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How Contractors Can Win with Live Video - James Hatfield · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Business Builder Podcast.
• 0:02
  We've got the special guest today, James Hatfield.
• 0:05
  He's a Chief Revenue Officer of Live Switch.
• 0:07
  How you doing today James? Doing great, Derek.
• 0:09
  Thanks for me on the. Show right on.
• 0:11
  Super excited to talk with you James.
• 0:12
  You've done some amazing things in the industry and really lots
• 0:15
  to dive in here. Can you give us a little bit of
• 0:17
  a snapshot of of your journey, you know, climbing ladders.
• 0:20
  You've been in the home services business before to, you know,
• 0:23
  cofounding billion dollar company.
• 0:25
  You speak about your your journey.
• 0:27
  Through that all, yeah, I come from humble beginnings among
• 0:29
  grandfather didn't even graduate high school because his dad died
• 0:32
  young. So he had to use the oldest in
• 0:33
  the family and drop out get a job and help put food on the
• 0:36
  table. So that can't imagine that a 16
• 0:38
  year old doing that, but he certainly did.
• 0:39
  And then my father's self-made guy build his own home.
• 0:42
  I come from blue collar builders and they my grandfather wanted
• 0:45
  me a painter after I got educated after high school.
• 0:48
  And so that's what I did after high school opened my business.
• 0:50
  You know, I had to find a way to put food on the table for my
• 0:52
  family and I had multiple crews and power washing painting
• 0:55
  companies and as well on my way. And I thought I'd be a business
• 0:58
  owner in that space and home services for the rest of my
• 1:01
  life. The problem I had was when I
• 1:03
  went to the bookkeeper, they would speak English to me and
• 1:05
  I'm like, I don't understand a word this person saying.
• 1:07
  And I'm like, that's not good. So I wanted to be a bit more
• 1:11
  business savvy cause a lot of us who are good at building things
• 1:14
  sometimes find that we're accidental business owners and
• 1:17
  then we really need help with process optimization operations
• 1:20
  and then finance and legal and all that fun stuff.
• 1:23
  And so I figured I needed to, especially around money.
• 1:25
  I wanted to be educated. I didn't want someone to take
• 1:27
  advantage of me. And so went back to state school
• 1:29
  then and as I was graduating, a guy who was running landscaping
• 1:32
  companies was doing the same thing and he built a technology
• 1:35
  that could read an income statement balance sheet.
• 1:38
  That's over 20 years ago before AI and all the stuff we talked
• 1:40
  about in these days. And it would basically help with
• 1:42
  the problem I had. You could put my financial
• 1:44
  statements in and out, would pop up plain language report on how
• 1:47
  he's doing. And he asked if I wanted to sell
• 1:48
  it. And that got me off the ladder
• 1:50
  and in the technology. I never intended to be there.
• 1:53
  And it took me on a wild journey, which I know we'll talk
• 1:55
  about more, but I'm not your typical tech guy.
• 1:57
  I have lived my life on a. Ladder.
• 1:59
  Yeah, great that you can bring both worlds together and you
• 2:02
  know, you understand the kind of unique side of of running a home
• 2:06
  services type business, you know, boots on the ground, up on
• 2:08
  a ladder, real world kind of stuff.
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  And then bring that over to the tech side and and help
• 2:13
  contractors, you know, for the better.
• 2:14
  What So, you know, that was the natural kind of progression.
• 2:17
  There's a lot to unpack there. Do you maybe want to talk a
• 2:21
  little bit about the financial stuff because I feel like it is
• 2:23
  super important and like you said, myself included, you know,
• 2:27
  I was used to doing work with my way up and when I started my
• 2:32
  first business really didn't have any knowledge of
• 2:35
  bookkeeping, accounting, finances.
• 2:37
  It always very abstract and and kind of Gray.
• 2:40
  So what are some maybe like key points on the financial side or
• 2:44
  some clarity that you can? Bring to that.
• 2:45
  Yeah. So, you know, as I got more, you
• 2:47
  know, the understanding of the numbers, I could speak the
• 2:50
  language. And I had a business partner now
• 2:52
  who wanted to sell this software.
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  And he said, hey, can you, can you help me sell it?
• 2:56
  And I'm like, yeah, I can. I can sell.
• 2:58
  I'm happy to pick up phones. I'm happy to knock on doors.
• 3:00
  I'm happy to go to conferences, whatever it takes.
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  And so we took that from an incubator.
• 3:05
  We were nobody. We turned that into an Inc 500
• 3:07
  company for three years, meaning one of the fastest growing
• 3:09
  companies in America for three years.
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  And eventually we had a big exit and now it's a multibillion
• 3:13
  dollar company with a B. So that worked out really well.
• 3:16
  And things that I take in all my businesses, as I've found in
• 3:19
  nonprofits now and other businesses that I start, is that
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  financial acumen is so important.
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  It's so important for a business owner to understand their cash
• 3:28
  flow. So one, they can make sure all
• 3:29
  salaries are hit, that they can grow and expand as they need to,
• 3:32
  and also as they think about when it's time to wind down and
• 3:34
  hand the business off, that's going to be the first thing and
• 3:37
  the most important thing that people are going to be looking
• 3:39
  at. So get your house in order with
• 3:41
  your numbers. It will pay incredible
• 3:43
  dividends. And I hate to see when business
• 3:45
  owners have left their finances to get a little bit dusty or
• 3:48
  they have left it off on the sideline because it really comes
• 3:51
  to hurt them. So I would say one key take away
• 3:53
  from today's show is get your financial house in order as fast
• 3:56
  as you can. Even if you just go get your
• 3:58
  first bookkeeper or fractional CFO or a CPA or all of the
• 4:01
  above, get your mind on your money.
• 4:03
  Yeah, great advice and so critically important and so easy
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  also not to do it as a business government when things get busy,
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  like, you know, those immediate things like the project, the
• 4:14
  clients, sales, whatever it's it always seems high priority.
• 4:17
  But the financials, you know, it's going to catch up with you
• 4:20
  sooner or later if you're not watching it.
• 4:22
  As far as getting good advice and getting those financials
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  place you mentioned like a bookkeeper, which I think is
• 4:27
  essential because as a business owner, unless you're in you're
• 4:30
  like first couple months and just starting out, you, you
• 4:33
  really need someone else that no one was off too.
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  But how can how can a contractor educate themselves?
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  Like what would be a good resource or person to talk to?
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  Yeah, I mean, you definitely wanna start off, which is
• 4:43
  educating yourself. I mean, nowadays you can use
• 4:46
  that windshield time or you know, off the the clock time to
• 4:49
  educate yourself Books. There's plenty of great books
• 4:51
  out there for financials. It's OK.
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  You can turn to a financials for dummies book like you don't you
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  want to get humble first, right. And if you don't know something,
• 4:59
  you don't know something. And then you put those, you
• 5:00
  know, ear ear pods on and go for it, you know, and then from
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  there, what Derek said, I totally agree with when you're
• 5:08
  after your first couple of months, go and get an in house
• 5:10
  bookkeeper overseas. Even don't underestimate the
• 5:13
  power of some of these virtual assistant companies.
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  They have incredible bookkeeper talent and you can have a
• 5:19
  dedicated bookkeeper to your business.
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  If you don't want to go that direction, maybe you're not
• 5:23
  feeling comfortable, although that's why I recommend because
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  it's very affordable. Obviously approaching a CPA firm
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  that does bookkeeping or bookkeeper proper onshore, it's
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  going to cost you a little bit more.
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  But you know, alternatively, if you if you if you really
• 5:34
  understand it, you want to do your own books, you can start
• 5:37
  there, but it probably where you won't finish.
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  Most owners that I know don't do their books.
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  They have somebody do that. And you should, because your
• 5:44
  mind should be on the non administrative things.
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  Like the faster you can put legal issues in the rearview and
• 5:49
  financial issues in the rearview, the better you're
• 5:51
  going to be for working on your business and working on those
• 5:53
  process your team lead, make yourself redundant in sales and
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  all those beautiful things. So really from there, if you're
• 5:58
  more advanced, obviously bringing in a controller,
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  bringing in a CFO, if you've gotten to that point of view and
• 6:03
  having someone who really commands those books well,
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  because there's nothing more sensitive than those financial
• 6:08
  numbers and you want that to be done.
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  Spot on, clean that up. You know, get and if you're all
• 6:13
  tied into one last thing on this, if you'll get all your
• 6:15
  personal finances tied into the business, you want to start
• 6:17
  untying that because the bigger rats nest that is it's going to
• 6:21
  create a lot of problems down the road.
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  So try to get that stuff. Separate yeah definitely the
• 6:26
  more experience I get any you realize the kind of the depth
• 6:29
  and knowledge and even just knowing over the years how how
• 6:32
  things change through a business and and yeah it's super
• 6:35
  important, but but add grass. Let's move on as far as so
• 6:40
  you've you know you you grew this company now worth, you know
• 6:43
  billions and now you've moved on to to growing live switch, which
• 6:48
  is is your new company that that you're part of.
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  Can you talk about that transition and what inspired you
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  to start Live Switch and, and the kind of where, where things
• 6:57
  were and where it's going? Yeah.
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  So book recommendation, first book recommendation, I have a
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  few probably on today's show is called buy, then build, buy,
• 7:06
  then build. But we started First off from a
• 7:09
  startup and 90% of startups fail.
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  It's just what it is. So if you can go and buy a
• 7:14
  company that's already cash flowing.
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  So we went and we bought a 12 year old company.
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  This one happened on Vancouver. We know we wanted to stay in
• 7:20
  technology. So purchases about five years
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  ago when we came on the scene, my partner calls me like, hey,
• 7:25
  let's build another large tech company.
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  So I need about a month to be like, alright, here we go.
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  Because you know, you got to come and clean up someone else's
• 7:32
  house first and then built, take your talent and build on top of
• 7:35
  that. So I came in about 5 years ago
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  and I also love building things, you know, back to my roots.
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  So, and this time I sat with our engineers, these are computer
• 7:43
  scientists and back to they were speaking English to me and I
• 7:47
  didn't understand a word. I was like, you guys have to
• 7:49
  dumb it down. It's so incredibly hard.
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  What we bought, we bought a communications company
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  predominantly with a video, live video focus.
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  And we bought it because there's only a few companies in the
• 7:59
  world that did what it did. So we knew we wanted something
• 8:02
  unique, special that we could come in and apply our recipe to,
• 8:06
  so to speak, our playbooks to and grow the company.
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  So I hung out with those engineers learning this
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  communications video platform took me a long time, like 12
• 8:15
  months, probably one of the most in depth, most humbling pieces.
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  But once I understood it, I got a knock on the door from the
• 8:21
  chief of police in Washington, DC.
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  This company, we, I mean, we did the Super Bowl the last three
• 8:25
  years. If you go to MLB ballpark and
• 8:27
  scan a QR code, they put you on the Jumbotron.
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  That's our stuff. During COVID, if you remember
• 8:30
  the NBA bubble and all the TV screens and fans, we powered all
• 8:33
  of that. So hence we work with all kinds
• 8:35
  of governments and medical and professional sports.
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  We had a knock on the door from the Chief Police in Washington,
• 8:41
  DC, to reinvent our nation's 911 phone call of all things.
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  So I had to think about how do I get into a citizens camera now
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  that everybody carries about two or three or more cameras in
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  their pocket? How can I get in without
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  downloading anything and tapping into that live video camera to
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  stream that video feed to a police car, fire truck or
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  emergency medical? And when you're in a compromised
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  situation and you don't have time to think, you're already
• 9:05
  compromised. I had to make it so easy that
• 9:07
  you could do it even when you're working on a few brain cells,
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  right? So welcome at 3:00 in the
• 9:12
  morning, like I got it. We're going to go in through a
• 9:14
  text message. So we're going to send an SMS
• 9:16
  text message while you're on the phone telephony.
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  And I'm going to come in through your text, you're going to tap
• 9:20
  it and then I can get into your cameras.
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  And it creates a point of redundancy.
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  One, you're on telephony and two, you're on video through the
• 9:27
  Internet, right? And now that goes right to the
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  police car fire truck. And so as I was building that,
• 9:31
  it was like, well, who else could use this stuff, right?
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  And the plot continues. I know I'm doing a lot of
• 9:36
  talking here, but this is the bouncing ball continues to be
• 9:38
  interesting. Alright, great.
• 9:40
  Keep your popcorn, guys and gals.
• 9:43
  So the next stop when we had that was like, well, who else
• 9:46
  could use this no app remote assistance technology?
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  And I came across a guy who has taken care of the Tennessee
• 9:52
  Titans NFL football team, 20 years in the FBI.
• 9:55
  This guy is fantastic. I'm showing him all this stuff
• 9:57
  with the remote assistance for emergencies.
• 10:00
  And he said, hey, James, I have the stupidest question.
• 10:02
  Like, what do you mean? He's like, I have a big arena
• 10:04
  here in Nashville and sometimes the trash cans fall over all the
• 10:07
  way across the way and I have to hop in my golf cart.
• 10:10
  Can I just send a text and make him show me so I don't have to
• 10:12
  hop in the golf cart? And that was like the Eureka
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  moment for me. I was like, this is like my
• 10:16
  Nextel walkie talkies and anyone listening that's in construction
• 10:20
  or any kind of contracting goes on.
• 10:22
  I don't even know what happened. Those things, Derek, like where
• 10:23
  did the where the next talkie talkie go?
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  I love that thing, but it's dead.
• 10:27
  I guess. I loved it.
• 10:28
  I was like, this is like next to hockey talking about with my
• 10:30
  eyes instead of just my ears. So the next stop on the journey
• 10:33
  was into home services and through a series of events, I
• 10:36
  got to meet a guy who is the mover of movers.
• 10:39
  Sometime I'm moving boxes of all industries.
• 10:41
  This guy trains. He has big conferences and I'm
• 10:45
  showing him, hey, this is the medical stuff.
• 10:47
  And he's like James, you're sitting on a pile of gold.
• 10:49
  What do you mean? He's like, you should know this
• 10:51
  because you owned home service based companies.
• 10:53
  I'm going to use this for virtual estimating and also for
• 10:57
  remote help with my team. He's like the most expensive
• 10:59
  thing I do is put one of my hourly wage guys and one of my
• 11:03
  trucks just in the hope of winning the business, right?
• 11:05
  Like sometimes I'll get there, we'll quote and the guys like,
• 11:07
  oh, it's that much. I'll just get 2 pizza boxes in
• 11:09
  my friends. Yeah, you know, we've all heard
• 11:11
  that before as builders, right? We're like, good luck.
• 11:14
  Call me when things go sideways, you know?
• 11:17
  And so that set us off on a journey down home services,
• 11:20
  construction, even property management.
• 11:22
  And now we have thousands and thousands of users.
• 11:24
  We're under the hood of things like Service Titan and Jabber,
• 11:27
  and we're connected and integrated all types of
• 11:28
  different systems. And it's been quite the wild
• 11:30
  ride. But that is where we're at
• 11:32
  today. And we've been scaling this
• 11:34
  company with that particular product the last 2 1/2 years.
• 11:37
  And that's how our paths cross. Wonderful gods, that's an
• 11:40
  inspiring story and really just shows the the power of like
• 11:45
  knowing other people, I guess, and then just seeing
• 11:47
  opportunities. I think I can pick that up.
• 11:50
  Something that you're really good at is, is realizing where
• 11:53
  there's there's a fit here and and the use case, I guess for
• 11:57
  for, you know, the home service industry and how game changing
• 12:01
  will be. Can you talk a little bit more
• 12:02
  about specific use cases and in real life scenarios or how this
• 12:07
  is is best utilized by people on the on the?
• 12:10
  Software, yeah, 100%. And not even before I do that,
• 12:12
  you're talking about the power of listening and pivoting, you
• 12:15
  know, and like, oh, this led me the bouncing ball.
• 12:17
  This happened to me in my home service business as well.
• 12:19
  We're painting houses head to toe.
• 12:20
  We're out painting and sure enough, a neighbor walks over is
• 12:23
  like, I don't need a paint job. But my house hasn't been power
• 12:26
  washed in many years. And I see you have a power
• 12:28
  washer cause you always have to power wash the house before you
• 12:30
  paint it. So the paint sticks on the right
• 12:32
  way. I was like, Oh, I can just send
• 12:33
  the guy over. We can probably power wash that
• 12:35
  house in a couple hours. And you know, we'll charge you
• 12:37
  this. And I'm in the South, right?
• 12:39
  So North Carolina, it was getting hot.
• 12:40
  So my guys loved it. They loved playing with water
• 12:42
  guns rather than paint sprayers. And so I launched the next
• 12:46
  business of the power washing, but I think that really comes
• 12:49
  into contact. We gotta be careful not to
• 12:50
  spread our our scope too wide, but anyone running your, you
• 12:54
  know, contracting, construction, home service business, be on the
• 12:57
  lookout for when bits of opportunity might might come up.
• 13:01
  And you're just like, well, that's not really what we do,
• 13:02
  but I can do that and I know how to do it well.
• 13:05
  So I learned a lot about that with any business or nonprofit
• 13:08
  that I run, I'm always looking for to satisfy that customer
• 13:11
  that might lead to some additional cash as well.
• 13:13
  And so the practical, tactical things of now this whole story
• 13:17
  of our technology and how it's being used to your original
• 13:20
  question is it's being used to save trips in the truck and save
• 13:25
  trips in the airplane. If you're doing larger projects,
• 13:27
  it's called speed delete. So nowadays if someone wants any
• 13:29
  kind of work done, what are they going to do?
• 13:31
  They're gonna go little thing called the Internet.
• 13:32
  And now they might not just be going to Google, they might be
• 13:34
  going to AI and asking, hey, I have a project I need done and
• 13:38
  it will start surfacing, whether it's Google or ChatGPT or
• 13:41
  whatever, surfacing up companies with phone numbers.
• 13:44
  So the first thing someone's going to do probably look at
• 13:46
  your reviews. All right, So we can talk about
• 13:47
  that later. After you have enough reviews,
• 13:49
  they're going to make a go to your website.
• 13:51
  I mean, everybody knows this stuff, but then they're going to
• 13:53
  fill out a quote form or give your phone a call, right?
• 13:55
  So when that call comes in or that quote comes in, the first
• 13:57
  thing that you're going to want to do is called race to the
• 14:00
  face, OK? Because your face and not every
• 14:02
  time I've talked to anyone in project management, sales,
• 14:04
  business owners, when the deal gets 4 figures or more,
• 14:07
  someone's going to need to see you before they sign something,
• 14:10
  which is what it is. Now the thing that everyone
• 14:12
  thinks is that they have to see you in person every time on
• 14:15
  property. That is not always the case, OK?
• 14:17
  I've I've seen it change over the last two years that we are
• 14:20
  seeing business 1 without even going on property.
• 14:24
  But that doesn't mean it happens every time.
• 14:26
  Typically what happens is your prospect will fall into three
• 14:29
  bucket. Bucket number one is they have
• 14:31
  no business calling you. They don't have budget.
• 14:33
  They don't have much. It is they're just going to use
• 14:35
  you for free consulting. We want to get to the know as
• 14:38
  fast as possible. So if I can send you a text, I
• 14:40
  can't see your text and you kind of show me the project.
• 14:42
  I can see the project. Ask those discovery questions
• 14:45
  and rule them out and save that trip in the truck.
• 14:48
  So that's bucket one. Bucket 2 are these highly
• 14:51
  informed customers we're talking about customers who already know
• 14:53
  who you are, might be a referral, might already have a
• 14:55
  budget set aside and approved. And really they just want to
• 14:58
  take a look at you to make sure they know that you're and they
• 15:00
  might verbally say, yeah, no, I'm already ready to go.
• 15:02
  And then you're like, OK, great. And then you, you drive out to
• 15:04
  your measurements to do the bidding, everything you need to
• 15:07
  do. But that's that Amazon customer
• 15:09
  is what I'm calling them. Everyone has Amazon Prime
• 15:11
  because they want their packages now instead of two days, you
• 15:13
  want an overnight speed is everything and getting a face
• 15:16
  where they can see you as an owner or a salesperson, whoever
• 15:18
  meets people at the virtual door in the final bucket.
• 15:21
  Is this a great project? It's a large project, like get
• 15:24
  out on property as fast as you can because you see them, you
• 15:27
  see everything, you know it. So those are three buckets.
• 15:29
  That's where it start. And this is all around virtual
• 15:31
  selling as well as virtual follow-ups after you've been on
• 15:34
  property, after you've drafted your proposal.
• 15:36
  You don't always have to go out every single time, especially
• 15:39
  even on the smaller jobs. So that's where things start.
• 15:42
  For sure that makes a lot of sense and you know, live switch
• 15:45
  makes it super easy. I've, I've helped my clients
• 15:48
  with this as well of like you don't always need to meet in
• 15:51
  person. And if you're using e-mail and
• 15:54
  phone, it's just not as effective as you know, obviously
• 15:57
  in person is great, but it's gonna take you an hour to drive
• 16:00
  there and back or two or whatever it may be.
• 16:02
  Or if you're flying, definitely like you can save a lot of time
• 16:05
  and you're still kind of get that face to face back and
• 16:07
  forth. They can show you the property
• 16:09
  or whatever needs to be done. And I think it probably sets you
• 16:11
  apart to a bit from your competition if like you come off
• 16:14
  as a little bit more tech conscious or accessible more
• 16:18
  like you said, you know, have your face on there and just
• 16:21
  builds familiarity for sure. You've talked about like the
• 16:23
  sales, the estimating that early, you know, speed to lead.
• 16:27
  What about things like project management, client experience
• 16:30
  during the project mutation. How does life switch kind of fit
• 16:33
  in? There, yeah, because these
• 16:35
  phones that are in your pocket with three or four cameras are
• 16:38
  now going to change your entire business.
• 16:40
  We call it the customer buying experience from that first sale
• 16:42
  like we've been talking about now to operations.
• 16:44
  So project managers who are managing multiple projects now
• 16:47
  are able to send a text and connect with a live, maybe a
• 16:51
  Superintendent or maybe it's a subcontractor.
• 16:54
  Show me the work. And now everything's tuned up
• 16:56
  for 3rd party assistance. This is not a FaceTime call.
• 16:58
  This is not a conference call. OK.
• 17:00
  This is tuned up. When your project manager sends
• 17:03
  a text to maybe that Superintendent, that
• 17:04
  Superintendent will see them self large and the project
• 17:07
  manager small. That's the reverse of a FaceTime
• 17:09
  call. The project manager on the other
• 17:11
  end though will see everything large on their computer screen
• 17:14
  and it's going to start to record everything.
• 17:16
  You can take remote photos. We even have a laser guidance
• 17:18
  system. So you can take your laser point
• 17:21
  your mouse and start tapping on the screen and guide person
• 17:24
  around. Show me, I'll hold there, walk
• 17:26
  in. Now that you take the camera,
• 17:27
  someone taking the camera out of the pocket, you can get really
• 17:29
  close. Maybe they just did an
• 17:31
  excavation. Maybe there's a problem that's
• 17:33
  going to affect the timeline on the budget and they're going to
• 17:35
  need to communicate that to the customer because the customers
• 17:39
  care about timeline and budget, right?
• 17:40
  So there's going to be an issue. Now they can share that shared
• 17:43
  video that the that the project manager walked the Super around
• 17:47
  in and say and share that. They can share it to insurance,
• 17:50
  they can share to the customer, they can share it to other
• 17:52
  operations, to subcontractors, and also they're documenting the
• 17:56
  work, right? So now they can even put QR
• 17:58
  codes up on site where anyone of the staff member or anyone on
• 18:02
  the team, supers or builders can go and scan the QR code, take a
• 18:06
  video. And now instead of having to
• 18:07
  write out everything they've done, they're taking a video and
• 18:10
  everyone knows the video is worth 10,000 words.
• 18:13
  And that would go right up into the timeline and into the
• 18:16
  project. And now you're starting to
• 18:17
  document everything to cover your backside or when you bury
• 18:21
  something or put a wall up. It's always nice to know and see
• 18:24
  that video that you go back to in store it indefinitely,
• 18:26
  especially have to go if you have to go there a year or two
• 18:28
  years later, right? So these are kind of
• 18:30
  documentation that really helps us project managers manage, you
• 18:34
  know, from the comfort of their own home and then deciding when
• 18:37
  they're going to get behind the windshield or on the airplane.
• 18:40
  And that ultimately as a business owner is reducing my
• 18:43
  bottom line expenses. Yeah, that's really how you
• 18:46
  mentioned the the live aspect, of course, super valuable.
• 18:49
  But as you, as you said, being able to go back later with these
• 18:52
  recordings, I don't know how many times, you know, we've
• 18:54
  needed to figure out where the backing is the TV mount or, you
• 18:58
  know, someone buried a low voltage wire in the kitchen.
• 19:00
  Now we need to find it and dig it out or, or whatever, right?
• 19:03
  So super important for documentation sharing with
• 19:05
  clients, all those kind of things.
• 19:07
  As far as like using it with the, you know, the rest of a
• 19:10
  tech stack that a contractor may have.
• 19:13
  How does the integration or process work when kind of using
• 19:17
  these other tools can be management software or you know
• 19:21
  a cloud storage, things like. That so it different tech stacks
• 19:25
  require different integrations, right?
• 19:26
  So everything we do has an open AI.
• 19:28
  So in some cases we're already bolted under the hood.
• 19:30
  Like with a service Titan, you just hit the on button and we're
• 19:33
  bolted under the hood. Other times I've got smaller
• 19:35
  businesses that are still running on Excel Sheets or
• 19:38
  Google Sheets, you know, they're, they don't have CRM in
• 19:40
  place, Although we do highly recommend, let's get a cream in
• 19:43
  place. Even if you don't, that's OK.
• 19:44
  Within browsers, like a Chrome browser, we have an extension
• 19:48
  that will look for phone numbers, whether it's from
• 19:50
  emails, websites on those Excel sheets.
• 19:52
  And it'll put a little L next to each one of those pieces and you
• 19:55
  just hit click the L and start the call.
• 19:57
  And then everything is saved into the cloud.
• 20:00
  Nothing is ever stored on a customer device or on an
• 20:03
  employee device. That's a liability.
• 20:05
  And in fact, all of the things we do are sock to certified
• 20:07
  because we work with governments.
• 20:08
  That video call is safer than the phone call that you guys are
• 20:12
  on. So if safety is ever issued,
• 20:13
  this is over the top safe. And then everything is stored in
• 20:16
  the cloud. In case, you know, for
• 20:17
  liability, we would no more having to scroll through all
• 20:20
  those photos of all the work and your, your file in the in the
• 20:23
  photos app. That is not good.
• 20:25
  That's not a good thing that it's stored there for your
• 20:27
  business. Or even your team, because we
• 20:29
  want to be able to transfer these videos quickly because of
• 20:32
  large video files because they're not stored on a device
• 20:34
  and they're stored in the cloud. All you have to have is the
• 20:37
  link, the link to the video that you can share with anybody,
• 20:39
  share it with Superintendent, share it with the insurance,
• 20:42
  share it with the customer. And you can send that link in an
• 20:44
  e-mail, a text, or however you want to give it.
• 20:46
  Because we can handle unlimited storage or built on the same
• 20:49
  platforms as like Netflix. So that has global coverage and
• 20:53
  we have global coverage as well. We can take care of the largest
• 20:55
  construction companies, which I have some very large
• 20:57
  construction companies, customers all the way down to
• 20:59
  the mom and pops. Yeah, perfect, super useful.
• 21:02
  And like the the open API so you can integrate and, you know, set
• 21:06
  up automations or whatever you need to do to get the
• 21:09
  information where you need it. So that's wonderful.
• 21:11
  What are some like common mistakes or friction that you
• 21:15
  see contractors starting to use, you know, live video platform
• 21:19
  like like live? Switch the biggest thing is
• 21:21
  taking the phone from your ear and moving it out three feet in
• 21:25
  front of your face and getting on live video, right, because
• 21:28
  some of these the contractors, oh man, video.
• 21:30
  I don't know about this, you know, like someone's looking
• 21:32
  over my shoulder and they only care about that if they have
• 21:35
  something to hide, right? They don't care about so much
• 21:38
  when they when it's not their fault, right.
• 21:39
  If you if you have a documentation where it wasn't
• 21:41
  their fault, if it's something that covers their backside, they
• 21:44
  fall in love with live video. And we're seeing video all over.
• 21:48
  Like I'm sure some of the listeners have taken their car
• 21:51
  into the auto mechanic now and the auto mechanics are now
• 21:53
  showing you proof of work. They're showing you that they
• 21:55
  change the oil, they fill up the tires, they check the air
• 21:58
  filters and it's all on video. You haven't experienced this
• 22:00
  yet. You will.
• 22:01
  A video is disrupting every industry that whether it's
• 22:05
  medical to construction to home services because of these
• 22:08
  cameras in our pockets. So the main point of friction is
• 22:12
  just like anything, you know, hey, they haven't been using
• 22:15
  video in the business and now they are.
• 22:17
  And so training around this stuff.
• 22:18
  I mean, we, I can train your team in 2 minutes to use it.
• 22:20
  This is our stuff is if you can send a text, you can use our
• 22:23
  stuff. That's another thing because I
• 22:25
  live my life on a ladder. I didn't want engineers who
• 22:28
  coded to build stuff 24 blue collar guys like myself because
• 22:32
  I always I always make fun of them.
• 22:33
  Like you guys all have soft hands.
• 22:34
  You've never spent a day on a ladder.
• 22:36
  Like don't we like one click solutions and construction?
• 22:39
  I like my truck to start up with one tap.
• 22:41
  I like tools to start up with one pull.
• 22:43
  You know, I like simple to use, but effective tools.
• 22:48
  And so back to the Nextel walkie-talkie.
• 22:50
  We're always thinking with that in mind.
• 22:52
  And you know, I can train. The sad thing is is they call,
• 22:55
  you know, the construction and contractor industry, the knuckle
• 22:58
  draggers. And I'm like, we're not the
• 22:59
  knuckle draggers, you jokers and the the coders.
• 23:02
  You just make stuff too hard to use.
• 23:04
  You over engineer things like we don't need all that.
• 23:06
  We don't need all the fancy whiz bang stuff like just get it to
• 23:09
  work. That's what we want.
• 23:11
  So that's a. That's a big part of our
• 23:13
  approach. Yeah, keep it simple,
• 23:15
  streamlined. It doesn't have to be
• 23:17
  complicated, right, just useful and get over that kind of little
• 23:21
  uncomfortableness of being on live video.
• 23:24
  It's after I feel like it's it's only a thing like you mentioned
• 23:28
  for people that just aren't used to it or for some reason because
• 23:31
  you know, are used to not have, you know, feel that some sort of
• 23:35
  privacy things gone. But the security is there and
• 23:37
  it's going to save a ton of time.
• 23:39
  It's just it's so common nowadays too.
• 23:41
  I think everyone's you zoom or, you know, Google meet or
• 23:44
  whatever, right? And it's it's really no
• 23:46
  different as as far as like being live on video.
• 23:49
  So moving on to like more of maybe the mission or broader
• 23:52
  piction. You you mentioned helping
• 23:54
  formerly incarcerated individuals become
• 23:56
  entrepreneurs. You talk a little bit about how
• 23:59
  that connects with your mission, the mission with live.
• 24:02
  Switch. Yeah.
• 24:03
  So my partner and I have big We have a couple of nonprofits and
• 24:06
  one of the nonprofits, it's called Inmates to Entrepreneurs.
• 24:08
  We've been putting thousands and thousands of incarcerated
• 24:10
  minimum through our entrepreneurship program.
• 24:12
  In fact, we've hired a few of them into our current business
• 24:15
  here at Live Switch. In fact, it's so popular that it
• 24:18
  became an ABC television show called Free Enterprise and we
• 24:21
  won a bunch of awards for it because the stories are really
• 24:23
  that amazing. And so being I can't even go to
• 24:26
  graduations anymore, it just makes me too emotional.
• 24:28
  But like everybody, we believe in second chances.
• 24:30
  I think we all need second chances.
• 24:31
  I know I did. So being able to serve in that
• 24:34
  way has just been very rewarding for any owners, anyone
• 24:37
  listening, you know, you don't have to wait until you hit it
• 24:39
  big to serve. We started doing this before we
• 24:42
  hit it big. You know, you just put yourself
• 24:43
  out there and you always get back more than you give.
• 24:45
  And organizations like inmates to entrepreneurs or something.
• 24:48
  We're proud to be a part of and privileged to to work in the
• 24:51
  lives of so many people whose lives changed because of just
• 24:54
  learning how to run a business. Yeah, I love that and I I feel
• 24:57
  like it's almost an under talked about part of being a business
• 25:01
  owner in Iran, supernatural almost is to have that.
• 25:04
  Like obviously there's a mission to to grow and be wealthy and
• 25:08
  and prosper and help your family and things like that.
• 25:10
  But when you kind of have this bigger mission that you can sort
• 25:13
  of rally around. And again, you don't have to
• 25:16
  doesn't have to be a huge amount, especially if you get,
• 25:19
  you know, starting out or things are tight, but just having some
• 25:22
  sort of mission tied into your business, whether that's just
• 25:24
  financial or giving back it I feel like you're just going to
• 25:28
  be better as a business person. You're gonna, it's gonna help
• 25:31
  you get through those tough times a little bit more because
• 25:32
  you realize it's not just about, you know, yourself and the
• 25:35
  business, but it's actually about the bigger picture and
• 25:37
  helping people around you and, and, you know, people in need or
• 25:41
  that need second chances or whatever, whatever it might be.
• 25:44
  And it's actually a key component to being an
• 25:47
  entrepreneur is to have these, these overarching larger goals
• 25:50
  and missions besides just, you know, growing and scaling the
• 25:53
  business, which is great, but that's what what can keep you
• 25:56
  sustained and, and help you grow for.
• 25:57
  Sure, some of the best and most powerful business owners I've
• 26:00
  seen have had to have a second chance.
• 26:02
  And most people when we start bringing this up, like either
• 26:04
  brother or, you know, a husband or somebody has been impacted by
• 26:09
  the judicial system and, you know, they did something they
• 26:12
  probably didn't wanna do, you know, and you know, they get
• 26:14
  another chance and they get really resilient and they
• 26:16
  remember where they came from. And especially giving folks, and
• 26:19
  I've heard so many business owners that have given folks a
• 26:21
  second chance to be part of their business.
• 26:22
  And they're the most loyal, hard working, best employees that
• 26:26
  they've had. So, you know, we really need to
• 26:27
  keep an open, you know, be discerning, but you know, give
• 26:30
  people a second chance and you'll be shocked at what they
• 26:32
  can do for you and your business.
• 26:33
  Yeah, fantastic. And yeah, inspiring to to know
• 26:37
  that that's, that's a big part of the business that that you do
• 26:40
  as far as like mindsets, what what's a mindset shift do you
• 26:43
  believe every contractor needs to make in order to scale and
• 26:47
  grow their business? Sustainably when's the last time
• 26:49
  you went on vacation and caney go on vacation and your business
• 26:52
  will still run like a top. If you can't go on vacation for
• 26:55
  more than a day, try a week, maybe even a month if you're
• 26:57
  wild and your business and if it can run and run like a top, you
• 27:00
  have yourself a business. So in order to get there, you
• 27:03
  have to free yourself. So book recommendation #2 says
• 27:07
  making money is killing your business.
• 27:09
  It's a wonderful book to read. It's all about what they call
• 27:12
  freedom mapping and taking it and mapping your process from
• 27:15
  end to end and then having a layer.
• 27:17
  So you might have kind of like a cover page of your process with
• 27:20
  maybe one or two bullets. But then you can double click
• 27:21
  into the process and that process is owned by the person
• 27:25
  that is doing the work. So if it's your sales team, or
• 27:28
  if it's your operations team, or if your finance team,
• 27:30
  everything's documented that way.
• 27:32
  When you have a switch, maybe someone quits and you have to
• 27:35
  hire a new person or you're ready to scale.
• 27:37
  You're able and have everything documented.
• 27:39
  So working with someone like Derek, he can help you with
• 27:42
  these process with operations. I know you can probably get on
• 27:45
  your soapbox for awhile around this, Derek, but what it can
• 27:47
  mean for a business owner, especially if you're in that one
• 27:50
  to 10 million revenue, this is a time to set yourself free and to
• 27:53
  do that and making yourself redundant.
• 27:55
  It's something I always work to do.
• 27:57
  So I was a product officer here at Live Switch.
• 27:59
  I've made myself redundant. I'm actively making myself
• 28:02
  redundant in revenue and it's a good thing as a business owner
• 28:05
  or as someone who is company focused, you're not so much
• 28:08
  trying to race to the top, secure your position, you're the
• 28:10
  most important person. That's a real problem.
• 28:12
  It's called key man problem and a key man problem is a big
• 28:16
  problem and a lot of businesses have it.
• 28:17
  And it's a lot of it comes down to our own personal pride and
• 28:20
  we're worried maybe if I make this myself redundant, they're
• 28:22
  going to open up a competing business or all the worries or
• 28:25
  maybe it's just your own pride. It's getting in the way.
• 28:27
  But I've seen the fastest growing companies, no matter
• 28:29
  what the vertical is when you have an owner and a management
• 28:33
  team that believes in making themselves redundant through
• 28:35
  this type of approach. Derek, do you agree with all
• 28:37
  this? I'm sure I could see you nodding
• 28:39
  and smiling. I'm like I think.
• 28:40
  I'm saying, yeah, you hit the nail on the said couldn't,
• 28:43
  couldn't have said it better myself.
• 28:45
  It's so essential to, I say you as a business owner, you want to
• 28:49
  replace yourself. And part of that is building out
• 28:51
  that process, those systems, the the operations and then
• 28:54
  enabling, being the leader that enables other leaders and and
• 28:58
  their management team and your business to take the ball, run
• 29:00
  with it. And yeah, there's going to be
• 29:03
  hiccups before going to fumble. Things are gonna go, you know,
• 29:05
  left and right, but that's where you adjust.
• 29:07
  And those are the opportunities to then improve your system and
• 29:10
  your process and, and, and be able to grow that business.
• 29:13
  And yeah, the vacation test essentially can you, can you go
• 29:16
  on vacation without, you know, things falling apart or coming
• 29:19
  back to, you know, a huge inbox and, and, and, and mestic clean
• 29:23
  up when you get back or, or things, you know, smooth sailing
• 29:26
  and you can just kind of fit in again and, and plan your next
• 29:30
  vacation. You have a real business when
• 29:32
  you can do that. When you do that, I would say
• 29:34
  you don't have a real business unless you can leave and that's
• 29:36
  what's super valuable as well. And it empowers your people.
• 29:39
  I mean, I can go on and on why this is so important, but we get
• 29:42
  on our own way. You've got to get out of your
• 29:44
  own way. And if you're listening right
• 29:46
  now, I'm challenging you to get out of the way.
• 29:48
  Start making a few things redundant this week.
• 29:51
  Like find a few things you know you can hand off and hand off,
• 29:53
  OK? They won't do it as well as you
• 29:55
  or could they? And if you documented everything
• 29:57
  and have the process, they might even improve your process.
• 29:59
  So just take your pride and back up a little bit, enhance your
• 30:03
  baby off. It's going to be just fine.
• 30:04
  And you'll your future self will thank.
• 30:06
  You definitely and the beauty of it cause every small little
• 30:10
  piece or thing you can hand off your system process, you can,
• 30:13
  you know, document a delegate to somebody else.
• 30:15
  The, the easier the next ones gonna be because you have that
• 30:18
  experience. And you've also freed yourself
• 30:20
  to then focus on, you know, having more time on, on higher
• 30:23
  level and creating, you know, better systems and processes.
• 30:26
  So it's, it's a virtuous cycle. It's not easy and I know this is
• 30:30
  something people struggle with for for years sometimes, but it
• 30:33
  is a worthwhile objective and and the way forward for
• 30:36
  business. So thanks so much, James.
• 30:38
  It's been been a pleasure for sure and honor and you've shared
• 30:42
  so much with us. What's the best way for people
• 30:44
  to learn more about Live Switch or connect with you possibly?
• 30:47
  Yeah, two things. Anyone.
• 30:48
  Listen, I made this promise to Derek that I will personally
• 30:50
  take care of you if you go to LinkedIn and look up James
• 30:53
  Hatfield and live switch LIVESWITCH and reach out, I will
• 30:58
  make time. I literally had a guy reach out
• 30:59
  yesterday. He owns a fencing company.
• 31:01
  We spent an hour together in the fabulous.
• 31:03
  So please, you know, reach out. And I know I'm a challenge for
• 31:06
  people here. Many of you won't, maybe you
• 31:07
  won't reach out, but if you do, I've can give you.
• 31:10
  I'm not here to just sell you some software.
• 31:12
  That's not where I'm I actually care about my other fellow
• 31:15
  business owners, operators and sales.
• 31:17
  Whatever you find yourself and I'm happy to help.
• 31:19
  The second, if you do want to demo the software, just go to
• 31:21
  liveswitch.com, click on demo and say ask for James.
• 31:24
  Just ask for me and you'll circumvent our sales team.
• 31:27
  I love my sales team, but you know you can come right to me.
• 31:30
  I'll make sure that anyone listening gets direct help from
• 31:32
  me personally. Wonderful.
• 31:34
  So we'll put some links in the description of of this, you
• 31:36
  know, video or audio depending where you're you're listening or
• 31:39
  watching. And you can click through to the
• 31:42
  live search website and as well as, you know, reach out to James
• 31:45
  on LinkedIn if you'd like. Yeah, fantastic.
• 31:47
  Really enjoyed the time here. James, any final words of wisdom
• 31:51
  or last thing that you want to say?
• 31:53
  Last thing I want to say is thank you to Derek and I want
• 31:56
  everyone one last challenge. I've challenged you probably 4
• 31:58
  things. I want you to share this.
• 32:00
  I want you if you've been listening to Derek, even this is
• 32:02
  your first time, take the second pause.
• 32:04
  What you're doing right now, go to your LinkedIn or wherever you
• 32:08
  share and or it just with one other person, a coworker and
• 32:10
  say, hey, check this out. They got a lot of value from
• 32:12
  this because the people that give somehow magically, they get
• 32:15
  a lot more back. So just take that second.
• 32:18
  Do that for Derek, please. He's he's really putting himself
• 32:20
  out there to give quality content.
• 32:22
  I'm sure he doesn't make a a fortune off doing this podcast.
• 32:25
  He does it because he wants to share with his industry.
• 32:27
  And so I think the least we can do as a community is share about
• 32:31
  what he's doing. So that's the final word I'll
• 32:33
  say, Derek. Very true Shirt James, like
• 32:35
  myself, is a fellow educator. We're really here to educate
• 32:38
  and, and help contractors with our experience and resources
• 32:41
  and, and things that we do. So go ahead and share that with,
• 32:45
  with other people that you know, get some value out of it.
• 32:46
  Thank you so much, James. And we'll see everybody on the
• 32:49
  next one.