Latest / The Elevator Careers Podcast / Introducing "Bolt" by ElevatorZip, with Brad Hoersten

Transcript

Introducing "Bolt" by ElevatorZip, with Brad Hoersten · The Elevator Careers Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: The whole sales process is kind of like, you know, mechanic spots the opportunity.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: That opportunity then goes to the office.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: The office does their work, then the customer gets the proposal.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the mechanic, of course, follows up.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: What Bolt is is giving mechanics um ownership and power to handle that entire sales process.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, and welcome to Elevator Tools and Tech, a special series from the Elevator Careers podcast, where we spotlight the latest innovations, tools, suppliers, and technology driving the vertical transportation industry.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: In each episode, we sit down with the creators, engineers, and solution providers who are helping elevator companies work smarter, safer, and more efficiently.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: This episode of Elevator Tools and Tech is brought to you by Elevator Zip, creators of Elevator Zip and the all-new Bolt, an AI-powered estimation and proposal tool for elevator mechanics and sales reps.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Learn more at elevatorzip.com.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Now let's dive in.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Brad, welcome to the show.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to be able to talk with you again.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: I I always enjoy our conversations.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm excited to talk about this new software that you're calling Bolt.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so before we dive into that though, tell me a little bit about Elevator Zip and how you got to where you are right now.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, elevator zip is a tool for elevator companies to drive more repair sales.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the main problem that I'm trying to solve is that most, in fact, probably all elevator companies have a surplus of sales opportunities.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning they have more sales opportunities than what they're proposing.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So they could be making a lot of money.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So they're missing some, is what I'm hearing you say.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're missing some, exactly.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, especially when it, you know, this is this is based on my time in the industry.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I would try and get leads from mechanics for things like soft starters, door operators.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mechanics would say that they sent me everything, and then I would follow them around and I would see opportunities at every building we went to.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the opportunities that are actually in the field are many, and what's actually getting to the office is very few.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so so in short, elevator companies could be making a lot more money with repair sales.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the the way to solve that problem with elevator zip is to get mechanics more involved.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's what elevator zip does right now.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's it helps and drives more sales opportunities, like sales leads coming into the office with um you know images and details and capturing that information from the field.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then once, and then um that's that's the first part of the app, which is the field app, and there's a second part of there's a second app, which is a web app that the office users log into, sales reps, operations, etc.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's where they receive the information and communicate with the field.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: How do you motivate mechanics to I mean you you had said I I followed followed them around and there were all kinds of opportunities.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: How have you changed that dynamic so that now they maybe care more or are willing to notice more or submit more or well there's there's a few things that we do.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: One um in the elevator zip app is built around that.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's how to you how do you get more?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a few ways.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We do leaderboards, there's competitions, um mechanics can earn commission and they can see the commission that as it comes through.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: They get notified when commission's earned, things are sold, when they're paid.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's companies are doing like um we have a tool called Incentive Boost, which is like a monthly product campaign where offices can target like double commission or maybe like um a Weber Grill for you know whoever does the most of this type of sale um for this specific month.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And but there's a lot of tools that are in place to drive um to incentivize to friendly competition um and to get more of those leads coming from the office.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it sounds like yeah, they've got skin in the game now, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because if they can actually earn a commission, well that that didn't happen before that I am aware of, right?
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: They did it didn't exist.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, some some companies that we work with did commission in the past.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and part of the problem that we solved with those companies is that they gave commission, but mechanics would send in the lead, and there was they didn't know if it was proposed, and they didn't they weren't able to tie their commission back to the actual sale.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now with Elevator Zip, they the mechanic can send in a lead for like a soft starter or a door operator, and they're notified when it's proposed.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as it's proposed, they can see their commission potential.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So every time they go back to the building, they're looking at their phone saying, okay, at this job, I know that I can earn this much commission for this and this.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna track down the building owner and remind them to buy this upgrade.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, when it does convert to a sale, um, the mechanic is getting a notification that they just earned, you know,$120 on the door operator at some building, and they could track that all the way to their paycheck.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so a lot of companies we work with already have commission.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then also a lot of companies we work with, they're uh turning on commission for the first time.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit more about Bolt then, because uh you've you've got this new product.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is it is it an add-on?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a replacement?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Is it something totally different?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Bolt is um a brand new tool that's an AI first tool.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some capabilities that um mechanics don't have in the field that you know, part of the sales process that has to be done in the office.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So right now, Elevator Zip is really good at getting mechanics to send in those sales leads to the office, capture the information, uh, get the right images, find the opportunity in the first place, send it to the office.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then after it's proposed, it's good for mechanics to, you know, follow up with the building and close the sale.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens in the office, again, there's a second part of the elevator zip app, which is the web app for sales reps.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot that happens in the office, and that's things like checking the contract, whether or not something could be proposed or not, um, calculating the total cost for you know the permit, the material, the labor, um, and then you know, putting it into a spreadsheet to come up with the final sales price.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you have the sales price, putting it on a Word document, converting it to a PDF, and then finally sending it to the customer.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things are not done in the field right now.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and so they're not done by mechanics, right?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're done by sales, sales admins, some somebody else, right?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the whole sales process is kind of like you know, mechanic spots the opportunity, that opportunity then goes to the office, the office does their work, then the customer gets the proposal.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the mechanic, of course, follows up.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: What Bolt is is giving mechanics um ownership and power to handle that entire sales process.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now so now mechanics can find that sales opportunity, they could create an estimate for it, so calculate the price, kind of like the spreadsheet.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: They could convert it to a actual proposal document, send it to the customer, get a signature from the customer uh electronically, all while they're on site in a very quick amount of time.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So just to clarify, you've you've basically taken all of that office work kind of kind of out of the picture.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, still getting done, but it's getting done essentially by the mechanic on the app in real time before they even walk out the door, they they may have a signature.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the things that happen are is it it's like administrative work and a little bit of research that has to happen.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And with the capabilities of AI that we have today, a lot of that could be done on the fly instantly.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So things so so they don't have to go to the office.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can actually just propose and sell them right then and there.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are still things that would take um, you know, very complicated things that would take a little bit, you know, or a lot more research that can't be proposed on site.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But um it would still go through the same process, and it would, and it would, you know, st it would still go to the office as a lead and the office would then run with it.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Are you are you able to show us a demo, kind of walk us through what this could look like?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, you want me to walk you through real quick?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that we're looking at bolt right now, correct?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this so this is bolt.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So this again, I mentioned that there's two products of Elevator Zip before Bolt.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And those were the field app for the mechanic to send in the lead and to communicate with the office, and then the the office web app where the office receives all of the leads and has visibility over what's going on in the field.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: The that web app in the office will never go away.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's just less work to be done in the office.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: This would replace what the mechanics have in their hands today and give them much more capabilities.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we could walk through a quick demo.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um and I'll show you how the AI um walks them through everything and how you can get um a proposal signed and sent to the sent to the customer and signed in in basically under two minutes.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just gonna go ahead and say we're at we're gonna do a um soft starter upgrade.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna send it to uh my customer Sarah Jennings, okay, the mechanic, and I'm with her right now, and I'm at her location at Central Park Tower in New York City.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll hit next.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to do the soft starter on the kitchen hydro that's right here.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm basically halfway done at this point.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening behind the scenes is every edit and every everything that you um modify, AI has visibility over everything you're doing and can make recommendations and can look at the service contract to see if this is actually something you could that you can propose.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we're on step two.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: What would it say if if that was something you couldn't or should would it stop you?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or would it it so you could so right now, um, that's a good good point to bring this up.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the full capability mode.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: So this is probably I'm showing you what you what a mechanic would use, or maybe what you would have a sales rep use after you're positive that they're capable of creating high quality, profitable estimates and proposals.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But you probably put some bumpers on in the beginning.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And in the beginning, you'd probably have mechanics just sending leads to the office, except for the difference is now they're done.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're saying, here's the spreadsheet, here's all the research I did, here's the proposal ready to go to the customer.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then if that same mechanic has a lot of them done and you're like, I'm I'm at the point where I'm confident in it, confident in them, then you could just let them run with it.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you can keep that oversight.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, if if maybe I maybe I starting out, I'm not sure if I, you know, which which mechanics I I fully trust with this just to send it all the way to the customer, but I can keep those those checks in place.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I can look over it.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, this looks great, looks great, looks great.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And like sounds like at some point you could say, you know what, I trust this person, and therefore I can give them permission.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: I may keep the bumpers on somebody else, though.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Is that fair to say?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, yes.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: So in this case, so it knows that we're on the scope of work screen.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna ask AI right now, which we're calling zip.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna ask Zip, how's this look so far?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And here we go.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So a couple quick things that they brought up.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: First, um, they're asking if the new starter will fit in the existing controller box, which is critical because if it doesn't, that will drive up the cost quite a bit.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big deal.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're saying since this is a Greece and oil contract, this is billable.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: So thumbs up, proceed.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is definitely something you could sell.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're giving some recommendations on the scope of work.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, looks like they want to focus on more um more of the benefits.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we're good there.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we can move on to the next step.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the estimate.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So these are all of our this is my material cost, this is my labor.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, four hours team, miscellaneous.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: I got some parking in here, my margin.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And again, a lot of these things could be invisible to the mechanic, like the profit margin and stuff.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: But right now we're looking at this on the the highest um level of I guess uh approval.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So again, the AI has visibility over all of this.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I could say, how's this look?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's not that AI is stopping or making decisions, it's just more of an advisor almost, you know, hovering over the shoulder saying, Oh, hey, is this gonna fit?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, hey, you know, per the contract, yes, this is good and things like that.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that is the rule, and that is how the AI is trained, is not to make any decisions.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, is just to bring up things like, Did you consider this?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is something you should consider.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: For example, uh, as we already saw, the the controller box.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, the this this points out that I'm missing a permit, um, travel time, uh, wire can do it if the box is needed, of course, and they're making some recommendations on the price itself.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we can get into this a little bit more and ask even more questions, but this gives you a general idea that they're it's it's it's helping you every every step of the way.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, it's not making any edits.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it's like you have a superintendent or a sales rep along with the mechanic now with this AI.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So then when we're in the last step, and this is all the details of the proposal.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so you know, proposal number, all these details, and then we're gonna preview it before we send it to the customer.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say we're with this Sarah Jennings right now.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is the proposal, and then we're gonna go ahead and send this directly to them.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: So you you've like you say, you've really cut out a huge part of the the in-office processes.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious, uh, do you have any guess as to whether people in the office are gonna look at this and go, I don't like that.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's threatening, it's scary.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um what what's your take on that?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, anytime there's a shift, um, anytime there's a new thing and a new way of getting something done, I would say that that that could possibly and probably would happen.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think most people would realize that you know, a lot of this stuff could be done in a much quicker way, and they could see the benefit of you know giving a customer a proposal immediately.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: A proposal usually happens after some type of event that happens with the customer on site.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: That could be a shutdown that happened, that could be a safety-related event that happened.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that could just be a conversation between the mechanic and the customer where they say, we noticed you have an old mechanical starter.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever that event is, you want to get them a proposal as quickly as possible because the quicker you can get it to them, the the the in the higher the likelihood of converting to a sale it is.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and especially if if, like you say, if there's a shutdown and we get it going again, well, then it's definitely not as urgent now because hey, it's working.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly, exactly.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's one of the major problems right now in our industry, is that we just have so many sales opportunities.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when you have one sales rep and ten mechanics, and all of these mechanics are sending tons of opportunities to the sales rep, the sales rep cannot keep up with all of them.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And especially some of those smaller things.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: If a sales rep has a two or three million dollar repair sales plan that they need to hit for the year, they're not going to spend much time doing, you know, eight hundred dollar phones or you know, twenty five hundred dollar detector edges or six thousand dollar two.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: So there's many of these small things that are extremely profitable that the mechanic could send directly to the customer immediately.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if if the sales rep's not getting to those things, because they probably shouldn't, because they're not going to meet their hand by getting thousands of phones sold, um, then the these things are getting delayed and they're not getting sent to the customer.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the likelihood of it converting to a sale 30 days after that event is much, much lower.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, this I'm this is exactly what the customer sees.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they could approve this electronically right now.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can sign for this and hit approved, and now the mechanic just completed the entire process of the estimate, the proposal, sending it to the customer and getting a signature.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: What before they even leave the job.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think I think what I'm seeing, and and from you know, from what you're saying, you you gave the example of one sales rep.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've those folks need to be going out slaying bigger, you know, bigger lions, whatever, dragons, right?
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: They need to be, you know, getting new customers.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: They need to be, you know, working on some bigger opportunities, perhaps, than than some of this this smaller stuff.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if yeah, if you've enabled this process with the mechanic and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, it's almost like they can go from you know doing an inspection or or fixing the the shutdown to sitting sending the proposal, it's like they could show up the next day with their tools, as long as they have the parts and and be doing this work.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's actually a ton of work right now that could happen.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many times the mechanic is is on site and they're fixing something and they just can't get it back in service.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they could just say to the customer, you know what, I could stay for three hours, but I just need you to sign this proposal.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they could just sell three hours of overtime, and the mechanics, mechanics would love that because they're gonna get double time for that amount of time.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the customer loves it because they just want things to happen now.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I just want it working.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the the sales reps and everyone else in the organization would like it too, because you don't want to waste time on these small, low-value things.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: They should just get done quickly.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's a lot more things the sales rep can focus on that are going to move the needle in a much bigger way instead of these smaller things that could hand that could be handled pretty quickly.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and so tell me, I mean, in a typical, I guess we would call this a repair, uh, perhaps.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I know that there's probably different categories of of repairs, but um, how how long have you seen some of these proposals take by the time the mechanic sends the information to the to the salesperson in the office and they turn it around and you know, all of that.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: How does that how long does that take?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it the the average time uh based on the information that we have is typically around somewhere between two and four weeks.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um now that varies quite a bit between different companies and organizations, but there's definitely a bottleneck in in getting proposals out the door.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's a good problem that every elevator company has because that just means there's way more sales opportunities and and uh a way to make a lot more money right now that they're not taking advantage of.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um so three weeks is normal.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that assumes, I mean, you you had talked about you know the priorities, and maybe the salespersons, you maybe it's maybe they're trying to, yeah, work on a really big deal.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so these these little ones could sit and languish for for even longer if if there's just not enough attention on them.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and what you're doing is what it looks like is you're you're really putting this power back into the hands of the mechanic to just kind of shorten that whole process.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: There and this is this is based on my experience selling repair when I work for multiple elevator companies.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: My time um working at elevator zip, which is just focused on repair.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking mechanics, there are many, many mechanics that have been frustrated with me when I was a sales rep, and many mechanics that I speak to that are frustrated that things are not getting proposed fast enough.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's and even worse, there are customers that are that feel the same way.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Things are not getting proposed fast enough.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or, or sometimes they're feeling that, you know, why are things failing inspections?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I should have got a proposal before that it failed an inspection.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: But everybody wants the proposal to happen and get to them quicker, especially the customer.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and everyone knows that that is the best way to have it done.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Every plumber that shows up to your house is able to send you a beautiful estimate and you could sign it right then and there.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in the elevator industry, there's so many kind of hurdles that are in place that the elevator industry hasn't done it yet.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: But now with AI, it's possible.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Very cool.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I chuckled because uh I remember I uh have had a roof leak years ago and and this roofer came, he climbed up on my roof and he's standing, you know, two stories up staring at me.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: He and he's basically negotiating with me, right?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: If I have to come down, it's gonna cost you like hundreds of dollars more than if I can fix it right now.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, what it was just yeah, obviously, in his mind, it's it's worth it, right?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: But but there was a little bit of pressure in that sale, and I was just remembering that that experience.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it's almost like the the mechanics now have the ability barring that that I can't get the parts, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it assuming I can, then there's no other obstacle and I can just make this happen.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: That that's so funny that you bring this up because this actually came from a company that we're working with us on right now, and this particular guy said that he wants to basically have his mechanics just try and sell as much overtime as possible, and he wants them to use that same tactic, which is I'm here right now, this is shut down, I could fix this right now and stay a little bit more time, or I can come back.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you don't sign this, I can come back on Saturday or Sunday.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is like on a Friday night.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right, it's gonna cost you a lot more.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then it's gonna be travel time and everything else.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you sign it now, I am here, I could spend a few more hours, and there's a good chance that I can get it done.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So this that something similar came out of a of a conversation that I had as well.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of wisdom in that, right?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm here and I have what it takes and I just need a little bit more time, why wait three more weeks and and and have to, you know, charge charge more ultimately.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So most sales in the elevator industry will not fall in that category.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, you'll you know, you have to you get the right materials, you have to a team of of guys to do the work.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um so most would not happen that way.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: But still, if you could just get the proposal to the customer quicker, you're definitely gonna sell a lot more.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and I mean, obviously, you've seen that over the last several years running, you know, elevator zip, and you and you had told me, right, that there are a lot more opportunities, there's a lot more getting proposed, there's there's just a lot more, you know, you're planting a lot more seeds, you're gonna see a lot more things sprouting.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh this is this obviously is shortening that cycle and and just kind of you know bringing it uh much much quicker is what I'm seeing.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm curious.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if if uh what what's kind of the learning curve?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, is there yeah, the demo was seems pretty straightforward, but is there a learning curve if I'm a mechanic to okay, now I have the ability to do this whole process, and and where would you say what what would you say is the hardest thing about that?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I guess so anyone that uses the elevator zip app right now uh would probably be pretty familiar with how this works.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this would just basically it's almost like taking the whole the same process that they're using right now, but uh you know, handling the office part as well.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so to to train something like this, it's probably just gonna be, you know, looking at um the results and like I said before, putting bumpers in place to make sure that mechanics are creating proposals and they're getting sent to the office first.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of like the phase one.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you realize that mechanics can send them to the office and they're all pretty quality, then you could um allow them, you know, basically turn on that that capability to send it right to the customer.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe you only allow them to send 15 different like templates.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I just want to let you sell prints, pit ladders, soft starters, and a handful of other things, and that's all you could do now.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next phase would be like, okay, now I'm gonna let you do anything.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, as long as it's below this threshold, like below you know,$30,000 or$40,000, you can go out and and just sell it.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I trust you at this point.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: I trust that the AI is gonna coach you to do the right things, and in the end, we're gonna end up making a lot more money than we would have otherwise.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is I'm just curious.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, just just uh imagining you know being a a business leader and and just kind of releasing this into the hands of your your frontline team.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess they do that with with sales folks already, right?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just kind of one one more step removed.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um do you do you ever get people saying, yeah, that's that's a little too much, or um, I'm afraid to to kind of hand over that ability, or or is it more like open arms, no, give it to me right now, kind of thing?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's you know so you know, I'm I'm sure there's there's gonna be some companies that would say something along the lines of, I don't want my mechanics focusing on sales.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I want them to focus on solving the customer's problems and getting elevators back in service, etc.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is you know, taking care of the customer is, you know, making those recommendations.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Equipment doesn't last forever.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: You need to start giving customers options and allowing them to budget for things.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the true way to take care of your customer is yes, getting elevators back in service as quickly as possible, but also saying, look, we got it back in service today, but I noticed the following few items that you really need to consider over the next six months, you know, one year or two years.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, like I said, it's it's it's a big shift in an organization, and um I I I think I think it'll be good.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I I like the way you said that because what what kind of dawned on me is this little light bulb going off over my head that that you really are not just empowering the mechanic, but you're really empowering the customer because once they realize that that Bob the mechanic is here and and he can give me a proposal and I can look at it and I can, you know, maybe I've got the budget.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe if I don't spend it this year, it's gonna be gone.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It really empowers them to take a more active role in in upkeep of their own equipment.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, they may be wanting to, you know, to talk to the mechanic and say, hey, tell me what's going on.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know a lot of times with my vehicles, right?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if they're proposing something, you know, I I don't know.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna pay for it, you know, and you probably got a lot of customers like that that I'd rather invest now than then deal with the the aftermath if I don't.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the the best, like I said, the best thing is to give options and it's all about timing too.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: You want to propose things as quickly as possible and whenever the conversation happens, because if something fails later on and you haven't proposed it yet, you don't want to just follow up with a proposal like you know, they kind of get mad at you in that case.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you've proposed it and planted the seeds ahead of time, the future failures help close the sale.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if I wanted to get my company started now, A, how long would it take?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what's kind of the process?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're still figuring out the the exact process with all of this, um, because this is so new, but it's going to be very similar to an elevator zip rollout.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: So the bolt rollout, which again is our AI product that I just showed you, a bolt rollout would probably be um, you know, anywhere from launching a phase one would take about a day or two.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And really that's just giving us um the customer list um and a few other details that will help help you set up.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um if there's any mechanics that you want to give them, you know, the top level approval or permissions, then you know, it's just figuring out those.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's just having mechanics uh create some leads or create some proposals and send them as leads.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: So um a rollout could take so kind of like the phase one would be like a you know a week, um, and then a little bit more training another week.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd say two weeks.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so if if I wanted to sign up today, or you know, what would be the first step?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: Who would you know, how would I reach out?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: How would I kind of get that ball rolling?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go to elevatorzip.com and there's a big button that says book a demo.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: You could book a demo there.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll show you you know, a much more thorough demonstration of this.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Answer any questions that you have.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you could also email me at info at elevatorzip.com.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: You could find me on LinkedIn, but the main thing is just go to elevatorzip.com and uh book a demo.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right, this is exciting.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it feels like it's going to be uh a bit of a a game shifter as far as you know how a lot of the the work gets proposed and and completed and and um obviously we'll we'll have to wait and see.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you for being on the show today.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've enjoyed it and uh you know wish you the best as you continue to build your business.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for listening to Elevator Tools and Tech from the Elevator Careers Podcast.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Please subscribe or visit us at youtube.comslash at elevator careers.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: And please remember to visit Elevator Zip, creators of Elevator Zip and Bolt, the AI-powered estimate and proposal tool.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: You can find them online at elevatorzip.com.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, stay safe.