August 15, 2024 • 35 mins
Ever wondered how a side gig can transform into a thriving business? Join us as we sit down with Clark Van Dyck, the founder of Van Dyck Mechanical, who took his part-time HVAC work to full-time success. Clark shares his story to overcoming the initial fear of not receiving service calls, and how he turned those challenges into a rapidly growing small business. His journey shares insights for budding entrepreneurs, especially on staying focused and committed to one's goals.
Clark highlights the significance of creating a flexible work environment to boost customer satisfaction. By accommodating employees' family needs and maintaining a work-life balance, Van Dyke Mechanical ensures that their customers receive top-notch service. We discuss the importance of keeping promises, sticking to scheduled appointments, and the powerful role of reputation and word-of-mouth in smaller communities like Chickasha, Oklahoma. Clark also opens up about tackling the challenges posed by unscrupulous players in the HVAC industry and the growing influence of Google reviews on customer trust.
In our conversation, Clark delves into the principles of establishing trust through honesty and a strong company culture. He explains why prioritizing repairs over replacements when financially sensible builds long-term client relationships. We also talk about the importance of hiring for soft skills and cultural fit, along with offering in-house training and creating clear career paths for employees. Wrapping up, Clark discusses their expansion into septic services to meet rural community needs, reaffirming Van Dyke Mechanical’s dedication to comprehensive customer satisfaction.
To learn more about Van Dyck Mechanical LLC, visit their website: https://vandyckmechanical.com/residential-hvac/
https://www.bbb.org/us/ok/oklahoma-city/profile/heating-and-air-conditioning/van-dyck-mechanical-llc-0995-90054006
Follow BBB Serving Central Oklahoma on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn @BBBCentralOK
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And when I say customer service, there's no
magic, there's no curtain,there's no big production.
It's literally simply trying todo what you say you're going to
do when you say you're going todo it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey there everyone.
Welcome back to the Build WithBBB podcast.
I'm your host, casey Farmer,here with Clark Van Dyke of Van
Dyke Mechanical, a longtimeaccredited business and
community member.
We're so excited we're going tobe talking about their
customer-centric business model,what it looks like to be really
involved in the community andhow to put your customers first.
Clark, welcome to the podcast.
(00:51):
Thank you, glad to be here.
Yeah, so one of my favoritethings always to start off with
is how did you get the wild ideato start an HVAC company?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, like I was telling you before we got
started here, I started out ofhigh school in public safety
careers and heating and airconditioning was a part-time,
day-off thing and it kind ofjust became the full-time thing.
And through working throughother companies, there was just
(01:24):
something more that I wanted andI saw through conversations
with people that there was aneed for true customer service
in the residential and lightcommercial you know, heat and
air industry and plumbingindustry.
There's really a big hole thereand the right things happened
and we decided to make a go forit in 2016.
(01:45):
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Here we are.
I learned a little bitbeforehand about your story.
This is not all you do.
You're a very busy guy and anentrepreneur, so would you say
kind of always been anentrepreneur at heart.
Oh, yes, yes, always busy doingsomething.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Always in a challenge , Always trying to do everything
you know everything the best wecan, or improve even what we're
doing constantly.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Sure, sure.
So I was checking out yourwebsite, getting to know Van
Dyke, though you've beenaccredited, I think, since 2017.
So I'm very active in ourcommunity yeah, several years.
So congratulations One.
Making it through COVID istough.
It was tough for a lot ofbusinesses.
So I mean that shows a lotabout getting through that, but
a big part of what you do iscustomer-centric.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Do you want to talk about that?
So, like we kind of touched on,you know, when Van Dyke
Mechanical came to exist, I wasworking here in Oklahoma City
for a company that did primarilycommercial and industrial work.
They allowed some side work soI did a little bit, but it was
the volume of hey, when you gethome from work, will you come
over to my house and work?
(02:49):
Well, you know, can you do thisfor this person?
And you know they, you know mynumber started spreading and
what I was hearing was just likeyou know, people have gotten to
where they depend on their youknow their heat or their air
conditioning or their plumbingsystem.
And when you call a company andthey say, okay, we'll put you
(03:11):
on the list, that doesn't sitvery well.
Sure, so that's, that's one ofthe customer service holes that
I identified.
And the other thing was justjust trying to show up and do
what you say you're going to do.
When you say you're going to do, it is big, I mean it's huge.
So we went on a little whilewith doing some stuff on the
(03:32):
side and then, like I said, lifeevents happened and it
presented an opportunity.
So we started this business, mein a truck by myself.
The first day was July 5th 2016.
And then we just grewincrementally as the demand
justified.
(03:53):
We hired an apprentice and thenwe hired a journeyman, bought
another truck and then we hiredanother apprentice and then we
hired another journeyman.
And you fast forward to umtoday and, you know, at our, at
our, at our maximum, you know,uh, maximum number of employees,
I think we had 28 full-timeemployees and um 12 trucks.
(04:15):
We're we're down a little bitnow, just based upon, you know,
demand.
But, um, and and we've alsolooked at some stuff as far as
efficiencies and differentdirections the business is going
.
But, yeah, it grew really fastand I attribute that fast growth
and it was really uncomfortable.
You know, for the majority ofthat time too, it wanted to grow
(04:36):
faster than I necessarilywanted it to grow.
But it's all based on customerservice.
And when I say customer service, there's no magic, there's no
curtain, there's no, you knowthere's no, there's no curtain,
there's no big production, it'sjust, it's.
It's literally simply trying todo what you say you're going to
do.
When you say you're going to doit Interesting and stand behind
what you do.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, and when you started with a little, with a
truck, in 2016, did you imaginethat your company was going to
look like what it looks liketoday?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Oh no, no.
I went through the terror of ohmy, we didn't even get a single
service call today.
What are we going to do?
I hope we get somethingtomorrow and I feel like you
spend a certain number of daysterrified that you know it's
just going to, it's just notgoing to work.
(05:25):
And you know, one day you wakeup and you go, wow, how did it
become this monster?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who
might be in that situation thatyou were in?
Hey, I'm not getting a phonecall today.
It's kind of freaky.
What would you tell evenyourself?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
or another entrepreneur, a lot of, a lot of
older, a lot of older guys thathave been in business for a
long time.
You know, I was fortunateenough to be.
You know that I was fortunateenough to know and be able to
talk to um were just, they givethe advice keep your nose down.
You know, focus on what you'redoing, don't worry about what
(06:03):
your competitors are doing,don't worry about what other
people are saying.
You know, stay the course ofwhat you know that you need to
be doing and what your missionis, and everything will work out
.
And you know, the one thingthat we really tried to focus on
was if we take care of people.
You know, I never, from thestart of this, have really went
out chasing a dollar.
You know we're not chasing thenext sale, we're taking care of
(06:26):
people and the dollars follownaturally with taking care of
people.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So mentorship is a big part of that.
Oh yeah, in your business, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And a little bit of it's just mindset too Sure.
When we first started, I had ahandful of people that said, you
know, because we started inChickasha and there was two
really established decades-oldhair companies in Chickasha and
I had a handful of people sayyou're never going to make it,
you're never going to make it,you're making a big mistake.
There's no way you can go inagainst these big two and make a
(06:59):
splash at all.
I mean, you're being silly, youneed to go get a job.
Well, part of what exists in meis a little bit of oh yeah.
Well, let me show you what wecan do.
So a little bit, I think itrequires risk tolerance.
It requires a little bit ofobstinance.
Yeah, and ultimately I'm onethat I've got a plan B and a
(07:23):
plan C for everything that we do.
Um, it drives people around mecrazy sometimes, but every time
we embark in a new venture likewe just started a.
We just started a septicdivision.
You know that's been publiclyopen for two, three weeks now.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Oh, new, new, Okay, new new, yeah New new.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So but one of the things that that is is I go into
everything we do planning forfailure.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
OK.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And that way you know if it looks like it's going
that way, then you already knowyour way out.
I think you know, as asromantic as it may sound to just
go take the chance and just gofor it.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
You got it.
You got to plan for what you'regoing to do when it fails.
Yeah, you mentioned earlierthat Van Dyke does not adhere to
kind of typical working hoursbecause it's not always best for
what the customer needs.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Do you want to talk about that?
Yeah, that's correct.
And if I can sidebar from thata little bit as far as not
typical working hours and we'vetalked a little bit about people
taking care of people is kindof where we started, where we
want to continue to go, that'son the employee side as well as
the customer side.
So my time, since I've beendoing full-time heating and air
(08:33):
conditioning and plumbing work,I've worked for companies,
worked for several differentcompanies before we started this
.
Every one of those companies Itook something from, be it.
Things I really disliked aboutworking for that company, things
I really liked managementstyles.
What was a strong, positivemanagement style that existed at
this place?
What was a management stylethat ruined morale and made me
(08:57):
not want to get up and come towork at the other place?
So when we started, I kind ofjust combined those things and
We've got the goal of all of ouremployees looking forward to
getting up in the morning,coming to work, trying to
maintain a family-typeenvironment for the employee.
We realize that everybody worksso they can live their life.
(09:19):
They don't live to work.
Well, we've got stuff we've gotto do.
I mean, it has to be withinreason.
Sure, but we understand familycomes first, I do I mean it?
has to be within reason, youknow.
But.
But we understand family comesfirst and we try to be as
flexible as we can, which whichis actually kind of a benefit in
the customer service world too,because if we have employees
that are happy, that enjoy whatthey're doing, it makes the
(09:40):
customer experience that muchbetter, cause if you're dealing
with a pleasant guy that likeshis job and, you know, sees a
purpose behind what he's doing,your experience as a customer is
going to be a lot better thanif you've got somebody that's
just trying to make the nextpaycheck.
Yeah, the other thing is isthrough some of that flexibility
we foster an environment, or atleast try to, and I mentioned
(10:00):
it's a family environment,albeit like a lot of families.
It's dysfunctional at times,but for the most part it's good.
Sure, but some of thatflexibility results in
flexibility.
That's both ways.
So if, say, an employee needsto take off today because he's
got a kid function or somethinglike that, but we have stuff pop
up on a Saturday or that needsto be done late in an evening or
(10:24):
something, most of our guys aremore than happy to adjust their
schedule, make up those hours,and it allows us to take care of
customers and take care of theemployee, so that works.
But outside of that, even ifwe're not being flexible or
swapping time or something tothat effect, we do have people
on call 24 hours a day, sevendays a week, and we understand
(10:47):
that.
The customer's time and back todoing what you say you're going
to do, when you're going to,when you say you're going to do
it.
Everybody's time's valuable.
I think time.
Time is probably the mostexpensive commodity that any of
us have because you're notgetting back.
So if we say we're going to beat your house between three and
five, we're going to be therebetween three and five.
If you can't make anappointment during regular
(11:09):
business hours, we're more thanhappy to schedule and make it
work Weekends or at night.
As long as we know and we havea little bit of notice, we can
make about anything work.
But the on-call situation is wealways have somebody available.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You talked about that customer experience and how
that's so important to yourbusiness and unfortunately we
see a lot albeit like a lot ofbad actors in the HVAC industry.
Here at B2B we see a lot ofthat and part of that is lack of
quality of service, but it'salso quality of like install and
how they're recommendingproducts and services.
(11:52):
What does that look like forVan Dyke?
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Well, we, you know, starting in Chickasha, it's a,
you know, the the uh smallercommunity, and I think Chickasha
is growing, it's growing.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
It is.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Um, it's bigger now and it's there's people from the
outside that you know aren'tnecessarily from the area now,
so it's changing a little bit.
But in a community likeChegishay, word of mouth and
reputation literally meaneverything.
So you know one.
The way we look at it is is youknow, an unhappy customer is a
(12:28):
lot more experience or a lotmore expensive, excuse me, than
going the extra mile and makingsure everything's done right.
Sure, we can't be the cheapest.
We don't try to be the cheapest.
If it comes down to, who canget this system installed in my
house for the least number ofdollars?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And sometimes people need that, but often you get
what you pay for.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And often if we get in that situation, you know, if
we look at value provided, Ithink we'll win every time.
If we look at just number ofdollars and how cheap, can we do
it?
I'm not very good at competingin that arena.
It's not a drastic difference,but you know we're not.
That's not where we want tocompete.
It's not a drastic difference,but you know we're not.
(13:10):
That's not where we want tocompete.
I want to go home and basicallyI judge everything by how I
feel when I go home at the endof the day.
If I can go home at the end ofthe day and feel like I've
delivered a product and aservice to you at your home that
I'd be happy to have in my homeor my grandmother's house or
you know anybody that's close tome, then we've succeeded.
If there's anything that we'relike I would have done that
(13:31):
different if it was in my housethen we didn't really do our job
that well that day.
Yeah, so we try to avoid thosesituations and unfortunately,
like you're saying, a lot of badactors we we're in.
We're going behind othercompanies a lot more than I wish
we would have.
Sure, and it really it'sbecoming challenging because
(13:53):
probably one out of every threeto five customers we talk to
have talked to somebody else, beit other companies or friends
or people at church, and they'realready you know, they're
already primed up, you know, forthe high pressure sales tactics
and trying to get.
You know people are trying tosell people things that they
(14:14):
don't truly need.
I'm in that age group where it'syou know the Internet was just
starting to be a thing and youknow I'm pre-Google, I'm
pre-Google and the Google reviewphenomenon at first I was
really kind of like man.
I can't believe people aretaking these reviews more
(14:37):
seriously.
Because you go to seminars andyou really watch customer
behavior.
People trust a Google review alot more than they trust
somebody at church or theirneighbor or even their relatives
.
They trust somebody at churchor their neighbor or even their
relatives, and the more and moreI see like you mentioned I mean
you have a bad experience withsomebody close.
You know that somebody close toyou referred.
You know Google reviews are agood thing.
They're a good thing, but youhave to read.
(14:59):
If you're someone that's lookingat Google reviews, you have to
read through the reviews andmake your own opinion of whether
or not those reviews arelegitimate or not, because
there's some very largecompanies in our industry that
somehow, despite Google's bestefforts, there's fake reviews
getting bought and reviews beingtransferred.
(15:21):
And if you go through and readthem, you can start seeing a
generic pattern.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, yeah, start seeing a generic pattern.
Yeah, yeah, I think you youkind of touched on it about high
pressure sales tactics, whichis also a big part of bad actors
in the HVAC community.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, it is, Um.
One thing we do to combat thatis is none of our techs, none of
our employees are paid oncommission whatsoever.
We do not have a commissionstructure.
We're one of the few companiesI know of left that pay a
technician from the time theyget to work in the morning to
(15:58):
the time they go home at night.
We pay straight, hourly.
There is some things that ifthey hit certain metrics, if
they hit certain metrics, ifthey, you know, achieve certain
things, there's some spiffs andthere's some bonuses and so
forth, but they don't havemediocre pay with commission
bonuses, um, that incentivizesales.
And, honestly, one of myfrustrations with employees is
(16:24):
we've got we've got someproducts out there that are
really cool that, you know,provide real benefit to a
homeowner.
I've got some products outthere that are really cool, that
provide real benefit to ahomeowner.
I've got some service techsthat just do not like to sell
and I wish they'd provide thislist of accessories and so forth
to homeowners more often, Notonly because, yes, sales make
the world go round.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
That's not what we're 100% about but sales do make
the world go round, but it'salso about indoor air quality
and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I hate it when customers are like, oh, you guys
offer that.
Well, the last several timesyour guy was here he didn't
mention it.
Well, yeah, he didn't like tosell it and put pressure.
But um, but there's a the.
The business model is almostturning into paying a very low
base wage with the potential toearn crazy money based on
(17:10):
commission Interesting.
So you know like you go on aservice call if I'm on a
commission base or if I'mgetting paid.
You know a lot of companiescall it ticket pay or ticket
time or whatever.
You get paid for billable hours, not idle hours, but just
billable hours, and then youearn a commission.
So if I'm at your house and I'mnot making any commission and
(17:35):
I'm making a livable wage, okay,this is why it's broke.
This is what we need to do tofix it.
You agree to that?
That may be one part, right?
Well, if I'm on commission allof a sudden, right, Well, if I'm
on commission all of a sudden,if you don't need a whole new
system today to fix this, thenyou need four or five parts.
(17:55):
So it encouragescommission-based pay, really
encourages overselling.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Going down the line of overselling.
What do you think are some keyelements that a small business
owner needs to keep in mind ifthey're trying to build trust in
their community?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
just you know, treat people like you would your, your
family.
Yeah, I, I understand.
Like as far as the heating andair conditioning business goes,
I understand the urge to sellequipment.
You know, because we are ourmargins on a system change out.
You know, changing a completesystem, that's probably where
(18:35):
we're going to make the mostmoney in one single day but,
with that being said, that's notalways what's appropriate.
You know, generally when wechange a system or when we come
to a homeowner or a smallbusiness owner and say you need
to replace this air conditioningsystem, it's done.
I mean it's destined for thescrap heap.
There's not.
I mean there comes a pointwhere either it's absolutely not
(18:57):
repairable or it makes zerofinancial sense to continue
putting money.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Because the repairs are more than what you're going
to pay to replace.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Or when you have a repair that's going to cost half
to two-thirds the cost of a newsystem, sure, and then you
might have another major repairneeded in the next year or
something.
That's when that conversationis justified.
But, on a fairness to thecustomer standpoint and a
business strategy, honestly, I'drather repair your system for
(19:28):
the next two, three, four, fiveyears and then sell you a system
once I've, you know, builttrust within you, sure.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
It's cheaper to maintain a customer relationship
.
Yeah, it's cheaper.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, and it's cheaper for you to make those
repairs and a lot of times if itmakes financial sense.
I also retain you as a customerlonger.
Exactly, yeah, but you knowthere's a lot of companies out
there that every time they'regoing for that sale, they're
going for the big sale.
Every time they go out, they'reswinging for the fence.
As far as building trust, justbe honest, there's.
(20:04):
I mean, is there timescompanies come out and have
disagreed with a diagnosis orsomething we've made?
Do I have employees that make amistake from time to time?
Sure, we're human, right, andwhen they do make a mistake, we
own it.
And, as a matter of fact, Idon't think there's a business
or a person out there that cantell you they don't make
mistakes, that they're right100% of the time.
(20:29):
And I think honestly that thetimes we've made mistakes and
we've owned it and we'vepresented a resolution, as
opposed to that being a negativething nine times out of 10, it
results in a stronger customerexperience because of you know,
at that point they've seen usscrew up, they've seen us, you
know, provide a solution.
But as far as building trustthat was the original question I
think you asked me Buildingtrust as a small business with a
(20:54):
customer is just be honest.
You know, treat them like you.
Would your treat the customerlike you would your family, um,
if you're, if you're a persontaking care of a person, then
you know the money and the salewill follow naturally.
You don't have to pry, you knowyou don't have to pry, you know
you don't have to pry a sale.
Yeah, and again say be honest,because there's a lot of people
(21:17):
that people can check.
You know full second opinionsand so forth in our business and
unfortunately we, you knowthere's a lot of mystery in our
business and there's not a lotof people that truly, if you
understand how it works, you'reprobably not calling us so like
so many other industries.
You know good liars, goodsalesmen, you know.
(21:40):
I mean maybe good is not thegood thing, but just the minute
you get caught with somethingit's not worth it.
I mean that one sale you getbecause of something being
untruthful, that's a kiss ofdeath to the business.
We just don't do it at all.
So it's just honesty all thetime, even if we're wrong.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
How do you, how do you hire and then train your
team to keep that front of mind?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
We spend a lot of time in our interview process,
um, trying to gauge people'ssoft skills and where they're at
personality wise.
Where we don't, we don't haveany tests or any you know
special tools or whatever, um.
But I think, um, if you talk tosome other people in our
(22:28):
management structure, we hiremore based upon how somebody's
going to fit into our cultureover technical ability, because
you can teach them right,correct, I could hire.
I could hire a plumber with 30years of experience and they are
a heat and air tech with 30years of experience and they
(22:48):
know what inside now and theymight be just you, a secret
weapon as far as you know thetechnology goes, or the
technical ability, but they'reprobably going to be the worst
employee that we have, justbecause of the time they've got
in the industry, sure, and theirexperience, and it's real hard
(23:08):
to make somebody like that fitinto our culture, not to say it
hasn't happened, it doesn'thappen.
I've got some people that havecame to us with a lot of
experience and they fit reallywell.
But we try to bring people outof honestly.
We try to bring people out oftrade schools and start them as
apprentices, train them in-house, you know, get them a license
(23:30):
and we basically build our ownservice techs at this point.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And give them a career path.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yes, and the biggest thing with hiring people is if
I'm not going to let somebody,if I'm not going to take my
house key out of my pocket andsend them to my house without me
there, if I'm not comfortablesending them to my grandmother's
house without me there, I'm notgoing to hire them.
Because the number of peoplethat trust us to hey, I'm going
(23:59):
to leave the back door unlocked,the garage door code is, you
know, Sure.
Previous employment, publicsafety, before heat and air,
became a thing for me.
It's alarming, you know, fromthat experience, to the way
people treat us.
It's honestly alarming, it'shumbling, it's a, it's a huge
(24:21):
responsibility.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And yeah.
So I mean it's the trust.
The trust has to be built.
And once we get somebody with ajourneyman's license and
they're in a truck and we putapprentices with them, you know,
we, we, we with a journeyman'slicense and they're in a truck
and we put apprentices with them.
You know, we, we do a good job.
We've built a culture where wepolice ourselves pretty well.
Sure, um, there's been a coupleinstances where I've had guys
that you know are out running atruck you know fairly long-term
(24:45):
employees that will hire anapprentice and they come to me
one morning and go, oh, I gotsome concerns about this guy
because of, um, you know, thiscircumstance or that
circumstance, and we do it.
So we, we police ourselvespretty well.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Open communication.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and and and again.
I think a lot of that comesfrom you know the environment
that we've created by not um, bynot having a big commission
based pay structure and and youknow the family type environment
and everybody knows each otherand we were fortunate in the
(25:22):
fact that most of our guys areactual friends outside of work
as well, so a lot of them dothings together away from work
on the weekends and the eveningsand so forth.
But that's the big thing ismaking sure someone fits the
culture, because if they don'tfit the culture, it's not going
to work.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
What do you do about educating customers we talked a
little bit about.
You know, if you've got acustomer that knows it all,
they're probably not calling you.
But for those repeat customersthat are coming back to you
often, what does that look like?
Probably not calling you, butfor those repeat customers are
coming back to you often.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
What does that look like?
You know there's, there's a,there's a lot of, there's a lot
of schools and seminars and soforth you can pay money to go to
to learn how to sell thingsRight.
I mean, I'm sure you've heardof them.
I find the best, I find thebest sales tools actually
education.
And when we sit down you knowmyself or, um, one of the guys
(26:17):
we sit down with the homeownerand it's either repairs or we're
talking.
We're having that uncomfortableconversation about you need to
replace the system.
Uh, it's about it.
It's about it.
A lot of times it's an hour anda half or two hour conversation
about what exactly is broke,conversation about what exactly
is broke, what it does and whatthe benefits of replacement are,
what the benefits of repair maybe, what the drawbacks of that
(26:45):
repair may be, and it reallyvaries.
But basically it's just a 100%open conversation.
You know Q&A, both directionsabout finding the fit for that
one.
You know for that onecircumstance with that one
customer.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It goes back to that trust factor.
Sure, I want to trust you Ifyou're, if I know you're being
upfront with me and telling meand helping me understand.
I mean, I'm not an HVAC expert.
You could tell me anything andI I probably believe it because
I I mean I that's, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm not encouraging that, but it's true.
That's what's dangerous aboutthis industry.
Yeah, there's a lot of mysteryand nobody wants to be cold,
Nobody wants to be hot.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
And there's a danger element to what we do also.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You know I mean the dangers of carbon monoxide, fire
and electricity.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
they're all very real .
You have a lot ofresponsibility to your clients.
It's a very it's a very easything to do for me to go in
there and be like, okay, this isgoing to kill your family,
You've got to replace it now.
If you say, yes, we can do ittomorrow.
If you don't tell me and wedon't do it tomorrow, I don't
know when you're going to getyou on the schedule and you guys
are going to be living underblankets in the living room.
We don't use those tactics atall.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It's one of those things where, when we get to
that point where we have aconversation, either, if we're
not having a customer educationconversation, it's a very, very
small repair.
I got you Anything above that,even if it's just with the
service tech.
If it's not me or Stephan,who's my right-hand guy director
of Opera, I guess now we callhim the director of business
(28:18):
development.
But anyway, we try to go outand handle the big conversations
, everything from the simplestrepair that can get you by right
now.
You know all the way up toreplacement, with all the
options in between, differentefficiencies, different.
You know styles, fuel choices,heat pump versus gas.
(28:42):
You know pretty much everyscenario that's applicable to
the situation.
And while we may say, you know,if this is my house, this is
what I would do, or this is whatI would tell my mom or my dad
to do, ultimately the customer'sdriving the bus right, so
they're going to make thedecision.
So we put everything out thereon the table, go over the pros
(29:02):
and cons and we walk away happyif the customer's happy.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I love that you just launched a septic arm of your
business, correct.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Let's hear about it.
So I didn't necessarily want tobe in the plumbing business
after I started this myself, sowe resisted that for a while.
And then the plumbing calls andthe plumbing demand was such
that we've done plumbing forseveral years Through plumbing
calls.
However, we kept running intorural customers that would call
(29:36):
for a plumbing issue.
And we get there and it's notreally a plumbing issue, it's a
septic issue.
So we were referring them tosome people in the area and once
again I see a customer servicehole as well as an opportunity.
A lot of the people we werereferring people to don't answer
the phone, don't returnvoicemails or again we're back
(29:56):
to where we'll put you on thelist.
It may take us three or fourweeks to get there, but we'll
put you on the list.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
But what do you do in the meantime, in those three or
four weeks?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
If your septic tank's completely full and you can't
flush a toilet in your house,it's kind of hard to wait, yeah,
three or four weeks.
So then people are, you knowthey're, they're calling, and
you know we had customers payinghuge trip fees and so forth
from uh septic companies todrive a hundred miles with the
vacuum truck to come, you know,clean their tank out.
(30:28):
Wow, um, and so we saw thisopportunity.
So we, we started putting onefoot in front of the other and
thinking about it about a yearago, year and a half ago, and
then it kind of it came intoexistence, you know, through uh
again some other opportunitiesand necessities that presented
(30:49):
themselves at the end of theyear last year and we had a dump
truck, you know, set up andfabricated, and we had our
septic truck vacuum truck thatyou suck the septic tank out
with, you know, fabricated, andwe really hoped to be up and
going, you know, in the middleof late February, the first part
(31:10):
of March and things likeeverything else in the supply
chain.
Everything kind of went slowerthan we wanted it to, had a
couple little bumps in the road,but we kept it real quiet.
We actually have installed acouple complete septic systems.
But we didn't really putanything public until we were
ready to go 100%, and I thinkthat was the first week of April
(31:34):
when that happened, when wefirst started.
We launched Facebook page andstarted pushing some stuff out.
We've had some billboards go up, we've been getting a lot of
calls.
I mean, it's been a hit so far.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Good Congratulations.
Well, thank you.
What other services?
I think we briefly talked aboutit, maybe in the beginning, but
I don't think we really talkedabout everything that Van Dyke
does.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So we do heating and air conditioning.
Primarily, our areas that welike to stay in is residential
and light commercial, and bylight commercial I mean no
boilers, no chillers.
Okay, you know.
(32:15):
So you know a little officebuilding, strip malls, you know
that sort of thing.
What's your service?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Residential, residential residential stuff,
and what were you going to askme?
Your service area?
Speaker 1 (32:23):
So we work pretty much everywhere between Edmond
and Lawton.
Okay, we, we've, we started inChickasha.
Our main office and our all ouradministrative staff and so
forth is in Chickasha.
We have opened an Oklahoma Cityoffice off of it's, just south
of the Northwest Expressway,northwest 89th and Council area,
(32:44):
and, I apologize, I don't knowthe address.
I can drive there but I can'ttell you the address.
Sure, I can drive there, but Ican't tell you the address.
Sure, the, but you know so thatheat and air and then you know
full service plumbing.
We don't do a whole lot of newconstruction.
We will do some, you know,custom home builds and some
(33:04):
smaller commercial stuff.
But we try to be the, we try tobe the savior when people have
a problem is what we try tofocus on?
Yeah, service and repair andretrofit replacement.
We had those two the heat andair and the plumbing.
Then we started the septic torun alongside the plumbing.
(33:25):
With septic comes some otherancillary things too.
We've got the equipment.
Our employees on that side havea fair amount of experience
with dirt work and so forth.
So while we're not out being adirt work contractor, we are
doing some smaller stuff, likeif somebody needs a dump truck
(33:45):
load of, you know, sand for thesandbox, or you know, dirt for a
garden project or gravel for adriveway, that sort of thing.
You know we're haulingaggregate, you know rocks and
gravel.
We're doing some driveway work,you know, kind of alongside that
, but not trying to get in acomplete separate thing there.
We just try to keep the, we tryto keep the dump truck and that
(34:05):
driver busy when we don't havea septic install.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Sure.
So for anybody who's listeningor watching today, where can
they connect with you?
Learn more about Van DykeMechanical.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
So you can find us at VanDykeMechanicalcom, which is
V-A-N-D-Y-E-C-K.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
We'll pop it up on the screen.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Unlike Dick Van Dyke, the actor.
Everybody knows it's spelled alittle bit different.
Okay, or you can call us at405-224-2665.
And I'll go ahead.
It's on all my business cards.
That's another differencebetween us.
You know like all of ourmanagement staff can interact
with us.
Our cell phones are on ourbusiness cards.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You can get a hold of somebody.
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
If the office frustrates, you call me on my
cell phone.
But my cell phone I'm going toput it out there as well as
405-222-6275.
But happy to talk to people.
If I can help anybody you knowin any way, shape or form, I'd
be happy to have a conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I love that.
Thank you so much for beinghere today, Well thank you for
sharing all the things with ourlisteners.
For anybody listening today,I'm going to put all of that
information linked below down inthe description box.
'll also put the address toyour oklahoma city office and
she yeah, I'll link all of thatbelow.
If you've got any questions forclark, um, you can email, I'll
(35:21):
put do you have an email?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
yeah, uh, it's just c van dyke.
You have an email.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I emailed mechanicalcom I'll link that
below too.
Um, thank you so much forlistening today.
We will look forward to you,for your, for our next episode.
In the meantime, thanks forlistening and thank you for
being here today thank you forhaving me have a good one.
Bye, friends, bye.
And when I say customer service, there's no
magic, there's no curtain,there's no big production.
It's literally simply trying todo what you say you're going to
do when you say you're going todo it.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey there everyone.
Welcome back to the Build WithBBB podcast.
I'm your host, casey Farmer,here with Clark Van Dyke of Van
Dyke Mechanical, a longtimeaccredited business and
community member.
We're so excited we're going tobe talking about their
customer-centric business model,what it looks like to be really
involved in the community andhow to put your customers first.
Clark, welcome to the podcast.
(00:51):
Thank you, glad to be here.
Yeah, so one of my favoritethings always to start off with
is how did you get the wild ideato start an HVAC company?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, like I was telling you before we got
started here, I started out ofhigh school in public safety
careers and heating and airconditioning was a part-time,
day-off thing and it kind ofjust became the full-time thing.
And through working throughother companies, there was just
(01:24):
something more that I wanted andI saw through conversations
with people that there was aneed for true customer service
in the residential and lightcommercial you know, heat and
air industry and plumbingindustry.
There's really a big hole thereand the right things happened
and we decided to make a go forit in 2016.
(01:45):
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Here we are.
I learned a little bitbeforehand about your story.
This is not all you do.
You're a very busy guy and anentrepreneur, so would you say
kind of always been anentrepreneur at heart.
Oh, yes, yes, always busy doingsomething.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Always in a challenge , Always trying to do everything
you know everything the best wecan, or improve even what we're
doing constantly.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Sure, sure.
So I was checking out yourwebsite, getting to know Van
Dyke, though you've beenaccredited, I think, since 2017.
So I'm very active in ourcommunity yeah, several years.
So congratulations One.
Making it through COVID istough.
It was tough for a lot ofbusinesses.
So I mean that shows a lotabout getting through that, but
a big part of what you do iscustomer-centric.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Do you want to talk about that?
So, like we kind of touched on,you know, when Van Dyke
Mechanical came to exist, I wasworking here in Oklahoma City
for a company that did primarilycommercial and industrial work.
They allowed some side work soI did a little bit, but it was
the volume of hey, when you gethome from work, will you come
over to my house and work?
(02:49):
Well, you know, can you do thisfor this person?
And you know they, you know mynumber started spreading and
what I was hearing was just likeyou know, people have gotten to
where they depend on their youknow their heat or their air
conditioning or their plumbingsystem.
And when you call a company andthey say, okay, we'll put you
(03:11):
on the list, that doesn't sitvery well.
Sure, so that's, that's one ofthe customer service holes that
I identified.
And the other thing was justjust trying to show up and do
what you say you're going to do.
When you say you're going to do, it is big, I mean it's huge.
So we went on a little whilewith doing some stuff on the
(03:32):
side and then, like I said, lifeevents happened and it
presented an opportunity.
So we started this business, mein a truck by myself.
The first day was July 5th 2016.
And then we just grewincrementally as the demand
justified.
(03:53):
We hired an apprentice and thenwe hired a journeyman, bought
another truck and then we hiredanother apprentice and then we
hired another journeyman.
And you fast forward to umtoday and, you know, at our, at
our, at our maximum, you know,uh, maximum number of employees,
I think we had 28 full-timeemployees and um 12 trucks.
(04:15):
We're we're down a little bitnow, just based upon, you know,
demand.
But, um, and and we've alsolooked at some stuff as far as
efficiencies and differentdirections the business is going
.
But, yeah, it grew really fastand I attribute that fast growth
and it was really uncomfortable.
You know, for the majority ofthat time too, it wanted to grow
(04:36):
faster than I necessarilywanted it to grow.
But it's all based on customerservice.
And when I say customer service, there's no magic, there's no
curtain, there's no, you knowthere's no, there's no curtain,
there's no big production, it'sjust, it's.
It's literally simply trying todo what you say you're going to
do.
When you say you're going to doit Interesting and stand behind
what you do.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yeah, and when you started with a little, with a
truck, in 2016, did you imaginethat your company was going to
look like what it looks liketoday?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Oh no, no.
I went through the terror of ohmy, we didn't even get a single
service call today.
What are we going to do?
I hope we get somethingtomorrow and I feel like you
spend a certain number of daysterrified that you know it's
just going to, it's just notgoing to work.
(05:25):
And you know, one day you wakeup and you go, wow, how did it
become this monster?
Speaker 2 (05:31):
What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who
might be in that situation thatyou were in?
Hey, I'm not getting a phonecall today.
It's kind of freaky.
What would you tell evenyourself?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
or another entrepreneur, a lot of, a lot of
older, a lot of older guys thathave been in business for a
long time.
You know, I was fortunateenough to be.
You know that I was fortunateenough to know and be able to
talk to um were just, they givethe advice keep your nose down.
You know, focus on what you'redoing, don't worry about what
(06:03):
your competitors are doing,don't worry about what other
people are saying.
You know, stay the course ofwhat you know that you need to
be doing and what your missionis, and everything will work out
.
And you know, the one thingthat we really tried to focus on
was if we take care of people.
You know, I never, from thestart of this, have really went
out chasing a dollar.
You know we're not chasing thenext sale, we're taking care of
(06:26):
people and the dollars follownaturally with taking care of
people.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So mentorship is a big part of that.
Oh yeah, in your business, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And a little bit of it's just mindset too Sure.
When we first started, I had ahandful of people that said, you
know, because we started inChickasha and there was two
really established decades-oldhair companies in Chickasha and
I had a handful of people sayyou're never going to make it,
you're never going to make it,you're making a big mistake.
There's no way you can go inagainst these big two and make a
(06:59):
splash at all.
I mean, you're being silly, youneed to go get a job.
Well, part of what exists in meis a little bit of oh yeah.
Well, let me show you what wecan do.
So a little bit, I think itrequires risk tolerance.
It requires a little bit ofobstinance.
Yeah, and ultimately I'm onethat I've got a plan B and a
(07:23):
plan C for everything that we do.
Um, it drives people around mecrazy sometimes, but every time
we embark in a new venture likewe just started a.
We just started a septicdivision.
You know that's been publiclyopen for two, three weeks now.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Oh, new, new, Okay, new new, yeah New new.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
So but one of the things that that is is I go into
everything we do planning forfailure.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
OK.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And that way you know if it looks like it's going
that way, then you already knowyour way out.
I think you know, as asromantic as it may sound to just
go take the chance and just gofor it.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
You got it.
You got to plan for what you'regoing to do when it fails.
Yeah, you mentioned earlierthat Van Dyke does not adhere to
kind of typical working hoursbecause it's not always best for
what the customer needs.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Do you want to talk about that?
Yeah, that's correct.
And if I can sidebar from thata little bit as far as not
typical working hours and we'vetalked a little bit about people
taking care of people is kindof where we started, where we
want to continue to go, that'son the employee side as well as
the customer side.
So my time, since I've beendoing full-time heating and air
(08:33):
conditioning and plumbing work,I've worked for companies,
worked for several differentcompanies before we started this
.
Every one of those companies Itook something from, be it.
Things I really disliked aboutworking for that company, things
I really liked managementstyles.
What was a strong, positivemanagement style that existed at
this place?
What was a management stylethat ruined morale and made me
(08:57):
not want to get up and come towork at the other place?
So when we started, I kind ofjust combined those things and
We've got the goal of all of ouremployees looking forward to
getting up in the morning,coming to work, trying to
maintain a family-typeenvironment for the employee.
We realize that everybody worksso they can live their life.
(09:19):
They don't live to work.
Well, we've got stuff we've gotto do.
I mean, it has to be withinreason.
Sure, but we understand familycomes first, I do I mean it?
has to be within reason, youknow.
But.
But we understand family comesfirst and we try to be as
flexible as we can, which whichis actually kind of a benefit in
the customer service world too,because if we have employees
that are happy, that enjoy whatthey're doing, it makes the
(09:40):
customer experience that muchbetter, cause if you're dealing
with a pleasant guy that likeshis job and, you know, sees a
purpose behind what he's doing,your experience as a customer is
going to be a lot better thanif you've got somebody that's
just trying to make the nextpaycheck.
Yeah, the other thing is isthrough some of that flexibility
we foster an environment, or atleast try to, and I mentioned
(10:00):
it's a family environment,albeit like a lot of families.
It's dysfunctional at times,but for the most part it's good.
Sure, but some of thatflexibility results in
flexibility.
That's both ways.
So if, say, an employee needsto take off today because he's
got a kid function or somethinglike that, but we have stuff pop
up on a Saturday or that needsto be done late in an evening or
(10:24):
something, most of our guys aremore than happy to adjust their
schedule, make up those hours,and it allows us to take care of
customers and take care of theemployee, so that works.
But outside of that, even ifwe're not being flexible or
swapping time or something tothat effect, we do have people
on call 24 hours a day, sevendays a week, and we understand
(10:47):
that.
The customer's time and back todoing what you say you're going
to do, when you're going to,when you say you're going to do
it.
Everybody's time's valuable.
I think time.
Time is probably the mostexpensive commodity that any of
us have because you're notgetting back.
So if we say we're going to beat your house between three and
five, we're going to be therebetween three and five.
If you can't make anappointment during regular
(11:09):
business hours, we're more thanhappy to schedule and make it
work Weekends or at night.
As long as we know and we havea little bit of notice, we can
make about anything work.
But the on-call situation is wealways have somebody available.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
You talked about that customer experience and how
that's so important to yourbusiness and unfortunately we
see a lot albeit like a lot ofbad actors in the HVAC industry.
Here at B2B we see a lot ofthat and part of that is lack of
quality of service, but it'salso quality of like install and
how they're recommendingproducts and services.
(11:52):
What does that look like forVan Dyke?
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Well, we, you know, starting in Chickasha, it's a,
you know, the the uh smallercommunity, and I think Chickasha
is growing, it's growing.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
It is.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Um, it's bigger now and it's there's people from the
outside that you know aren'tnecessarily from the area now,
so it's changing a little bit.
But in a community likeChegishay, word of mouth and
reputation literally meaneverything.
So you know one.
The way we look at it is is youknow, an unhappy customer is a
(12:28):
lot more experience or a lotmore expensive, excuse me, than
going the extra mile and makingsure everything's done right.
Sure, we can't be the cheapest.
We don't try to be the cheapest.
If it comes down to, who canget this system installed in my
house for the least number ofdollars?
Speaker 2 (12:46):
And sometimes people need that, but often you get
what you pay for.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And often if we get in that situation, you know, if
we look at value provided, Ithink we'll win every time.
If we look at just number ofdollars and how cheap, can we do
it?
I'm not very good at competingin that arena.
It's not a drastic difference,but you know we're not.
That's not where we want tocompete.
It's not a drastic difference,but you know we're not.
(13:10):
That's not where we want tocompete.
I want to go home and basicallyI judge everything by how I
feel when I go home at the endof the day.
If I can go home at the end ofthe day and feel like I've
delivered a product and aservice to you at your home that
I'd be happy to have in my homeor my grandmother's house or
you know anybody that's close tome, then we've succeeded.
If there's anything that we'relike I would have done that
(13:31):
different if it was in my housethen we didn't really do our job
that well that day.
Yeah, so we try to avoid thosesituations and unfortunately,
like you're saying, a lot of badactors we we're in.
We're going behind othercompanies a lot more than I wish
we would have.
Sure, and it really it'sbecoming challenging because
(13:53):
probably one out of every threeto five customers we talk to
have talked to somebody else, beit other companies or friends
or people at church, and they'realready you know, they're
already primed up, you know, forthe high pressure sales tactics
and trying to get.
You know people are trying tosell people things that they
(14:14):
don't truly need.
I'm in that age group where it'syou know the Internet was just
starting to be a thing and youknow I'm pre-Google, I'm
pre-Google and the Google reviewphenomenon at first I was
really kind of like man.
I can't believe people aretaking these reviews more
(14:37):
seriously.
Because you go to seminars andyou really watch customer
behavior.
People trust a Google review alot more than they trust
somebody at church or theirneighbor or even their relatives
.
They trust somebody at churchor their neighbor or even their
relatives, and the more and moreI see like you mentioned I mean
you have a bad experience withsomebody close.
You know that somebody close toyou referred.
You know Google reviews are agood thing.
They're a good thing, but youhave to read.
(14:59):
If you're someone that's lookingat Google reviews, you have to
read through the reviews andmake your own opinion of whether
or not those reviews arelegitimate or not, because
there's some very largecompanies in our industry that
somehow, despite Google's bestefforts, there's fake reviews
getting bought and reviews beingtransferred.
(15:21):
And if you go through and readthem, you can start seeing a
generic pattern.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, yeah, start seeing a generic pattern.
Yeah, yeah, I think you youkind of touched on it about high
pressure sales tactics, whichis also a big part of bad actors
in the HVAC community.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, it is, Um.
One thing we do to combat thatis is none of our techs, none of
our employees are paid oncommission whatsoever.
We do not have a commissionstructure.
We're one of the few companiesI know of left that pay a
technician from the time theyget to work in the morning to
(15:58):
the time they go home at night.
We pay straight, hourly.
There is some things that ifthey hit certain metrics, if
they hit certain metrics, ifthey, you know, achieve certain
things, there's some spiffs andthere's some bonuses and so
forth, but they don't havemediocre pay with commission
bonuses, um, that incentivizesales.
And, honestly, one of myfrustrations with employees is
(16:24):
we've got we've got someproducts out there that are
really cool that, you know,provide real benefit to a
homeowner.
I've got some products outthere that are really cool, that
provide real benefit to ahomeowner.
I've got some service techsthat just do not like to sell
and I wish they'd provide thislist of accessories and so forth
to homeowners more often, Notonly because, yes, sales make
the world go round.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
That's not what we're 100% about but sales do make
the world go round, but it'salso about indoor air quality
and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
I hate it when customers are like, oh, you guys
offer that.
Well, the last several timesyour guy was here he didn't
mention it.
Well, yeah, he didn't like tosell it and put pressure.
But um, but there's a the.
The business model is almostturning into paying a very low
base wage with the potential toearn crazy money based on
(17:10):
commission Interesting.
So you know like you go on aservice call if I'm on a
commission base or if I'mgetting paid.
You know a lot of companiescall it ticket pay or ticket
time or whatever.
You get paid for billable hours, not idle hours, but just
billable hours, and then youearn a commission.
So if I'm at your house and I'mnot making any commission and
(17:35):
I'm making a livable wage, okay,this is why it's broke.
This is what we need to do tofix it.
You agree to that?
That may be one part, right?
Well, if I'm on commission allof a sudden, right, Well, if I'm
on commission all of a sudden,if you don't need a whole new
system today to fix this, thenyou need four or five parts.
(17:55):
So it encouragescommission-based pay, really
encourages overselling.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Going down the line of overselling.
What do you think are some keyelements that a small business
owner needs to keep in mind ifthey're trying to build trust in
their community?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
just you know, treat people like you would your, your
family.
Yeah, I, I understand.
Like as far as the heating andair conditioning business goes,
I understand the urge to sellequipment.
You know, because we are ourmargins on a system change out.
You know, changing a completesystem, that's probably where
(18:35):
we're going to make the mostmoney in one single day but,
with that being said, that's notalways what's appropriate.
You know, generally when wechange a system or when we come
to a homeowner or a smallbusiness owner and say you need
to replace this air conditioningsystem, it's done.
I mean it's destined for thescrap heap.
There's not.
I mean there comes a pointwhere either it's absolutely not
(18:57):
repairable or it makes zerofinancial sense to continue
putting money.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Because the repairs are more than what you're going
to pay to replace.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
Or when you have a repair that's going to cost half
to two-thirds the cost of a newsystem, sure, and then you
might have another major repairneeded in the next year or
something.
That's when that conversationis justified.
But, on a fairness to thecustomer standpoint and a
business strategy, honestly, I'drather repair your system for
(19:28):
the next two, three, four, fiveyears and then sell you a system
once I've, you know, builttrust within you, sure.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
It's cheaper to maintain a customer relationship
.
Yeah, it's cheaper.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, and it's cheaper for you to make those
repairs and a lot of times if itmakes financial sense.
I also retain you as a customerlonger.
Exactly, yeah, but you knowthere's a lot of companies out
there that every time they'regoing for that sale, they're
going for the big sale.
Every time they go out, they'reswinging for the fence.
As far as building trust, justbe honest, there's.
(20:04):
I mean, is there timescompanies come out and have
disagreed with a diagnosis orsomething we've made?
Do I have employees that make amistake from time to time?
Sure, we're human, right, andwhen they do make a mistake, we
own it.
And, as a matter of fact, Idon't think there's a business
or a person out there that cantell you they don't make
mistakes, that they're right100% of the time.
(20:29):
And I think honestly that thetimes we've made mistakes and
we've owned it and we'vepresented a resolution, as
opposed to that being a negativething nine times out of 10, it
results in a stronger customerexperience because of you know,
at that point they've seen usscrew up, they've seen us, you
know, provide a solution.
But as far as building trustthat was the original question I
think you asked me Buildingtrust as a small business with a
(20:54):
customer is just be honest.
You know, treat them like you.
Would your treat the customerlike you would your family, um,
if you're, if you're a persontaking care of a person, then
you know the money and the salewill follow naturally.
You don't have to pry, you knowyou don't have to pry, you know
you don't have to pry a sale.
Yeah, and again say be honest,because there's a lot of people
(21:17):
that people can check.
You know full second opinionsand so forth in our business and
unfortunately we, you knowthere's a lot of mystery in our
business and there's not a lotof people that truly, if you
understand how it works, you'reprobably not calling us so like
so many other industries.
You know good liars, goodsalesmen, you know.
(21:40):
I mean maybe good is not thegood thing, but just the minute
you get caught with somethingit's not worth it.
I mean that one sale you getbecause of something being
untruthful, that's a kiss ofdeath to the business.
We just don't do it at all.
So it's just honesty all thetime, even if we're wrong.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
How do you, how do you hire and then train your
team to keep that front of mind?
Speaker 1 (22:06):
We spend a lot of time in our interview process,
um, trying to gauge people'ssoft skills and where they're at
personality wise.
Where we don't, we don't haveany tests or any you know
special tools or whatever, um.
But I think, um, if you talk tosome other people in our
(22:28):
management structure, we hiremore based upon how somebody's
going to fit into our cultureover technical ability, because
you can teach them right,correct, I could hire.
I could hire a plumber with 30years of experience and they are
a heat and air tech with 30years of experience and they
(22:48):
know what inside now and theymight be just you, a secret
weapon as far as you know thetechnology goes, or the
technical ability, but they'reprobably going to be the worst
employee that we have, justbecause of the time they've got
in the industry, sure, and theirexperience, and it's real hard
(23:08):
to make somebody like that fitinto our culture, not to say it
hasn't happened, it doesn'thappen.
I've got some people that havecame to us with a lot of
experience and they fit reallywell.
But we try to bring people outof honestly.
We try to bring people out oftrade schools and start them as
apprentices, train them in-house, you know, get them a license
(23:30):
and we basically build our ownservice techs at this point.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And give them a career path.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yes, and the biggest thing with hiring people is if
I'm not going to let somebody,if I'm not going to take my
house key out of my pocket andsend them to my house without me
there, if I'm not comfortablesending them to my grandmother's
house without me there, I'm notgoing to hire them.
Because the number of peoplethat trust us to hey, I'm going
(23:59):
to leave the back door unlocked,the garage door code is, you
know, Sure.
Previous employment, publicsafety, before heat and air,
became a thing for me.
It's alarming, you know, fromthat experience, to the way
people treat us.
It's honestly alarming, it'shumbling, it's a, it's a huge
(24:21):
responsibility.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
And yeah.
So I mean it's the trust.
The trust has to be built.
And once we get somebody with ajourneyman's license and
they're in a truck and we putapprentices with them, you know,
we, we, we with a journeyman'slicense and they're in a truck
and we put apprentices with them.
You know, we, we do a good job.
We've built a culture where wepolice ourselves pretty well.
Sure, um, there's been a coupleinstances where I've had guys
that you know are out running atruck you know fairly long-term
(24:45):
employees that will hire anapprentice and they come to me
one morning and go, oh, I gotsome concerns about this guy
because of, um, you know, thiscircumstance or that
circumstance, and we do it.
So we, we police ourselvespretty well.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Open communication.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, and and and again.
I think a lot of that comesfrom you know the environment
that we've created by not um, bynot having a big commission
based pay structure and and youknow the family type environment
and everybody knows each otherand we were fortunate in the
(25:22):
fact that most of our guys areactual friends outside of work
as well, so a lot of them dothings together away from work
on the weekends and the eveningsand so forth.
But that's the big thing ismaking sure someone fits the
culture, because if they don'tfit the culture, it's not going
to work.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
What do you do about educating customers we talked a
little bit about.
You know, if you've got acustomer that knows it all,
they're probably not calling you.
But for those repeat customersthat are coming back to you
often, what does that look like?
Probably not calling you, butfor those repeat customers are
coming back to you often.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
What does that look like?
You know there's, there's a,there's a lot of, there's a lot
of schools and seminars and soforth you can pay money to go to
to learn how to sell thingsRight.
I mean, I'm sure you've heardof them.
I find the best, I find thebest sales tools actually
education.
And when we sit down you knowmyself or, um, one of the guys
(26:17):
we sit down with the homeownerand it's either repairs or we're
talking.
We're having that uncomfortableconversation about you need to
replace the system.
Uh, it's about it.
It's about it.
A lot of times it's an hour anda half or two hour conversation
about what exactly is broke,conversation about what exactly
is broke, what it does and whatthe benefits of replacement are,
what the benefits of repair maybe, what the drawbacks of that
(26:45):
repair may be, and it reallyvaries.
But basically it's just a 100%open conversation.
You know Q&A, both directionsabout finding the fit for that
one.
You know for that onecircumstance with that one
customer.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It goes back to that trust factor.
Sure, I want to trust you Ifyou're, if I know you're being
upfront with me and telling meand helping me understand.
I mean, I'm not an HVAC expert.
You could tell me anything andI I probably believe it because
I I mean I that's, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
I'm not encouraging that, but it's true.
That's what's dangerous aboutthis industry.
Yeah, there's a lot of mysteryand nobody wants to be cold,
Nobody wants to be hot.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
And there's a danger element to what we do also.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You know I mean the dangers of carbon monoxide, fire
and electricity.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
they're all very real .
You have a lot ofresponsibility to your clients.
It's a very it's a very easything to do for me to go in
there and be like, okay, this isgoing to kill your family,
You've got to replace it now.
If you say, yes, we can do ittomorrow.
If you don't tell me and wedon't do it tomorrow, I don't
know when you're going to getyou on the schedule and you guys
are going to be living underblankets in the living room.
We don't use those tactics atall.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
It's one of those things where, when we get to
that point where we have aconversation, either, if we're
not having a customer educationconversation, it's a very, very
small repair.
I got you Anything above that,even if it's just with the
service tech.
If it's not me or Stephan,who's my right-hand guy director
of Opera, I guess now we callhim the director of business
(28:18):
development.
But anyway, we try to go outand handle the big conversations
, everything from the simplestrepair that can get you by right
now.
You know all the way up toreplacement, with all the
options in between, differentefficiencies, different.
You know styles, fuel choices,heat pump versus gas.
(28:42):
You know pretty much everyscenario that's applicable to
the situation.
And while we may say, you know,if this is my house, this is
what I would do, or this is whatI would tell my mom or my dad
to do, ultimately the customer'sdriving the bus right, so
they're going to make thedecision.
So we put everything out thereon the table, go over the pros
(29:02):
and cons and we walk away happyif the customer's happy.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I love that you just launched a septic arm of your
business, correct.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Let's hear about it.
So I didn't necessarily want tobe in the plumbing business
after I started this myself, sowe resisted that for a while.
And then the plumbing calls andthe plumbing demand was such
that we've done plumbing forseveral years Through plumbing
calls.
However, we kept running intorural customers that would call
(29:36):
for a plumbing issue.
And we get there and it's notreally a plumbing issue, it's a
septic issue.
So we were referring them tosome people in the area and once
again I see a customer servicehole as well as an opportunity.
A lot of the people we werereferring people to don't answer
the phone, don't returnvoicemails or again we're back
(29:56):
to where we'll put you on thelist.
It may take us three or fourweeks to get there, but we'll
put you on the list.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
But what do you do in the meantime, in those three or
four weeks?
Speaker 1 (30:06):
If your septic tank's completely full and you can't
flush a toilet in your house,it's kind of hard to wait, yeah,
three or four weeks.
So then people are, you knowthey're, they're calling, and
you know we had customers payinghuge trip fees and so forth
from uh septic companies todrive a hundred miles with the
vacuum truck to come, you know,clean their tank out.
(30:28):
Wow, um, and so we saw thisopportunity.
So we, we started putting onefoot in front of the other and
thinking about it about a yearago, year and a half ago, and
then it kind of it came intoexistence, you know, through uh
again some other opportunitiesand necessities that presented
(30:49):
themselves at the end of theyear last year and we had a dump
truck, you know, set up andfabricated, and we had our
septic truck vacuum truck thatyou suck the septic tank out
with, you know, fabricated, andwe really hoped to be up and
going, you know, in the middleof late February, the first part
(31:10):
of March and things likeeverything else in the supply
chain.
Everything kind of went slowerthan we wanted it to, had a
couple little bumps in the road,but we kept it real quiet.
We actually have installed acouple complete septic systems.
But we didn't really putanything public until we were
ready to go 100%, and I thinkthat was the first week of April
(31:34):
when that happened, when wefirst started.
We launched Facebook page andstarted pushing some stuff out.
We've had some billboards go up, we've been getting a lot of
calls.
I mean, it's been a hit so far.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Good Congratulations.
Well, thank you.
What other services?
I think we briefly talked aboutit, maybe in the beginning, but
I don't think we really talkedabout everything that Van Dyke
does.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So we do heating and air conditioning.
Primarily, our areas that welike to stay in is residential
and light commercial, and bylight commercial I mean no
boilers, no chillers.
Okay, you know.
(32:15):
So you know a little officebuilding, strip malls, you know
that sort of thing.
What's your service?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Residential, residential residential stuff,
and what were you going to askme?
Your service area?
Speaker 1 (32:23):
So we work pretty much everywhere between Edmond
and Lawton.
Okay, we, we've, we started inChickasha.
Our main office and our all ouradministrative staff and so
forth is in Chickasha.
We have opened an Oklahoma Cityoffice off of it's, just south
of the Northwest Expressway,northwest 89th and Council area,
(32:44):
and, I apologize, I don't knowthe address.
I can drive there but I can'ttell you the address.
Sure, I can drive there, but Ican't tell you the address.
Sure, the, but you know so thatheat and air and then you know
full service plumbing.
We don't do a whole lot of newconstruction.
We will do some, you know,custom home builds and some
(33:04):
smaller commercial stuff.
But we try to be the, we try tobe the savior when people have
a problem is what we try tofocus on?
Yeah, service and repair andretrofit replacement.
We had those two the heat andair and the plumbing.
Then we started the septic torun alongside the plumbing.
(33:25):
With septic comes some otherancillary things too.
We've got the equipment.
Our employees on that side havea fair amount of experience
with dirt work and so forth.
So while we're not out being adirt work contractor, we are
doing some smaller stuff, likeif somebody needs a dump truck
(33:45):
load of, you know, sand for thesandbox, or you know, dirt for a
garden project or gravel for adriveway, that sort of thing.
You know we're haulingaggregate, you know rocks and
gravel.
We're doing some driveway work,you know, kind of alongside that
, but not trying to get in acomplete separate thing there.
We just try to keep the, we tryto keep the dump truck and that
(34:05):
driver busy when we don't havea septic install.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
Sure.
So for anybody who's listeningor watching today, where can
they connect with you?
Learn more about Van DykeMechanical.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
So you can find us at VanDykeMechanicalcom, which is
V-A-N-D-Y-E-C-K.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
We'll pop it up on the screen.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Unlike Dick Van Dyke, the actor.
Everybody knows it's spelled alittle bit different.
Okay, or you can call us at405-224-2665.
And I'll go ahead.
It's on all my business cards.
That's another differencebetween us.
You know like all of ourmanagement staff can interact
with us.
Our cell phones are on ourbusiness cards.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You can get a hold of somebody.
Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
If the office frustrates, you call me on my
cell phone.
But my cell phone I'm going toput it out there as well as
405-222-6275.
But happy to talk to people.
If I can help anybody you knowin any way, shape or form, I'd
be happy to have a conversation.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I love that.
Thank you so much for beinghere today, Well thank you for
sharing all the things with ourlisteners.
For anybody listening today,I'm going to put all of that
information linked below down inthe description box.
'll also put the address toyour oklahoma city office and
she yeah, I'll link all of thatbelow.
If you've got any questions forclark, um, you can email, I'll
(35:21):
put do you have an email?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
yeah, uh, it's just c van dyke.
You have an email.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I emailed mechanicalcom I'll link that
below too.
Um, thank you so much forlistening today.
We will look forward to you,for your, for our next episode.
In the meantime, thanks forlistening and thank you for
being here today thank you forhaving me have a good one.
Bye, friends, bye.
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