Fix Your P&L or Fail: Surgical Finances for Home Services with Norris Ayvazian from Service Crucible

WEBVTT
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The big takeaway here is understand that P&L, get it correct,
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get it surgical so your coach can help you.
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Systematically prove that you have LTV where they're going to keep coming back
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and spending with you and staying with you.
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First of all, there's the customer experience factor that's not well,
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perfectly documented across the vast majority of our companies.
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Then there's the recurrence factors are weather, equipment failure,
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homeowner behavior, sales rehash
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efforts, future cash flows tied to a customer are much less reliable.
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Then, margins vary wildly.
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Welcome to the Home Service Hacks podcast, the show for contractors who refuse to settle for average.
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Hosted by Bill Brown, licensed HVAC contractor, AI and automation expert,
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and founder of Service Titan Hacks Community.
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Each episode features real conversations with contractors, tech founders,
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and innovators who are reshaping the trades from AI and automation to pricing,
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marketing, and management.
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If it's working in the field, you'll hear about it here. Let's get into it.
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Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here today with someone I've been meaning to
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talk to on the mic for a while.
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Norris Evazian, founder of Service Crucible.
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We've had some great off-the-record conversations, and today we're bringing
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that same energy to the show.
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We're going to talk about what's broken in the coaching world,
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how to actually fix your operations, and why so many contractors are being misled
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by bad advice and bad tech. Norris, glad to have you here.
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Bill, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.
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I've been looking forward to this, and I love what you do and how you're arming
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people with the information they need to make a difference.
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Fantastic, man. Thanks. Appreciate it. So, Service Crucible.
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Why build it, why do a coaching platform?
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What problem were you solving when you created Service Crucible?
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To just get things done. Mm-hmm. I started noticing a pattern,
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especially the higher up I got in my career, bigger positions that I held.
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More people are spending time, which is a good thing, but too much of something
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is not really good for you.
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People spending more time trying to emulate best practices instead of going
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on a path of self-discovery.
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See what works for them specifically. the unique dynamic of their team, their culture,
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what they represent, if they're even fully bought in, if what they bring to
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the table and what they're trying to do fosters an environment of natural buy-in.
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And I felt that there was a severe gap and you kind of take the 30,000 foot view.
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There are some incredible people and incredible organizations and twice as many
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on the opposite end of the spectrum.
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But for the most part, it's just turned into a cookie cutter,
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rinse and repeat, bells and whistles and, you know, laser shows.
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And I mean, I'm embellishing, but, you know, really, really fancy two,
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three day events with headliners.
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What are you going to do with the takeaways? Okay, you're going to get hyped up.
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It's incredibly motivating. But what are you going to do with knowledge that's
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jammed into your head in the space of two, three days that had you step back
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and taken a little time to look at what you've been doing for the last five, 10,
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20 years could have done for you differently.
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So there was the beginning of Service Crucible.
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Get down to the bottom, the crux of the problem, tweak efficiencies,
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attack the money on the table,
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systems, processes, tech training, and weaponizing Service Titan in such a way
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where what would a $200 million company COO do and how would he utilize and
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look and click through all the different screens in the reports in Service Titan?
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How can you see into the future by witnessing something like that and then taking
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a systemized process, making it your own?
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So there's so many other things to say about it, but that's the...
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That's the core of it right there, and we can dive down into any rabbit hole you want.
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You mentioned natural buy-in, and you know, drawing on my own experience as
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a contractor, and I'm sure other contractors have experienced this as well, you go to these events.
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These two- to three-day Tony Robbins-style seminars, and you do get inspired
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to make changes in your business.
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For me personally, I never really needed that inspiration because I had started it.
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It wasn't like second generation. I hadn't had it that long.
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I was always going after it. I would take some of the things that I've learned.
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First of all, just like you said, I was overwhelmed by the amount of items and,
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you know, you want to implement everything.
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And so you implement 30% of everything you've learned, which equals 0% in a lot of aspects, right?
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Implement 30% of getting your P&L correct, doesn't matter. Might as well not
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have even started it, right?
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So what my staff would do if I went and I overwhelmed them with this amount
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of changes to be made, they would do in the meeting, they would do this buy-in
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because they didn't want the conflict, right?
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But then the meeting after the meeting, that's where that natural buy-in that
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you're talking about it.
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So they go, they talk amongst themselves after management leadership leaves
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and they go, look at this guy came back from here, spending three days away
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in the, in Florida, live in the dream, wanting to make all these changes.
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We'll see if he actually follows through on what he wants to do.
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Cause last time he went, he didn't.
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So I get what you're same with that natural buy-in as far as that being very
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important because you can get that surface level buy-in pretty easily.
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Yeah, very easily. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That actually hurts you more than it helps you.
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It does. It makes you look wishy-washy, right?
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So when you go to these events, what I've learned over the years after going
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to so many of them is just figure out one thing that you need to work on.
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You can take all the notes you want and get inspired, but figure out one thing
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that you want to implement and see it all the way through. and your team will
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begin to trust you more that, you know, they won't be overwhelmed by the fact
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that you said we need to change the entire business.
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And they also, it will be easier on you to implement.
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So you were doing, you started as a fractional COO, chief operations officer.
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And with that, you've worked through a, some smaller companies all the way up
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to giant companies. So what did you see in the market that's really frustrated you with the industry?
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Not everything applies to everybody's issue, obstacle, challenge that they're facing.
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And there's two sides to that. There are resources or platforms or coaches out
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there that are really good at one thing.
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Well, it's their ethical obligation at the very front after discovery to say
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I may not be the right fit for you,
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I look for reasons not to take somebody on instead of giving them reasons they
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should hire me on and join Crucible.
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And ultimately, that's a win-win situation because it continues to put them
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on the path of them hopefully crossing paths with somebody that's going to make a difference for them.
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If somebody doesn't want you, don't chase after them.
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Then the other extreme is an overabundance of resources and best practices that
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are available to somebody that's not been down the path that they want to go
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to, to get to the destination that they need to.
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And so thereby creates the element of running the very likely risk of adopting
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or trying to implement something that's really going to knock them off their path.
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And you only have
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so many let's say top level coaches that have
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a national scope of geographic experience
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because every market has unique qualities and
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then even coaches that
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have multiple playbook experience there's a
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lot of playbooks out there and you know
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you've got your you've got your clockworks that came out
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right then the the whole kind
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of west coast mantra of how they how they run things
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with service champions and how that just kind
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of took over the entire west you got hiller and horizon in the in the you know
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in the mountains and in the northeast michael and son in the mid-atlantic there's
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there's a lot of influences then there's different models flip text selling
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text inside sales no we call it rehash happy calls No,
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we call it NPS scores. And.
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The natural human behavior is, well, this isn't working. I'm going to try something else.
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And what you've done is you've added all of these ingredients into this soup that you were cooking.
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And now you have crap soup. Use the password. Has a better ring to it. Yeah.
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That's what I noticed. And that's what I was really putting a lot of thought into, Bill.
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I was like, how do I differentiate myself? And then I was like,
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let me look back at my career. And that's when I got the answer.
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That's awesome. That's awesome. So we were talking about, you have all these
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different models of how to operate a home service company that is, that are regional,
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that were developed in their own silos, that these organizations made their own, right?
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Their own recipe to produce a delicious heating and air conditioning company, right? Right.
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So when you let's say that you're a one million dollar revenue contractor,
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there's some things that you had to have got right to get to a million,
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not everything, but some things. Right.
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You can't you don't just get to a million doing everything wrong.
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And so when you talk about switching to a different coaching organization,
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I think that it's a I think you don't need to eliminate your entire processes.
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Right so there are things and because i've done
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this there's things that i've been that we've been doing well
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that we stopped doing that we
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had that we went back to do later again because it was working so sometimes
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when you start the recipe over you are getting rid of the parts that are good
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and it's overwhelming too to like we talked about earlier to start everything
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from from scratch And, you know,
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try to copy Hiller's process.
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I went to, I was a member of Praxis.
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Yeah. And they gave us books on how they operate.
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And the books were, the total sum of the pages were probably 12 to 15 inches tall.
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And that all the information to operate a $200 million business is there.
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But which one of those things do I do first?
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Yes. Amazing. Which one do I do first? And I went to, and maybe you can help with this.
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I went to, guys like to have these shop tours, right? Yes. And, which is cool.
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And I, there was a, when I was like $3 million in revenue, I went to visit a
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shop that was at $15 million.
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And as I was there, I was like, this isn't super helpful for me because they've
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done so many things between three and 15 million.
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I'm seeing the results of a 15 million dollar contractor.
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I need to go find a five million dollar contractor and see what things did they
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do that pushed them from three to five and five to seven and so forth. Right.
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So I think that I think that you being able to help guys know where they're
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at in their business and move them to the next step is really is going to be
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really helpful for them.
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And that's not something that coaching organizations typically do.
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They kind of have their cookie cutter process.
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Right. And maybe that's scalable, but it's not it's not helpful for everybody, you know.
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Uh resoundingly agree and you know not to sound biased or like a homer for myself but,
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a question that i ask is would you let a stranger write your legacy if the answer
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okay then why let other people train your techs your managers your people and
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install their systems in your company.
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You just made your entire team a perfect, seamless, low-friction fit into just
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about any other organization in the country.
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The true differentiators in our industry, the $100 million plus,
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they're like, okay, all right, I see what Nextstar's doing.
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Oh, blue collar, okay, that's a nice resource. BDR, nice, respect.
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Okay, one hour, I like the levels. Yeah.
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All right. And they're like, okay, let's take this and make it our own. And they did.
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And it ties back into the whole buy-in thing. Just because you go somewhere
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for two days, you're hyped up and you're like, I know this is going to help me.
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What you want isn't necessarily what your team wants.
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Right. How do you know what your team wants?
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How are you going to get them to buy in?
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Show them the vision and ask them, I guess, you know, not to cut you off,
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man, but create a culture of where it's okay for them to tell you that they're not.
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Encourage healthy confidence. That they're not 100% comfortable with this and
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that they're not bought in.
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Not to the point where everybody's sitting at the head of the table,
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but everybody should have a seat at the table so you can get that information.
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Because you're going to find out that they're not bought in later anyway by
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them not following processes that you've done.
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And if they're bought in, they'll help you revise those processes.
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They'll go, can we do this a little bit different? The customer said this.
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What about this? So you'll get some feedback from them in order to revise it,
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which further solidifies that buy-in, right?
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So lots of things I learned the hard way.
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Man, Bill, isn't it insane that the answer is right there? It's staring at us
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in the face with just two words, buy-in.
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Let's think about this. Like, let's unpack this. for me
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to buy something it has to resonate
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in some kind of you know want need
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emotional response for me
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to spend my currency of
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either my energy or my actual money to transact and say you know what i got
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skin in the game now so if there is nothing in what you want or what you're
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trying to do or you're failing to communicate that with your team for them to
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make that emotional purchase.
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So you unlock the next level of performance with them and be able to tackle anything that.
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Enough said. You got, yeah, you got to care about people and they have to believe you.
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They can't sniff BS from a hundred miles away.
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I mean, if you're going to grow a real business, then you do have to care about people.
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You have to be okay with them lying to your face and stealing from you.
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Not okay with that specific, but when somebody does that, you can't turn to
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the rest of the 30 people in your organization and start to take it out on them.
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You have to have really thick skin as a, as an owner of a business,
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lots, I have to, had to have a lot thicker skin than I thought I would need to. Yes.
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You got to look at yourself in the mirror first.
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Yeah. Right. So we go back to this, this buy-in and, and everything.
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And, you know, I, I talked about it the other day with, before you try to sell
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something, cause that's what it is.
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You're selling these people on, on something, on a change, right?
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Before you buy something, you have to imagine you have to be able to buy it yourself.
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Right. And so we go to these, we go to these meetings or we go to these events
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and we're told this is how we do it.
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This is what made our business $50 million annual revenue.
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You're at, you know, 5 million, you'll get there.
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So that the incentive to
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be bought in on that is very easy five to 50
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million tons of money for me a business i can sell but
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how does that translate to your people like does it matter to them that the
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business is 50 million is it what's in it for me right what's in it for them
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and so i at the beginning of my business i always thought that everybody was
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just money motivated if i want them to do this process, I'll give them more money.
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If I want to get reviews, I'll give them $25 a review to the point where I was
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thinking I had to give them money just to do every aspect of their job on top of their hourly.
00:18:02.572 --> 00:18:09.232
But I found that by talking to people and asking what they wanted, that I could...
00:18:10.411 --> 00:18:13.811
Really, really narrowed in one. There was this one guy that worked for me that
00:18:13.811 --> 00:18:15.951
just really wanted time off.
00:18:16.271 --> 00:18:19.791
He's like, I don't need any money. I'd rather have this time off.
00:18:20.091 --> 00:18:21.911
And without asking him and creating
00:18:21.911 --> 00:18:25.111
a culture that he would tell me that I wouldn't be able to give it to him.
00:18:25.231 --> 00:18:30.891
So I kind of try to be straight up with people and say, tell me what it is that
00:18:30.891 --> 00:18:34.071
you want. And I'll see if I can get it for you.
00:18:34.151 --> 00:18:36.971
And I'll tell you, that's never going to happen. like you
00:18:36.971 --> 00:18:39.911
want tons of time off in the summer well we're an air conditioning
00:18:39.911 --> 00:18:42.911
company sorry about that or I can try
00:18:42.911 --> 00:18:46.551
to tell you when this happens when you do this
00:18:46.551 --> 00:18:49.251
when you reach this milestone or where the
00:18:49.251 --> 00:18:51.911
business reaches this milestone I like to be able to put
00:18:51.911 --> 00:18:54.691
it in their hands but then you can have that
00:18:54.691 --> 00:18:57.671
so they know exactly what it is that they're working
00:18:57.671 --> 00:19:00.691
towards and so every change in everything
00:19:00.691 --> 00:19:04.311
you do has to be sold to yourself
00:19:04.311 --> 00:19:07.311
then your employees yeah has to
00:19:07.311 --> 00:19:11.111
be a legit sale you know without buyer's
00:19:11.111 --> 00:19:14.091
remorse no without buyer's remorse
00:19:14.091 --> 00:19:19.971
they're yeah the willingness of wanting to take the extra step to go to extra
00:19:19.971 --> 00:19:24.311
mile is not something that you can tell people it's something that they're going
00:19:24.311 --> 00:19:32.531
to want to do and the point in time where they decide that that's what they want to do.
00:19:33.691 --> 00:19:38.291
Is up to you, your leadership, and how you treat your people with respect.
00:19:38.491 --> 00:19:44.091
And, you know, maybe not cost too much whiplash with all the change that you're trying to institute.
00:19:44.831 --> 00:19:48.671
You can probably, I haven't done the research on this, so don't hold me to it, Bill,
00:19:48.791 --> 00:19:54.111
but I'm pretty sure you can count on the fingers of one or two hands the amount
00:19:54.111 --> 00:19:58.571
of times a professional sports team has won a national championship when they
00:19:58.571 --> 00:20:01.591
wiped out their coaching staff the very next year.
00:20:02.331 --> 00:20:08.611
Yeah, very rare because they have to learn a completely new playbook, right? Mm-hmm.
00:20:09.351 --> 00:20:11.231
Everything has to change.
00:20:12.711 --> 00:20:15.511
That's a great analogy. I like that. I like that.
00:20:16.470 --> 00:20:20.250
I mean, but how do we navigate this confusion? That was a million dollar question
00:20:20.250 --> 00:20:21.730
that I had to answer for myself, though.
00:20:22.210 --> 00:20:25.150
What do you do first? What do you what do you prioritize on?
00:20:25.270 --> 00:20:29.530
How do you manage your time? I mean, there's manuals out there that are like 100, 200 pages.
00:20:29.870 --> 00:20:34.290
And, you know, Nexstar has thousands of resources over the last 40 years.
00:20:34.690 --> 00:20:39.910
What do you do? So, I've held every single position in this industry from maintenance
00:20:39.910 --> 00:20:46.730
tech all the way to VP of operations for my portion of the portfolio at a PE company.
00:20:47.550 --> 00:20:50.610
And PE is just a way of life now. And people are saying, oh,
00:20:50.650 --> 00:20:52.510
it's the devil, it's the devil. No, it's not.
00:20:52.670 --> 00:20:56.790
If you didn't have a good enough lawyer or you didn't adopt the I's and cross
00:20:56.790 --> 00:21:00.510
the T's when you went to sign, do your research.
00:21:00.510 --> 00:21:06.330
They're very, very good at what they do in drawing up their contracts,
00:21:06.690 --> 00:21:11.050
their agreements, and the way that they do their, let's say,
00:21:11.210 --> 00:21:15.450
their LBO analysis or their quality of earnings, right?
00:21:16.250 --> 00:21:21.410
So I was like, you know what? I really got to back up my firsthand knowledge
00:21:21.410 --> 00:21:22.770
and experience with institutional.
00:21:22.790 --> 00:21:26.210
So I was like, what's the best school that's teaching PE right now?
00:21:26.370 --> 00:21:28.890
It was Wharton. So I went and got certified. One of the hardest things that
00:21:28.890 --> 00:21:32.390
I did. But there was times where I had no idea what I was doing.
00:21:32.550 --> 00:21:34.710
In other words, that's where Donald Trump went, right?
00:21:35.490 --> 00:21:39.310
I think so. Trump went to Wharton, didn't he? Did he? No idea,
00:21:39.730 --> 00:21:42.710
actually. I didn't know that. So you and Donald Trump, there you go.
00:21:43.550 --> 00:21:46.070
Stop presidency. We're going to make home services great again.
00:21:46.070 --> 00:21:49.010
I'm telling you, it's going to be the greatest stabber. Unlike anything you've
00:21:49.010 --> 00:21:51.230
ever seen before. Everybody's going to work.
00:21:52.350 --> 00:21:56.750
Fantastic. This is beautiful. This company is amazing. This industry is amazing.
00:21:56.930 --> 00:22:00.470
Everybody's getting rich. I've been rich, but you're getting rich now.
00:22:00.710 --> 00:22:04.510
Yeah, that's exactly it. That's good stuff. So you went to Wharton,
00:22:04.750 --> 00:22:08.790
which is Ivy League school, right? That's Harvard level there.
00:22:08.990 --> 00:22:13.610
So those are the people that work at these PE firms.
00:22:14.070 --> 00:22:17.230
That's where they went to school, places like that, right?
00:22:17.730 --> 00:22:22.430
So tell me, yeah, what was that experience like? Were you able to learn from that?
00:22:23.390 --> 00:22:26.250
Just so I don't want to cause any stiff upper lips to get stiffer,
00:22:26.250 --> 00:22:27.970
it was Wharton Online. Okay.
00:22:28.270 --> 00:22:32.530
So I don't want to disrespect anybody or, you know, offend them,
00:22:32.550 --> 00:22:37.930
but it's, it was the same faculty, same staff from the same programs that were
00:22:37.930 --> 00:22:39.570
teaching the, uh, the eight week course.
00:22:40.330 --> 00:22:45.630
What did I learn? I learned that these people, these funds, your LPs,
00:22:45.850 --> 00:22:50.030
your GPs, your limited partners, your general partners, general partners are
00:22:50.030 --> 00:22:53.170
the ones that you deal with. It's the CEOs that you see, your apexes,
00:22:53.270 --> 00:22:54.730
your ranch groups, all that stuff.
00:22:55.650 --> 00:22:59.450
There are different species in a different dimension. And by happenstance,
00:22:59.650 --> 00:23:04.910
we both manage, happen to speak English. Everything else is different.
00:23:05.850 --> 00:23:09.190
Completely different. It's like you're dropped out of a plant into a different
00:23:09.190 --> 00:23:10.250
business. Businessmen.
00:23:11.087 --> 00:23:16.647
That's their thing, is how to build and operate a business. Yes.
00:23:17.427 --> 00:23:25.207
It's not their problem for field level or management level personnel to figure
00:23:25.207 --> 00:23:27.107
out culture in the fifth and the transition.
00:23:27.407 --> 00:23:31.567
They just want to make sure, is there a rock solid, let's say,
00:23:31.907 --> 00:23:35.207
defensible succession plan in place? That's very, very important.
00:23:35.947 --> 00:23:40.667
And you kind of understand and I mean, if with an open mind,
00:23:40.907 --> 00:23:47.227
not really blame them for seeing things purely black and white on a spreadsheet and numbers.
00:23:47.667 --> 00:23:51.387
Well, they're responsive, right? No, they're not even there at the place.
00:23:51.847 --> 00:23:54.987
All they can look at is financial data.
00:23:55.387 --> 00:23:59.087
Yeah. And I'm not defending them, but what kind of resolve and decision-making
00:23:59.087 --> 00:24:06.207
power do you have to have when you represent a private fund, sovereign fund,
00:24:06.567 --> 00:24:11.627
a pension collective that is in the billions,
00:24:12.127 --> 00:24:16.867
Bill, what you're going to stop and feel sorry because of tech is upset.
00:24:17.087 --> 00:24:22.087
They were promised lower health insurance when the transition happened and now
00:24:22.087 --> 00:24:23.247
they're paying twice as much.
00:24:23.867 --> 00:24:27.987
That's, that's a problem that needs to be figured out and fleshed out at the field level.
00:24:27.987 --> 00:24:32.407
So it was just, it was a fascinating experience. And I, I learned what they
00:24:32.407 --> 00:24:36.347
value as far as value drivers, what increases your multiples,
00:24:36.627 --> 00:24:41.027
how they look and analyze the numbers and put their projections together.
00:24:41.956 --> 00:24:50.276
And, you know, ROIC, ARR, which is a very, very weak, unpredictable factor in home services.
00:24:50.836 --> 00:24:56.876
We say membership base, but most of our... So ARR, annual recurring revenue,
00:24:57.396 --> 00:25:01.256
which is like something typically software companies have, right?
00:25:01.376 --> 00:25:04.156
Where they have subscriptions and things like that.
00:25:04.316 --> 00:25:06.656
But what was the first one that you mentioned?
00:25:07.216 --> 00:25:10.296
ROIC, turn on invested capital. Okay.
00:25:10.556 --> 00:25:14.156
Yeah. So for those... that don't know that yeah that
00:25:14.156 --> 00:25:17.116
that's what they're doing they're putting their they're putting
00:25:17.116 --> 00:25:20.036
other people's money to work in
00:25:20.036 --> 00:25:22.796
the market like they're buying a stock if i
00:25:22.796 --> 00:25:30.256
get this right and if they don't see returns those people will put their money
00:25:30.256 --> 00:25:33.616
somewhere else and they're and they will be out of business the pd firm will
00:25:33.616 --> 00:25:40.516
be out of business 100 yeah that's that's that's the full on definition of, of their side.
00:25:40.676 --> 00:25:44.376
And then on our side, when they look at us, when they look at the most intimate
00:25:44.376 --> 00:25:46.216
details of our business, Bill,
00:25:46.596 --> 00:25:53.316
Hey, Bill, you, you bought a truck, you bought two trucks for 80 grand and you
00:25:53.316 --> 00:25:57.396
didn't make your ROIC on that for, wow, that's a long time.
00:25:57.616 --> 00:26:00.136
That, that, that took you over a, over a year.
00:26:00.796 --> 00:26:04.696
And then you were, you were sitting on an empty truck when you bought two trucks.
00:26:05.796 --> 00:26:10.936
No this is not a this is not a business that we're very interested in if it
00:26:10.936 --> 00:26:14.716
were we would probably tuck it in and it would not get a very high valuation
00:26:14.716 --> 00:26:24.776
or multiple now oh bill you bought a truck in january by april 1st,
00:26:25.671 --> 00:26:29.951
No, no, look at that. By mid-March, you made ROIC on that. Okay,
00:26:30.031 --> 00:26:31.451
you made all your returns on that.
00:26:31.931 --> 00:26:36.631
And so far, you're 5X on that investment.
00:26:37.571 --> 00:26:41.651
Hey, Bill, you've been able to show me that in that time span,
00:26:41.811 --> 00:26:46.011
in that amount of time from buying a truck to getting to your 5X,
00:26:46.171 --> 00:26:49.411
you've actually done that 23 times.
00:26:49.911 --> 00:26:52.531
Now they're salivating for your business.
00:26:54.131 --> 00:26:56.771
So you go to one of these shows and they're like yeah you know
00:26:56.771 --> 00:26:59.771
this is who you go to lease your trucks with and you know
00:26:59.771 --> 00:27:02.851
you just got to hire hire hire what about talent optimization
00:27:02.851 --> 00:27:06.311
what about what drew recruiting pipeline what
00:27:06.311 --> 00:27:09.251
about assessments what about you know career
00:27:09.251 --> 00:27:12.091
mapping and planning yeah some people speak
00:27:12.091 --> 00:27:14.731
to some elements of it but we have to see it
00:27:14.731 --> 00:27:17.811
from their point of view and i'm not advocating for pe i
00:27:17.811 --> 00:27:20.631
want to make that clear right we just have to understand the game
00:27:20.631 --> 00:27:24.371
as close to as good as they do so we
00:27:24.371 --> 00:27:27.031
have a fighting chance to having some semblance of a
00:27:27.031 --> 00:27:30.451
say-so in our industry it is ours as
00:27:30.451 --> 00:27:35.631
long as we yeah and they're not like they're going to sell operating it from
00:27:35.631 --> 00:27:40.511
scratch sending sending one of their guys in and running the business they're
00:27:40.511 --> 00:27:47.371
you know if if what you're telling me so what you're telling me and the listeners is you.
00:27:48.311 --> 00:27:52.531
Need to understand what it is they're looking at because those kind of things
00:27:52.531 --> 00:27:58.371
are what it takes to grow a great business, whether or not you decide to sell to them or not,
00:27:58.591 --> 00:28:02.671
whether you decide to give it to your family or sell to PE or someone down the
00:28:02.671 --> 00:28:04.551
street or sell it to your employee. Yes.
00:28:04.891 --> 00:28:11.091
And it seems to me like they could see all those things through financial statements,
00:28:11.091 --> 00:28:15.511
through a P&L, through a balance sheet, and through a cash flow statement.
00:28:15.871 --> 00:28:24.551
Because that ROIC is going to be in your balance sheet and your P&L to some extent.
00:28:24.851 --> 00:28:32.131
And then retention, you can look at metrics to see how that is based upon your
00:28:32.131 --> 00:28:35.071
labor costs and overhead costs.
00:28:35.171 --> 00:28:39.751
These things, and I don't want to get too far off topic, but when we're talking
00:28:39.751 --> 00:28:41.991
about financials and how they look at it,
00:28:42.251 --> 00:28:48.471
I would imagine that the balance sheet is where contractors struggle the most
00:28:48.471 --> 00:28:52.351
to understand what is this? What does this mean?
00:28:52.771 --> 00:28:55.891
And ratios, things like that, what are they supposed to be?
00:28:56.051 --> 00:29:02.051
So learning these things are important, but if you're preparing a contractor
00:29:02.051 --> 00:29:09.131
to sell the PE, what kind of things do you usually see that's broken in their company first?
00:29:09.671 --> 00:29:14.371
The very first things that I have to see is your financials and I will give
00:29:14.371 --> 00:29:17.011
you a specific set of instructions and,
00:29:17.434 --> 00:29:21.774
that you either follow yourself or you forward to your CPA. It is appalling
00:29:21.774 --> 00:29:26.454
to me how many times over the years that I've asked for financials and I get,
00:29:26.774 --> 00:29:34.174
let's say, a year-to-date view or just a single-month view in PDF format with
00:29:34.174 --> 00:29:37.414
no columnist percentage of income. What are you looking at?
00:29:37.754 --> 00:29:40.994
Do you even know what you're looking at? Okay, you see the dollar amounts,
00:29:41.014 --> 00:29:47.314
but where's your means of quantifying where you did good, where you went wrong?
00:29:47.434 --> 00:29:49.354
That's the very first thing that I do.
00:29:49.574 --> 00:29:52.574
I say, I want, I said, remember this.
00:29:52.854 --> 00:30:01.214
I want your TTM with a percentage of revenue column next to each month, trailing 12 months.
00:30:02.634 --> 00:30:08.434
That's the format that you should only accept to look at your financials.
00:30:08.554 --> 00:30:11.894
That's the format that you get your leadership used to looking at.
00:30:12.254 --> 00:30:15.754
And then I say, I want to see your balance sheet.
00:30:16.674 --> 00:30:20.394
And as soon as I look at the financials, Bill, I'm not kidding you,
00:30:20.914 --> 00:30:26.474
90 plus percent of the time, and I'm being generous, part of accounts is basically non-existent.
00:30:27.574 --> 00:30:31.534
It's all over the place. It's all over the place. Like COGS,
00:30:31.814 --> 00:30:35.134
right? Above the line, COGS, before your gross profit.
00:30:36.154 --> 00:30:40.274
There's maybe one, sometimes two GLs, two entries.
00:30:42.154 --> 00:30:47.254
Materials? Labor. if labor is even up there, right under income,
00:30:47.414 --> 00:30:49.094
then everything is an expense.
00:30:50.154 --> 00:30:53.394
Right. Which you can't analyze gross profit.
00:30:53.614 --> 00:30:58.994
You could analyze it within your own company, but you can't analyze it with
00:30:58.994 --> 00:31:00.554
any sort of industry standards.
00:31:00.814 --> 00:31:07.214
It would be nice if QuickBooks had that P&L set up, the chart of accounts set
00:31:07.214 --> 00:31:13.274
up that had some industry standards that you can kind of do whatever you want with it.
00:31:13.314 --> 00:31:16.014
I took my chart of accounts from EGIA.
00:31:16.314 --> 00:31:21.614
So we split up equipment, materials, labor, taxes.
00:31:22.174 --> 00:31:26.814
For one reason, they had credit card fees, like the actual percent at the points
00:31:26.814 --> 00:31:29.274
that I paid on credit cards as an expense.
00:31:29.414 --> 00:31:34.934
I always thought that should go in cogs, but I wanted to be able to compare.
00:31:35.474 --> 00:31:43.334
I wanted to be able to have a coach or a CFO analyze it as compared to other companies, right?
00:31:43.614 --> 00:31:48.174
So you've got these companies who want to sell and work with you,
00:31:48.374 --> 00:31:54.794
and the first thing you ask for is financials, and they are inaccurate or not
00:31:54.794 --> 00:32:01.034
split up correctly into the right accounts or both, all of the above. Cool. Cool.
00:32:01.870 --> 00:32:09.050
I mean, yeah, we can argue both sides about the credit card fees and some other
00:32:09.050 --> 00:32:12.950
GLs like subcontractor, equipment, rental, and everything else.
00:32:12.950 --> 00:32:17.410
If there's a reduction to sales, if it's actual cogs.
00:32:18.350 --> 00:32:24.750
But the core build of your gross profit is dictated by your operating efficiency,
00:32:24.750 --> 00:32:26.110
which is your operating expenses.
00:32:26.730 --> 00:32:31.590
And it's your labor, it's your materials, it's your equipment.
00:32:31.870 --> 00:32:39.950
And then by using divisors, you layer on your dealer fee, you layer on your
00:32:39.950 --> 00:32:43.690
warranty reserve, you then you layer on your commission.
00:32:43.730 --> 00:32:49.950
So no matter what happens after the job is said and done, and you do your payouts,
00:32:49.950 --> 00:32:56.450
and you export to expenses, you got to keep what you priced for.
00:32:56.450 --> 00:33:00.310
And that's how you that's so yeah but no
00:33:00.310 --> 00:33:03.830
it's all over like people will not even
00:33:03.830 --> 00:33:07.350
separate materials from equipment it's that's
00:33:07.350 --> 00:33:11.790
insane to me because that's one of the biggest bleeds is the material abuse
00:33:11.790 --> 00:33:15.230
and the inefficiencies that lead to it so those are the first things that i
00:33:15.230 --> 00:33:21.130
look at that i ask for and then i ask for granular with these numbers you have
00:33:21.130 --> 00:33:25.110
to be and that's one of the key differentiators, I believe for me.
00:33:25.910 --> 00:33:28.930
Where we are prescriptive.
00:33:29.050 --> 00:33:32.170
We're not regimented. We're not cookie cutter.
00:33:32.790 --> 00:33:40.210
And we have to plug the biggest bleeds first while we mercilessly attack the money on the table.
00:33:40.710 --> 00:33:43.550
Because sometimes you just got to push, push, push for a runway.
00:33:44.030 --> 00:33:47.650
And then multitude of sales hides a multitude of sins.
00:33:47.910 --> 00:33:54.130
You buy yourself the luxury to continue to work on fixing these issues in the background.
00:33:55.030 --> 00:34:01.210
But you have to, you can't stop fixing the issues because then you're just compounding
00:34:01.210 --> 00:34:04.130
all of your inefficiencies and you're just working twice as hard.
00:34:05.327 --> 00:34:10.707
And I think that's, you know, the revenues that some of these contractors are
00:34:10.707 --> 00:34:13.167
getting are very impressive.
00:34:13.167 --> 00:34:18.187
But then on the other end, their profit could be in the low single digits and
00:34:18.187 --> 00:34:22.727
their cash flow could be negative, zero or negative. They could be going into debt.
00:34:23.147 --> 00:34:29.407
And that's going to be from not understanding the financials and being able
00:34:29.407 --> 00:34:35.367
to take action based upon what you see. So having them organized and timely
00:34:35.367 --> 00:34:37.347
and understand the KPIs.
00:34:37.507 --> 00:34:42.727
And then also, like we talked about sorting, which one is most important?
00:34:42.727 --> 00:34:49.787
Because if there's 150 accounts on your chart of accounts, which one do you
00:34:49.787 --> 00:34:53.227
look at first? Which one can you actually make changes on?
00:34:53.507 --> 00:34:58.187
And from what I've heard from coaches around the industry a lot is your labor
00:34:58.187 --> 00:35:01.267
cost as a percentage of sales should be.
00:35:01.887 --> 00:35:07.687
Really studied and understood and, and, and that's something that you can control
00:35:07.687 --> 00:35:14.087
by your efficiency and, and having good, well-working processes.
00:35:14.567 --> 00:35:18.467
Right. Yeah. So with that, you have a.
00:35:19.227 --> 00:35:26.707
Can you give me three other accounts in a PNL that you've seen come up again and again,
00:35:26.707 --> 00:35:35.467
And where a contractor is surprised how bad of a job that they're doing in this,
00:35:35.667 --> 00:35:38.087
just it really sticks out to you.
00:35:38.287 --> 00:35:43.327
So I'm just making the assumption labor cost is up there. What other ones do you see?
00:35:43.527 --> 00:35:46.107
Just give me three, three more.
00:35:47.407 --> 00:35:50.347
Commissions, for sure. it okay it
00:35:50.347 --> 00:35:53.787
because if you
00:35:53.787 --> 00:35:57.727
are not 100 in control of your pricing and
00:35:57.727 --> 00:36:00.747
knowing what's authorized and what not to
00:36:00.747 --> 00:36:08.687
where to where to line in stone is a a commission not being parallel with the
00:36:08.687 --> 00:36:14.927
peaks and valleys of performance tells me that there's there's something broken
00:36:14.927 --> 00:36:18.747
there's something broken in the chain and they're just pushing for revenue,
00:36:19.307 --> 00:36:20.567
probably trying to appease people.
00:36:21.167 --> 00:36:29.827
But at a deeper level, what it tells me is that there's, what do you call it?
00:36:29.927 --> 00:36:32.607
There's no high authority close.
00:36:33.347 --> 00:36:35.587
There's all kinds of that. And they're surprised. It's like,
00:36:36.327 --> 00:36:40.987
wow, I asked him, why are your commissions averaging at 10 or 11%?
00:36:40.987 --> 00:36:44.307
Whereas in other months they were between seven and 8.5.
00:36:44.667 --> 00:36:49.187
Yet the month that it was at 10%, it was, it was one of your lowest revenue
00:36:49.187 --> 00:36:51.167
months. What happened there?
00:36:52.175 --> 00:36:56.095
Usually they don't know how to answer. The ones that do will immediately say,
00:36:56.335 --> 00:37:00.495
ah, it was a really, really bad month and I had to make some deals and I took
00:37:00.495 --> 00:37:02.295
him out full commission to give the guys happy.
00:37:02.435 --> 00:37:07.135
See, at that point, that's just the symptom of that disease.
00:37:08.095 --> 00:37:11.555
Trailing 12 goes a long way. You have to do this.
00:37:11.575 --> 00:37:17.835
That in operations, when I was a quality engineer at an AC manufacturer,
00:37:17.835 --> 00:37:25.815
we always looked at trailing trends to smooth out the data and not make rash decisions, right?
00:37:25.955 --> 00:37:30.675
Because month to month, I mean, you could, it could just be a couple big jobs
00:37:30.675 --> 00:37:33.175
that land. It could be weather-based, you know?
00:37:33.395 --> 00:37:36.315
Yeah, commissions, advertising, obviously.
00:37:37.515 --> 00:37:41.515
Advertising's huge. There's so much between your CRM, so your metrics and your
00:37:41.515 --> 00:37:44.475
financials that you can map together and understand the behavior,
00:37:44.735 --> 00:37:46.875
leadership, and habits of an entire company.
00:37:47.475 --> 00:37:51.295
Yeah. When I map advertising numbers, First of all, in the chart of accounts,
00:37:51.515 --> 00:37:54.855
advertising is usually one or two lines. I have a minimum of eight to 12.
00:37:55.175 --> 00:38:00.255
I want to separate everything because I want to know what's my return on ad
00:38:00.255 --> 00:38:02.115
spend, everything, every single channel.
00:38:02.455 --> 00:38:07.515
I want to, and I want to make sure that my service item is built out in such
00:38:07.515 --> 00:38:10.855
a way and populated with the necessary information to correct tracking numbers,
00:38:10.855 --> 00:38:16.255
to know how my individual campaign performance is. And I don't need marketing pro for that.
00:38:16.415 --> 00:38:19.295
It's called the campaign summary report. you can customize the columns
00:38:19.295 --> 00:38:22.475
to show you exactly what you need to see how
00:38:22.475 --> 00:38:25.415
many net new customers you're getting you know how many outbound
00:38:25.415 --> 00:38:29.015
you're booking on it what you know what are these campaigns what's working for
00:38:29.015 --> 00:38:35.375
you where where are your strongest performing zips now if i just see an outrageous
00:38:35.375 --> 00:38:42.215
and inconsistent amount of the ad spend or you know a heavy spend in one gl
00:38:42.215 --> 00:38:43.635
and the others are a smattering.
00:38:43.835 --> 00:38:46.935
Okay, there's no variety, right?
00:38:47.115 --> 00:38:52.535
There's no multi-pronged, layered, timed salvo of marketing output.
00:38:52.775 --> 00:38:56.915
Nine times out of 10, immediately tells me that if I was to look at their job
00:38:56.915 --> 00:38:59.215
types, there's probably a handful.
00:38:59.615 --> 00:39:03.095
And so they can't even quantify what's working and what's not working.
00:39:03.615 --> 00:39:07.875
And then because their COGS is all out of whack, What's that also tell me?
00:39:08.075 --> 00:39:13.275
They don't do job costing to kind of have a pulse check every once in a while
00:39:13.275 --> 00:39:17.395
on what's working, what they should push more because all that's disconnected.
00:39:17.655 --> 00:39:21.455
They're going to be clueless into what marketing channel to pump more money
00:39:21.455 --> 00:39:27.555
into to drive phone calls into the campaigns that have been working the best for them.
00:39:27.555 --> 00:39:32.035
And it's just this incredible spiral of chaos. And they're like,
00:39:32.135 --> 00:39:34.235
I don't know what to do first.
00:39:34.655 --> 00:39:39.135
I slow down the spiral. Seems like you have to almost be...
00:39:40.193 --> 00:39:44.613
Professional marketer, somebody in your company has to have this.
00:39:44.713 --> 00:39:50.833
It doesn't seem, or at least a professional analyzer of marketing.
00:39:50.833 --> 00:39:54.553
You really should understand it because the way that I'm taking this,
00:39:54.933 --> 00:39:57.393
marketing channels are like buying stocks.
00:39:57.753 --> 00:40:06.813
You buy a stock for Angie's list. You buy the Angie's list and you pay $50 a share slash lead.
00:40:07.633 --> 00:40:12.673
And then you get some sort of return on it. Well, what is the return that you
00:40:12.673 --> 00:40:13.933
got for buying that stock?
00:40:14.893 --> 00:40:18.493
Or if you know it's your perennial contender, you've got to know how to buy the tip too.
00:40:18.973 --> 00:40:21.893
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you do. So, I mean, think about it.
00:40:22.273 --> 00:40:25.553
You know, you spend, you're a million dollar contractor.
00:40:25.693 --> 00:40:30.313
Let's say you spend $100,000 in marketing to get a million dollars.
00:40:30.313 --> 00:40:32.473
Let's just say it's all new business.
00:40:32.713 --> 00:40:38.473
Well, your spend was 10% of the total revenue.
00:40:39.053 --> 00:40:43.793
So you have this mix of stocks that made you, you spent a hundred grand on that
00:40:43.793 --> 00:40:46.773
made a hundred, or I'm sorry, that made a million.
00:40:47.653 --> 00:40:53.833
Well, what stock out of those five was the one that delivered 60% of those returns?
00:40:54.453 --> 00:40:59.953
Well, I don't know. I mean, you just, you have to be very surgical when it comes
00:40:59.953 --> 00:41:03.753
to understanding where every lead came from, how much you spend on it,
00:41:03.873 --> 00:41:07.613
what's the customer acquisition cost, what's the lifetime value of a customer.
00:41:07.613 --> 00:41:08.833
I always talk about that.
00:41:09.033 --> 00:41:14.633
And that's something that most businesses look at LTV, but I feel like that
00:41:14.633 --> 00:41:17.353
our industry doesn't look at that enough.
00:41:17.613 --> 00:41:27.233
Doesn't know that a customer in my HVAC company was worth $1,200 on average,
00:41:27.553 --> 00:41:28.973
blended through all channels,
00:41:29.733 --> 00:41:32.953
within 30 days of them booking an appointment.
00:41:33.953 --> 00:41:41.593
Within six months, they were worth $3,000. And within two years, they were worth $5,500.
00:41:42.153 --> 00:41:46.653
So when I looked at what can I spend to get a customer, well,
00:41:46.653 --> 00:41:54.353
if on average, in two years, I can get $5,500, then I can spend more to get that customer.
00:41:54.353 --> 00:41:58.393
I just know that it's going to take a little longer for that stock to bear fruit.
00:41:58.973 --> 00:42:04.533
Right. And those are just things that I learned really from analyzing financials.
00:42:04.593 --> 00:42:09.653
But if you don't have the data that goes into that, there's no insights you can get out of it.
00:42:09.813 --> 00:42:15.493
And that's where we tie this all the way back to PE, knowing that being professional
00:42:15.493 --> 00:42:22.693
analyzers of P&Ls for every type of business that they buy and.
00:42:24.809 --> 00:42:31.789
They know that, you know, this marketing channel works in this area and things like that.
00:42:31.969 --> 00:42:40.429
So for the listeners, the big takeaway here is understand that P&L,
00:42:40.729 --> 00:42:45.789
get it correct, get it surgical so your coach can help you, right?
00:42:46.549 --> 00:42:51.169
Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up LTV. Yeah. An industrial and heavily
00:42:51.169 --> 00:42:54.849
fragmented blue collar spaces. So there's different markets.
00:42:55.009 --> 00:42:56.609
We're actually lower middle market.
00:42:56.829 --> 00:43:05.029
We're a small fish in medium pond in the vast multi-trillion dollar economy of the United States.
00:43:06.089 --> 00:43:12.849
And in SaaS, like Service Titan, Netflix, all that good stuff, customers pay monthly.
00:43:12.849 --> 00:43:16.269
It is almost certainly a dependent event.
00:43:16.269 --> 00:43:25.569
HVAC plumbing, electrical, roofing, the recurrence to systematically prove that
00:43:25.569 --> 00:43:29.689
you have LTV where they're going to keep coming back and spending with you and staying with you.
00:43:30.069 --> 00:43:34.629
Well, first of all, there's the customer experience factor that's not well,
00:43:34.829 --> 00:43:37.629
perfectly documented across the vast majority of our companies.
00:43:37.969 --> 00:43:42.229
Then there's recurrence. The recurrence factors are weather,
00:43:42.529 --> 00:43:45.989
equipment failure, homeowner behavior, sales rehash efforts,
00:43:46.369 --> 00:43:51.569
future cash flows tied to a customer are much less reliable. There's that.
00:43:51.809 --> 00:43:55.549
Then, margins vary wildly.
00:43:56.524 --> 00:44:00.244
Gross margins can swing 30, 40, 50, depending on the industry,
00:44:00.544 --> 00:44:03.824
you know, seasonality, peak summer installs, winter maintenance,
00:44:04.164 --> 00:44:06.444
your shoulder season, what is your plan?
00:44:06.884 --> 00:44:10.684
Tech efficiency, the training system that builds and, you know,
00:44:10.784 --> 00:44:12.404
that's a dependability point for that.
00:44:13.064 --> 00:44:21.984
Customer acquisition cost, you know, in SaaS, you spend CAC once and collect predictable payments.
00:44:22.624 --> 00:44:27.144
Yeah. In home services, you might have a high first job CAC,
00:44:27.484 --> 00:44:31.944
but no guarantee the customer comes back without heavy remarketing.
00:44:32.864 --> 00:44:34.524
And they say memberships are dead.
00:44:36.784 --> 00:44:41.784
Yeah, I disagree. My whole business was built on memberships and thrived on
00:44:41.784 --> 00:44:43.624
them, returning customers.
00:44:43.864 --> 00:44:49.884
You know, I always saw a customer as I looked at them in their purchase cycle.
00:44:49.884 --> 00:44:58.104
So in HVAC, every 15 years, there's a, you know, let's say your customer lifetime value is $15,000.
00:44:58.744 --> 00:45:03.924
Well, 12 of that happens in a one-week period, right?
00:45:04.024 --> 00:45:08.104
A one-day period out of that life cycle.
00:45:08.264 --> 00:45:14.644
And so I would always really want to understand exactly where that particular
00:45:14.644 --> 00:45:16.344
customer was in the purchase cycle.
00:45:16.344 --> 00:45:23.144
So if I had somebody in year eight, I knew that this would most likely give
00:45:23.144 --> 00:45:28.664
me that large, the overwhelming percentage of a lifetime value was going to
00:45:28.664 --> 00:45:30.504
come in the next four to five years.
00:45:30.744 --> 00:45:33.264
Trying to predict as much as
00:45:33.264 --> 00:45:39.784
I possibly could about future revenues from existing clients, right? Yeah.
00:45:40.344 --> 00:45:46.784
Yeah. This goes directly into some of the talking points that are unfortunately
00:45:46.784 --> 00:45:51.924
not heard every so often because there's just a handful of subjects that are
00:45:51.924 --> 00:45:56.204
used as buzzwords to drive the clicks and the likes and the engagement on LinkedIn
00:45:56.204 --> 00:45:57.984
and Facebook, right? Yeah.
00:45:59.530 --> 00:46:04.970
Plant repairs. Where am I coming from with this?
00:46:06.870 --> 00:46:12.790
Before when I was able to have some gaps in free time for the last few years,
00:46:12.790 --> 00:46:17.830
I've been a high level consultant on call for these major research firms that
00:46:17.830 --> 00:46:18.790
are based out in New York.
00:46:19.210 --> 00:46:25.370
And they hire first year grads from these Ivy League schools that are landing
00:46:25.370 --> 00:46:30.990
jobs or doing internships so they can get into your funds on the LP side and
00:46:30.990 --> 00:46:33.570
be in the whole private equity VC kind of world.
00:46:33.750 --> 00:46:39.870
So these are the people that take a list of questions from multi-billion dollar
00:46:39.870 --> 00:46:44.810
funds that are putting up master plans to decide whether or not they want to
00:46:44.810 --> 00:46:49.550
get into a space or they're already in a space and they need to course correct or make an adjustment.
00:46:51.030 --> 00:46:56.350
That keeps my finger on the pulse with where the money's mind is.
00:46:56.490 --> 00:46:59.690
When I say money, the billions and billions and billions of dollars that's in
00:46:59.690 --> 00:47:03.030
our industry, that's going to continue to pour into our industry, by the way.
00:47:03.370 --> 00:47:09.270
Right. And a recurring question from the firm representatives were,
00:47:09.410 --> 00:47:10.670
what is customer sentiment?
00:47:10.670 --> 00:47:15.090
What with some of the last few major economical events, from the recession,
00:47:15.290 --> 00:47:21.350
pre-COVID, post-COVID, inflation, equipment shortages, all that kind of good stuff.
00:47:21.350 --> 00:47:26.590
And they kept asking about planned repairs. And another recurring question was
00:47:26.590 --> 00:47:31.530
blend of revenue between service and replacement. Yeah.
00:47:32.630 --> 00:47:37.550
Whereas it used to be, you know, 90, 10, 85, 15.
00:47:38.790 --> 00:47:43.850
The, like there was a, there was a comment from SF and P lately,
00:47:43.850 --> 00:47:50.050
the deals that got prioritized more were the ones that had more blend of revenue
00:47:50.050 --> 00:47:54.250
towards the service rather than the replacement side. So if you know these things.
00:47:55.417 --> 00:47:58.957
It tells you who to listen to. Yeah, right.
00:47:59.437 --> 00:48:04.537
I like that. You know, we were about 70-30 install service.
00:48:04.817 --> 00:48:09.697
And that 30 was our future installs.
00:48:09.857 --> 00:48:14.137
So if you go out to your existing customers and they know, like,
00:48:14.137 --> 00:48:21.437
and trust you, you can turn that into 90-10 for a very short period of time.
00:48:21.437 --> 00:48:24.697
But you better get a lot more customers. because the
00:48:24.697 --> 00:48:29.197
last now the majority of your customers have their
00:48:29.197 --> 00:48:32.777
systems already replaced you've extracted the majority of the LTV and
00:48:32.777 --> 00:48:35.897
now you're going to customers who are
00:48:35.897 --> 00:48:40.417
not expecting to purchase anything from you who have systems that are not going
00:48:40.417 --> 00:48:45.857
to going to break they're new right and so I kind of looked at customers like
00:48:45.857 --> 00:48:51.077
a bit like a farm like you have a bunch of trees that are ready to,
00:48:51.297 --> 00:48:53.077
or a bunch of fruit that's ready to pick.
00:48:53.277 --> 00:48:56.517
And then you have, you need some seedlings, right? Down there,
00:48:56.637 --> 00:48:58.077
you need some in the middle.
00:48:58.297 --> 00:49:00.697
You can't just harvest all of your crop.
00:49:00.957 --> 00:49:06.357
And I think that a lot of contractors, and you can back me up on this.
00:49:06.457 --> 00:49:11.597
I think a lot of contractors harvested a lot of their crop during COVID,
00:49:12.197 --> 00:49:15.017
a lot of it, and made it difficult.
00:49:15.697 --> 00:49:18.737
And it wasn't just maybe not as
00:49:18.737 --> 00:49:22.297
conscious that they were doing it but obviously there
00:49:22.297 --> 00:49:25.697
was a demand for our services because people were spending a
00:49:25.697 --> 00:49:28.537
lot more time at home way more time than they ever
00:49:28.537 --> 00:49:31.637
had they were working in that in that front office
00:49:31.637 --> 00:49:36.537
in their home they never sit in that's now uncomfortable yeah for plumbers obviously
00:49:36.537 --> 00:49:41.217
they were used the customers using their toilet 10 times more and want a good
00:49:41.217 --> 00:49:47.737
want a good toilet right but we went out and i remember for us that it was it
00:49:47.737 --> 00:49:50.757
became difficult to get certain equipment at a certain time.
00:49:50.757 --> 00:49:55.417
We were fortunate to be a decent-sized dealer in the area, so we were able to get equipment.
00:49:55.617 --> 00:49:59.157
But when we told, there was all kinds of supply chain issues during COVID.
00:49:59.417 --> 00:50:06.797
When we relayed that to customers, they replaced when they normally would have
00:50:06.797 --> 00:50:09.477
repaired or waited on it.
00:50:09.577 --> 00:50:13.357
And that was great. It drove our top line. It drove profitability.
00:50:14.537 --> 00:50:21.177
But we cut that tree down. We completely, you know, ate the fruit out of that plant.
00:50:21.417 --> 00:50:25.077
We needed to get another one. And we didn't, I didn't really think about that
00:50:25.077 --> 00:50:32.017
as much because we had always had a nice balance of service and, and installation.
00:50:32.037 --> 00:50:38.637
So we always had a nice queue of customers who needed replacements each year.
00:50:38.777 --> 00:50:42.537
So it was a very steady growth until we had that COVID boom.
00:50:42.717 --> 00:50:46.257
I wonder if any other contractors experienced something similar to that.
00:50:47.063 --> 00:50:51.443
And, you know, how would they have known, Bill? There's not a lot.
00:50:51.983 --> 00:50:53.543
There's unprecedented, right?
00:50:54.423 --> 00:51:01.603
Unprecedented, but people that were not in our industry that generationally
00:51:01.603 --> 00:51:06.943
or habitually or by strategy have always been in the numbers and money game. Saw this.
00:51:07.923 --> 00:51:11.623
Not everybody on that side, but a lot of them saw this a mile away.
00:51:11.623 --> 00:51:18.743
And had we known that, how could we have depended, based off of where their
00:51:18.743 --> 00:51:21.943
priorities are, the most influential voices in our industry,
00:51:22.203 --> 00:51:24.343
to spread the message of, hey,
00:51:25.063 --> 00:51:27.203
nurture your customers more,
00:51:27.943 --> 00:51:30.183
slow your growth rate.
00:51:31.023 --> 00:51:37.083
Pad your margins, strengthen your efficiencies, and plan for repairs,
00:51:37.363 --> 00:51:39.283
keep your customers longer.
00:51:39.283 --> 00:51:42.443
Assuming that you're hitting your top line revenue goal based
00:51:42.443 --> 00:51:45.243
off of your budget bill you hit that if you hit that sweet
00:51:45.243 --> 00:51:48.403
spot and blend of revenue every doll almost
00:51:48.403 --> 00:51:51.703
every single extra dollar above is it's
00:51:51.703 --> 00:51:55.103
it's incredible how it happens how service will contribute pure
00:51:55.103 --> 00:52:00.503
profit dollars at a certain point it's a fantastic thing i mean it what a topic
00:52:00.503 --> 00:52:06.003
what a conversation so i mean look at all this information that we just covered
00:52:06.003 --> 00:52:14.963
it's a really really weird thing to look at service and look at maintenance versus install and go,
00:52:15.603 --> 00:52:21.003
wow, that service and maintenance is so important when the average service call
00:52:21.003 --> 00:52:26.383
and the average maintenance call are 20X less than the average install, right?
00:52:27.103 --> 00:52:34.603
But the thing is, I was telling my guys, a dollar in service is not the same as a dollar in install.
00:52:35.063 --> 00:52:37.223
It's more than a dollar, Right.
00:52:38.063 --> 00:52:42.823
It's different. The dollar in maintenance is more than a dollar in install.
00:52:43.283 --> 00:52:49.523
And also because the dollar in maintenance happens during a time of low demand,
00:52:49.823 --> 00:52:55.983
right, where there's not as much, not as much fruit to eat out there. Right. So, yeah.
00:52:56.849 --> 00:53:05.029
I always try to tell my guys and put into the culture of the company that we
00:53:05.029 --> 00:53:14.929
can get more lifetime value out of a customer if we do great service and great maintenance and never,
00:53:15.109 --> 00:53:17.969
ever push them to a replacement system at all.
00:53:17.969 --> 00:53:25.049
So you can get a $1,200 repair when you first meet them, you can get a few hundred
00:53:25.049 --> 00:53:29.649
dollars each year in maintenance, and then you can get a $15,000 system the next year.
00:53:29.849 --> 00:53:34.849
Or you can get a $12,000 system the first year and get nothing after that.
00:53:35.249 --> 00:53:43.389
So just really thinking long term. And the only reason I say this is that these
00:53:43.389 --> 00:53:46.889
are mistakes that I've made in the past, not thinking long term.
00:53:47.149 --> 00:53:52.929
And when you get that revenue from a replacement system as a contractor,
00:53:53.169 --> 00:53:58.949
psychologically, you look at service and maintenance as kind of being annoying, right?
00:53:59.589 --> 00:54:04.429
You're just kind of like, oh man, I just, I got 15 grand. And you put that at
00:54:04.429 --> 00:54:07.129
the top of the income statement. It looks good. It feels good.
00:54:07.549 --> 00:54:12.409
And then you put in a $500 repair, $800 repair. And you're like,
00:54:12.509 --> 00:54:14.369
this doesn't even really compare.
00:54:14.609 --> 00:54:20.089
But what you, just to reiterate, what you forget is that that five or $800 repair
00:54:20.089 --> 00:54:26.389
is a future replacement system down the line, just a matter of time.
00:54:26.509 --> 00:54:32.289
But yeah, that's, that's good stuff. You're talking about PE and I like this
00:54:32.289 --> 00:54:35.409
subject, understanding the
00:54:35.409 --> 00:54:39.829
fundamentals of business and how it works and being able to analyze it.
00:54:40.509 --> 00:54:46.149
And as contractors, I mean, we're not in the same space as those guys.
00:54:46.309 --> 00:54:50.109
We don't have the experience they have, the education that they have.
00:54:50.749 --> 00:54:54.949
But the takeaway I'm getting from you is we should still try to learn from them
00:54:54.949 --> 00:55:02.289
of how that they look at a company and start making moves to position your business
00:55:02.289 --> 00:55:03.949
to be attractive to them.
00:55:04.089 --> 00:55:12.029
And you can still have a business that people love to work at and one that PE wants to buy.
00:55:12.209 --> 00:55:14.649
Those aren't like mutually exclusive, right?
00:55:15.129 --> 00:55:17.749
No. They can be the same. Yeah. Right?
00:55:18.309 --> 00:55:25.089
In fact, I wonder if there's a business that PE loves to buy that people hate to work at.
00:55:25.629 --> 00:55:27.369
Hmm. I don't know.
00:55:28.709 --> 00:55:32.149
That's a really, really good question. I'm going to have to dig into some of
00:55:32.149 --> 00:55:35.109
my case studies and get back to you on that. We're getting interesting.
00:55:35.309 --> 00:55:36.609
We're getting deep in it, right? You know?
00:55:37.049 --> 00:55:43.629
Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about PE, talked about some great financial stuff.
00:55:44.409 --> 00:55:45.989
I didn't give you the third G.L.
00:55:46.866 --> 00:55:52.646
The third GL, that's right. Oh man, it's my ADHD. I apologize. I get on their way.
00:55:53.186 --> 00:55:59.306
You know, it's the entrepreneurial, I don't know. Yeah, just ping ponging all over the place.
00:55:59.626 --> 00:56:03.186
I'm the same. We'll go to it. What's number three? Thanks for remembering that.
00:56:03.646 --> 00:56:04.926
What do you got for? No, of course, man.
00:56:05.566 --> 00:56:10.026
Number three for me, a huge indicator for the company, how it's being run,
00:56:10.206 --> 00:56:14.906
health and everything else is below the line wages as a percentage of revenue.
00:56:14.906 --> 00:56:18.246
Especially the split between admin management sports
00:56:18.246 --> 00:56:21.666
staff and then field to office ratio it's
00:56:21.666 --> 00:56:24.586
like what are you doing paying all this money in
00:56:24.586 --> 00:56:29.286
wages it tells me how lean the company is and how efficient they truly are and
00:56:29.286 --> 00:56:34.626
when you just you have some of those other critical gls into the entire equation
00:56:34.626 --> 00:56:41.886
it it's a very very telling picture that's where your real efficiencies are You have a mess,
00:56:42.286 --> 00:56:46.606
you know, where, where companies that have broken processes just want to hire
00:56:46.606 --> 00:56:49.926
more people and throw people at something that fix the process.
00:56:50.366 --> 00:56:54.766
Yeah. Fix this. Come on in. I'll pay you. Oh, and your, your,
00:56:54.766 --> 00:56:56.066
your backs against the wall.
00:56:56.206 --> 00:56:58.406
These processes are so bad. You're losing jobs.
00:56:58.806 --> 00:57:04.246
You'll overpay for somebody to fix a process that doesn't exist. It isn't a process.
00:57:04.446 --> 00:57:08.506
So now you want them to design it themselves. and
00:57:08.506 --> 00:57:11.406
there that might not even be their skill
00:57:11.406 --> 00:57:14.266
set so i've seen that a lot where people just
00:57:14.266 --> 00:57:17.046
throw more staff and more
00:57:17.046 --> 00:57:20.346
labor at something that can be that's a
00:57:20.346 --> 00:57:23.646
systemic issue that root cause of inefficiency is
00:57:23.646 --> 00:57:26.766
not people not enough
00:57:26.766 --> 00:57:30.326
people it's a broken process right yeah
00:57:30.326 --> 00:57:33.226
so the thing with
00:57:33.226 --> 00:57:36.526
that is today these automations man
00:57:36.526 --> 00:57:40.826
and and everything can change
00:57:40.826 --> 00:57:43.926
that number like nobody's business
00:57:43.926 --> 00:57:52.026
right this ai and automations it's insanity just not to toot my own horn but
00:57:52.026 --> 00:57:59.006
to prove that the automations were very effective because i started using zapier
00:57:59.006 --> 00:58:03.386
back in like 2015 This was pre-AI as well.
00:58:03.646 --> 00:58:07.866
When we were at $3 million in revenue, I only had one office person.
00:58:08.386 --> 00:58:14.186
That's it. Just one. Because everything that could be automated,
00:58:14.446 --> 00:58:17.146
that could be possibly automated, I did.
00:58:17.346 --> 00:58:23.426
And doing those automations also helped me fix processes. Because if you automated
00:58:23.426 --> 00:58:26.586
something that was bad, it didn't help.
00:58:27.826 --> 00:58:31.306
You just threw something down the line faster that was broken.
00:58:31.606 --> 00:58:37.326
So creating those automations is what made me think about how to make my business
00:58:37.326 --> 00:58:41.586
really efficient in building the automations in the first place. Right.
00:58:42.366 --> 00:58:51.666
So 100%. Service Titan has kind of like a blank slate for how to operate a business.
00:58:51.666 --> 00:58:57.786
But there aren't automations built in that force you down the path of best practices
00:58:57.786 --> 00:58:59.446
for your industry, right?
00:58:59.786 --> 00:59:04.446
So that's kind of where the, that's where coaches come in and they teach you that stuff, right?
00:59:04.546 --> 00:59:09.426
Like, so, you know, you come in and you sell a replacement system, right?
00:59:09.546 --> 00:59:13.166
Well, you're going to do that a lot if you're good.
00:59:13.806 --> 00:59:19.166
There's a list of five tasks that this person needs to do when you sell the
00:59:19.166 --> 00:59:23.406
system. Then it goes to this person who needs to do these five things and that
00:59:23.406 --> 00:59:26.986
person and everybody has to know what they're putting into the recipe, right?
00:59:28.066 --> 00:59:33.226
And Service Titan does not help you with that. That's where you need somebody like what you do.
00:59:33.286 --> 00:59:36.266
They're good at selling. Give you those missing people. What's that?
00:59:36.886 --> 00:59:39.986
They're good at selling it to you. Look at, they're good at selling it to you.
00:59:40.046 --> 00:59:40.966
They all look at all this.
00:59:41.306 --> 00:59:46.526
Well, you know, selling your service, I say, oh my, and this feature does this and how do I do it?
00:59:46.526 --> 00:59:48.986
Well, you know, we're going to connect you to a specialist and everything else.
00:59:48.986 --> 00:59:53.786
You know, it's annoying, but actually really cool that it happens that way because
00:59:53.786 --> 00:59:56.466
it's part of the philosophy of Service Crucible.
00:59:56.986 --> 01:00:02.366
In order for you to truly grow and take the next steps and continue to scale,
01:00:02.926 --> 01:00:05.106
you got to go down that path yourself.
01:00:05.746 --> 01:00:07.706
It's the process of transformation.
01:00:08.746 --> 01:00:13.786
There's no other way. You can hire incredible people that do a great job that
01:00:13.786 --> 01:00:17.846
know service side and inside and out, but they probably don't have one day's
01:00:17.846 --> 01:00:20.926
worth of service manager experience running a home service company.
01:00:21.186 --> 01:00:25.726
So they'll be feature rich in all their knowledge. But on the execution side,
01:00:25.726 --> 01:00:27.046
when, you know, you're going to
01:00:27.046 --> 01:00:32.166
put your oil in the engine and turn the ignition, what's going to happen?
01:00:33.066 --> 01:00:38.686
So, yeah. Yeah. There's no money at everything and expect to fix it.
01:00:38.686 --> 01:00:41.606
You know you have to have there's some core
01:00:41.606 --> 01:00:44.426
foundational things that operators need to
01:00:44.426 --> 01:00:48.166
know maybe not how to work it 100 but
01:00:48.166 --> 01:00:51.126
they have to have a good idea so they don't get fooled
01:00:51.126 --> 01:00:53.846
right or or send a scope of
01:00:53.846 --> 01:00:59.426
work to somebody internal and external and it these this person doesn't even
01:00:59.426 --> 01:01:04.826
know what they want right they don't even know what they want so and for a come
01:01:04.826 --> 01:01:13.006
for a contractor that doesn't really have SOPs or processes listed out, I find that,
01:01:13.801 --> 01:01:17.901
It's best to just put this thing on a whiteboard and write them out until you
01:01:17.901 --> 01:01:21.401
get them right. That way everybody can see them.
01:01:21.521 --> 01:01:25.321
And then you can convert that into something that fits within Service Titan
01:01:25.321 --> 01:01:28.041
and works with the technology.
01:01:28.601 --> 01:01:33.281
But you were talking about earlier.
01:01:33.941 --> 01:01:38.901
Yeah. We talked about this last time. You were talking about how you guys,
01:01:39.121 --> 01:01:43.741
how Service Crucible is building an AI LLM.
01:01:44.101 --> 01:01:53.761
And for those listeners, LLM is a large language model, which is what ChatGPT is, right?
01:01:54.081 --> 01:01:58.221
So would you, and we don't have tons of time left,
01:01:58.521 --> 01:02:01.341
but would you be able to give me a little kind
01:02:01.341 --> 01:02:04.681
of overview of what your service crucible
01:02:04.681 --> 01:02:08.681
AI LLM looks like for service
01:02:08.681 --> 01:02:12.961
crucible or what I'm doing for one of my clients well either
01:02:12.961 --> 01:02:16.021
way for what you're doing for your clients because like anything
01:02:16.021 --> 01:02:20.601
if it works you'll probably want to apply it to everybody right yeah and how
01:02:20.601 --> 01:02:27.361
it I'm doing something similar for service crucible too but yeah sure I've I've
01:02:27.361 --> 01:02:31.941
come to learn that most of the AI technology that's easily available to us is
01:02:31.941 --> 01:02:36.001
all very surface level and it is as downstream as it gets.
01:02:36.281 --> 01:02:43.621
It's like, yeah, it's like buying gas station sushi.
01:02:43.941 --> 01:02:47.821
Using readily available AI is like buying gas station sushi.
01:02:47.821 --> 01:02:52.861
Building your own llm and your
01:02:52.861 --> 01:02:55.641
own retrieval model your your your your own
01:02:55.641 --> 01:02:59.601
database your own sql shima is
01:02:59.601 --> 01:03:02.601
like going to the
01:03:02.601 --> 01:03:05.461
fish market in japan well no it's one step it's
01:03:05.461 --> 01:03:10.041
like going to a bespoke sushi restaurant
01:03:10.041 --> 01:03:13.241
in japan that gets their stuff from the best
01:03:13.241 --> 01:03:16.741
figuremen that go to the fish market in japan to
01:03:16.741 --> 01:03:19.501
to be at the fish market you got to be you know
01:03:19.501 --> 01:03:23.081
one of the actual tech centers so that's that
01:03:23.081 --> 01:03:25.721
that's a that's a great analogy i was i
01:03:25.721 --> 01:03:29.601
was talking to a friend and just came up so we
01:03:29.601 --> 01:03:32.321
have to learn this bill i didn't know that
01:03:32.321 --> 01:03:35.281
half of this stuff just months ago but we have to
01:03:35.281 --> 01:03:38.141
incessantly throw ourselves at
01:03:38.141 --> 01:03:41.161
the knowledge because this is just a way of the future but
01:03:41.161 --> 01:03:44.901
did so the llm is i'm
01:03:44.901 --> 01:03:49.101
i'm building it in such a way i'm storing and vectoring
01:03:49.101 --> 01:03:52.821
and like chunking and then vectoring every single
01:03:52.821 --> 01:04:00.121
piece of information that is available and i in multiple columns that are getting
01:04:00.121 --> 01:04:05.601
stringed together and now think hundreds and thousands of columns and some columns
01:04:05.601 --> 01:04:11.681
are weighted and then you have to continuously give it feedback and train it. Now...
01:04:12.766 --> 01:04:17.066
When you start interacting with it, instead of AI, kind of like,
01:04:17.106 --> 01:04:20.366
let's say, ChatGPT, you connect your Google Drive to it, it's going to give
01:04:20.366 --> 01:04:22.286
you information that you have in your Google Drive.
01:04:23.186 --> 01:04:27.046
But it doesn't give you your knowledge. It's just going to do its best.
01:04:28.986 --> 01:04:33.506
So one of my clients, they're so, so good at what they do.
01:04:33.586 --> 01:04:36.546
They have some of the most talented people in their industry in what they do.
01:04:36.546 --> 01:04:44.206
But the knowledge lives in silos and it is not benefiting the plans and growth
01:04:44.206 --> 01:04:48.586
for what they want, for their goals.
01:04:48.906 --> 01:04:54.326
So it's causing a lot of inefficiencies where there's a lot of firefighting
01:04:54.326 --> 01:04:57.946
instead of spending time on the business, in the business, all the classic stuff that you hear.
01:04:58.426 --> 01:05:01.786
There's these two individuals that are really, really good at what they do.
01:05:01.926 --> 01:05:05.026
And all they do is they're on the phone five, six hours a day,
01:05:05.226 --> 01:05:06.506
teaching people, walking people
01:05:06.506 --> 01:05:10.126
through calling vendors, doing course corrections on their projects.
01:05:10.606 --> 01:05:15.306
I had the CEO order two of those little recording devices that you hang over
01:05:15.306 --> 01:05:20.466
your neck, which is like in the AI, the recording device, and it transcripts
01:05:20.466 --> 01:05:22.906
everything and dumps it into an app.
01:05:22.906 --> 01:05:30.486
Well, then what I'm doing is I'm taking those raw transcripts and I'm chunking
01:05:30.486 --> 01:05:33.566
and vectoring them on that table that I just explained.
01:05:33.986 --> 01:05:38.766
And I don't know, I anticipate over three months of collected phone calls.
01:05:39.006 --> 01:05:43.306
So, you know, several hundred hours of conversations and pure knowledge because
01:05:43.306 --> 01:05:44.726
you'll throw away the useless stuff.
01:05:45.186 --> 01:05:50.446
You just created an agent that is hyper specialized in exactly what you do.
01:05:50.446 --> 01:05:55.566
And now when you ask it to write an SOP or a process for you,
01:05:55.826 --> 01:06:01.786
it's going to hit at 100% efficiency instead of you having to chat with ChatGPT
01:06:01.786 --> 01:06:05.986
or Anthropic for another 30 minutes so you can continue tweaking what it gave you.
01:06:06.786 --> 01:06:09.706
That's good stuff. I'm very excited about it. I love that.
01:06:10.066 --> 01:06:16.826
That's the future, right? And there's not many people that know that LLMs can do that.
01:06:17.907 --> 01:06:25.787
But I mean, that information to build that process is in the heads,
01:06:26.047 --> 01:06:30.767
in the mind of people within that operation already.
01:06:31.067 --> 01:06:37.907
It's just not easily accessible and clear for everybody to see the recipe, right?
01:06:38.207 --> 01:06:46.187
Yes. And if you listen to every conversation of the people that know that process,
01:06:46.187 --> 01:06:50.207
because they're going to say it, what it is, as they train, I love that,
01:06:50.587 --> 01:06:58.187
then the LLM will take that data and organize it and tell you, this is the SOP.
01:06:58.307 --> 01:07:02.867
This is exactly how you guys do a HVAC installation from start to finish.
01:07:03.027 --> 01:07:08.147
I've heard this 25 times. It's like somebody who's sitting there observing the
01:07:08.147 --> 01:07:13.007
process work and then writing it down, taking all that information,
01:07:13.167 --> 01:07:14.527
but being able to do it very fast.
01:07:14.707 --> 01:07:18.847
So I would imagine after a few months, you'll be able to do an SOP for the way
01:07:18.847 --> 01:07:21.007
the entire business currently runs.
01:07:21.467 --> 01:07:26.487
Yes. Every process within the business, you'll be able to understand that.
01:07:26.967 --> 01:07:31.587
Wow. That's something else, man. And you do that for a small company.
01:07:32.287 --> 01:07:35.847
What's that do for them? my goodness i'm
01:07:35.847 --> 01:07:39.767
gonna talk about lean lean efficiency what to do for that yeah that's
01:07:39.767 --> 01:07:43.027
amazing that's incredible i'd love to see when that when that
01:07:43.027 --> 01:07:45.907
uh comes out and and i'll give you first dibs
01:07:45.907 --> 01:07:48.907
on first look progress on it yeah that's that's
01:07:48.907 --> 01:07:51.647
awesome man so you're just taking you're going to be able to
01:07:51.647 --> 01:07:54.627
because you have to understand what's going on in the business to be able to
01:07:54.627 --> 01:07:59.367
help them you have to orchestrate the data dissemination where it goes how to
01:07:59.367 --> 01:08:03.927
structure it weight it and you know there's there's some there's some engineering
01:08:03.927 --> 01:08:08.587
behind it from a knowledge and change management standpoint but yeah yeah yeah
01:08:08.587 --> 01:08:10.707
yeah it's fun that's awesome,
01:08:11.677 --> 01:08:14.797
So let me give you some rapid fire.
01:08:15.297 --> 01:08:20.817
Sure, man. Ready for it. Ready for this? What's one lesson you wish every contractor
01:08:20.817 --> 01:08:22.817
learned five years earlier?
01:08:23.417 --> 01:08:26.937
Spend more time in the field with your techs. Okay.
01:08:27.977 --> 01:08:32.737
What's the first system you'd fix in a $5 million shop that wants to get to $10 million?
01:08:34.737 --> 01:08:42.617
Separate service from install and improve sales handoff process. That's great. Awesome.
01:08:45.297 --> 01:08:50.117
So, all right, man. This was an awesome conversation. We had tons of real talk, tons of value.
01:08:50.317 --> 01:08:53.217
I'm going to have you on again because I know that we could talk about this
01:08:53.217 --> 01:08:54.617
for hours and hours in your bars.
01:08:55.457 --> 01:08:58.637
And, you know, I really appreciate you coming on. We'll do it again.
01:08:59.957 --> 01:09:02.977
And I think that our listeners are going to get tons of value out of this.
01:09:03.497 --> 01:09:05.977
Bill, this was a blast, man. Thank you so much for having me on.
01:09:08.437 --> 01:09:12.517
Thanks for listening to the Home Service Hacks podcast. Be sure to subscribe
01:09:12.517 --> 01:09:16.397
on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss a future episode.
01:09:16.617 --> 01:09:21.157
For more information or to connect with Bill, you can check us out on Facebook
01:09:21.157 --> 01:09:26.497
at Service Titan Hacks or visit our website at servicetitanhacks.com.
01:09:26.657 --> 01:09:28.117
We'll see you next time.