Latest / Booked Out / Brigham Dickinson on Booking More Calls, AI in the Trades, and Coaching Technicians

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Brigham Dickinson on Booking More Calls, AI in the Trades, and Coaching Technicians · Booked Out

• speaker-0: Welcome to the Booked Out Podcast. This is the podcast that ⁓ helps service business owners with the blueprints to scale. I'm your host, Murphy Nadald. Today we're sitting down with Brigham Dickinson. Thanks for coming on, Brigham. Brigham has been coaching and training in the home service industry for 17 years. He's also authored numerous books and is a popular speaker in the home service industry. His company, Power Selling Pros, coaches CSRs and technicians so your customers never go elsewhere. Welcome on, Brigham. Thanks for coming on. speaker-1: My pleasure. For having speaker-0: Tell us how you got here. Tell us about yourself and PowerSelling Pros. speaker-1: ⁓ I've been doing this for eighteen years. So so not an overnight success. speaker-0: off by a year. We gotta we gotta fix eighteen, yeah. It's amazing. It's awesome. speaker-1: Yeah, I'm I'm sure all I'd have to do is just look at LinkedIn and it tells me every year, hey, by the way, you've been doing this for eighteen years. Yeah. This was an accident. Power Slim Pros is a total accident. I ⁓ I had three companies that I was working with. ⁓ one of them, Nearings Plumini and Heating, Troy Nearings called me in and he said, Hey, ⁓ the leads you're generating for us are no good. And the reason why I was saying that was because I was working as a broker for a digital marketing company. speaker-0: Yeah. Well. speaker-1: And I said, What do you mean my leads are no good? He says, Well, they call in and they just want a ballpark price, they just want to know which charts come out, just want to talk to a technician. And I said, Well, yeah, Troy, those are leads. Those are opportunities. They're calling about something you can fix. He says, Yeah, but we're not booking them. And I said, Okay, well, we can either put this on hold or we can train your team on how to book them. He says, Yeah, what do you have in mind? And I said, Well, let's train them. Let's train them on how to book those calls while those customers so that you can actually take care of these customers instead of losing them. Let's not turn it off. Let's let's let's ⁓ turn it up. And and ⁓ he said, Well, if you'll train him, I'll let you continue to do the advertising. And so I said, Cool. And sure enough, his his call conversions went up by 20% that month. And then he referred me to his buddy Tom Tom Roboshot in Boulder Colorado, precision plumbing and heating in Boulder. I don't know if you've ever been to Boulder. Things are different there. Yeah. But it was a good time. And ⁓ in fact, when he talked to me over the phone, he said, listen. ⁓ I want you to come and work with my team. And I said, Yeah, but I've got to do your advertising because that's how Troy paid me is through the advertising. I just trained for fun. And he said, Well, I've got the advertising covered, but I'll pay you to train my team of CSRs. And so I said, Great, let's do it. So flew down there, trained his team, and and then a month after that, it was just it was just kind of month after month. They got together, Troy and Tom, and they said, Listen, let's let's talk to ⁓ Mike Aguiliero of ⁓ Gold Medal in East Brunswick, New Jersey. And ⁓ sat down with Mike. He referred me to twenty seven different companies. And then next thing you know, I'm hiring all my friends. Don't have a lot of them. They all work with me. And ⁓ we've been growing ever since. Just training CSRs and technicians. So we train them one on one, twice a month, using their own phone calls. We train them based on their performance. So somebody could say, ⁓ yeah, I do a great job. I listen, I care, I reassure over the phone, I I do a lot of great things over the phone. Cool, let's listen to it. And they go, ⁓ my gosh, you must have found the worst call I've ever taken. They yeah, that's what we thought too. And here's this other one. ⁓ my gosh, we're surprised by another one, right? Same thing with the technicians. They're holy cow, you must have found the worst day I've ever had. Well, why did you have a bad day? And we start talking about it. ⁓ and so what's our end goal when we're when we're inside the customer's home? Well, we want to connect on an emotional level. We want to earn the tour, we want to do a thorough inspection, we're gonna provide lots of options and get them to take action on one of those options. Exactly. Simple. So all we're doing is making sure that you do that. And so whether it's over the phone or where it's in the home, we're holding them accountable one on one, twice a month, using their own phone calls. So ever since that time, we went from, you know, Troy and Tom to ⁓ over four hundred companies ⁓ throughout the United States as well as in Canada and as a matter of fact, twelve companies in Australia. speaker-0: Amazing. Yeah, yeah. You're headed down there next month, right? That's speaker-1: In yeah, in October. I was there twice last year and and ⁓ while I was there. That's a that's a cool story too, by the way. I'll tell it real quick. So I was there with my wife and we went to this ⁓ conference called Blue Sky. It's a blue sky event put on by Scott Irwin. No, none whatsoever, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, really cool guy. And he said, Hey, I want you to come and and speak at this event. And there's probably 20 contractors there. And my and I said, Hey, honey, you want to go to Australia? She's like, Of course I want to go to Australia. So we went. And I wasn't expecting much out of it, but I gave ⁓ a presentation talking about ⁓ hey, calls come in, but you're not booking them. And yeah, you're able to go out to the home, but if you walk away empty-handed, you're you're kind of wasting your time. So why not? speaker-0: Yeah. Crocodile hunters. speaker-1: Hold your team, your CSRs and your technicians accountable to their own performance and make sure they're performing at a high level. That way you never walk away from a home empty-handed again. And ⁓ just went through that, and next thing you know, ⁓ everybody at the event said, Hey, let's do this. And we walked away with everybody in the room moving forward with our services. It was wild. speaker-0: It's amazing. 18 years later, you guys are doing amazing things. The business is phenomenal. International company now, three countries. It's pretty cool. Some of those early customers, you still remember my name, those first three, one of those, Nearings here in Utah. They're they're referred pro customers. Well, we work with them, but it's Jake that's taking over the business now, Jake Neering. So that's he's a second gen. ⁓ yeah, that's awesome. Technically, yeah, there we go. That's amazing. Love it. So you guys have done phenomenal things. speaker-1: Right. Yeah, good group of guys. speaker-0: What's the focus right now at Power Selling Pros? 18 years later, what what's the focus day to day? How big is the team? Where's everyone at? What's the what's on your mind these days? speaker-1: So we have two companies. ⁓ PowerSelling Pros is the main company. We've got forty employees. ⁓ most of them are coaches. on the booked side, booked by PSP, it's a sister company, and there's a hundred agents and they're all throughout the world. So they're from Brazil, the Philippines, Mexico, Jamaica. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. We actually had a representative go out to Jamaica and do a recruiting event. And ⁓ speaker-0: That accent's gotta have a higher closing. speaker-1: As a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, it does. Philippines is pretty good too. ⁓ Brazil's a fun one, depending on how well they can speak English, but but they book an average of 93% of their phone calls. It's amazing. ⁓ so to to be able to do that for over a hundred agents is incredible. So we fill in the gaps. We like to do overflow and weekends, whatever whatever the local company doesn't pick up. ⁓ we're not in in the ⁓ business of taking anybody else's job. So We just want to fill in the gaps where there are gaps. But ⁓ yeah, those are the cu two companies that we that we work with and we own. speaker-0: So booked by PSP, this is the booked out podcast. There's there's some good cohesion there. We're focused on, yeah, exactly, helping people drive leads. I mean, we work with at ReferPro, which is separate from the Booked Out Podcast. We we do the flip side of that. We're driving leads, new referral business to these customers, more revenue. But I see every day there's customers that we that the the the leads are there. They're now speed to leads an issue, bandwidth is an issue, they have tons of stacked up leads. speaker-1: We gotta work something out. speaker-0: through refer pro and maybe other channels that they're not accessing. What's your advice to those business owners listening to this? How do they how do they take advantage of those leads that they're leaving on the table today? speaker-1: So we either need to hold the team accountable, whether we're designating specific individuals where that's all they do, calling those companies, or you get somebody, a third party from the outside, to do it for you. ⁓ if you're investing in that service and you should, right, referrals are the best way to I mean, I would say that if I'm talking to a tech technician or a comfort advisor, hey, comfort advisor, what's the best kind of lead? Well, it's a tech set lead. ⁓ a referral. Yeah, a referral. Okay, cool. So if those are referrals that are coming in. Why aren't we, why aren't they taking priority? So I would I would either provide a mechanism where somebody is designated to handle those referrals, or I'd say, you know what, let's just get a third party that can book that call and go right onto your CRM and book it for you. And if you need to move it, great, you move it, but it's still there on your schedule. That means you've got to call the customer and say, hey, we had you here on Tuesday. We're excited to work with you. We had a few things come up. We've got a couple of families that are in dire need. ⁓ can we move you to this day? But either way, you're on the schedule. So I love that. Either do it in-house or get somebody to do it for speaker-0: For you. Yeah, such a need. So all these leads are there. You guys can do both sides of it. You can take it over or you can help train their existing team and every business is in a slightly different spot. So that's speaker-1: Yeah, we would hold them accountable to it. Hey, these leads are here. What's going on? Right? Yeah. They're five minutes old. What's happening? Yeah. speaker-0: I love it. What are your what are your tips and tricks? What are some of the things that you go in day one on these coaching sessions? What are you telling people to do? speaker-1: Yeah, so the quickest gains, and that's what exactly what we're talking about here, right? There are gaps and there are gains. With with your high performers, the goal is to train them to the point where you can gain opportunity. ⁓ with the gaps, it's it's more about AI jumping in and filling in the gap, but that's all it is. It fills a gap. ⁓ so if I'm training a CSR, the first thing I'm gonna teach them is to realize that a homeowner needs to feel understood, cared about, reassured. Okay, they all need to feel that way. Funny thing, we all have those same emotional needs. We all want to feel understood, cared about, reassured. Right? If we don't feel that way and say, for example, inside of a company, we don't feel like we belong and we want to move on. Right? So it's not at all about our pay. It's not all at all about the weird hours that we work. It's that we just don't feel like we belong. Why? Because we don't feel understood, we don't feel cared about, we don't feel reassured that this is the right place for us. Right? That ⁓ we're we're ⁓ making a a ⁓ valuable contribution. So we got to take care of those emotional needs, especially as leaders, we've got to do that. Well funny thing, when a homeowner calls in, they have the same human emotional needs. They want to feel understood, they want to feel cared about, they to feel reassured. And so very simply, we teach them how to do that in the beginning of a phone call. Within the first 30 seconds, we teach them, tell me more, that's not good, I can help. So listen, care, reassure. Customer calls in, they say, hey, I just want to know what you guys church to come out. Great. You know, it really depends on your situation. Can you tell me more about it? Your what's going on? Well, I've got this air conditioner, it's blowing hot air. My gosh, that's terrible. How long has it been doing? ⁓ last couple of days. Well, look, you've you've totally called the right place. We can help you. When would you like us out? ⁓ this afternoon would be good. So the back here, you go, whoa, what happened there? They said, Hey, what do you charge to come out? And I said, Well, it depends. And by the way, it does depend. Because if they want us to fix it, there might be something as ⁓ an associated cost with us coming out. But if they want to replace it, there's no cost there. So it really does, in fact, depend. It's not a put off. It depends. speaker-0: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. Incredible tips for any really any business of any size. ⁓ owner, operator, all the way up through the PE back businesses. Everyone has some sort of struggle with this. So this is this is phenomenal. Tell me what's changed at Power Selling Pros over the past eighteen years? How how how is the business different today than it was when you first started it? speaker-1: Geez, it's like comparing high school to college. Our our curriculum's a whole lot better than it used to be. Yeah. ⁓ you know, tell me more that's not good I can help is just it's ⁓ surface level type stuff. Yeah. Whereas now we're focused in on ⁓ say a customer doesn't want to pay a fee for us to come out, which never happens, right? ⁓ I don't want to pay that. That's ridiculous. Or I'm or they're a little bit softer about it. They say, you know what? I want to call around. ⁓ being able to catch on to that as a high performer and say, hey, Mr. Jones, is it just is it just the $89 that you're concerned about for us to come out? Yeah, yeah, I I don't want to pay it. So if it weren't for the $89, would you move forward the appointment? Yeah, yeah, I would. Okay. Well, we do have an option. If you wanted, we could just get you on the service agreement. Service agreement's awesome. We come out in the spring, we come out the fall, make sure it's running at peak efficiency. The best part about it is is it prevents things like this, the thing you're dealing with right now from happening. If you wanted, I can just get you going on that. Well, how much is that? It's twenty dollars a month. Only needs a credit card. So then they're thinking, okay, well, $20 versus $80, and they're coming out proactively to prevent things like this from happening, it might make sense for them. Right? And there's gonna be some situations where they're gonna be like, I don't know. And you can, you could do, you could use any number of things. Say it's a a coupon online. You know what? We do have a coupon online, it's $50 off. It'll help subsidize the cost of this $89 once you move forward with the work. I'm not gonna make you go online to find it. In fact, you're not presenting to your technician. I'm just gonna put in notes you're gonna take advantage of this coupon. If I do that. Is that enough move forward your appointment today? So next thing you know, they're booking that opportunity. So it's that advanced stuff that we're teaching at this point, ⁓ more than anything, where we're holding them accountable to that's how we get to 90%, by the way. Right? We can get it's easy to get 70% calls versus set appointments, but to get to 90, you really got to get them into advanced stuff. Yeah. And so, what have what have we changed over the last three years? You know, not just 18 years, but three. So, our curriculum for CSRs, it's our bread and butter, that's what we've been doing for the last 18 years. Over the last three years, ⁓ I started training on how to be a technician. I got EPA certified, went through Nate certification, went through Build the Tech. It was three three-week, very intensive. I actually did it with my son and and my brother. It was really kind of fun. Yeah, that's fun. We got an Airbnb for three weeks and the tests were ridiculous. We were t we tested every day. ⁓ it was hard. Yeah. It was hard, but right after that, ⁓ we started doing ride-along with technicians and and then in the speaker-0: That's pretty cool. speaker-1: Of course, ⁓ Field Pro came out. Yeah. And we started using that technology to provide accountability to technicians, just like we have been doing for the last 18 years for CSR. So that's what's new. That's what's going on with that's how we've evolved. speaker-0: Yeah, it's amazing. You've done a lot of great things. You talk about Phil Pro and Service Titan. What are some of the tools, systems and processes? We talk a lot, whether you're in tech, power selling pros, ⁓ home service business, systems and processes are critical. What are some of the systems, processes, tools, technologies that that you're seeing, whether it's power selling pros or with the businesses that you work with? What's moving the needle? What's helping these businesses grow? speaker-1: AI has been a scary thing for a lot of companies. The only thing I can say there is ⁓ I was talking to one of my employees. I said, listen, we've gotta we've gotta run towards the roar. Are you familiar with that metaphor at all? speaker-0: Run towards the roar? Not not specifically. Let's hear it. It's bit for myself and everyone. speaker-1: In Africa you've got a you've got you've got a group of lions, right? You've got a you've got a ⁓ pride of lions and and usually what they do is ⁓ they have a strategy to capture the animal and what they do is they have the oldest lion roar in the direction right from the direction that you want you and of course the animals run in the opposite direction. Well the other lionesses are kind of lying in wait ⁓ in that direction. So the old lion roars. Animals run the opposite direction, they get caught, right? So instead you're gonna you wanna run towards the right and so ⁓ you wanna run towards AI as quickly as possible. The reason why is it's going to make life a whole lot easier. It's gonna fill gaps. ⁓ so for example, ⁓ call handling AI. If you're not able to get to the call, they're gonna call somebody else, right? speaker-0: Interesting. speaker-1: And I'd say maybe two, maybe three, maybe four rings tops. Let the AI do it. Let it capture that, ⁓ let it fill that gap. ⁓ and then you train your high performers to make the gains, right? If the AI books that call, that's okay, that's great. Make sure that you call right afterwards and create that connection with the homeowner. Hey, and and let's say that the AI's name is Sarah. Hey, heard you had a conversation with Sarah at our company here. Yeah. And what did you think of Sarah? She was either great or she was glitchy. You're gonna hear one or the other, right? There's no in between. Either way, you want that feedback, right? She was great. Did you know that she was a robot? No way! I cannot believe it. I know, it's crazy, right? Or you know what, it was really kind of glitchy. You know what? I appreciate that. It is kind of a work in progress. ⁓ it continues to get better every day, but really appreciate your feedback there. ⁓ I noticed that Sarah booked the appointment for you on Tuesday between two and four. Is that a day and time that you're comfortable with, that you enjoy, that you like? Well, actually, I have been calling around. See, one of the biggest things about AI is that cancellation rates go way up because there's no relationship there. This is your chance, right? They just it just booked an appointment. Great opportunity to call them and say, hey, this is your ch this is your chance to kind of connect with them on an emotional level. And so you simply say, All right, you've got an appointment on Tuesday to two and four. I do happen to have a technician this afternoon who is in your area. If you want, we can move it around. You would do that? I would do that. Okay, let's do it. And so Then we talk about the technician. Technician I'm sending out. He's trained, he's certified, he's backback company, he's around for the last 30 years now. You're great hands. He'll come out, he'll look at the scope of the work, he'll tell me exactly what needs to be fixed and give you a price before he starts. So you're in great hands there. as you know, Sarah mentioned that it's X for us to come out and do that. Just want to make sure you're comfortable with that. Fantastic. once you approve the work, we'll we'll just waive that $89 or that X amount of dollars. And so you're all set there. Did Sarah talk to you at all about our service agreements? The thing that keeps this sort of thing that you're dealing with right now from happening? They haven't? Sarah didn't say anything. Well, we'll have to look into that. What's going on? Well, we do have preventative maintenance. It's awesome. We come out in the spring, come out in the fall, sure it's running pick efficiency. The best part about it is that it prevents things like this, the thing you're dealing right now from happening. If you wanted, we can get you going on it right now. So what did I just do? I just connected with that customer on an emotional level, got them feeling comfortable with us to the point where by the time they hang up, they're done shopping. That's the whole point. All right, so if you want AI to grab it, great, have AI, grab it. But make sure that you take advantage of that touch point, call that customer back, create that relationship so that by the time they're done talking to you, it's like 911 and 0912 help us on the way. Okay? So I would say that's one thing to do on the technician side. Again, run towards the technology. Run towards it. You've got great technology out there, you've got Field Pro, you've got Sales Ask. use the technology. I the saddest thing I've been hearing recently is that people Don't re-up their AI. They buy it for the year. They're not using it. And so they they let it go. That is a mistake, right? Run towards the technology, leverage the technology. If you don't have time to monitor the calls using that technology, again, get a third party that will do that for you. Provide that feedback to your technicians on a regular basis. When you do, it'll make all the difference. We are seeing massive gains. technicians that we work with, we monitor their calls, we use the AI, they're booking ⁓ They're selling about 30% of their calls. They've got a 30% closing ratio. And within a couple of months, using the right techniques, and it's simple, right? Connect on an emotional level, earn the tour with the homeowner, do a thorough inspection, present options, get them to take action at least on one of those options. Those five steps, we can take them from 30% closing ratio to a 60% closing ratio. We're seeing ⁓ varied results, but they always, we're always gaining, and that's the point, right? Let the AI find the gap. But you make sure that your high performers are being held accountable to to realize the gains. speaker-0: Yeah, that's phenomenal. ⁓ though those data points are incredible too. You know, sometimes double the double the booking rate, these businesses. And the accountability you've mentioned a couple of times now, I think is a huge piece of that. Is some businesses don't even know those numbers to start with. So one, you've got to you've got to know those numbers to have a baseline so that you can then go improve that, have the accountability, the data, the backing, the processes to do that. One of my big takeaways today is ⁓ there's a there's a partnership here where there's so many refer pro customers who drive those leads. And then it's and then it's how do you how do you actually get those to the finish line? Many companies do a great job, but there's plenty that struggle with that and they actually have too many leads to handle. So that's power selling pros could be a great tool there. Brigham, how many how many books have you written? Three books. ⁓ you speak at almost every event I go to. You're all over the trades. Tell me about your reputation, ⁓ and how has that been benefit the importance of reputation, how has that been beneficial for you and your business and your life? speaker-1: From a referral standpoint, this is a small business. If you and the industry is really small. If you do ⁓ if you do a bad job, everybody's gonna know about it. If you do a good job, everybody's gonna know about it. And I happened to fall onto something that ⁓ you know nobody had paid it paid attention to. There's a lot of trainers out there, very few spend time with CSRs, dispatchers, league coordinators. And so I was able to come into it at a time where it was the timing was really good, right? But ⁓ When it comes to doing a good job, ⁓ you also gotta show that you know what you're doing, gotta have credibility. So I wrote I wrote the books to kind of not only ⁓ kind of clarify my thought process on on the on where I stand on certain things, but also to kind of get the word out there that, hey, listen, here's the answer, right? You d you don't even have to hire me. I mean, I think at the time when I wrote the books, I just wanted everybody to have the answers. ⁓ in the call center ⁓ and now ⁓ with technicians as well. I just want them to have the right answer as quickly as possible. And so that a book back then was kind of the way that I did that. ⁓ provide credibility for what I was doing as as well as give them the answer they need to be successful. speaker-0: Yeah, I love that. It's incredible. Check out Brigham's three books if you haven't yet. ⁓ we talk a lot about it. We talked a lot about AI. AI and private equity are two huge disruptors and and change makers in the trade specifically right now. We've talked a little bit about AI, but what are you seeing across private equity? Your customers, your partners specifically, but just across the trades in general. What what kind of a difference is that having? What are you seeing there? speaker-1: So initially when they came in, the first thing they'd do was is they would they'd cut and they'd slash for the sake of saving money. And that that's understandable. And and they kind of swing from one side of the one side ⁓ to the other, right? ⁓ one side of the pendulum where they go, ⁓ it's all about making as much money as possible, right? PL, PL, PL. ⁓ and eBa. And and then they started realizing, ⁓ shoot. ⁓ canceling all these great companies that help get the company get to where they need to be so that we're interested in buying them. And then we cancel those services. What were we thinking? And so then they bring us back. And so we kind of s we've seen that shift kind of happen. Cause when they first started coming out, we probably had maybe 14 to 20 companies that said, Hey, I just got bought out and they're not going to let me use your services anymore. I'm like, what are you talking about? We're the ones that kind of helped you get here. And they're like, Yeah, I know there's nothing I can do. And now those those guys are being put in charge of PE groups running them. And they're saying, hey, I'm calling the shots now and you're back in. Let's go. And so that that ⁓ that that whole thing is coming full full circle now. So if you were to ask me that two years ago, I'd be like, ⁓ yeah, PE groups, it's tough, right? They're they're canceling services left and right. But at this point, they're they're realizing the need to have outside organizations that hold their CSRs and technicians accountable on a regular basis. That it's tough for a manager to do. Because you've got phone calls that last three to six minutes and they take 30 calls a day. Good luck with that if you've got 20 people answering your phones, right? For one person to manage. ⁓ same thing with technicians. You know, they're spending two hours a day, four to five times a day with a hundred texts. May maybe it's not that, maybe it's 30 texts, but still, good luck with that. That's five times five, right? Five appointments a day times five days a week if they're not working six days a week. I mean, That's that's twenty-five appointments per technician. And if you've got twenty technicians, that's really a lot for one person to do. But if you've got an army of quality assurance people, ⁓ an assigned coach, an assigned mentor, and you're talking once a month about who's doing well and who's doing not, now you have the ability to work on your department. So it's good for owners because they know that it's getting done. It's good for managers because it makes them look good. Absolutely. And it's good for employees as well. So it's a win-win-win. It really is. speaker-0: It's a win win. It's awesome. I want to do a couple questions on a tactical deep dive for some of the CSRs, some of the technicians listening today. ⁓ what is the single biggest mistake you see CSRs and technicians make today? speaker-1: ⁓ they don't have anybody holding them accountable. They just go in and wing it. And ⁓ this is the reason why people run to AI is because they think AI is is gonna be the the save all, right? The catch all. And they are the catch-all. ⁓ but it is a transaction, right? AI does what it's programmed to do. ⁓ it does fill the gap, but it doesn't it doesn't take advantage of the gain. Once you turn your team into a set of high performers, it's gonna make all the difference in the world. ⁓ Just by holding them accountable, I don't care who does it. Make sure you have a mechanism in place where they are being held accountable on a regular basis to perform at a high level. You have to have something measuring that performance on a regular basis for the CSR, for the technician. So I'd say that's number one. Have some sort of accountability mechanism above and beyond your manager because trust me, they're inundated. They're hiring, they're training, and they're firing. Okay. And in their hiring, training, and firing, they don't have time to provide ongoing coaching accountability. They just don't. That's number one. Number two, I would say that ⁓ When I go in and and do a presentation for text, business owners are like, ⁓ man, my technicians don't want to be recorded. They don't want to be held accountable. They don't want big brother listening to their phone calls. Soon as I go in there as a third party and I get in front of them and I say, Guys, this is what we do, this is how we do it. And they realize that, holy cow, these guys aren't trying to get us to sell something. And I think business owners, for whatever reason, when they're pushing cells so much, it it kind of puts a bad taste in the technician's mouth. ⁓ and when we help them realize as a third party that no, the goal here is to create an amazing customer experience for the customer. In fact, here's your answer, Murphy, okay? When a CSR realizes that when a homeowner calls in, that they're just, they're just they just wanna be heard and understood, cared about, and they just wanna make sure they've called the right company. If a CSR recognizes that and trains to achieve that end goal, that this to convince the customer this is the right company, it's gonna change everything for them. Same thing for the technician. Okay, I'm gonna go back to the technician now. Homeowner, as soon as the technician gets there, their mindset is I just want to get by. I just want to get by, get this thing going, and move on with my life. The technician's job is to go in and help them realize that they can actually live better. The way you're living right now, you can live a whole lot better. Your indoor air quality is not great. Your humidification isn't great. You don't have to live this. Let me give you one example. Okay. I go into, ⁓ I go on a callback with the technician. And what made it even better, and of course I'm being facetious here, the initial technician that was out of the customer's home called us on the way out. And guess what he said? ⁓ man, this guy that you're gonna go visit, it's not gonna be pretty. It's not gonna be good, man. And so I look at the technician that I'm with and I'm like, dude, don't worry about it. We got this. So we go out on this callback. The last thing you think a homeowner wants is to buy more from us after he had to call us back to come and fix it, right? Yeah. So we get there, sure enough, there's this beware of dog sign on the fence. He comes out, he's not happy. Technician can't get into the crawl space fast enough. In fact, he was this close to going into the crawl space. I tap him on the shoulder, the technician. And as I'm tapping the technician on the shoulder, I then look at the customer and I say, Hey, two-thirds of your system is actually inside the home. Can we start there? The technician looks at me like, what are you doing? It's a callback. And I said, Bro, this is what we talked about this morning. I just, the look, right? I didn't say it, but the look on my face was says, Yeah, even on a callback. Let's go. Right? So we go inside the house, and first how first room I see, I see this humidifier. You know the ones that you fill with water? Yeah. And you know, can you imagine filling that thing with water every day? Yeah. Here's what made it worse. We walk by the next room, guess what was in there? A humidifier. You know the ones that you fill with water. We go into the living room, and there were three humidifiers that he fills with water every day. So we go in the back, we go, we we he's taking us through the house, and we go into this one room and And sure enough, that's where the dogs were. Four dogs in their kennels. Okay. His wife wasn't there. We started talking about his wife, and ⁓ he opened up to us. He said that they've been having some issues and that she's not spending time at home because it because it smells. And so we started talking about that smell, and and we started talking about the humidifiers. And next thing you know, he brings up how he's heating the home. He's heating the home with propane. Okay, propane is one of the most expensive ways to heat a home. So I start talking about. Heat pumps, electricity. Let's use electricity as opposed to propane. We start talking about humidifiers where we can humidify the air you breathe inside your entire house instead of just one room and you'll never have to fill a humidifier with water ever again. And we start talking about indoor air quality with UV lights and air scrubbers and so on and so forth. So it'll smell better. It's gonna help your life. It's gonna help your family. Next thing you know, he says, you know what? I wanna ru I wanna review this whole thing. And I said, listen, why don't we just have a comfort visor come out, take a look at everything, determine exactly what you need. Next day I find out he buys an entirely new system with air purification, so once so forth. Our goal is not just to maintain quality of life. Our goal is to actually enhance it. This is not about cells. It's about enhancing their quality of life. It's about elevating the way that they live. So if nothing else, Murphy, that's it. speaker-0: Yeah, that's amazing. Incredible advice for the CSR, the technician, what's what sets great ones apart. That that's phenomenal advice. What ⁓ this has been good, like script even word word for word for what some of these technicians should use in the home. How do you get buy-in from the team when you go in and you're working with a new company in the trades? How do you get the whole team bought in? Everyone's got different goals you've talked through, right? They want to look good, they wanna have fun, they're looking at the PL. How do you get how do you get the team bought in on this vision that you have? Because it's such incredible advice. And after you do it, it's obvious, but how do you get the team bought in up front on this? speaker-1: Most technicians just want to do a good job. They want to go home, they want to do right by the customer, they want to do right by their business owner. And sometimes they feel caught in between doing what's right by the homeowner and doing what's right by their boss. And when we help them, when we go in and we help them see that, hey, look, it's not about sales at all. It's about elevating quality of life. And and this is how we go about doing it. Once they realize that, they recognize that, they go, ⁓ my gosh, it's not about sales at all. And it's so cool to go out with them right after I teach them that. Because we go out and we do ride-alongs right after. And just kind of show them how to do it. Yeah. And they go, once you've once you took the pressure off, that it wasn't I didn't have to make a certain quota. Yeah, they start selling more than they ever have before because the pressure's off. Right? Funny thing, when the pressure's off the homeowner, they're able to make decisions. And when the pressure's off the technician and they can just take care of the customer, they can make decisions on what makes the most sense for the homeowner. Yeah. So yeah. It's it's fun watching technicians kind of see the light, like, holy cow, it's not about sales at all. It's just, you know, the products sell themselves. You just gotta talk to them about it. Just gotta teach them. And they're usually pretty passionate about what they do, right? When you get an electrician talking about stuff, I mean, it's funny to w to watch them. I there's let me tell you one more story. So there's this electrician ⁓ and we go to this house and He's got these lights all around the house. And I don't know why people are so there's this fetish about lights on on homes and scenarios. And you know how they change colors during certain times of the year? Yeah. The whole neighborhood does. You got it. You got it. So we get out there and the lights aren't working. And the technician's talking to me and he's like, Brigham, do you have any idea what this is gonna cost and replace these lights? And I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is it your wallet or his wallet? And he's like, speaker-0: Lighting outside. speaker-1: Yeah, but I don't want to have to. And I said, listen, you just give him what the price is. You don't set the price. Just tell him what it is and give him all the options, right? We can replace just this section. We can replace the whole thing. We can. He calls me afterwards because as soon as as soon as I got called out to another job, he calls me afterwards and he says, You're never going to believe it. And I said, What? He said, He just spent $12,000 on lights. And I said, Uh-huh. He's like, and he didn't even blink when I gave him the price. And I said, ⁓ huh. So what did you learn? Well, it's funny because while we were out there, we go to the main breaker, we open up the breaker, and we see a couple of dead lizards. And so as soon as the customer comes out, he's about to walk away. And I said, Hey, before you walk away, don't you want to see the lizard graveyard? And he's like, What lizard graveyard? And technicians look at him like, what are talking about? And so that's how I was able to engage the homeowner as we look inside the main breaker, right? The main breaker box. These two dead lizards, hey, the lizard graveyard is like, ⁓ my gosh, how'd they get in there? Yeah, what we want to do is we want to seal this thing so lizards don't get in there anymore. Last thing we want is to have a short in the house, right? We lose electricity because you have a lizard that touched two wires together. And that's why you've got two dead lizards right here. And so he's able to see it, right? And then the technician begins to realize, holy cow, it's just about having a little bit of fun, right? Being comfortable and and and teaching what all the amazing things we can do with your house and letting you decide which amazing things you want to do. speaker-0: Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. ⁓ this has been fun. ⁓ I could we could go all day with this. It's it's fun hearing you talk about these skills, and and I think this is especially applicable for the CSRs, the technicians, the business owners that are trying to improve their business and and enable their teams to do better in these ways. ⁓ I want to go through a couple last questions and then we do ⁓ kind of a lightning round. ⁓ just ⁓ your advice in the trades, feedback you know, across the board, but one You're a fit guy. You're in good shape. What do you do to stay in shape? Stay sharp. You know, keep your emotional and mental health while you're building the business. speaker-1: So I travel a lot. I do I I love being inside shops. I love ⁓ doing ride-alongs with techs and training CSRs. And when you're flying around and you're in hotels, if you don't have a proactive plan, it's a plan to fail. You're you're you're gonna get tired, you're gonna get exhausted. and I've been doing this a long time and and I like it, I enjoy it, but it does take a toll. And so I'm just I'm my intention is to be proactive with my fitness. So that I can do whatever I want to do, right? You're gonna hurt either way. You're Exactly. With with with fitness, I just ⁓ I get to choose my heart and and I do have a cheat sheet, right? I got a little trick. I've got my wife is a nutritionist and she she ⁓ it's amazing what you can do with cottage cheese and sweet potatoes. Yeah. Right? All the different things that you can make and and if you just eat the right foods in the right amounts, ⁓ it's amazing. speaker-0: Choose your heart. speaker-1: what you can do with your body. And it really isn't necessarily about exercise. If you were to choose three, rest, good nutrition and exercise, the least important is exercise. Number one is sleep. Number two is nutrition, what you put into your body, right? You are what you eat. And then and then lastly, if you if you want to work out, great. But if you just were to walk every day, you'd be, you'd be looking great, feeling good about yourself. speaker-0: Yeah, that's phenomenal. It it's amazing what those small habits what a what a big impact they have on on the rest of your life. Building a business, families, whatever it might be, but th those things are the foundation. What's your favorite book, excluding your books, what's your favorite book, most impactful book? speaker-1: Book of Mormon. There you go. ⁓ if you haven't read it, you should read it. You know, don't judge it till you read it. Yeah. my favorite ⁓ chapter is ⁓ third night third Nephi 27. ⁓ obviously the Bible's right up there as well. I like going to John two. Any any of the gospels are fantastic. ⁓ if you're only going to read two books, those are the two books that you should read. Yeah. ⁓ if it's not those two books and you have no interest in those two books, ⁓ I would I would read ⁓ Seven Habits for Highly Affective People. ⁓ it there's a reason why it was translated in three different languages. Yeah. the guy that wrote it is a ⁓ was a professor before he passed away. ⁓ How to Win Friends and Influence People. classic books. I I I like connecting with people. I like people. Sur served a mission in Brazil and ⁓ I I I realized that I really liked people after I learned the language. ⁓ I used to hate knocking doors and I got to the point where I was really, really good at it. You know, you kinda hate it and then you start getting used to it, and then you get really good at it. Yeah. ⁓ so not to get off on a tangent too much, but ⁓ everything I've read out of Seven Habits for the Affected People or Winning Friends and Influencing People, I was able to experience being in Brazil serving other people, right? It's one thing to learn something, it's another to actually do it. ⁓ and that's Kind of guided my life. Power Slaying Pros. ⁓ There's a lot of people that know what to do over the phone, a lot of people that know what to do inside the customer's home. Not every one of them do what they know. And so ⁓ to be able to work in a business where I'm teaching people to actually do what they know is ⁓ really cool. Connect with other people over the phone and in the home. I'm really passionate about it. It's been it's been something I've done all my life in different capacities. Yeah, that's fun. So that's why I like those books. speaker-0: Yeah, those are phenomenal. You can't go wrong with any of those. What's one metric you watch every day? speaker-1: Black good, red, bad. Yeah. ⁓ I look at those numbers every day. When it comes to my clients, I'm looking at call conversion and I'm looking at closing conversion on the tech side. Right. So call conversion on the CSR side and tech conversion on the on the tech on the technician side. The reason why is because at the end of the day, if an owner is spending money on coaching accountability, he better be getting results, or she better be getting results. Right. At the end of the day, if you're spending that money, you better be getting the return. And if you're not getting the return as a business as a fellow business owner, I I would question my existence as well. So So that would be the first thing I'd wanna look at. speaker-0: Incredible advice. ⁓ definitely a partnership in store for ReferPro and helping helping our customers ⁓ better at attack these low-hanging the slow hanging fruit, these leads that come in and just getting getting to a speed and quality with these high performing CSRs and technicians. Wrap it up. What's what's your final advice? Something that business owners can you want them to remember from this conversation, something that they can implement on Monday in the office? What's what's your final thoughts here, Brigham? speaker-1: Chances are you have leads coming from several sources. Once the leads come in, then what? Right? We spend so much time on marketing. We've we are so focused on it. And the leads come in, then what? Right? What's happening next? And I would, I would take a very serious look at that customer journey and attack the one that's screaming the most, right? Whether it's the call center, whether it's the technicians, whether it's the comfort advisors. Focus on that part of the journey 'cause chances are that's what's missing. speaker-0: I love it. Thank you, Brigham. This has been fantastic. We'll have to do it again. Thanks for joining us today. speaker-1: Thank you very much.