Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Elevator Sales: The Customer Experience | Jeff Smith

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Elevator Sales: The Customer Experience | Jeff Smith · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think the biggest mistake everyone in this industry makes is not communicating well.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think the bar to a great customer experience is really low.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it involves picking up the phone and calling people.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it involves responding to emails.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it involves, it involves texting.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: It involves communicating.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it involves all of that, even when you don't have the answer, to say, hey, Mr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Customer, I know you're looking for this.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have this.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I will touch base with you every 24 hours until I do, because I don't want you to think I forgot about you and you're not important to me.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: If a customer has to reach out to you five days after they ask for something and you haven't said anything to them, you failed.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the Allred Group.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I am your host, Matt Allred.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, we talk to the people whose lives and careers are dedicated to the vertical transportation industry to inform and share lessons learned, building upon the foundation of those who have gone before to inspire the next generation of elevator careers.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Today our guest is Jeff Smith.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff started his career in new installation and modernization sales with Tip ⁇ Cruff Elevator in Richmond, Virginia.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Over the past 20 years, Jeff has held various sales and sales leadership roles and has also spent time in PL.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff is currently the regional business development manager with Smart Rides Engineering for much of the Northeast.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff is full of enthusiasm for the elevator industry and is passionate about the customer experience and helping develop the next generation of industry experts.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff, welcome to the show.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's my pleasure to be here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's my pleasure to get to talk to you.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we've we've been talking for years.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was what 10 years ago that we first talked.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a while.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it's uh it's a pleasure for me to be able to dig a little deeper into your career.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm just curious how you got started in the elevator industry.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Strictly by accident.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I don't want to say I fell into it because you know that that would make us think terrible things in this industry.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: But honestly, I had a buddy whose dad boated with a guy in the elevator business in Richmond where I grew up, and uh he heard he needed somebody and uh thought I'd be a good fit.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you were what just finished up college or where were you in your no?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was working, I was honestly I was working for Sprint in their consumer markets group.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so already had been doing sales for years.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so somebody needs a salesman, it's like, hey, here you go.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hire Jeff and see what he can do.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look, who knew you sold elevators?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Who knew that was a thing?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right at all.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right came with the building, right?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when you when you got into the elevator industry, how how long before you I mean, initially, did you even think, uh, do I want to do this?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Sprint at least is a known entity.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I know what a phone is, know what a sell out.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, honestly, I was commuting 70 miles each way between the West End of Richmond and Charlottesville.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, being offered a car and a cell phone and a and a laptop and you know, personal use of a company car and good money and opportunity, good benefits.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was just something that felt like a good opportunity.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why not in that point?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I was still young, I was mid-20s.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, yeah.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you get in, you start going.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: How long before it starts to click?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, dang, this is this is cool.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I can I can keep doing this.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely a couple months before you really felt like you knew anything, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some of that was dozing off at the desk reading these giant manuals that got set down in front of me and the hey, read this.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you get eight pages in, and you might as well have been reading a book at night trying to go to bed, right?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, most of it just kind of happened organically through, hey, you know, I went straight into new installation sales, and I had a couple days training with a rep out of Virginia Beach at the time, but he was great.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: We we still we're still in communication now, 21 years later, but uh it was really kind of just feeling my way through it.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look, at the end of the day, new installation sales always seems to have this, I don't know, this everybody's scared of it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: If they didn't come up through it, nobody wants to touch it, they think it's mystical.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're reading specs, you're looking at drawings, and you know, you're kind of playing with fixed variables with most of the equipment.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, how long before you felt like you could really yeah, just have your confidence and enough to say, okay, hey, I can I can do this, I can go sell this.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, luckily coming up in Richmond, it wasn't a high-rise market.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you come up with hydros, you know, MRLs weren't really a thing back then in the early 2000s.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, hydraulics and some traction cars, I would say I probably felt pretty good in three to six months, you know, but it it got, I would say it's kind of leaps and bounds.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever played ping pong.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you could you could be amazing at ping pong until you run into somebody that's at a different level and you can barely score a point, right?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can't return a serve.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like the elevator business goes like that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just big jumps where all of a sudden more and more stuff just starts to make sense.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you ask the right questions, you absorb it, you assimilate it in your knowledge base.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, there's definitely been multiple leaps in my career.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, oh, now all this stuff makes sense.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now all this stuff makes sense.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you just get like at some point, it's like, okay, I feel like I've got the whole Richmond market, and this is getting boring.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe time to move to something else.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how it went for you?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, actually actually I was playing golf with, I guess, a district manager, maybe regional VP at the time.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were at a WM Jordan outing down in Williamsburg, Virginia, and he mentioned needing somebody in Philadelphia.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, me, I'm like, hey, that sounds cool.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'd go to Philly.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, a couple months later, I was in Philly.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Was that with the same company, or or did you start with uh I know you were with TK in Philly, right?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So who did you start with them as well?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I mean, my entire time actually with an elevator contractor was with TK.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's only been last what year, even at Smart Rise, correct?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, last 10 or 11 months, correct.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me about some of your your mentors.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it sounds like you know, drinking out of a fire hose, learning fast, learning a lot, feeling like you don't know anything along the way.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: But then who were some of the people that really kind of helped get you grounded?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all along the way, you know, branch managers, district managers, you know, people that today I would call friends, you know.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Don Wilson, my first branch manager.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a ton from him, just talking through stuff, looking at stuff together.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um Catherine Byshewski, Bill Applebaum, Scott Dressel, you know, people I work directly with a lot, Brad Jaster, Pete Nelson, you know, guys I had a lot of one-on-one time with.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Schroeder, honestly, to this day.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Still a mentor, still a friend.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: We still talk regularly.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's cool.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: That that is one of the things I think is coolest about the elevator industry is how many people come and stay, make it a career, and and so it it really does become a community of people that you can continue to call on, continue to talk through, and then you see them at events throughout the year, or you, you know, you go out of your way to you go out of your way to bump into them when they're in town to grab lunch or dinner to catch up.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what you do.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Which, in my experience, doesn't happen in most other industries.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was my experience until about 12 years ago when I started recruiting in the industry, was that this is a different world.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Elevators, I've never seen anything like it, in other words.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tiny big world, right?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we do really interesting things in a niche market.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the industry as a whole is tiny compared to most industries, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, people that do it do it forever.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's a passion or if I don't know, you just don't see your way out of it, you know.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And not that that's bad, because I don't think any of us feel trapped.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You it's just becomes part of you, I feel like.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the symbiotic relationship.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: You you come to love it.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how long do you feel like I mean, you talked about, you know, kind of getting your your feet under your butt how long before you really said, Man, I I love this, I don't think I ever want to leave.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: I honestly think that happened really fast.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I can't see myself in another industry at this point.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say I've felt like that for most of my career.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um tell me what what is it that you love the most?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: What what is that that thing, if you will?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I like being part of a team.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I like working with people.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I like learning, I like solving problems for people that they don't know they have, right?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I like asking questions people don't expect, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most impactful questions I've ever found is, you know, say you're in a D scope meeting or a buy meeting, and you're kind of done, and you look at the decision maker and you say, if we're not successful on this project, winning this project and getting this work with you, what will the winning company have done differently than we did?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what what what will have differentiated the winner from from the losers?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I I actually find most people find it to be a really thoughtful question.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't really ever gotten an answer from them, though.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was gonna ask you if you if you use that question to to win the bid.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you ask them that question, it's kind of like you're throwing it all out there.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Here's your chance to let us know what we need to do to succeed.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, full disclosure, that one has not won me a job yet.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of fun.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you you talked about solving problems.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: What would you say are some of the biggest issues facing the elevator industry today?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think people have good conversations.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I think people just print specs.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Was it I don't think people talk through what's important to you about this elevator, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need on this elevator?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, are you printing a spec off somebody's website, you know, or you're hiring a consultant?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But did we really think through what's important to you?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have what, what will the impact be?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know that most people even know what's available.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: What why would you say they're not having those conversations?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that's that's not happening or or is getting in the way of that?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: It just seems like so many specs we see, regardless of where they come from, are rinse and repeat.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: It seems like they're photocopies.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've changed the elevator numbers, maybe they change the capacity and speed, but everything else is kind of generalized and specific, but but generalized.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: What what could you do better if or could be done better if those conversations were had?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: What would be the net effect difference?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think people would get a better benefit out of their elevators.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think they wouldn't spend more money than they needed to, right?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Look, there's a time when a pre-engineered elevator is perfect, and a pre-engineered elevator is great in most markets, right?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-engineered elevators are rarely the way to go in New York.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:26
  unknown: Okay.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if for no other reason and there's just not enough space, right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is smaller in New York.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But in most of the country, I don't know why you'd spec a custom elevator.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you're is that what you're seeing a lot of right now?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know you were you were in Philly before, so maybe maybe I mean it's it's it's all over the place, right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Almost almost everything in New York has a consultant.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think that's almost a requirement of financing at this point.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's complicated.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it sounds like maybe just just not enough, like you say, not enough questions being asked, not enough understanding, perhaps, of of what the options are to get the right machine in place.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's all of it, right?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fixtures, it's features, it's functions, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a what's going to be important to you, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Look, there's some people out there that spec some really smart stuff.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and when you talk about pre-engineered elevators, you're usually talking about a specific platform rating, right?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, service elevators, you probably don't want that platform rating.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Even if it's a passenger car, it doesn't have to be a freight.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: You probably want a freight loading sill.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: You probably want a freight-rated platform, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because at some point in time, you're gonna have a big piece of equipment that's got to get up to the top of the building that's got to get replaced.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You probably want that on there.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people don't really think through the height of cabs.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people don't really think through the height and arrangement of doors.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think I think I see some really complicated security specs that would be solved very simply with destination-based products, and and they're not usually addressed that way.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Destination is just a touch screen, it might as well be your iPhone.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got one.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So so back to my question a minute ago, do you feel like that's one of the biggest issues facing the industry then is just not having a good conversation, right?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's a I think it's a miss because I think a lot of people feel like they have to almost work against the people that they should be working with.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like there's a great partnership approach, and that's really the way I try to approach everything.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, we've walked into meetings before and said, no, we didn't bid your spec.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we bid to you.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's important to you?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to buy?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are the key things we need to do?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And why and why, right?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you why?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: What are you trying to accomplish?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we typically won jobs like that.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're you're you're thinking more deeply about what is it that you're accomplishing than the people paying the bill probably don't maybe they just don't know.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they don't know what's possible.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know what you don't know.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: What are what are some of the uh issues, other other issues you see facing the industry?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Talent.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it's not a it's not a sexy industry.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: You don't go set up at a career fear, career fair uh as an elevator company.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter what banner you're carrying and you know have kids flock to you, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not Facebook, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I did several of them uh over the years.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you can you can engage when you got the opportunity, but everybody was stopping at the big name companies, even UPS, right?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to work the big brown box, correct?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they see an elevator company and they have no idea what to think.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and and don't get me wrong, there are definitely places where companies have done a really good job over a long period of time partnering with universities, but there's some great exchange there.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's not a recognized, desirable industry, right?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: No, unless, yeah, unless somebody in your family, grandpa, dad, you know, has has told you, then there's there's in my experience, zero recognition, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I just I would have no way of knowing that.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um you're right.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: I and I see that a lot.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I'm the on the recruiting side of the business, but it seems like there's always a shortage of of quality talent.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Every company seems to have that that issue.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I and I do think there are a lot of things being done to try to solve that, but uh, but at the same time, you you've got generations retiring and taking 50, you know, 40, 50 years of knowledge with them out the door.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's uh I think that's a big, a big challenge for sure.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you've got so many, so many independents growing and expanding, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they generally employ more people based on revenue and unit count than the OEMs do.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and they're starting to pull up a bunch of that talent, you know, that the that the OEMs used to add.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So there's actually a need for more and more talent, but it it's definitely you you're not getting the interest at the same level you have the need for sure.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, current uh unemployment levels probably aren't helping that.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't understand people seem to vanish during COVID.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, how can everybody have problems with staffing, you know, just after two years?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, who knows?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's no talent in the restaurant industry anymore either.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had we had to wait for an hour just the other day at a restaurant, and um, I was looking around, like half the tables are empty, and they're just like it's it's a staffing issue.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have the people to to go to the table.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Or like the police in New York, they're standing around staring at their cell phones.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're on the subway platforms, but they're staring at their subways, laughing at each other.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're staring at their cell phones, rather.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Understood, understood.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you this if you if you were to wave a magic wand, what's one thing you would improve in the elevator industry?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a big question.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um probably the amount of time that the typical employee spends customer facing.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of companies get lost in measuring and talking about measuring and forecasting and looking at past results, and there's not enough time spent doing.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you said typical employee, and maybe that's just an average thing.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: I was just I was caught by that term typical because what I what I saw in my brain was you're talking about everybody being more customer focused, not just the salespeople, but the mechanics and the project managers and even the admin and the office staff and the engineers and and the finance team get to know your customers, is what I heard.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and you heard the right thing, right?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where the independents have really been successful over the years, is you know, having been involved in some MA's over the years, and you bring these companies in and you start to get to understand the customers a little bit, and whether the MA is successful or not doesn't really matter, but you start to realize that they didn't just know their mechanic, they didn't just know their sales rep, they knew the superintendent, they knew the ops manager, they knew the owner of the business, and you know, they knew the finance person by name, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they probably knew the project manager if they'd ever been involved, maybe a project engineer.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just it's a different relationship, and everybody could do that, but not if you're married to your computer, staring at things that you can't do anything about.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you can do something about a relationship, right?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, you can do something about getting to know people.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: When you the reason I chuckled it just now was uh I had a friend that used to work for a you know a pretty big company and he talked about the spreadsheets that you know the more he was in ops leadership, but the the bigger the company got, the more spreadsheets they wanted him to comb through and and you know put in the all the KPIs and all the numbers.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to be on the out with my people, I don't want to be staring at a spreadsheet all day.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, did you really hire a great field guy to stick in behind a desk?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or did you hire him to make sure your jobs made money?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't make sure your jobs make money from behind a desk.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was that was always his thing.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um so I like to have my I'm sorry, I didn't mean to speak over you.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, go on, go ahead.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I always like to have my ops counterparts in closing meetings, in scope meetings, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: We used to like to bring project managers into those meetings.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's show everybody the team, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's get everybody talking before it's even a job because if you can get somebody comfortable with your team, you got a really high probability of winning.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're not even talking dollars then.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about we want to work with these guys, right?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're making a decision to work with an organization long before they figure out what's your value prop looks like.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and you say with an organization, it's really yeah, the individuals, right?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Can I sit down with this person?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Can we have a conversation?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Do I like this guy or do I not?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Or guy or girl, right?
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: This this man or woman.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Does it seem like these humans bring value to what I'm trying to accomplish?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's huge.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it work.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got I've got a couple questions for you before we wrap up.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this one I I didn't prep you for it, but I was just curious what are some of the biggest mistakes that you've seen that you think could have been prevented?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what are what are some of the things that you've seen happen that you're like, gosh, that didn't didn't need to be?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh procrastination, right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think that's one of the biggest mistakes I made early in my career.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, caused myself a ton of stress, right?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Caused some project schedules to, you know, probably go longer than they needed to on the front end.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not gonna necessarily say that had an impact on the way the project turned out financially, but it definitely had an impact on the project.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it it made me realize early in my career that you can't procrastinate.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You need to, you need to take care of things.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: What things specifically were you procrastinating?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: What was there a specific thing you're like, man, I don't like this?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Doing a modernization survey, yes, that I was tasked to do by myself on basement geared machines, you know, just honestly the first big mod survey I'd ever done, probably around 2002, 2003.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, big custom job.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, you know, you talk about not feeling comfortable, did not feel comfortable.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, here's a tape measure, here's a bunch of surveys, go go pull these dimensions.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody want to come with me?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's all you.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, all right.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know what?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It that didn't get done really fast.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, ordering ordering components probably got delayed a little bit, you know, but I was young, mid-20s, and uh didn't want to do it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Were you afraid of of just getting it wrong, screwing it up?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what was kind of the I was intimidated, yeah.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I hadn't been walked through a complex survey like that with overhead shivs and and all that stuff, you know.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I if if you looked at the survey sheets at the time, half of it seemed like almost the same exact information, but just slightly different enough that you might accidentally reverse it.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would be intimidated.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: It it it definitely was.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I think the biggest mistake everyone in this industry makes is not communicating well.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think the bar to a great customer experience is really low.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it involves picking up the phone and calling people, I think it involves responding to emails, and I think it involves it, it involves texting, it involves communicating, and it involves all of that, even when you don't have the answer to say, hey, Mr.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Customer, I know you're looking for this, I don't have this.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I will touch base with you every 24 hours until I do, because I don't want you to think I forgot about you and you're not important to me.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: If a customer has to reach out to you five days after they ask for something and you haven't said anything to them, you you failed.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: You've already lost their trust.
• 25:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: What do you what do you think drives that that issue?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think people are scared to not have information um and just to not have the answer people are looking for.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think people are scared to just be honest and say, I don't have this or I don't know this.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Give me 24 to 48 hours and I'll get back to you.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then actually make a task that's going to trigger you to get back to the person and actually follow your task list.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what I heard you saying was just doing that makes it a great customer experience because the customer knows you care, they know they can get a hold of you, they know that you actually did what you said, which is get back to them with it with an answer.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the answer wasn't what they wanted to hear, but just knowing that, oh, hey, there's a person who can walk me through this and and get me in the right direction is the customer knows they're not forgotten, right?
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And even if it's bad news, it at least you're giving them news, at least you're giving them the ability to make other decisions because without your information, they're frozen, they're stuck, they're waiting.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, good news, bad news, medium news.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: One way or the other, they're gonna they're gonna pick a course once they have news, but no news, it's they're paralyzed, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you see that a lot, right?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because you you said everybody makes this mistake, it's it's you know, this far from you know, this much, I guess, to to have a a great customer experience, but we're we're not not doing that as much as we should.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: People don't do it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think people communicate well, and I think those that do are very successful, very successful.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it it it just seems so simple.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe not enough people are told that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe we're we're not training people to do that well enough.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, if the difference between success and failure is calling somebody back, I didn't ask you to do something very complicated, did I?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: I asked you to pick up a phone.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now that it's funny you say that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm and I'm chuckling because you know, I got teenagers, and and when I say, hey, call so and so, they're like, What?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know how to text dad, but but this whole conversation thing that's like antiquated, that's something you do and mom does, but we don't do that stuff unless it's with my friends.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if it's well, even their friends, they it's like they text, but they don't know how to talk.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: My 15 and 17-year-olds are the same way.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I agree completely.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's so much more value in a conversation, right?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's less misinterpretation in a conversation.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one of the other things I find that frustrates me is I feel like people don't actually answer the questions they're asked.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I can write an email with some very specific questions, maybe one, maybe three, maybe twelve.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: At best, I'll get part of an answer to one of them back most of the time.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm definitely not getting a direct response, and that vexes me.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I hear you.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and and I see it a lot even in even my work, you know.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if I send two questions, I sometimes get the answer to one.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: If I but but never two.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's more than two kissing goodbye.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't know if it's an attention span problem or what, but you know, it's crazy.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, that seems like a low bar.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it sound sounds like a very simple tool to, as you said it, to great success.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you're willing to call your customers back, they are gonna reward you in ways that the other person won't get because they didn't call back.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, and it's the difference between bidding jobs and hoping you win them and somebody placing orders with you.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: I I'd rather have customers that place orders with me because they trust me.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a whole lot easier.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, awesome.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, Jeff, this is this is fascinating.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm enjoying it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I also promised to keep a time limit.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I want to ask you the final question is what, and maybe we've touched on it already, but what advice would you give to let's say the next generation of elevator professionals?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe they're new people coming in, um, or maybe just to the industry as a whole.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think we touched on some of it, right?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Communicate, right?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Call people back, return texts, send information, answer questions, right?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the big thing for the next next generation is realize you don't have all the answers.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have all the answers.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I learn stuff every day.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I ask so many questions, I annoy people.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: What I try to do is make sure I retain whatever knowledge and wisdom people give me.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: But the next generation should ask questions, they should be eager to learn.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so many people follow Ed Rivera, right, on LinkedIn, right?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Ed's Ed's little nuggets of wisdom are point on, his feed is amazing, and he's so right.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Asking those questions, reading the books, educating yourself, you're only making yourself better.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're making yourself more marketable, you're making yourself easier to employ, you're making yourself more valuable, yeah.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be interested, you have to develop yourself.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: You really do, it's true.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I've I've had us you know similar conversations with Ed.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that part of his point is you got to believe in yourself enough to just put yourself in it.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can't you can't wait for for somebody to to bring you all the answers.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Go get the answers, and when you do, you'll be extremely valuable.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and then to Ed's point, share them.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, agreed.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Jeff, thank you so much.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a lot of fun.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, man.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I really enjoyed it.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: We'll uh we'll talk again soon.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: All right, sounds good.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Matt.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you for listening to the Elevator Careers Podcast, sponsored by the All Red Group, a leader in elevator industry recruiting.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: You can check us out online at elevatorcareers.net.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Please subscribe, and until next time, stay safe.