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Successful Life Podcast
The Successful Life Podcast, hosted by Corey Berrier, is a globally recognized show that ranks in the top 2% of podcasts worldwide. It offers expert insights tailored for contractors, focusing on business strategies, sales skills development, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the industry.
Successful Life Podcast
Creating a Connected Contractor Community with Service Titan Hacks
Discover the untapped potential of the home service industry with Bill Brown, a seasoned expert who recently sold his successful HVAC business after 25 years. Bill joins Corey Berrier on the Successful Life Podcast to reveal his innovative strategies for managing his business remotely from the sunny shores of South Florida. Learn how technology, particularly ServiceTitan software, and the PriceBook Pro feature, became pivotal tools in Bill's arsenal. Get an insider's look into Bill's thriving Facebook group, Service Titan Hacks, and hear how this community has transformed into a crucial resource for contractors navigating software hurdles.
Imagine a world where contractors can effortlessly access reliable reviews to make informed business decisions—Bill and Corey ponder the creation of such a centralized review platform. They delve into the challenges of maintaining its integrity while discussing potential monetization ideas like click-through fees and sponsored listings. The conversation takes a reflective turn as they highlight the importance of reciprocity within the industry, emphasizing that by supporting each other, contractors can achieve greater success and enrich the communities they serve.
The episode also uncovers the personal side of entrepreneurship, exploring how faith, family, and personal growth serve as anchors during life's challenges. Bill shares anecdotes about leveraging technology and community support to overcome adversity, illustrating the power of learning from setbacks. From navigating legal battles to building a strong support network within the Service Titan Hacks group, the discussion underscores the importance of shared experiences in fostering a thriving environment for all. With a focus on mutual learning, the episode champions the strength and growth that come from a connected and supportive community.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DNCX9eUVM/?mibextid=wwXIfr
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://www.linkedin.com/in/coreysalescoach/
Welcome to the Successful Life Podcast. I'm your host, Corey Barrier, and I'm here with my man, Bill Brown. What's up, brother? Hey, how's helps contractors and I want to find out more about what you're doing with your review site and I want you to tell us a little bit about that and the benefits of that and why you're doing it. But first, for folks that may not know who you are, just give a quick bio of you and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2:Great, yeah, thanks, man. Thanks for having me. So yeah, I've been in the home service industry since 2000. So 25 years now. It's crazy to think it's been that long.
Speaker 2:I had my own company from 2012 to just a few months ago, when I sold it. We did heating and air conditioning and IAQ companies in Columbus, ohio, but I live in South Florida. I've operated it remotely for the last four years, and I believe that I was able to do that because of utilizing technology that we're going to talk about today. So I've done like every small business owner. I've done every job in the industry service, install, sales, tried to learn how to do call center work and all that good stuff. In addition, a couple of years ago, I started a Facebook group, service Titan Hacks and started that because I had some struggles with Service Titan, some struggles with service titan, and, as I was able to come up with some workarounds, I thought that other contractors might benefit from them, and so that was just a place to have a conversation, and I was. We're about 8 000 members now, so it's a nice group, very active. So that's a real quick 25 years for me yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 1:so I do have a question about your group, which I think it's a great group and, you're right, it is super active. What would you say? I don't know if you know this or not, but what would you say? The biggest, what is the number one question people want to know about in the group? What do they have the most trouble with?
Speaker 2:know about in the group. What do they have the most trouble with? That's, let's see. I would say that it's really finding solutions and wondering or questioning whether or not those solutions are found within ServiceTitan or in third-party add-ons within ServiceTitan or in third-party add-ons. So they'll ask how do I work with this price book? Should I get PriceBook Pro or should I use this other company? Should I use this AI answering agent? So a lot of they're looking for a lot of recommendations on how to solve problems, and first they'd love for ServiceTitan to be able to solve those. But if they need a third-party add-on, they're looking for advice on which one to use. So I get a lot of questions on that.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting that you bring up the price book thing, because that is one of the questions that I've noticed. That is a common question that people get a bit frustrated with, and I'm not super familiar with Pricebook Pro, so is it Pricebook Pro? You pull the Excel sheet into ServiceTitan and then it builds proposals. Am I understanding that right?
Speaker 2:It's already set up for your business unit and so if you are an HVAC contractor they'll have tasks for capacitors and contactors and compressor replacements and it's easier for you to build out your pricing because they have a pricing calculator. You could just put in your hourly rate, which a lot of contractors don't know. They're fully burdened hourly rate, unfortunately in our industry it can be north of $400. But anyhow, it makes the price book usable from day one. Now, is it optimized? Not really, but it is usable and updating a price book without that and creating your own is very difficult. In ServiceTitan Do they do that by design to sell PriceBook Pro? Maybe, but I'm not aware of PriceBook Pro. At least when I used it a couple of years ago Wasn't aware of it actually being able to build out equipment proposals and easy to use, very fast templates. That process was still very difficult and very manual to do.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. So right now the process is every quarter let's just say for conversation purposes the manufacturer sends the price book and the contractor is. Then, if they have price book pro, I guess they manually inject or pull that from the Excel sheet and it does its thing. And it does its thing right? So then, if I'm a technician and I'm in the field and I need a price on a capacitor, how do I go about finding that and how easy is that to do?
Speaker 2:It's like an e-commerce system, right? So you're going to open up your iPad and there'll be categories, and the categories could be in Pricebook Pro. It would say capacitors and contactors. You would tap on the capacitor and then you'd look for the one that applies in that situation. So I believe that they didn't have a specific one for each microfarad rating for a condenser. They'd have a 20 to 50 microfarad. You'd pick that, it would have its price and you'd add it to your estimate and you're ready to go. It also had suggestions for upsells. So if you had, maybe you were using like a turbo capacitor, if your company had those, it would have those suggestions. But just keep in mind that price book's never 100% ready to go. It still has to be tailored to your company and the services that you add and the products that you keep in your truck, right? So it's pretty easy to find tasks on there, yeah.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that we've built at AI Automations Group is a price book to where all you one. You drop the price book in Google and basically you drop it in Google Drive. We built a machine that will pull that out and, at the touch of a finger, you just type in whatever it is you need and it's going to give you the information right there. Yeah, Super fast and I think it solves a big problem.
Speaker 2:Pricebook is a big problem, big problem.
Speaker 2:I was fortunate with my tech background. So back up before 2012, the first time around with school, I went to school for computer science, so I've always been pretty, pretty knowledgeable on the tech side. So working with Service Titan's price book wasn't super difficult for me as far as exporting in Excel and updating everything I needed and even making the descriptions HTML and look pretty and all that. It was easy for me, but for other contractors it's a total. It's terrible, it's a shit show, right, and I actually at the end of my company I had AI write all the descriptions, so I sent the products through AI and it wrote all of them and it was really slick. But there's a lot of room for someone to come in and make a price book easy to use and faster and easy to update and to do that within service titan. Right, because you don't want to have to use so many external third-party add-ons to get the job done right.
Speaker 1:I mean, when you refer to third-party add-ons, you're really referring to a third-party company yeah, right for the most.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like a company that just does price books, and they'll have their own system that has the price book and then it'll update to ServiceTitan For us. I didn't like the way ServiceTitan presented their option sheets. I didn't like it. I had my own software that I built starting in 2014,. The pricing was all on one page and it was a. It was basically a fillable PDF that had a database behind it, and so it. We use price book pro for six months and our average tickets went down. Then we went back to the system that I had and they went back to where they were.
Speaker 2:So we have a separate proposal for equipment that looks and feels different than the proposal for service, and I did. I was able to link that to Service Titan, where it pulled all the pricing from Service Titan and when we sold something it put all of the. It put the invoice line itemized back into service Titan and then anything unsold. It would create proposals and it was 100 percent customized to our, to my company. There's room for companies to do things similar, but it probably couldn't be nearly as custom as mine. It wouldn't be scalable. So something in between would be good for contractors, but I haven't seen many things out there like that. I haven't.
Speaker 1:We built it, it's ready to roll and I'm going to show it to you later. I'm not going to show it to you now, obviously, but yeah, I'll show it to you when we meet up later. But it's. It's really amazing when you find my partners in the business are super techie people and that's what you need to get these kind of things done. As you mentioned, you've got a bit of a tech or you've got a tech background.
Speaker 1:If it was up to me, there's no way I could do it, because, yeah, it's just not, I would be, I'd be like a normal contractor, like I wouldn't be, I just wouldn't be able could do it because, yeah, it's just not, I would be, I'd be like a normal contractor, like I wouldn't be, I just wouldn't be able to do it. So, yeah, I think that we are all. I think we're in a time bill right now, just like when the internet first started and here's the comparison I'll give you. And I saw this graph the other day that basically showed the companies that said, yeah, not getting on that Internet, and the company said we are going to get on that Internet. And the ones that said we're getting on the Internet are still alive, the ones that didn't get on the Internet are not, and we are in the exact same time right this minute.
Speaker 2:With AI, it'll happen faster with AI, oh, 100% Faster, yeah. If you don't utilize it in your company, your costs will be way higher than your competitors who are utilizing it and the output will be way lower. That's when we're doing anything in business, we're saying how can I make more money and keep more money?
Speaker 1:this is it right, this is it. It's like a magic eight ball is what it is. Yeah it really is if you know how to use it and that's where you and I have the same kind of mindset.
Speaker 1:We understand how to use the software, the technology, and it's not that we're any smarter than anybody else. We just put in the time to learn how to do it. And if people that are listening to this don't know how to do it, you're going to have to hire somebody that does or figure it out, and right now you're not so far behind that you can't figure it out, but it is probably a full-time job and it's you and I've had the luxury of being able to spend hours and hours figuring this stuff out. So I want to ask you about the review site that you're getting. I think you're either getting ready to launch it or it's already launched.
Speaker 1:What I find super intriguing about it is I can't go to a place right now, and I'll use a sales coach as an example. I'm not going to call anybody's name out, but at the end of the day, every contractor that listens to this podcast has hired a sales trainer and they've been unhappy with the results every single one of them. Yeah. So there's no way to know who is the right sales coach, the good sales coach. There's no way to find out truly how that person did what the performance was after the fact. Are they happy? Are they not happy? The only way to find that out is if I go on one of these your group or whoever's group, yeah and ask the question, and it's the same typical people that chime in and there's not really a recommendation or a review. It's just call bill brown, right, bill brown, but there's really. No, there's nothing behind that. Right, you solve that problem. It sounds just a name.
Speaker 2:Right, that's it, and it really what it was is. I've been burned by every single category that's on this review site. So, looking at it, I've got a category for operations. This would be fleet and GPS, hr, payroll, financing, companies, procurement. I have a coaches and consultants one, so that's the business and sales coaching, also organizations like best practice organizations and things like that. So you're right in the group with all these users, all these members, these contractors. They're looking for recommendations on how to use the software and alongside that is recommendations for things like business coaches, industry organizations, and that's what you get is just call this guy. He's good, and you might not have ever even used that guy, you might've just heard he was good.
Speaker 2:And when I was looking for software, when I was looking for a field service management software, I went on a website called Capterra and Capterra is similar to this. It has a list of FSMs on it Service Titans on there, housecall Pro Jobber and there's pretty detailed customer reviews of those. So they'll ask five questions like how was onboarding, how's customer support, value for the money, Ease of use, pros, cons and then description and you can look at all the users reviews and make an educated decision. It's more educated than you could just asking in a group. Right and same thing If you're hiring a home service contractor, you can go and look at Google reviews and get a good idea of how they're as a homeowner, how they're doing, and so I wanted to take all that information that's floating around on all these groups on Facebook, put it in one place, and this way, contractors can go and get educated on solutions that exist that they might not have even known about, and how other users of that software or solution how they like it.
Speaker 2:And for now, I'm going to manually review the reviews to ensure their integrity, to make sure that whoever is submitting the review actually used that solution, and eventually, ai will probably do it right. But at the very beginning, it's so important that these reviews are trustworthy, and I don't believe that you can review a company unless you've used their product or service. Right, right, that's what you pay for. You pay for the ability to review them. Now, hopefully, this is a great site and it gets traction, but it'll be up to the contractors of whether or not they find this beneficial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, how I'm curious. So is the contractor paying to be on there? How does that work?
Speaker 2:No, I'm not going to have them pay to be on there at all. So it's a free listing. And that's the question how do you monetize something like this? So I looked at Capterra and their business model and G2. These are the similar type review sites but for large enterprise solutions, and they'll charge like through click through, where maybe what they'll do is charge a user or a company 20 cents if they go from your site to the website, things like that.
Speaker 2:So I'm still looking at monetization options that are that still keep the integrity of the site, because it's not going to be free for me to run it and keep it updated and everything. And maybe sponsored listings. So a contractor could say I want to be at the top of the list and it would be sponsored, but that's not going to change the reviews you get. Be at the top of the list and it would be sponsored, but that's not going to change the reviews you get. You might just have customers find out that you're shitty a lot quicker. Right the site. If it's a place where contractors go and find solutions and it's beneficial, then the monetization stuff will come right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I think it's made me think of reciprocity, like you're doing something good for the industry and, by and large, my experience when I do something that's beneficial maybe not even mutually beneficial at the time, whether that be help my neighbor with their groceries or whether that be help somebody in recovery and that's the best way I can, actually it's the best way for me to explain it. When I help another person in recovery, by answering the phone and listening to whatever they have going on, two things happen. One, I get out of myself and I'm not thinking about whatever Corey's thinking about, I'm focused on you. And then somehow, some way, because of my intention behind that, there's a payoff at some point in my life, and I may not even know what that payoff is, but I've seen it happen so much that I don't, and I don't do it for that reason. Again, the intention behind it's vitally important here. If you're doing it just to get the payoff, then you're negating the results.
Speaker 2:For sure, and money is not the main driver for me, for anything I I don't for me personally I'm not talking bad about anybody else there's. I don't need an infinite amount of money. That's not what brings me joy in my life. It's if I have this skill that can help other people. I feel it's my responsibility to use it to help other people. There's some people that can do that and there's some people that need help. That's how it is. And so, at the end of the day, what can I do to make everyone else's lives around me better, and will that provide some sort of payback for me? I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2:It does feel good to do it right, but yeah, it's my responsibility as a Christian to do that. If I can and that's what I do I look for opportunities to make as many people's lives better as I can, and being a contractor does that. So if I can help contractors, those contractors are responsible for a lot of lives. They're responsible for their technicians' lives, everyone that their technician's responsible for. So if I can do something to make their businesses more successful make more money, keep more money then they can do a good job and provide for their people. And so just one guy doing one thing can spread a lot of success, and that's that's I feel that's my responsibility to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I I totally agree with you One of the things that because I'm not sure I don't think I've always probably felt that way. I probably when I was in my addiction. I probably I'm certain that I didn't think that way. But now that the recovery program that I'm in for, you know it's free, right, you don't pay to to go to these meetings. You put a dollar in the basket at the end of it if you want to, but it's a low cost for the life that it gives me.
Speaker 1:And so I think that one of the things that well, there's two things that I feel like I can help make a difference here in the industry. One of them is here doing this podcast, because it does help the industry, because I get to talk to people like you that have been there and done it, which we're going to get into some of that in a minute, especially one story I want you to tell for sure, there and done it, which we're going to get into some of that in a minute, especially one story I want you to tell for sure, but being able to, we talked about the sales coaches and there's a lot of people out there that they don't necessarily leave the contractor better off, and it really bothers me when that happens, because contractors are salt of the earth people. They're, by and large, good people.
Speaker 2:Sometimes to a fault on some things. As far as operation of a business and growing it, they are really usually very good people. They start with it because they come from the technician side and the thing on the technician that they like, that keeps them going to work, is the ability to solve the problem and the smile on the customer's face when they're done with that doing it. That's what did it for me as a technician, and then you become a contractor and you carry that same thing. So these guys are really down to earth and want to do a great job. Don't ever want to rip anybody off or overcharge them or anything like that and sometimes it leads to them really not. Sometimes, a lot of times it leads to them being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. Yeah, and I mentioned to you before the show is we've developed an AI that helps that technician in the field Because, look, I've worked with technicians for years that they may not want to sell the product but they do want to solve the problem, which means you've got to sell the job. And they struggle hard with that because they're kinesthetic people. They just they're really, their goal is really just to fix something, and they're not very comfortable with the sales process and I've been there, I've always loved selling but it so, if so, we've made a process that'll help, that kind of like a call by call, immediately built in with a sales process and HVAC knowledge and plumbing knowledge and all of the different trades. That's going to make that process easier for them and I believe that it's I truly believe it's going to change the industry.
Speaker 2:And it needs to be changed. This has been something that's been talked about. If you go back and read the ACHR news all the way back into the 80s. This has been a challenge getting technicians to sell, and you're right, they like the results of the sale because the more that they sell, the happier the customer is. The most pissed off customers that I've had are the people that buy the least. The one-star reviews that we had are somebody that got a capacitor for $225 and you're like shit, I didn't even make enough money for a one-star review on that. And the customers that are happiest are the ones where I replaced the capacitor. The contactor are the ones where I replaced the capacitor.
Speaker 2:The contactor added a hard start kit, cleaned the whole system and technicians will actually enjoy performing that service. But you have to be able to communicate that in order to be able to do it. So that's one. And then also with the sales process. Sales is when a customer says no, it's an objection, but it feels like rejection right, and nobody wants to be rejected, and the equipment itself doesn't reject you. You get infinite shots at fixing it.
Speaker 2:A customer isn't that forgiving right. And so we are really asking a technician to have two very different skill sets. That's a lot of pressure. Oh, one of them, by the way, won't really make you tons of money and that's not the one that you got in the industry for. So that's where you come in, and AI makes it easier for them to be more successful, faster, right, and probably be able to do some things that they never would have been able to do A thousand percent. I do things I can't do. Ai does things for me that I can't do. So people are ever like Bill, you're smart. No, I haven't got any smarter, I just use this technology. That I'm not. That's it. I've gotten better at using the tech, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it, which is the key right it is. Right, I do want you to share, and I can't even remember. I can't remember the full context of it, but I'll remind you and you'll remember. I have a feeling there was a time when you made some decisions in your business that cost you a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh man, there's so many of them.
Speaker 1:One specific that I'm thinking about is I believe that you truly believe that you were doing the right thing on some hours.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the first lawsuit in the business. Yeah, if you're in business long enough, you're going to get a lawsuit. That's just the way it is. The bigger you get, the bigger the target on your back. That's, that's from my buddy, mike Aguilaro, and it's true.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, I had a lady working for me and this was very early on. We were not, there was no HR department, nothing like that and I just told her hey, work, work 40 hours a week, that's it Right. And in the summer, if she works overtime, she did, but just, it was more like a flex time thing. But I didn't have a time clock for her. The time clock that I used for my guys was an app and she was in the office. And so I, in 2014, I had ulcerative colitis and had to go in for a, an emergency surgery in which I was out of the company for two months, and I remember during that time she billed me for overtime a little bit and I was like, man, I can't afford the overtime. I said, please try to keep it at 40 hours and after, and she worked at the company for a couple more years and she quit the first day of the AC season because as a contractor. That's how it goes.
Speaker 2:And seven days later I got a lawsuit saying you got to pay $55,000 for unpaid overtime. And I was fucking pissed right. What do you mean? I got to pay this and the amount of money I was like that's like a over a year's salary. This is bullshit and it didn't make sense to me. But it doesn't matter, because the law said that if she worked just one hour of overtime that you have to pay her for that hour of overtime. And it doesn't matter Clock in, clock out, doesn't matter. Emails you said this is the way that the federal labor laws are written, doesn't matter. Emails you said this is the way that the federal labor laws are written. And, by the way, in a in the court, if just more than 50 percent of the people believe that she worked in one hour of overtime in that three years, you would lose the case. And if they believe that you knew about it and didn't do it, you'd'd have to pay double. Fucking lost man I lost.
Speaker 2:So whether or not I was, I felt right or wrong, it didn't matter. And it cost me three hundred thousand dollars, and for a two million dollar business that's a lot of money. It was very painful and, at the end of the day, get a good attorney and make sure that you're following the law. But I'll tell you what the emotional thing behind it after spending a couple of days in court and having the opposing counsel rip me to shreds when I've always felt like I did the right thing, ripped me to shreds when I've always felt like I did the right thing you had to go back into your business and you had 25 employees and you couldn't give them any shit over it and you have to smile and put on a fake face and, knowing that there's a percentage of people who are trying to screw you over in your company, you still have to push forward. And so I have a lot of.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of empathy for contractors, because this is, people are trying to screw them over in their business. Not the majority of them, but there's always somebody who's who's doing some dirty stuff in your company and, anyway, that was a big lesson learned. That was one of the most expensive ones that I've learned. But this, my story, is not unique, right? All contractors have had it. They just don't really talk about it. You don't see that on Facebook, do you? You see the snapshots of the new cars and the growth and everything. But I know I know those guys. Maybe it wasn't recent. I know that to get there they took some fucking punches, man, some beatings, beatings right, probably larger than you did, because they're because of their size.
Speaker 1:Like you said, the bigger you are, the bigger the target is on your back, yeah right and that's just.
Speaker 2:that's what you signed up for when you became a business owner. But you don't know that when you're signing up I've had guys say years after it they'd come in and say my hope is to start an HVAC company someday. I said great, I'll tell you everything you need to know to do it and if that's what you want to do someday. But how would you feel, how would it be on you and your family if you were sitting in front in a courtroom for something you felt that wasn't, that you didn't do anything wrong and they and opposing counsel talked about how bad of a person you were and how shitty of a business owner you are and how greedy you are, when at that time you barely have the money to pay your bills and invest in the business. How would that be for you and your family? And if you can handle that, start your own business. If you can't, you probably should work just harder on the job that you have. Right. Hard lessons learned, man.
Speaker 1:So how did that affect you outside of the business? Because that is a hard lesson.
Speaker 2:I hated it for six months. I hated it.
Speaker 2:And at that time, my wife and I decided we were going to move to Florida in 2019. And at that time, my wife and I decided we were going to move to Florida in 2019. And in the case, the court case was the first week of 2020. And 2020 turned out to be a pretty shitty year you don't remember. And so we were.
Speaker 2:Everything was going really well in 2019. We were growing like crazy, and so I've had a few times in my life where I felt like God has spoke with me directly, not in prayer, but just out of the blue, and one of them was in 2019 where he said you have to move to Florida now, don't wait till you're retired. Nothing else, no other context. It wasn't like, oh, you're going to be so happy and so successful. It just that was the instructions, and so the three times I've been spoken to directly, I follow it. And so we went down there or we set everything up.
Speaker 2:We lost that case. They put a lien on our home that was for sale, so we couldn't sell it. We had already put money down on a new house I had already rebranded and added a second location in Florida that I had signed a lease on, and so all that delayed moving down to Florida for eight months, and so not only did I have to pay the 300 that year, I probably lost 150 or 200 more on just moving all day during work and come home and my wife and I were just like mad stressed man all the fucking time. It was brutal. We did end up getting down here and we didn't end up lost a lot of money. It's only money, right, that's how it is. You guys can't take it with you, bro, like you made it through the relationship made it through.
Speaker 1:The relationship made it through Because that's a real hard thing to try to push through. That could end a relationship in a heartbeat, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've always stayed together through those tough times, whether or not we liked them. We didn't take it out on each other and that's been great Been great.
Speaker 1:So, and would you say, that's because you have God is in the center of both of your lives, is that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for richer or for poorer sickness and health, and we like to joke for poorer or even poorer Right Sickness or in hospital really sick. So I don't know. Sometimes I look and I ask God, what's the fucking purpose of this man like? Why do I have to take this level of beating? I did sign up for it, but what the fuck right? And it's I don't. I still don't 100 know. Maybe it's just a story to benefit other people, I don't know.
Speaker 2:But the thing is this world is not fair. It's difficult and you know it. You have addictions, you have challenges, you have other people that come into your life that can make it really bad, that you can't control, and what do you really have at the end of the day is faith and knowing that at the end of this you'll be able to go to heaven and all of this will be gone, all the pressures of this life, any sort of the addictions that you've had, any of the sickness. Money won't matter. And so we have a very short time, and so we have a very short time. So a lot of it is just move past the bad things that happen to you, even if you're responsible for them or partially responsible, and stick together with your family, go to church and put trust in him that he'll take care of you.
Speaker 1:I'm still alive, right, still breathing, and my family's still together, and so when you go through tough things, you start to you, look towards the basics, the core things that are really important, right, and I still got those, I think, from personally, when, when I go through tough times which the last three weeks, arguably, have been fairly tough, yeah, and but I think I believe and I've seen this happen in my own life I go through these things and there is an absolute reason I'm going through them, and part of that is that I need to grow in some area of my life, whether it be personally or to what's been in front of me, at least professionally, for the last year and a half that I just haven't. I don't know if it, I don't know exactly why it didn't move forward, it just wasn't the time. And both of them contributed to the AI stuff that I'm getting ready to launch and that we've signed some partners on, and it's really. I don't think it would have turned out this way if either of those things didn't happen.
Speaker 2:Right, and so when you're going through those times, that's what you have to. It's very difficult to be aware of that and think of that, that this isn't a punishment, it's a purpose, right. And people do say everything's happens for a reason. Nobody wants to hear that bullshit when you're going through it, right, it's just backwards reflecting on it. But, yeah, every decision you've made and everything that's happened to you is how you are where you are today right now.
Speaker 2:Every decision I've made, everything I've done, is what's led me to talking to you today, and you don't know what you missed by making those decisions and you don't know how you're benefiting by making them. So you have to look and don't look. I don't look too far in the future. I look at how do I make a difference right now. Maybe because of being really sick years ago, I don't believe that there's just this infinite future on earth. I thought, man, I could die at 45 years old, so I got to make this count now, which makes me a little bit more risky right Than normal right.
Speaker 2:But yeah, man, it's something. So, yeah, you've seen it, bad things can lead to good things. Your addiction overcoming that is what other people who come into that program to get help are hoping to do and you're proving that it's possible to do it. It's a hard way to to do that right. That's a serious lesson learned to get to the point where you can help other people, but if you didn't do that, those people would have zero help in the future. Nothing right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, I, yeah, you know it's and it's. You know, as you and you alluded to this earlier there's. You know, sometimes the payback is just that feeling that you've done something for somebody else and that it's a good thing and if it's that's not enough, yeah, I don't know man, you should probably break it's a good thing.
Speaker 2:And if it's that's not enough, yeah, I don't know man you should probably break it down a little bit more If you feel like the payback is to have a lot of money and again, I'm not talking about anything else, but I've, I've had a lot at times and it's not a, it's not as big of a difference as I would have hoped. Right, the things that still matter, no matter what, right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. You still have the same problems, regardless if you have an extra zero or two on your bank account. You're still you, I'm still me, I'm still going to take me wherever I go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, you do have that control. Yeah, yeah right, you do have that control. Yeah, or two into the future, or a month or two into the future and make decisions on. Am I running this ship into an iceberg? And then how do I react to the things that happen? Because, man, there's just you can't control them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you can't. You can't control anything outside of really you and your reactions.
Speaker 2:That's tough to do sometimes too. Absolutely Just that. Just controlling what's in here is difficult enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely it is. Yeah In responses. And especially in a time when you're stressed or when things are going sideways, it's even harder. But I think those times are the test. I don't know if I should say test, I don't know that God tests us, but I can tell you this my relationship today with God is probably the strongest it's been because of those things and I think I needed those things to get my attention and I'm in the recovery program deeper than I've ever been because I needed that support and I'm really grateful that I have that.
Speaker 2:When you dig in and really get to talk to somebody, get to know them. How many people have got through this life unscathed? Nobody, fucking, nobody, right. And it usually usually a lot of it comes down to health, right? If you don't have your health, you don't have shit. So it's either you having health problems or somebody you love and care about. There is nobody, nobody is getting picked on right. Everybody has some deep, serious shit that has either happened to them or it will. That's just how it is. That's the earth that we live on, and it's well documented in the Bible. God says it many times this is a tough place, it's a place of sin and this is the result of it and, whether or not you feel you're deserving of it, this is what's happening, right? Yeah, it's tough. It's a tough thing, man, but here we are, smiling, talking to each other, learning some shit, doing our best. What else are you going to do?
Speaker 1:Doing my best and helping other people by having these conversations, and helping other people by having these conversations.
Speaker 2:Some people like I said, can help others and some people need the help and that can be the same person in different times in their life. Right, and when you're in the right place, you can help others. And when you're not, hopefully you meet the right person to help you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:I know we're getting close on time, bill, where if somebody wants to check out this review site, obviously tell them where they can go to ST Hacks and all that stuff and of course I'll put it in the show notes. Sure.
Speaker 2:The link for it is realuserreviews, so it's got a reviews instead of a com, which is cool. So real user dot reviews. Then the Facebook group's a private group. It's just Service Titan Hacks and I have linked to that from here, from the Facebook group to the real user reviews page. So there's a lot of really great stuff in Service Titan Hacks that you can learn if you're in the home service space, not just not just how to use service titan. That's how I came about creating the group. There's a lot of good stuff hr related, employee related, things like that.
Speaker 1:so great place for contractors to try to educate themselves and and dodge some bullets also a great place to share your experiences with whatever you struggle with in the business or and how you overcame those. So it's also goes two ways, like we've been talking about.
Speaker 2:Isn't that the hope, right? That if you're going to make a mistake, that's going to cost you a hundred grand? And I remember every. I remember when mistakes at the very beginning of the business oops, that was a thousand dollars, then 10,000, then a hundred thousand. If you're going to make that, try not to make it again for yourself, but if you could share that and have other people not make it, man, that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I agree. Yeah, a hundred percent, bill. I appreciate. I appreciate you, my friend. I really enjoyed the conversation and we'll talk to you soon yeah, buddy, talk to you.
