my boss and he gets, how much do you want to pay instead? Well, instead of $50,000, I think it should be like $42,000. I got another bid for $42,000. Well, if I could match that bid to my boss, what would happen then? Yeah, we just go ahead and go over with it, call your boss and he gives you a discount for no reason at all, and then guess what the client goes. You know what I thought about it while you're getting that price. And I got to do more shopping now Because they realize that, hang on, what am I doing here?
Speaker 2:This guy's lowering his price like that, and then we lose the trust in the service provider. So I think most of the time where trust is lost, it's a self-inflicted wound, because people are not. If you're confident in the price, that's the price. Now, if you want to take away something, like Joe, I can lower the price down to $45,000. We just would have to get rid of the guarantee or get rid of the service membership or whatever. How about if we just get rid of all that stuff? But I like that stuff, so do I. So what should we do again? Back to that again, right? So that's the whole nine yards with that.
Speaker 2:So bottom line is that you know, I think that believing in what you're selling, though, is an important aspect of it. If you don't believe in it, then you kind of I call you kind of like a prostitute of plumbing or heating and air conditioning or whatever it is you're doing, because you're just like you're just doing it for the money. People really definitely start sensing that, and I think. I think when you work with another guy in your company who is only doing it for that reason, uh, everybody, everybody on the team winds up, hitting that, hitting that guy, and everybody, uh, the public winds up hitting that guy and pretty much it's a future ex-employee working here right now.
Speaker 2:Is what you're looking at there. Uh, he may, he may, we may keep him because we need the money he's bringing in right now. But or he or she would bring in right now, but it's definitely not going to be a long-term solution If somebody is not ethically. By the way, if you lower your price, it wasn't ethical. Now you lost your ethical scenario of it. You know it's the cause. You could, if you could, seriously, I believe, if you should have given a lower price, if you could have done that.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes complete sense to me.
Speaker 2:So are these some of the things that you cover in the book? Yeah, you know, I guess what we cover is that there's a paradigm shift. I call it paradigm shift. So the book is loaded with every chapter. And, by the way, corey, have you got a book? You got one.
Speaker 1:I have not gotten one.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, I have to get you a signed copy in a VIP box, don't I?
Speaker 1:love that yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll get one to that this next week, you can expect, but you got. You got to do the unboxing online, okay.
Speaker 1:I can do that.
Speaker 2:You do that, I'll get you one. I'll get you one because I've had some feedback on this.
Speaker 1:I've had a couple of people that have said that they've gotten the box and said that you've done a magnificent job with the box and the presentation, so I'll be excited to get that.
Speaker 2:Good, well, I'll get one to you by next week. It'll be here by next week. This time it'll be here. We're in North Carolina, right? Is that where you're looking at it? You got it. Yeah, I'll make sure I get that one to you.
Speaker 2:But you know, the book is really. It starts out right in the beginning, fast and Furious, because what it is is it's about paradigm shifts, and I'm not sure people know what a paradigm shift is. But a paradigm shift is a different way of looking at the same thing that you normally do, right? So you normally would say go to a call and start talking about the equipment and instead of talking about the equipment, we're going to talk about the people who use the equipment, who are going to use the solution. I'm not going to focus on the solution right now.
Speaker 2:I'm going to focus on the problem right now, because a lot of times people sell, people go into a place and they say what can I sell these people? And that's the first thing they're thinking about. The first thing they should be thinking about is what problem do these people have that I can solve? Because if there's no problem I can solve, then there's really not an opportunity. I don't want to push people on opportunity I don't believe in. If I don't see a problem, how can I go back to that believing in a solution? How can I believe in a solution if I don't really believe there's a problem? Does that make sense here? So, if I don't believe there's a problem, I'm just selling people stuff they don't need. Again, that's not sustainable and that's something that I don't think anybody feels good about doing.
Speaker 2:So that's a paradigm shift. Instead of focusing on the equipment, I'm going to focus on the people. Instead of focusing on a better price, I'm going to focus on a better solution. Instead of focusing on emailing things, I'm going to focus on making a personal presentation and bringing it to a yes, no, another appointment. Instead of giving them one price, I'm going to give them premium, mid-range economy prices.
Speaker 2:So, looking at everything that the service provider does and you're changing the way they look at the situation with different strategy, a different skill set, a different way of thinking, in a way, and when you compile all these little, you know all these things from the time, like most people go into the house and they go hey, I guess I'm here to look at your furnace today. That's the first thing they say, which is, again, they bring up the furnace first, as opposed to they should say hey, hello, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? Like, who's the person I'm talking to? Oh, my name is John. Oh, may I call you John? Yeah, my name is Joe. So we're in this personal relationship, joe.
Speaker 2:Thank you for inviting me. John, thank you for inviting me to your house. I really appreciate the fact that you invited me here. And, corey, I want to say that to you too. May I call you Corey? Sure, because I already have been calling you that for years, but anyway, it's like Corey, thank you for inviting me to this podcast. Definitely it's an honor to be featured here and I know you have a lot of choices of people you could feature. So I definitely appreciate that and I appreciate the effort you make with the public, informing the public of all the best practices that you put out there, and I really appreciate being part of that. So thank you so much, cory.
Speaker 2:That's the magic moment we teach. That's a different way of doing it. You may even know it's coming, like I kind of saw was starting to come that route drought. Like you know, joe's gonna do a magic moment me. But you look at your face is still smiling. When I did it Right, you didn't, it didn't hurt anything. It wasn't like that was phony, no, it wasn't phony, everything I said was true. And like, you do make an effort with the public, you do make an effort to inform people. And he's like, yeah, joe nailed it, he knows exactly what I do. I'm like, finally somebody gets it Right. Does that make sense? Like so, when you're working, so when you're working with a customer, it's the same thing. It's like, finally, somebody gets it that it's a burden to be here with this, with my family. I took off work today and this guy understands that. So, right from the very beginning, if we focus on the people and focus on what name do they prefer to be called? And, joe, thank you for taking your time off work and meeting me here today. I really appreciate you taking the time and inviting me into your home. Those are the kinds of things that kind of create a halo effect. I call it which the halo effect.
Speaker 2:There's a science behind that right that if you could be somebody who's trusted, then the only thing you can wind up doing if you have trust is to lose trust. I always think that most customers default to trusting a professional. You don't go to a doctor, we get to see the certificates and we assume you wouldn't have an office and have a doctor's practice unless you knew what the hell you're doing. It's only what a doctor would do. That would make me lose trust in a doctor in a way. He didn't book the next appointment or he didn't let me schedule this. I need eye surgery. You got to get that done right now. But then I go to the front desk and they're saying yeah, it's going to take three months to get you in. I'm like, dude, my doctor just told me I got to get it done, like this week. And it's like no, we can't fit you in. And then you're like God, this this week. And the office is saying you can't do it for three months.
Speaker 2:And this is how consumers lose trust, right? The salesperson promises something and then the support staff doesn't do the same thing. Or, even worse, the salesperson says something and he doesn't deliver it. He's trying to sell the system and then you say let's go ahead and do the top one. And they go okay, I can't finish you until next, two weeks from now. Oh, damn it. Why did you even come out here? It kind of kind of a thing Makes sense. Yeah Well, those are kinds of things that lose trust there.
Speaker 1:Well, and to your, your point. You know eye surgery example. You didn't go to the front desk and said, by the way, I'm going to go get never. No, it's ridiculous that people say that if you're confident in what you're talking about, you're confident what you're selling.
Speaker 2:There's absolutely no reason people should get their estimates no, it's like the fact that they're trying to get more. So people are like oh, everybody gets your estimates. Yeah, because most. Because 99 of the service providers don't communicate high value. Because here's what I can tell you, corey, when the right person with the right solutions show up, actually the right person, who I trust, who tells me problems I didn't not the problem I'm asking about, but he tells me problems I didn't realize I was going to have if I did it wrong, and he shoots straight with me. He's like you know, joe, yeah, I mean, if you're asking me just for a faucet, but you're asking me to put it into this galvanized piping system, it's not going to work. That new faucet is going to wind up breaking down because the pressure is not enough pressure. You're going to wind up having the water quality is just too poor in this house. So we've got to get that up to par before we start putting faucets in this house.
Speaker 2:If a plumber were to say that, joe, you're asking me to clean the drains, the pipe is fractured in the front yard. The pipe's going to collapse, so why don't we do this? I mean, I could clean the drain and put a hole in the stuff, but if you want me to actually clean it with an auger bit, that could fracture the pipe. So I'd prefer to show you two things. I so I'd prefer to show you two things. I can clean the drain, I can replace the drain. I'm going to ask you to choose between one of those two things. So again, you're like it's not selling people, it's just like. Here's the reason with the problem. The problem is so severe that if I fix it, you're dumping money into this old thing. However, if we want to replace the thing, that would be a better way of doing it.
Speaker 2:And sometimes people are like I'm going to show you prices to fix it, but if you're going to ask me to fix it, I'm not going to do that because I'd rather refer you to somebody else. Here's what I always tell people. I say write this down. This is a quote for the podcast. I'd rather turn you down than let you down. Does that make sense, joe, if you're asking me to do this the wrong way, I'd rather turn you down than let you down, because we need to get some other stuff in place first for this to really be a good solution for you, and then that's somebody you trust. What creates the trust? The fact that the guy refuses to do it wrong and says the right way to do this would be this way. I'll give you the prices on the wrong way, but we won't do it. The fact that I'll give you prices on something I'm not going to do creates trust.
Speaker 2:I'm going to do the effort to show you what the price would cost to fix this thing on a heat exchanger for a furnace, or to go ahead and redo the whole panel To put a new bus bar in an old panel that you got Dude. I'm going to do that. I'll show you what it would cost. I'm not going to do that because the panel is ancient, but here's what I will do. I'll go ahead and show you that and I'll show you other solutions that will actually replace the panel, and you can do it that way with us. But I'll show you both ways in case you want to do the fixing or the repairing. And just that alone is the ethical part of it that people like this guy would actually do the effort on something he's not going to do just to show me the price. That tells me something that he is not just trying to sell me this stuff. He's trying to inform me first and then allow me to do what I want to do. Make sense, sir?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the future result of fixing that problem you just referred to and not replacing, is just going to be problems down the road and you're going to have to deal with that if you're the guy that fixes it.
Speaker 2:I would say there's an expensive way, which is to fix old stuff and then replace it after the prices have increased, because now you paid to fix it and you paid to replace it at a higher price. Or you could just replace it now at the lower price or get the job done now at the lower price, because waiting it's really not you versus the competition. This is an important factor I think that we should realize. A paradigm shift would say you probably think it's me versus my competitors. You might think that when you're on sales calls, but truthfully, it's not you against competitors, it's you against yourself, because you yourself are the one who is stopping the opportunity a way, by not having the solution, not telling people the problems, not telling the solutions. And I think if you emerge as the right solution, then the shopping stops. There's no need to get somebody else, because I found somebody who told me problems that I wasn't expecting, but he told me everything. I feel like I was fully informed. What am I going to hear somewhere else? This guy said everything. Where am I going to find premium, mid-range economy? Where am I going to find more solutions? This guy gave me two premium, two mid-range, two economy choices. What else am I going to find? $50 less or whatever? And then number three this guy knows how to manage a project. How am I supposed to find somebody else who does that? I could probably go through 20 people before I find a guy like this, right? So if you're a different kind of a person, if your problems are different and the solutions are different and you yourself are different like I'm not pushing you into anything, I'm going to make you sell me on this thing instead Then all of a sudden, people are like you know what? This is the right solution. Finally, I've been shopping. This is the first time I don't have to keep. Now the shopping can be over.
Speaker 2:I was hoping this guy would just be able to find something, and I actually did right now. I think we've all been there right when we thought we were going to shop. And then we went to somewhere and it was the right person. They told me about some complications I wasn't aware of when I was going to get that. I was going to buy a flat screen TV and that's what I thought it was.
Speaker 2:But then the guy told me that, joe, what kind do you want? Do you want one where you've got to wire all the routers and stuff for yourself. Or you want one where it's kind of like automatically built into the TV. What, what do you got? Yeah, there's like one where you've got to have a separate router box and a separate connection box and all kinds of stuff like that. It's a flat screen but it's not very smart. Then we have the smart TV, which kind of does all of it for you when you just turn it on. That's more money for that one, though, because it has a microprocessor in the TV, that kind of programs itself for you.
Speaker 2:So you want that? Yeah, I didn't know that. Oh, wow, I was just. I was. I was on amazon looking at one. No wonder it's 900 bucks for that cheap tv. That, uh, because, like I, they had the rest of the stuff to it, right.
Speaker 2:And so, in a way, when a salesperson informs you that here's the different things we have, like when I bought a flat screen the first time I bought one, I didn't know, there was three of them, kind of like plasma, led or what do you call it, what is that? Led TVs at the time. And then they had the plasma, and then they had something else I can't remember what it was. And then there's the 4K. I don't want 4K. I told him, before you say no to that, let me tell you some things you don't know about. And then he told me something like oh shit, I see, yeah, okay, let's get the 4k. Now it's like it's a few hundred bucks more, but, joe, you're going to get these extra features. That 4k isn't the part you're going to be excited about, it's this extra thing, because when you get 4k, it has this extra thing which programs itself too. I said, oh okay, now that makes sense. Now, at that point, this way, you just plug it in and it works. That's all I need to hear.
Speaker 2:So the 4K didn't sell it, but the fact that it was self-programming and it connects all my boxes without having to find them myself. You don't got to go in there and program all your cable boxes. The thing just boom, just shows up and everything is connected. At that point you just turn it on and enjoy your system. Yeah, you just switch between this, this and this.
Speaker 2:Here's your cable box, here's your, here's the l, the lg channels, here's the. Here's how you stream stuff and you got youtube and all that stuff. You just click right here and it does. If we see the home button, it all comes up. For you. It's like holy shit, yeah, that's on the 4k. Uh, okay, let me get a 4k. At that point you make sense, right? So that's the thing, that when somebody does that, they're teaching me something I don't know about, as opposed to having a salesperson who doesn't bring that up, he just brings up the 4K element. People are like I don't give a shit if it's a little bit clearer. You know, it's like the LED looks just about as good to me, you know.
Speaker 1:But you would have never bought the better television if he hadn't have told you about it. And that's just like when we go into a house now and you don't tell people about IAQ products or water filtration or tankless or whatever it is. People don't know if you don't tell them. They can't buy something if you don't explain it to them.
Speaker 2:And not just that, corey, but tell me something different that I don't know. Like I know, my family has dirty air because the house is dusty. What I didn't realize is that the duct work is leaking fiberglass from the attic into the duct work and that's where the dust is coming from. So even if I bought, I was ready to buy an air quality filter, but I didn't realize, with the leaky duct work, the filter is not going to work. So this guy told me we need to seal the duct work. I had three estimates.
Speaker 2:Nobody brought up the ductworks leaking. This is the only guy who brought that up. How about this one? You're an HJC guy and the condensate drain is clogged. I've seen this problem several times. A customer will go through this problem three or four times, but when your company shows up and you say, joe, the problem isn't just the fact that the condensate drain is clogged. The fact is you have biological growth on your coil from duct leakage. The duct leakage has jam stuff in the coil and that's causing biological growth and that's why it's clogging up. Holy shit, I've had five people tell me that the thing is clogged. Nobody brought up the biological growth on the coil though. Yeah, joe, condensate water can't clog a drain. It's clear water. It has to have contaminants in the drain that make that happen. Oh, how come nobody told me that? I just say I don't know. Maybe they just didn't know, or they didn't care, or they're just afraid to tell you which one you think it was. Yeah, I have no idea. Well, maybe they're just stupid. The guy would say I said maybe, joe, I don't tell you what the guy was. But truthfully, not only is it just the problem, but telling me something beyond the problem as to you know what's a complicate Like even selling a furnace. Sure, your old furnace is bad, or the old AC is bad. We have new ones. That's what everybody does. But what does everybody not do.
Speaker 2:There are some people who say, joe, if you're asking me to put an air conditioning system in with the old furnace, it wouldn't work very well. So if you're going to do that, I would say hire a different company If you want to do it the right way, we would match the furnace and AC together. And on top of that, joe, you're asking me to put a furnace and AC in 2023 into ductwork that's been here since 1978. That ductwork's not even suitable, for it may have been good back in 1978, but it's not good for 2023. So that we need to replace the duct work or seal the duct work, or clean it or eliminate it. Either either replace it, clean it and seal it, or eliminate it and go ductless. Those are the things we're going to wind up doing, because I'm not going to put in new equipment in ductwork. That's from 1978.
Speaker 2:And then they'll say, well, everybody else is doing it. And I'd say well, then, that's your choice. You've got to hire somebody who would contaminate your family with a brand new furnace and make the furnace worthless in five years, or hire a company like ours. That would not just fix the matter of fact. I would recommend don't even buy a furnace in ac. Let's get the duck work fixed first, so that when we do buy a system the duck the system it can be put in the right way. It could be suitable. Does that make sense? So, service providers who go with, I say when you go with the flow, there's only two things to go with the flow. Corey, you know what those two things are that go with the flow. Have you heard that one before from me?
Speaker 1:No go for it.
Speaker 2:There's two things that go with the flow a dead fish and a turd. It's only two things that go with the flow. So you can't go with the flow and say here's what everybody else is doing. That's where that paradigm shifts, right. Uh, I'm not just going to put furnace and ac unless we get that duct work fixed. I'm not going to do air quality solution if the duct work is not sealed either. You know I'm saying there. So right now, the biggest opportunity in the united states and everywhere around the world for a system.
Speaker 2:In europe it's never been a major problem because they never really had duct work in europe. It's all been, uh, hydronic heating, mostly in the european countries. But then they that's why they do more ductless there, because they never had duct work in Europe. It's all been hydronic heating, mostly in the European countries. That's why they do more duck lists there, because they never had duck work. Then they realized why would I put duck work in and make my house Swiss cheese when I could just heat and cool the air that's in the room already and do it that way? A lot of the European countries are ahead of us in that degrees. In the United States we did duck work and things like that, because that was part of the way we did this. We kind of built this country on that.
Speaker 2:But truthfully, you have to attend to that. You can't just leave the same ductwork in and then put in stuff. That would be kind of a paradigm shift. Joe, if you're asking me to put in the system with the old ductwork, that's licking Swiss cheese. I wouldn't even do the premium option like that. So you could do that if you want to, but just don't do a premium one. Do the economy option with the old ductwork, because that's really more suitable than putting a variable speed 23. Because you're not going to get the efficiency. If you're leaking 27 to 40% of the air through the system, what kind of efficiency are you really getting there? Make sense 100%.
Speaker 1:So what are you seeing? You know, are you preparing contractors for the new refrigerant that's coming out in early 2025? What are you guys doing with that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you know there's always four things that change in every industry, no matter what. There is number one the industry creates new solutions, whether it's refrigerant or electronic control systems. I guarantee that there's going to be advances that will just blow our mind. You know, because you're on the forefront of the AI. So you've always jumped. I mean, corey Barrier jumped right on that. He's like I'm going to sell that shit. I'm like what are you selling, corey? I'm not sure yet, but just trust me, we're going to sell some shit. I'm like what are you selling, corey? I'm not sure yet, but just trust me, we're going to sell some shit here. And he knew he was so excited about it he could just jump over it. Well, let me know when you got something, corey, and then we'll talk about it. But nonetheless, he finally caught up to it. So he realized that it's a change and he's excited about the change. Now, of course, how specifically is that change going to benefit people? That's the thing. So there's probably going to be a lot of solutions that occur with AI and things like that, where I can imagine each register or some zoning is going to be a much different kind of a scenario when it comes to forced air and things that haven't been invented yet.
Speaker 2:This refrigerant change is just one of the things. That is a new invention and we have to. You know, the consensus is what's happening. So now we have to be able to transition. To me, why I look at it is the new refrigerant brings new opportunities. So every new change brings new opportunities because the industry changes. And then what happens is because the industry changes, it forces. Even the most reluctant company has to change now. So if you're like, no, I'm still going to sell R22, well, good luck, because they're all gone. I'm going to sell R410A, and I don't care what they say. Well, that's going to be gone too, right. So you've got to say the companies will have to change based on the industry changing. And then if the company changes, the technician changes. And then if the industry, the company and the technician changes, then the client begins to change their mind on what they need to do. Right, like nobody ever would have spent the kind of money on a water heater that they buy a tankless water heater for today.
Speaker 2:But the industry changed and introduced tankless. Believe me, the companies were like no. Plumbers were like no way, we're doing that, it's way too much money for the tankless. I'm going to keep selling tanks Until it came to the point where everybody, the consumer, wanted the tankless and they forced the companies to do it. I don't care, just sell me one, all right, it's going to cost like $5,000, which is way too cheap. It costs like $5,000, which is way too cheap. But all of a sudden they start selling jobs that are $5,000, $7,000. And they were getting $750 for a water heater, $1,000 for a water heater before. They're like I guess people buy this shit. I didn't know. And so now it's like the technician's got to change.
Speaker 2:So those four things change, but they don't always change in the same linear order. The industry changes, the company changes, the technician changes and the customer changes. Sometimes the customer changes forces the industry to change. That might be the first change is the consumers have more breathing difficulties, which forces industry to change, which then forces the company and the technician to change. But those four things always bring new opportunity. On every call, whether it's a warranty call, whether it's a estimate call, whether it's a home warranty, insurance coverage, that's generating the lead there's always opportunity that goes beyond the initial request. So the request is I got a home warranty call with the bad contactor, yeah, but the home warranty is not going to cover ductwork that's leaking like a sieve and making your family breathe fiberglass. Does that make sense? So?
Speaker 2:if you're in the home warranty coverage business and you're not telling people the ductwork is leaking and you should put air quality, because those things are not going to be covered by home warranty. So, okay, the home warranty is going to give you new contactor. They're going to pay for it for 300 bucks or whatever. But what about the duck leakage? And what about this part here? I got options on that too. All right, you're right, my daughter's got she's got asthma. She's very sensitive. And then the industry's got the duck work solutions that we're going to do, or maybe go duckless on this thing, right? So next thing you know you're dumping the old system. That was a $300 call and people are buying a $45,000 job because they didn't realize that this thing should have gotten rid of the duct work on that kind of a job. If my daughter's got asthma, we don't need to bring air to the attic, let's just keep it right here in the room. Make sense there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, makes total sense here in the room makes sense, sir. Yeah, makes total sense 100. Sorry, sorry I went out so long there. No, you're good, you're good. So, um, yeah, so I I just think that you know, I hope people are getting prepared for the changes, because I just feel like there's gonna. You know, I just don't think people prepare enough for changes like this, and you know what you can either lead the way and not just prepare but lead people through this or you.
Speaker 2:You can wait to find what other companies are doing and see what they do and then follow. The problem is you're going to follow um 90 of the 90. Why I said 90? I actually mean 99 of the companies do it the wrong way. They're going to do this wrong. Here's what I can tell you.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be Nostradamus, based on the past and predict the future. That 95% of the companies will approach this the wrong way and they will be in denial and they'll talk about how the government changed this stuff and they'll be bitching about the change. They'll bitch to the customer about the change. The 5% of the companies that are the better companies are going to embrace the change and tell how much more benefits there are to this new refrigerant that the clients are going to get. They're going to have to figure it out as to what is going to be the thing that's better about this. I'm not going to say what it is, because I'm over my skis on that, but I will say that if I looked into it, I would figure out how can we leverage this so that we're going to lead the way on this change and not try to follow that change Make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a good plan to follow somebody that doesn't know what they're doing, which is what you're.
Speaker 2:Which is 95% Most likely. If you pick somebody to follow, you're probably going to follow. The wrong person is what you're going to pick and, truthfully, we probably wouldn't pick the really successful person to follow, which is who we actually should follow, because we think that they wouldn't talk to us. We assume they wouldn't want to talk to us. But the funny thing is you could call the most successful companies in your market and ask them if you could take a tour of their place and they'd be happy to welcome you right in. You could learn how to run a company immediately, because there's zero companies I've ever met that would say no.
Speaker 2:If a different competitor wanted to come in and just meet with them and say hi, kind of a thing. Does that make sense? Somebody who did sales training walked into my place here. I'd be like, oh nice, yeah, I heard about you, I read your book, I wanted to come and visit you. Well, that's so nice, you know. I said come on in, let me show you around, like I wouldn't be saying get the hell out of here, right? So funny thing is, the most successful contractors used to be like the guy who was struggling, so they're more than happy to welcome everybody into their facility and see things Make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if somebody came in to your facility and toured everything, they still wouldn't be able to do it like you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good luck if you can copy it right. If you can copy what we do, good luck Right. Because it took us 47 years to get here. It took us 24 years of this stuff, 47 years in this industry, but 23 years in the contracting part, 24 years doing this. Now, if you can do what I've done in 24 years by stealing all of it, you might steal about 5% of it, but there's like 95% that you can't steal because it's too thick, it's got too much depth. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. And you can't steal your experience. That's impossible, right.
Speaker 2:If you did, it would take a lot of money and effort, like it took us. You could steal my book if you want to Go ahead. It took me 24 years to compile all the information in that book. If you think you could do it and steal the same thing, you probably wouldn't remember it all because you never experienced it. So even if you tried to steal the information in the book and use it as yours, people are going to smoke it out. They're like tell me about this, like oh shit, I didn't read that part or whatever. You're going to be kind of. It looks like a phony in a way. Does that make sense there? So I don't usually worry about things like that. Am I worried about my competition taking our ideas or something like that? If it was so easy, everybody would have done it. No-transcript Well, definitely it's. I can tell you this. Everybody who has said they did it, who has come to the class, realize that they're doing about 1% of it. They're not doing it at all. So even when people are online saying, yeah, go on a Slack channel and do all that, guys, that's not call by call. So here's what call by call is.
Speaker 2:Let me just give you kind of a quick thumbnail here. Call-by-call means that you're restricting the activities of the people in the field until everything was done right, starting at the very beginning of the day. So if you have five service techs, let's say I'm the call-by-call leader and I've got five service techs, I'm guiding Number one. I had to make sure those five people were trained on how we're going to do this before I put them in my group, right? So? And I'm not going to let them in the group unless they are trained. So, number one, we'll do that.
Speaker 2:But every day there's a huddle. So if your schedule starts at eight o'clock in the morning, at 745 to eight, there's going to be a 15-minute huddle to celebrate the wins and lessons learned from yesterday, like a post-game interview from yesterday. Now, how do I get people to do that? Well, I tell them the dispatcher is not in control of the technicians anymore or the salespeople. If I'm doing a huddle with my service techs, then they have to be at the huddle. And then at the end of the huddle I tell my dispatcher hey, my five guys are ready for their first call. So you see the difference there. Like I'm not giving people their first call until they attend the huddle no-transcript. So if they missed the huddle and didn't call me or didn't let me know they weren't going to be there, then they will be having to listen to that recording for 15 minutes before they get their call. And I'm going to test them to make sure they got it Make sense. So right there you can see the difference. Difference. Most people don't realize that. They think call by calls, let the guys do their shit and then we just kind of check in and just get lead turnovers and that's all they do. Guys, it's way more than that. Then the technician goes on their call Within 45 minutes.
Speaker 2:We want to make sure that the diagnostic and the summary and observations are being filled out. What's the age, neglect, design and installation, the customer impact and what's the problem here? That should be filled out in 45 minutes. If I got five guys, I'm going to have five different tabs on a big screen TV. I'm going to be seeing are the summary and observations being filled out the right way? If they're not filled out, I want to see the photographs and videos filled out. If they're not filled out, I just kind of call that guy and say, hey, what's going on? It's 42 minutes. I don't see any summary, I don't see any photographs what's happening. So, corey, you're right now getting us. You can take this section here and you want to see, call by call. You now are experiencing call by call for the first time that probably anybody has ever put it out there in public, because you see how intense it is Like in 45 minutes. You know you don't get it right. I'm going to call you and say what's going on, because I expect the observations to be filled out from the time you get there.
Speaker 2:The customer impact is something you could have learned from the very beginning, joe. What was it like when you had no air conditioning? It was stressful. You could have put in the observations customer is stressed, no cooling, customer is stressed. That could be the first thing you put in the first five minutes of the call.
Speaker 2:Right, tell me about the safety and health. What kind of air quality? Tell me about the system, the infrastructure, the design and installation. Tell me about the problem what's going on? Refrigerant leak, so that stuff's got to be all filled out within 45 minutes. Then, within 15 minutes, everybody should be filling out their premium, mid-range economy choices, and those choices have to be personalized and customized as well as the impact of the problem's got to be personalized and customized. Does that make sense? So if that's not done, you're not allowed to present to the customer.
Speaker 2:So you might say is that micromanaging? Here's what I would say Is a football coach micromanaging when he sends the players to play to run? Is that micromanaging or is that just managing? Because what is managing, managing is affecting a change while the game is being played. Make sense. So I'm not waiting for the end of the game, the call's over.
Speaker 2:Oh, let me tell you the shit you could have changed. I'm saying change the observations and summary now and let's personalize and customize the problems. And don't forget, you didn't put in the design that the airflow is black by 40%. Put that in there too. And you didn't put the fiberglass infiltration. Put that in there. Okay, now let's get the corresponding solutions, let's personalize those and at the end of the whole call okay, joe, let's present the solutions and let the client know that I've got the options to replace it and you've got the options to fix it. Let the client know we can do it both ways we can fix it or I can replace it. I got Joe back at the office. I got my options here. Which way would you like to do it?
Speaker 2:And then the call-by-call manager is making sure that this is happening with five people at the same time. So it's like running a five-ring circus, if you will. At the same time. So it's like running a five ring circus, if you will, uh. However, you're making sure that all the animals are properly trained to balance the balls or to do hula hoops or whatever you're going to get those animals to do. Uh, you know it's, it's difficult, uh, but once, once everybody is trained, then you become like the ring master. You just sit in your suit and all the ring, all the circus, the circus continues behind. Just sit in your suit and all the ring, all the circus, the circus continues behind you. And, uh, all the animals are trained. And so they. The seals got the beach ball in its nose. The bear is, uh, running, going through hoops. You know, you got the elephant going on top of a climbing, climbing, climbing stands. It's like, yeah, these animals are wild and they could rage through the entire charlotte, north carolina, but no, we got them in a tent. We don't even got it. There's no barrier, we don't even, because they're so well trained, we don't have to worry about it, right? So that's the same thing with call by call. It's like running a five ring circus which is running around training all five things. It's pretty in the very beginning. That's why it's so difficult.
Speaker 2:Uh, people say I'm doing call-by-call. I mean I don't want to say the real word because I don't want to go. I don't make this an explicit podcast, but it's BS. They are not doing call-by-call, not even close, not even one second. That's why we are the best at this, because right there, we have a call-by-call team right now. I comfort from santa corita.
Speaker 2:George cologne is one of the most highly respected service providers in the entire country. When he came here today with cory uh to noyan, he they're like holy crap, we had no clue about what we're going to learn this week and it is like mind-blowing. Erica sandoval was here. She's going to be here today. George Colon, corey Tenoyan they're all like. And last month we had Rocky Lozano and his team. Every month we got people here. So every single month, call-by-call training is going.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to tell you something. Whatever you thought it was, you're not even close. Most people get about 5% of what it is and they think, oh, I saw it from some dude on Facebook or whatever. You're learning about 5% to 6% of it. And you know what, if you do it that way, you're going to be not ethical and moral when you do it. You're going to wind up doing it slimy, and that's not what it's about.
Speaker 2:When you do a call-by-call management, everybody on the team and every client and then every manager feels that this is the way that we show care, respect and support for the team and for the clients who are buying the service from us.
Speaker 2:So we take the competence level of the best person and we make all five people on that team the same level of competence, and now everybody believes in the company and the service we offer. And that's really what call-by-call is all about, right? So, and it goes all the way to project management, we're going to do call-by-call with the installers too. The installers don't get out of it. I'm going to make sure we check in five times a day with the installers to make sure they're on track too, once we get the install sold. So call by call management is like when I even when I tell you what it is with the service team, it's also something with the sales team and it's also something with the office staff. Call by call management is every part of the company basically doing the job right before you get the next activity, monitoring the activities before you let people have the next one. That's really the bottom line. There Makes sense, corey Makes sense.
Speaker 1:Well, joe, this has been. I really appreciate you explaining that. It's been a fantastic conversation, Really quick. Where can people find if they want, if they're interested in call-by-call, also if they're interested in getting the book? Where could they find those things?
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to go to call-by-call management class or call-by-call you know it's called a call-by-call service class I would call it is really. Go to servicemvpcom. Look up the tab events and you'll see. We have online Zoom call-by-call training. We also have live. We're the only people in the industry that have both live and Zoom training every single month. So we have enough coaches who do the call-by-call training online.
Speaker 2:You could pay for that or you could do it that way. Also, the other thing you can do is just on ServiceMVP. It's free lessons. So just go there and take some free lessons and see if you like the material and things like that.
Speaker 2:The book is actually the least expensive thing you could do, which is to get yourself a book on Amazon. I think it's like $19 for the Audible. I highly recommend that for service people because you can play that in your car or truck when you're driving and that's a great kind of windshield university for yourself. It's got 400, it's nine and a half hours, so by the time you listen to all nine hours, it'd probably take you a couple of weeks to listen to all that. Three weeks You'd probably say I got to go back and listen again because, uh, so you probably want to listen to it. There's people who say when they listen to it once, they want to listen to it five or six times before they kind of start to get it right. So that's actually the most you know. And even the book itself you can get on kindle. For what? It's like 19 or something like that for the kindle or the hard cut the, the soft cover is like 25 and something like that.
Speaker 2:So that's really the most economical way to do it, you know if you want, anybody here wants to get a free tour, or we also do a brunch and learn where our coaches will do a one hour session with any team that wants it. We'll do a one hour session. The average team at the end of that one hour does about 78% more revenue for free. We don't even charge for that. Isn't it crazy?
Speaker 1:That's crazy and that's a significant amount of revenue from a free class, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, the average person from that free class buys about $30,000 from us, so it's pretty good. Actually, it's worth the free class because we do wind up, making some people do wind up, they make enough value, right, because really, what is it? If we provide value for free, then people want to purchase more of that value. That's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 1:Make sense. Yeah, Joe, I really appreciate it, my friend.
Speaker 2:Thank you, corey. I appreciate you and I know you've had a lot of stops and starts in your career and I definitely wish you all the best and I have nothing but positive thoughts.
