January 7, 2025 • 30 mins
Don’t let the economy hold your business back—take charge of your growth with proven strategies for success. This episode dives into how mindset, customer focus, and operational efficiency can help your business thrive in any market. Learn how to target the right customers, maximize leads, increase average job size, and deliver a standout customer experience. Join host Adam Sylvester, and Paul Maskill of Blue Collar Business Advisors.
New to Jobber? Masters of Home Service listeners can claim an exclusive discount for Jobber at https://bit.ly/4d0KAEh
[00:00] Introduction to the episode and guest [01:43] Mindset shifts needed to thrive in a downward economy [03:36] Avoiding the trap of undervaluing your expertise and the importance of charging based on skills and demand [05:58] Getting the most out of all leads and improving response times [07:58] Addressing the demand for faster services in an instant gratification market [11:06] Leveraging technology and fractional services to capture and nurture leads [12:06] The role of field service software, like Jobber, in creating a standout customer experience [13:08] Improving booking rates through better phone processes and follow-up systems [15:08] Asking questions to understand client needs and increase job value [17:14] Implementing a sales process to expand average job size [23:00] Understanding and improving booking rates to enhance business performance [25:47] Strategies to deliver a world-class customer experience [27:46] Acquiring struggling businesses and strategies for fair transactions [29:21] Adam’s key takeaways: Call every lead back, Extend the hours you pick up the phone, Ask questions to increase average job size
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What you don't realize is what happenswhen you don't call that person back.
That person is now has a negative viewof your company and they're going to tell
the world. So the whole saying ofsuper happy customers, tell one person,
miserable customers tellthe world it's true.
Welcome to Jobbers, masters of HomeService, a podcast for home service pros,
buy home service pros. We're in Las Vegas.
(00:20):
Today we're talking about how to growin a downward economy. As always,
I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.Today's guest is Paul Maskell. Paul,
welcome to the studio.
Thanks, Adam. Excited to be here.
Me too. Okay, so tell ourlisteners who you are, what you do,
and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, so I'm Paul Mask. I livein Raleigh, North Carolina.
I offer outsource CFO services tospecifically companies in the trades.
(00:44):
If you don't know what that means,basically I help them create consistent,
positive cashflow,
keep them on track financiallyso they can achieve their goals.
Okay, and what was your background?
Yeah, so my background is interesting.
So I've spent the lastseven years in the trades.
Most recently I owned an electricalcompany for the last three years,
exited that earlier in theyear. And then before all this,
(01:05):
back in 2007, I actuallygot a finance degree,
moved to Chicago and thought Iwanted to climb the corporate ladder.
And then came 2008,
I watched all sorts of people who believedand thought and were ingrained that
getting a nice cushy job in the city,
working for a big company is the bestthing to do. You get the benefits,
you get the four one K, you get the PTO.
(01:25):
And then I watched all those people getwiped out. They got completely laid off.
Their whole life was builton this one job. And to me,
I realized this isn't as safe aseverybody says it is. So long story short,
I quit my job in 2010, movedto Raleigh, North Carolina,
and since then I've been owning andscaling and selling local businesses.
Cool. Awesome. Well, let's get into it.
So talking about not just survive,
(01:47):
but how to grow and thrive in adownward economy in that right now,
so to speak in some ways.And so let's talk about it.
Our listeners arewondering the same things.
What's the most important things ourlisteners should do to be able to grow in
this downward economy?
Yeah, that's a great question andI think a lot of it's mindset too.
And I think if we look atin the history of time,
(02:08):
the most wealth has always been built indownward economies because people that
are in a position to take advantageof that downward economy, IE,
they usually have some sort of cash.They can then really start to grow.
So when it comes to owning a homeservice business, it is no different.
And if you look at who your idealcustomer is, and I use this analogy a lot,
there's speed, quality and price. Youcan pick two of those to compete on,
(02:30):
or as a consumer you can picktwo of those that you want,
but you can't have all three.
You can't have the best thingsuper quick and super cheap.
So if we can serve people thatdon't really care about price,
but they care about quality andspeed, those people value their time,
they value things getting done reallywell and they don't really care what the
price is. And those people also don'tget affected into downward economy.
(02:50):
So I think from just an overall mindset,
if we can start to really believe inwhat we provide and go after the people
that aren't lookingfor the cheapest thing,
if you're running the race of I justwant to be cheaper than everybody else,
unfortunately that's arace. Once you win it,
you've actually lost out of business.
Yeah, I like your point about mindset too.
(03:10):
I think we all know people whoare negative about this kind of
stuff, things that out of their controland it just doesn't really help.
And so I think for our listeners,
if you're that person listening and allyou do is talk about how bad the economy
is in your area and oh, this and that,that's just not a way to get ahead.
That's not the mindset of someonewho's going to thrive when it's hard.
(03:34):
You have to have a tough mindset.
You do.
And I think you really have to seethe value in the services you provide.
I've been aroundtradespeople my whole life.
My dad actually worked in the trades.He owned his own hardwood floor company.
He was a one-man band. Everybodyhe worked around the plumbers,
the electricians, HVAC guys, they wereall one-man bands and they all said,
dude, don't get into thetrades, don't do this.
But there's such a blue collar mentalityof I'm just really good at this.
(03:58):
It takes me five minutes. I don'tthink I should be able to charge X.
But.
The reason it takes 'em so quickly andthey're so skilled is because they can do
in a really long time.
So a lot of times people in the tradesreally devalue the ability and skill they
have. The average age of people inthe trades is almost 60 years old.
So I tell everybody, when you lookat and if you look at skilled trades,
(04:18):
there's more doctors in thiscountry than electricians.
There are more doctors inthis country than plumbers.
There are more doctors in thiscountry than HVAC technicians.
So you are really valuable.
We can't outsource what you doand if that's what you're doing,
you need to charge accordingly.Simply supply and demand.
Yeah, I think about the pricing thing.
What you said earlier is I had anelectrician come to my house and I could
(04:43):
not fix the ceiling fan I thought Icould and I pulled apart and it was a
variable speed, so there were nine wiresinstead of three. I was like, yeah,
I'm not doing this myself.
And the reason I tell thatstory is because he charged me,
I think 2 49 for a very,
very quick job and some of my technicians,
I told them that story and they werelike 2 49, how long were they there?
I said, that doesn't matterhow long they were there,
(05:04):
they solved my problem andI was happy to pay 2 49.
I didn't want him to be there alleight hours. I want him to be fast,
I want him to be out. And so we'repaying people for their experience,
the years and years of trainingthey've had to do these jobs fast,
to have an organized van, to beable to find the things quick.
You're not just chargingyour clients for their time.
(05:26):
And if you look at the opportunitycost of you as the homeowner,
how long would it take youto solve that simple problem?
Forever.
Forever. You're going to watcha whole bunch of YouTube videos,
you're going to hook stuff up most likely.
Then eventually going to happen isyou're going to waste all that time.
Then you're going to call somebody anyway.
So not only does it take thattechnician five, 10 minutes,
but it also would've taken you 10 hoursand those 10 hours to the homeowner,
(05:46):
to the customer.
They can go do a lot more than that evenif they're in a job making $20 an hour,
that's 200 bucks that Hey, cool,I went and worked 10 hours.
You fixed my ceiling fan, we broke even.
Bingo.
So let's talk about leads because Ithink a lot of our listeners are getting
fewer leads than they got lastyear this time on average.
And so how do you get themost out of your leads?
(06:08):
How do you squeeze themost juice out of them?
Yeah, I mean that's a great question.So if we look at coming out of C Covid,
there was leads for everybody and thenand we got really complacent of like,
I don't need to call thatperson back right away.
Or they filled out a web formand all they want is one cut.
They just want their grass cut.Once we started choosing the.
Perfect.
Leads we did, we.
(06:28):
Had perfect leads we could choose from.
We were in this great position,
what we thought it was a great positionof I can be picky and I don't need to
call that person back.
But what you don't realize is what happenswhen you don't call that person back?
That person is now has a negative viewof your company and they're going to tell
the world. So the whole saying ofsuper happy customers tell one person,
miserable customers tell the worldit's true. If you think about it,
(06:51):
that's really true.
I don't just go rave about the guy thatcut my grass unless he blew me away,
but if he didn't show up ordidn't call back, I'm like,
if you're looking forsomeone to cut your grass,
I don't know who to choose but don'tchoose this guy. So when we really,
we need to be a lot more grateful forevery opportunity that comes our way
and we as homeowners also knowhow frustrating it's of, man,
(07:13):
I just need someone out to come out towash my house and we call three different
companies and they say they're going tocall back or we fill out the web form,
it just goes into this black hole whereall web forms go. If we can start to
treat our customers the way we wouldwant to be treated as a customer,
it's going to be a loteasier to start to build the,
and even this goes intoeven further conversations.
(07:34):
You're building the value beforethis person even knows your pricing.
And if you can continue to do that, wow,you answered the phone right away. Wow,
you showed up when you saidyou're going to show up. Wow,
I got a confirmation text. Oh my goodness,
you're doing exactly whatyou said you're going to do.
When you start doing all those things,
the value of that leadincreases significantly.
They're going to be customers for life,
they're going to start talking toyou about everybody else as well.
(07:55):
So we can't be picky anymore.
We also have to understandthat everybody's calling your company because they
have a problem when they want it solved.They're not just like, man,
I would just love to get a quoteto replace my roof just for fun.
Nobody's going to do that.
Where a lot of times we get in the mindsetas home service business owners is,
well, they're just price shopping.
(08:16):
No one's going to waste theirtime to price shop people,
price shop by Googling and they'regoing to read articles on Ange.
They're going to read articles on Googleof how much is it to wash my house?
Well, a 2000 square foot house shouldon average be 200 and $600 or whatever.
So when we can really understandif everybody is reaching out to us
because they have a problemand they want it solved,
and ideally they want you to solve it.
(08:38):
And I think that leadsare, when people call us,
they want it to be done faster thanthey did during the Covid times.
I think we were okay telling people, yeah,
I'll be there in three weeks andpeople would wait surprisingly,
but that's not normal.
The normal time is we can be theretomorrow because with restaurants,
for example, if you go to a restaurantand there's a line out the door,
(08:58):
it's a good restaurant, butservice companies are the opposite.
People don't think long linesand wait times are a trophy.
They think it's a pain and they don'twant to wait. They want you to come fast.
And so if you can streamline youroperations a little bit better,
at least for sales process to getto people faster, that really,
really matters when you're trying tosqueeze every drop juice out of the lead.
(09:19):
And I mean it's really an instantgratification world, Adam.
So if you think of when Amazon started,
people thought it was insane that theycould ship you a book in a week and now
people are furious if they don't gettheir toilet paper and four hours because
whatever you want, you want itnow. That's the world we're in.
And going back to thatspeed, quality and price,
if they get it now andthey get it really well,
they will pay a premiumfor that. Unfortunately,
(09:41):
when we don't charge a premium for that,
then that line does go outthe door because I'm not going to wait three weeks to
have someone come edgemy lawn or wash my house.
It's like I called you,
I have this problem and it's a problemnow and I'm not willing to wait three
weeks.
The only people that are willing to waita really long time are the people that
are willing to pay a really lowdollar amount for good quality.
(10:04):
Like the one man band,Hey man, Mike is great.
Mike is the best power washerguy in the neighborhood.
He's booked out a month because it's justMike. He's booked out a month because
he's not charging accordingly.So everyone's like,
some people will wait for that,but the majority, they want it now.
They want it done quickly.
And that goes with everything youneed to answer the phone, right? Well,
you need to fill out the formsright away. When you text 'em,
(10:26):
say you're on your way,
you actually need to show upwhen you say you're showed up.
And then when you're done, they expectyou to follow up. And when you follow up,
they're like, oh my gosh,this is amazing. This company,
they must wash my house. Well,they did everything else well.
And with leads, our listenersmight need to try some new things.
They might need to extend their hoursopen from 4:00 PM till 7:00 PM to try to
collect a few more and havesomeone cover the phones.
(10:47):
They might need to for a long time,
we could just bid things over the phoneand just fill out these big numbers and
if they said yes, then we'd behappy. But if they just said No,
go on the next lead.
But now we might need to actually goto more people's homes and do more
in-person presentations and instead ofjust all this willy nilly over the phone
stuff.
And there's so many, I mean technologymain, you can have AI answer your phone.
(11:09):
Now if you're afraid ofAI and you don't want it,
there's call centers that'll answeryour phone from four to seven,
four to eight. There's people that'llanswer your phone on the weekends,
and the best thing is it's afractional world. I do fractional work.
You don't need to hire full-time CSR toanswer the phone. You could say, Hey,
you only answer it when it rings.And it's a company that does it.
They got your script, they get youbooked. They know how to use jobber.
(11:29):
They have all these things in placewhere you're capturing more leads.
And I think where a lot of businessessay they do all that right,
where a lot of them kind of struggle isdon't forget about that person six or 12
months from now, whateverservice you're doing,
you probably recommendthem to do it regularly.
We're always chasing the next lead andwe forget about the couple thousand that
(11:50):
we work so hard to get. So even lookingat the next level of reminding them,
Hey, springtimes coming pollen seasonis here, let's get ahead of it.
They're like, oh my gosh,
thank you so much for reminding me versusus waiting for the phone to ring or
waiting for the door hangers,phone to ring and stuff like that.
Paul,
I want to pause our conversation for aminute to talk about jobber and why is it
(12:10):
important for our listeners toinvest in a software like Jobber,
even in economic downturns?Why is it important for them?
Yeah, and I'd say it's even moreimportant than when it's not,
because when everyone's busy,
the customers don't really carethat they're not using software,
that they're writingtheir own ticket by hand.
But now when you're getting alittle bit more competitive,
you need something to stand out andin order to stand out when you have
(12:31):
something like jobber, it's going to makethe customer experience a lot better.
So in the end, yes, you'respending a little bit of money,
but the return of that money is goingto be significant compared to what your
customers are going to have to deal with.
If you have Google calendar or a handcalendar or you tell your customer,
let me call you back becauseI got to go figure that out.
Yeah, well said. I mean, jobberjust makes you stand out so well.
It makes you look so smooth and sleek,and so I totally agree with that.
(12:53):
You need jobber too. Ifyou're not using jobber,
then you're just not impressingyour clients as much as you can.
So go to jobber.com/podcast, steal,
get an exclusive discount for new usersand start wowing your clients today.
So thriving in a downward economy.Let's talk about booking rates.
How can our listeners improve theirbooking rate during this time?
(13:15):
Yeah, I mean there's a goodcouple of things you can do. One,
you answer the phone every time.
So if you know can't answer the phoneor whoever's answering the phone,
if they can't answer it every time,have a backup system in place,
have a call center inplace, have AI in place,
have something in place where those peoplethat are calling know that you exist
because if they calland leave a voicemail,
the next thing they're doingis calling the next company,
(13:35):
and by the time you return thatvoicemail, they'll be like, sorry, Adam,
I already found somebody else.Same thing with your web form.
There's enough automations outthere if they fill out a web form,
if you can send them a text andyou don't have to do this manually,
it's automated a text or an emailright away. They're like, okay,
these guys are going tocall me within the next,
have that text say if this is duringbusiness hours or if it's between nine and
nine, we're going to callyou in the next 30 minutes.
(13:56):
Now we're setting the expectation.
The most amazing thing in this world ispeople are blown away when you tell 'em
what you're going to do and you do it.
Keep your promise.
Like, oh my gosh, you said you're goingto call 'em 30 minutes and you did.
I love you.
We're just setting those expectationsso when we can have a higher,
we're already fighting for the leads,
and if we're not bookingas many as we can,
we're just throwing money out the window.
(14:17):
And I think one other thing to kind offocus on is whoever's there that's in the
phone, they need to have a script. Theyneed to know what success looks like.
They need to know this is howwe operate, these are values,
and this is the questions we ask becausea lot of times if people say, Hey,
how much is it to wash my house? They'llbe like, anywhere between two and $600.
Okay, adios.
Whereas if they have a script wherethey can start answering questions, Hey,
(14:40):
let's get you booked.
We're not in 2020 anymore where we don'twant to deal with that person asking
for price of the phone, but now let'sretrain it. Let's have a script in place.
How do we handle that? How do wehandle people asking for prices?
How much is it to cut my lump? We'renot just going to say, I don't know.
And we're also not justgoing to give 'em a range.
We're going to have follow-up answersand questions to get more leads booked.
(15:04):
So we are lowering our cost per leadand we're increasing our revenue.
You got to peel backthe onion on the phone.
You got to really find out whythey called in the first place.
And customers lovethat. They're like, wow,
these people are actuallygenuinely interested.
How long have you lived in the home?
What type of work are you lookingto get done? All these questions,
and then you set the expectations.Here's what to expect next, Adam,
(15:24):
on the day of yourappointment or the day before,
we're going to give you a call the dayof, you're going to get a text message.
When we arrive,
we're going to park in the streetand we're going to wear shoe covers.
Whatever it is,
you're setting all this expectationsand then you do it and they trust you.
Yeah. When you ask 'em like, well,how'd you hear about us? Oh, well,
we saw you online. Okay, great. What'dyou see online? Well, some reviews. Oh,
is that important to you?Yeah, we really want,
we got screwed by the last guy andwe don't want that type of, oh,
(15:45):
what happened? And thensuddenly everything about them,
exactly what their pain pointsare, exactly why they called you,
what their timeframesare. If their deadline,
if there's daughters gettingmarried this weekend,
they're having big parties Fridaynight, it's got to be cut by Thursday.
You have to know all that stuff.
And those are things that we just reallytook for granted a couple of years ago
that we really need to drill down becausethe better we understand the client,
then the better we understand their pain,and the better we understand the pain,
(16:08):
the better we can solve their problem anddo it in the way that they like and it
really matters.
Yeah, I mean that's like sales1 0 1, and when you do that,
it doesn't feel like sales atall. Those customers are thrilled.
And then when your technician shows upand they have all that in the notes like,
Hey, Adam, I heard youare kind of in a bind,
but we're going to get you taken care of.
I know we got the big party this weekendfor your daughter, dah. They're like,
wow, these guys actually care.
(16:29):
Is there anything else we need toknow? Well, as a matter of fact,
we're having a party tonight. Canwe do it today? It's like, okay,
I'm glad I asked.
Yeah, hundred percent.
And that really goes to getting moreout of lead is now your average ticket's
probably going up becausethen you're recommending them.
Things that they mightnot thought about. Hey,
a lot of clients when they havethis, they also get this done.
Is that something you'reinterested in? Oh yeah.
I never even thought about that. I'vebeen so focused on the yard. But yeah,
(16:52):
we definitely need that done as well.
So average ticket's really important.Let's talk about average ticket,
because average ticket,just average job size,
how much is your average job price tag?
Some businesses might be like$600, some of might be 2,500,
but how do you get that up?
Because a lot of times people callfor the cheapest service you provide,
but then it's your job to make surethat they end up going with the most
expensive service that youprovide most of the time.
(17:14):
Yeah. I mean, and the goal is toequate it to going to a doctor.
If you go to the doctorand you say, my knee hurts,
they're still going to take yourvitals. They're still going to ask you,
do you drink and smoke? They're stillgoing to ask you all these questions,
even though you're like,
can you just fix my knee?And we need to treat our customers.
And the problem theycalled for the same way.
Are you experiencing anything else?I know that you had this issue,
(17:35):
but have you seen anything else recently?
We start asking these questions and nowyou're the solution to those questions.
Like, oh my gosh, yes. Thank you so much.
The other thing that does is itallows you to be the expert to present
solutions, so that waywhen you leave there,
they at least what other options are,
what other problems they have withtheir home. If you don't bring those up,
you don't ask those questions.
If I went to the doctor andthey didn't take my pulse,
(17:56):
they didn't ask me any of those questions,
they didn't take my temperature and I gohave a heart attack, and they're like,
well, he just came in for his knee. Ididn't need to check his heart. Right?
Home service is the same thing.
We're going in and we'reexperts in whatever trade it is,
and it's our job to bethose experts. So yeah,
so getting that averageticket up, in my opinion,
the more the customer spends,
it's just as simply a measurableof how well you serve them.
(18:17):
I think people call us with tunnelvision, their gutter's leaking,
and so they call my gutter's leaking.How fast can you come fix it? Sure,
we can definitely fix your leak. Noproblem. Dripping gutters is terrible.
It's annoying. It's so much louderat nighttime. It's annoying.
It keeps you awake. When we get therethough, and we talk to the client,
what else?
And it's your job to expand theirtunnel vision because all they've been
(18:40):
thinking about is that drip.
Even though last week they forgot that atree branch fell on their gutter in the
back and smashed it.Got to get that fixed,
but they weren't thinking aboutthat. I had this happen one time.
I had to get my HVAC fixed or something,
and the guy walked me throughthese questions and I was like,
as a matter of fact, yeah,the thermostat's broken. And as a matter of fact,
yeah, I do want to rewire this thing.
(19:00):
And he came up with four or five thingsthat I had pushed aside for months
in the back of my mind, but it took alot of questions to plumb that out of me.
And I was like, wow. It's funny.If you'd asked me, Hey, Adam,
what's wrong with your hvac?
I probably would've been able toregurgitate three or four things,
but in the moment on the spot, Ididn't think about that kind stuff.
And our clients were the same way.
(19:21):
And so when you start asking themquestions about what about this?
What about that? They're like,oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
And that's your job as the doctorto diagnose not just a knee problem.
Yeah, and I think that going back to theoriginal question of how do we get that
average ticket up, it's exactly that.We need to have a sales process.
We need to take advantage of everytouch point leading up to that price
(19:41):
presentation from the time theycalled to the time you showed up,
to the questions you asked to how youacted in the home to all the respect you
gave them. We need tohave a process to follow,
and then we need to have somethingto hold the technicians accountable,
whoever's doing the sales,depending on your industry,
we need to have ride-alongs. We needthem to know what does success look like?
And when we don't get that, what do weneed to work on in order to get there?
(20:01):
So when we can have thatsales process to, again,
people hate the word sales.
Everyone listening to this probablystarted their business as the founder
technician. They're turning thewrench. I don't sell anything.
I just solve problems. Iequate it back to that doctor.
If you're an HVAC technicianand they say, well,
just take a look at the thermostat. It'sthe only thing not working. Okay, cool.
(20:22):
Go fix the thermostat. 79 bucks, ahundred bucks, whatever. It's adios.
If that person's air goes out thenext day and it's a hundred degrees,
they're going to be reallymad at the HVAC tech.
You.
Were here. How did you not catch that?Well, you didn't tell me to look at it.
It's not the customer's job to drivethat conversation. It's the expert's job.
Just like the doctor of, Hey, howlong do you plan to live in here?
How old is the system? Have you hadany issues when it gets really hot,
(20:45):
asking all those questions,and while I'm here totally,
I'll do a safety check just to make sureto give you the peace of mind and give
me the peace of mindbecause when I leave here,
I'm the last HVAC technician in your home,
and I want you and me to be confident andcomfortable that this thing's going to
run all summer. So it's not sales,it's simply solving problems,
but we need a process to follow so wecan practice it and we can get better.
(21:07):
Yeah,
I love that because when you take yourcar into the mechanic and you need oil
change and they say, well, yourbattery's four and a half years old,
should we replace it? Yeah. I mean,I don't want to die tomorrow. Sure,
let's replace it now. Go ahead. Okay,great. Well, the back tires ball,
do you want to replace that? I mean, itdoes pass inspection, but just barely.
Yeah, let's replace it. Okay.Well, usually when you replace one,
(21:27):
you replace the other one.Should we do the other one too?
Yeah.
Let's do the other one too. Okay.Should we do all four? Yeah,
let's just do 'em all.
And suddenly it was a $19 oilchange and now it's a $1,000,
but that's a good thing. We wantour car to be in good shape.
We want our wives to be driving safe vans.
If the battery dies tomorrowbecause the guy didn't mention it,
(21:49):
we're mad at the mechanic.
We're.
Mad at 'em.
We are. And for the mechanic, they'rejust doing their job. If they say, no,
I'm good, I'll, right. If you say no,it's fine. At least we informed them,
we educated them. If it diestomorrow, they're like, man,
I really surely should have listened.Mechanic those batteries the day it hits,
whatever the warranties, it'slike those things die right away.
It's like magic how those dates work,
but that's really the job ofany expert in any industry.
(22:13):
If you go to a restaurant really goodwaiters, they recommend things, Hey,
what are you here for? Hey,I know you ordered that.
That takes a really long time.
My personal recommendation wouldbe just check out the appetizers.
I really like whatever it is,
that type of dip because you orderedthat dish and it takes about an hour,
so I don't want you guys to be starving.Oh, cool. Great idea. Thank you. Done.
(22:33):
So it's just making recommendationswhere people go a little bit sideways.
We've all had bad experiencesin the mechanic shop.
Where.
They don't have evidence to backit up. Hey, you need this fluid,
you need this fluid this. Well, how do I,
we don't know that and we're notexperts. And same thing for home service.
If you can show them, you cantake pictures and say, Hey,
this is what a good one looks like.This is what yours looks like.
(22:53):
You probably got six months left on this,
but if you want to take care of all I'mhere, I would definitely recommend that,
so you don't have to worry about it.
Yeah, I love that, Paul. So we've talkedabout a lot of different metrics here.
I want to clarify booking ratesare listeners who don't really know
what a healthy booking rate is. What isa healthy booking rate? Is it 10%, 90%?
What is it?
Yeah, I mean, 90% would be ideal.
I say for most of my clients we lookaround 85% and really me even just being
(23:18):
a fractional CFO,
why I look at that is because that's thefirst touch point of possible revenue
coming in the door. So 85% is great.
For those of you that don'tunderstand what booking rate is,
basically how many leads, sohow many phone calls, web forms,
text messages came into your company, andthen how many actually got booked? So.
Booked for work or an assessment or just.
Booked for an estimate,
(23:38):
just the opportunity to knock on thedoor and have that conversation with.
Got it. Okay. So for our listeners whoare doing higher volume, like lawn care,
you're not going to go out to everysingle person's house for a $50 lawn cut,
right? So you're going toquote that over the phone.
Would that be if you book that job forthe recurring mowing that's booking?
Yeah, I mean really, in my opinion,
(23:59):
if you're quoting over the phonethat that's kind of a tricky one.
You're really not bookinganything unless they buy,
but there is that step before they buy.So if you wanted to just simplify it,
I'd say if they called and you sentthem a quote, that thing was booked,
even if they don't say yes. Now,
going back to the salesprocess for a quick 30 seconds,
if you're just giving prices over thephone, it's going to be tough to do,
(24:21):
but you can have overthe phone sales process,
you can pull up their house on GISand measure it and do all that.
You could still close that over the phone.
Yeah,
guess from our listeners are getting50 calls a day for that kind of stuff.
So booking rate,
and so you're saying 85% is apretty good number For sure. Okay,
awesome.
And most companies that I see that Iwork with, a lot of them don't track it.
(24:44):
The ones that do their 65 to70%, it goes back to, well,
during Covid, that was fine. Wedon't need to book everybody.
But then six months later they'relike, man, where'd all the money go?
And that leftover 15% or so arepeople who are outside of our service.
Radios just simply said, no callingfor the wrong service, right?
Yeah. I mean, if you can'tphysically serve them,
(25:06):
they're out of your service area. Iwouldn't even call that as a lead.
They called the wrong Carrie.They wanted Carrie, Illinois,
and they called Carrie North Carolinaor something like that. But if you could
serve them, then yes,
that is a potential lead whereit goes to your booking rate.
A lot of times people aren't bookingbecause maybe they're not ready.
You might have a goodprocess of like, Hey,
(25:27):
we're not going to come out andquote your house until you own it,
because get those, you get all those,oh, I'm just thinking about buying it.
We're about to buy thishouse, we're about to buy it,
and they really just want that quote sothey can go back to the seller and use
that as leverage. They have zerointerest in using you. But then again,
going back to that, hey,once you close in the house,
when are you going toclose? Oh, July 15th. Cool.
I'll give you a call on July15th and we can come out.
(25:47):
Great. How do we give our clients.
A world-class customer experience? Sothere's a couple of good books, Adam,
that I love for any business,
especially in the trades becausenot a lot of companies do this.
So there is a book by Joey Coleman calledHow to Never Lose a Customer, And it's
really about taking advantage of everysingle touch point that you have with
your customer and just making it an outof the world experience from the time
(26:08):
they call to after. So a lot oftimes we do okay and a lot of things,
but we're not graded a lot where weusually really fails once they say yes.
Once someone says yes, it's likejob's done onto the next one.
Whereas once they say yes, if youdon't do something right away,
buyers are more starts to setin. It's like when we bought,
if we buy a car and we don't get todrive it home right away you're like,
(26:31):
you're sitting there that night, Imade a mistake. Did I make a mistake?
Can I afford that payment?Do I really need that car?
Same thing goes with thetrades. If they're like, yep,
we just agreed $50,000 to replaceall our windows. Cool, awesome.
And then we'll see you in sixweeks or three months. Adios.
If they don't hear fromyou time in between there,
the first thing they're going to dois like, is that the right price?
What was I thinking?
(26:51):
What was I thinking? ShouldI get another quotes?
So how to never lose a customer is great.
And then Giftology by John Rollin isanother great book, great strategy too.
Really look at how do youspend your marketing dollars?
So a lot of times we'realways looking to buy leads,
but if we can use Giftology to turnour customers into our salespeople,
it's going to lower our costs.
So the basic 32nd rundown of Giftologyis send them something that's not
(27:16):
consumable. So it's not a giftcard, it's not food, it's not wine,
something that they'll use every timeso it doesn't have your logo on it.
It has something personalized to themthat they're actually going to use.
So if you go into someone's house andyou realize they're a Green Bay Packers
fan and you do business with them afteryou're going to send them a Green Bay
Packers jersey with their last name on it,
or you're going to send them a GreenBay Packers mug and just say, Adam,
(27:36):
thank you so much for choosingus. We have a lot of options.
Super grateful for the opportunity.Every time they use that mug,
they're going to be like,
I remember that guy that cut mygrass or that did my landscaping,
or whatever it might be.
I love that. Okay, Paul,
I want to talk about acquiring otherbusinesses because this is in your
wheelhouse and it's commonwhen the economy takes a turn,
(27:57):
the small guys tend tohurt the most cash low.
And so what are some steps on potentiallyacquiring a small business in this
process?
So I see this a lot, Adam, and a lotof times it's one or two people. One,
it might be the guy that juststarted out six months ago,
he's in over his head and he's like,you know what? Economy is getting tough.
I think I need that guaranteedpaycheck. I need that benefits.
(28:17):
Make my wife sleep better at night. I'mgoing to go back to where I came from.
Or it's the baby boomerwho's like, this is it.
This gives me a good reason to stop.
I'm just sick and tired of dealingwith this. Phone's not ringing,
and I'd rather just play golf. So whenyou're looking to acquire a really,
really micro business,
where I see a lot of people go wrongis they give that person a lot of money
upfront, and what you're reallybuying is just the phone number.
(28:40):
They don't have systems and processes,
they don't have a team. They don't reallyhave a lot of things that are valuable
other than their phone number.
So a really good strategy that Isee implemented a lot is, Adam,
I'm going to buy your phonenumber and for the next 12 months,
every time one of your customerscalls and we book them and they do
work with us,
we're going to give you X percentageof that ticket for the next 12 months.
(29:00):
So that way it puts some skin in thegame for the person who's selling it of
like they're going to go reach outto all their customers and say, Hey,
Adam's great. Still do business withhim. He's taking over and love his team.
And then it also allows you to be in acash position where that person was just
going to close up the door anyway, sothey're getting a little bit of money,
but you're not outlaying a lot of cashand you're only putting out cash when
cash comes back in.
(29:21):
Paul, this is great.
I'm going to break our conversationdown to three actionable items here.
Number one is you needto call every lead back.
Even the ones that are a no, they askfor the wrong service or something.
You're just buildinggoodwill in your community.
You need to make sure thatyou call every lead back,
and hopefully they might call you anothertime when they actually need to use
your service.
Number two is you should extend thetime that you're on the phones longer.
(29:44):
So instead of eight to five, youmight want to make it seven to seven.
You can do that a lot of differentways. One way is jobbers,
AI receptionists to cover yourphones longer, to capture more leads.
Number three is ask questionsto increase your average job
size.
We've talked about the mechanic exampleand we've talked about other examples.
You want to make sure that you're askingquestions to increase the services you
(30:06):
provide to your clients because it'sbetter for them and it's better for you.
Paul, thanks for being here.
Thanks, Adam. Appreciate the opportunity.
That was great. How do peoplefind out more about you?
Yeah, so if they want tolearn more, reach out to me.
Just go to the blue collar advisors.com,go there. You can schedule a call,
you can download a free pricingcalculator and reach out to me via email.
Bingo. Well, thanks for beinghere. I really appreciate it.
(30:26):
Thank you, sir.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something todaythat'll help you get through the economic
downturn and get more out of yourleads. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.
You can find me@adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients deserveyour very best, so go give it to 'em.
What you don't realize is what happenswhen you don't call that person back.
That person is now has a negative viewof your company and they're going to tell
the world. So the whole saying ofsuper happy customers, tell one person,
miserable customers tellthe world it's true.
Welcome to Jobbers, masters of HomeService, a podcast for home service pros,
buy home service pros. We're in Las Vegas.
(00:20):
Today we're talking about how to growin a downward economy. As always,
I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.Today's guest is Paul Maskell. Paul,
welcome to the studio.
Thanks, Adam. Excited to be here.
Me too. Okay, so tell ourlisteners who you are, what you do,
and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah, so I'm Paul Mask. I livein Raleigh, North Carolina.
I offer outsource CFO services tospecifically companies in the trades.
(00:44):
If you don't know what that means,basically I help them create consistent,
positive cashflow,
keep them on track financiallyso they can achieve their goals.
Okay, and what was your background?
Yeah, so my background is interesting.
So I've spent the lastseven years in the trades.
Most recently I owned an electricalcompany for the last three years,
exited that earlier in theyear. And then before all this,
(01:05):
back in 2007, I actuallygot a finance degree,
moved to Chicago and thought Iwanted to climb the corporate ladder.
And then came 2008,
I watched all sorts of people who believedand thought and were ingrained that
getting a nice cushy job in the city,
working for a big company is the bestthing to do. You get the benefits,
you get the four one K, you get the PTO.
(01:25):
And then I watched all those people getwiped out. They got completely laid off.
Their whole life was builton this one job. And to me,
I realized this isn't as safe aseverybody says it is. So long story short,
I quit my job in 2010, movedto Raleigh, North Carolina,
and since then I've been owning andscaling and selling local businesses.
Cool. Awesome. Well, let's get into it.
So talking about not just survive,
(01:47):
but how to grow and thrive in adownward economy in that right now,
so to speak in some ways.And so let's talk about it.
Our listeners arewondering the same things.
What's the most important things ourlisteners should do to be able to grow in
this downward economy?
Yeah, that's a great question andI think a lot of it's mindset too.
And I think if we look atin the history of time,
(02:08):
the most wealth has always been built indownward economies because people that
are in a position to take advantageof that downward economy, IE,
they usually have some sort of cash.They can then really start to grow.
So when it comes to owning a homeservice business, it is no different.
And if you look at who your idealcustomer is, and I use this analogy a lot,
there's speed, quality and price. Youcan pick two of those to compete on,
(02:30):
or as a consumer you can picktwo of those that you want,
but you can't have all three.
You can't have the best thingsuper quick and super cheap.
So if we can serve people thatdon't really care about price,
but they care about quality andspeed, those people value their time,
they value things getting done reallywell and they don't really care what the
price is. And those people also don'tget affected into downward economy.
(02:50):
So I think from just an overall mindset,
if we can start to really believe inwhat we provide and go after the people
that aren't lookingfor the cheapest thing,
if you're running the race of I justwant to be cheaper than everybody else,
unfortunately that's arace. Once you win it,
you've actually lost out of business.
Yeah, I like your point about mindset too.
(03:10):
I think we all know people whoare negative about this kind of
stuff, things that out of their controland it just doesn't really help.
And so I think for our listeners,
if you're that person listening and allyou do is talk about how bad the economy
is in your area and oh, this and that,that's just not a way to get ahead.
That's not the mindset of someonewho's going to thrive when it's hard.
(03:34):
You have to have a tough mindset.
You do.
And I think you really have to seethe value in the services you provide.
I've been aroundtradespeople my whole life.
My dad actually worked in the trades.He owned his own hardwood floor company.
He was a one-man band. Everybodyhe worked around the plumbers,
the electricians, HVAC guys, they wereall one-man bands and they all said,
dude, don't get into thetrades, don't do this.
But there's such a blue collar mentalityof I'm just really good at this.
(03:58):
It takes me five minutes. I don'tthink I should be able to charge X.
But.
The reason it takes 'em so quickly andthey're so skilled is because they can do
in a really long time.
So a lot of times people in the tradesreally devalue the ability and skill they
have. The average age of people inthe trades is almost 60 years old.
So I tell everybody, when you lookat and if you look at skilled trades,
(04:18):
there's more doctors in thiscountry than electricians.
There are more doctors inthis country than plumbers.
There are more doctors in thiscountry than HVAC technicians.
So you are really valuable.
We can't outsource what you doand if that's what you're doing,
you need to charge accordingly.Simply supply and demand.
Yeah, I think about the pricing thing.
What you said earlier is I had anelectrician come to my house and I could
(04:43):
not fix the ceiling fan I thought Icould and I pulled apart and it was a
variable speed, so there were nine wiresinstead of three. I was like, yeah,
I'm not doing this myself.
And the reason I tell thatstory is because he charged me,
I think 2 49 for a very,
very quick job and some of my technicians,
I told them that story and they werelike 2 49, how long were they there?
I said, that doesn't matterhow long they were there,
(05:04):
they solved my problem andI was happy to pay 2 49.
I didn't want him to be there alleight hours. I want him to be fast,
I want him to be out. And so we'repaying people for their experience,
the years and years of trainingthey've had to do these jobs fast,
to have an organized van, to beable to find the things quick.
You're not just chargingyour clients for their time.
(05:26):
And if you look at the opportunitycost of you as the homeowner,
how long would it take youto solve that simple problem?
Forever.
Forever. You're going to watcha whole bunch of YouTube videos,
you're going to hook stuff up most likely.
Then eventually going to happen isyou're going to waste all that time.
Then you're going to call somebody anyway.
So not only does it take thattechnician five, 10 minutes,
but it also would've taken you 10 hoursand those 10 hours to the homeowner,
(05:46):
to the customer.
They can go do a lot more than that evenif they're in a job making $20 an hour,
that's 200 bucks that Hey, cool,I went and worked 10 hours.
You fixed my ceiling fan, we broke even.
Bingo.
So let's talk about leads because Ithink a lot of our listeners are getting
fewer leads than they got lastyear this time on average.
And so how do you get themost out of your leads?
(06:08):
How do you squeeze themost juice out of them?
Yeah, I mean that's a great question.So if we look at coming out of C Covid,
there was leads for everybody and thenand we got really complacent of like,
I don't need to call thatperson back right away.
Or they filled out a web formand all they want is one cut.
They just want their grass cut.Once we started choosing the.
Perfect.
Leads we did, we.
(06:28):
Had perfect leads we could choose from.
We were in this great position,
what we thought it was a great positionof I can be picky and I don't need to
call that person back.
But what you don't realize is what happenswhen you don't call that person back?
That person is now has a negative viewof your company and they're going to tell
the world. So the whole saying ofsuper happy customers tell one person,
miserable customers tell the worldit's true. If you think about it,
(06:51):
that's really true.
I don't just go rave about the guy thatcut my grass unless he blew me away,
but if he didn't show up ordidn't call back, I'm like,
if you're looking forsomeone to cut your grass,
I don't know who to choose but don'tchoose this guy. So when we really,
we need to be a lot more grateful forevery opportunity that comes our way
and we as homeowners also knowhow frustrating it's of, man,
(07:13):
I just need someone out to come out towash my house and we call three different
companies and they say they're going tocall back or we fill out the web form,
it just goes into this black hole whereall web forms go. If we can start to
treat our customers the way we wouldwant to be treated as a customer,
it's going to be a loteasier to start to build the,
and even this goes intoeven further conversations.
(07:34):
You're building the value beforethis person even knows your pricing.
And if you can continue to do that, wow,you answered the phone right away. Wow,
you showed up when you saidyou're going to show up. Wow,
I got a confirmation text. Oh my goodness,
you're doing exactly whatyou said you're going to do.
When you start doing all those things,
the value of that leadincreases significantly.
They're going to be customers for life,
they're going to start talking toyou about everybody else as well.
(07:55):
So we can't be picky anymore.
We also have to understandthat everybody's calling your company because they
have a problem when they want it solved.They're not just like, man,
I would just love to get a quoteto replace my roof just for fun.
Nobody's going to do that.
Where a lot of times we get in the mindsetas home service business owners is,
well, they're just price shopping.
(08:16):
No one's going to waste theirtime to price shop people,
price shop by Googling and they'regoing to read articles on Ange.
They're going to read articles on Googleof how much is it to wash my house?
Well, a 2000 square foot house shouldon average be 200 and $600 or whatever.
So when we can really understandif everybody is reaching out to us
because they have a problemand they want it solved,
and ideally they want you to solve it.
(08:38):
And I think that leadsare, when people call us,
they want it to be done faster thanthey did during the Covid times.
I think we were okay telling people, yeah,
I'll be there in three weeks andpeople would wait surprisingly,
but that's not normal.
The normal time is we can be theretomorrow because with restaurants,
for example, if you go to a restaurantand there's a line out the door,
(08:58):
it's a good restaurant, butservice companies are the opposite.
People don't think long linesand wait times are a trophy.
They think it's a pain and they don'twant to wait. They want you to come fast.
And so if you can streamline youroperations a little bit better,
at least for sales process to getto people faster, that really,
really matters when you're trying tosqueeze every drop juice out of the lead.
(09:19):
And I mean it's really an instantgratification world, Adam.
So if you think of when Amazon started,
people thought it was insane that theycould ship you a book in a week and now
people are furious if they don't gettheir toilet paper and four hours because
whatever you want, you want itnow. That's the world we're in.
And going back to thatspeed, quality and price,
if they get it now andthey get it really well,
they will pay a premiumfor that. Unfortunately,
(09:41):
when we don't charge a premium for that,
then that line does go outthe door because I'm not going to wait three weeks to
have someone come edgemy lawn or wash my house.
It's like I called you,
I have this problem and it's a problemnow and I'm not willing to wait three
weeks.
The only people that are willing to waita really long time are the people that
are willing to pay a really lowdollar amount for good quality.
(10:04):
Like the one man band,Hey man, Mike is great.
Mike is the best power washerguy in the neighborhood.
He's booked out a month because it's justMike. He's booked out a month because
he's not charging accordingly.So everyone's like,
some people will wait for that,but the majority, they want it now.
They want it done quickly.
And that goes with everything youneed to answer the phone, right? Well,
you need to fill out the formsright away. When you text 'em,
(10:26):
say you're on your way,
you actually need to show upwhen you say you're showed up.
And then when you're done, they expectyou to follow up. And when you follow up,
they're like, oh my gosh,this is amazing. This company,
they must wash my house. Well,they did everything else well.
And with leads, our listenersmight need to try some new things.
They might need to extend their hoursopen from 4:00 PM till 7:00 PM to try to
collect a few more and havesomeone cover the phones.
(10:47):
They might need to for a long time,
we could just bid things over the phoneand just fill out these big numbers and
if they said yes, then we'd behappy. But if they just said No,
go on the next lead.
But now we might need to actually goto more people's homes and do more
in-person presentations and instead ofjust all this willy nilly over the phone
stuff.
And there's so many, I mean technologymain, you can have AI answer your phone.
(11:09):
Now if you're afraid ofAI and you don't want it,
there's call centers that'll answeryour phone from four to seven,
four to eight. There's people that'llanswer your phone on the weekends,
and the best thing is it's afractional world. I do fractional work.
You don't need to hire full-time CSR toanswer the phone. You could say, Hey,
you only answer it when it rings.And it's a company that does it.
They got your script, they get youbooked. They know how to use jobber.
(11:29):
They have all these things in placewhere you're capturing more leads.
And I think where a lot of businessessay they do all that right,
where a lot of them kind of struggle isdon't forget about that person six or 12
months from now, whateverservice you're doing,
you probably recommendthem to do it regularly.
We're always chasing the next lead andwe forget about the couple thousand that
(11:50):
we work so hard to get. So even lookingat the next level of reminding them,
Hey, springtimes coming pollen seasonis here, let's get ahead of it.
They're like, oh my gosh,
thank you so much for reminding me versusus waiting for the phone to ring or
waiting for the door hangers,phone to ring and stuff like that.
Paul,
I want to pause our conversation for aminute to talk about jobber and why is it
(12:10):
important for our listeners toinvest in a software like Jobber,
even in economic downturns?Why is it important for them?
Yeah, and I'd say it's even moreimportant than when it's not,
because when everyone's busy,
the customers don't really carethat they're not using software,
that they're writingtheir own ticket by hand.
But now when you're getting alittle bit more competitive,
you need something to stand out andin order to stand out when you have
(12:31):
something like jobber, it's going to makethe customer experience a lot better.
So in the end, yes, you'respending a little bit of money,
but the return of that money is goingto be significant compared to what your
customers are going to have to deal with.
If you have Google calendar or a handcalendar or you tell your customer,
let me call you back becauseI got to go figure that out.
Yeah, well said. I mean, jobberjust makes you stand out so well.
It makes you look so smooth and sleek,and so I totally agree with that.
(12:53):
You need jobber too. Ifyou're not using jobber,
then you're just not impressingyour clients as much as you can.
So go to jobber.com/podcast, steal,
get an exclusive discount for new usersand start wowing your clients today.
So thriving in a downward economy.Let's talk about booking rates.
How can our listeners improve theirbooking rate during this time?
(13:15):
Yeah, I mean there's a goodcouple of things you can do. One,
you answer the phone every time.
So if you know can't answer the phoneor whoever's answering the phone,
if they can't answer it every time,have a backup system in place,
have a call center inplace, have AI in place,
have something in place where those peoplethat are calling know that you exist
because if they calland leave a voicemail,
the next thing they're doingis calling the next company,
(13:35):
and by the time you return thatvoicemail, they'll be like, sorry, Adam,
I already found somebody else.Same thing with your web form.
There's enough automations outthere if they fill out a web form,
if you can send them a text andyou don't have to do this manually,
it's automated a text or an emailright away. They're like, okay,
these guys are going tocall me within the next,
have that text say if this is duringbusiness hours or if it's between nine and
nine, we're going to callyou in the next 30 minutes.
(13:56):
Now we're setting the expectation.
The most amazing thing in this world ispeople are blown away when you tell 'em
what you're going to do and you do it.
Keep your promise.
Like, oh my gosh, you said you're goingto call 'em 30 minutes and you did.
I love you.
We're just setting those expectationsso when we can have a higher,
we're already fighting for the leads,
and if we're not bookingas many as we can,
we're just throwing money out the window.
(14:17):
And I think one other thing to kind offocus on is whoever's there that's in the
phone, they need to have a script. Theyneed to know what success looks like.
They need to know this is howwe operate, these are values,
and this is the questions we ask becausea lot of times if people say, Hey,
how much is it to wash my house? They'llbe like, anywhere between two and $600.
Okay, adios.
Whereas if they have a script wherethey can start answering questions, Hey,
(14:40):
let's get you booked.
We're not in 2020 anymore where we don'twant to deal with that person asking
for price of the phone, but now let'sretrain it. Let's have a script in place.
How do we handle that? How do wehandle people asking for prices?
How much is it to cut my lump? We'renot just going to say, I don't know.
And we're also not justgoing to give 'em a range.
We're going to have follow-up answersand questions to get more leads booked.
(15:04):
So we are lowering our cost per leadand we're increasing our revenue.
You got to peel backthe onion on the phone.
You got to really find out whythey called in the first place.
And customers lovethat. They're like, wow,
these people are actuallygenuinely interested.
How long have you lived in the home?
What type of work are you lookingto get done? All these questions,
and then you set the expectations.Here's what to expect next, Adam,
(15:24):
on the day of yourappointment or the day before,
we're going to give you a call the dayof, you're going to get a text message.
When we arrive,
we're going to park in the streetand we're going to wear shoe covers.
Whatever it is,
you're setting all this expectationsand then you do it and they trust you.
Yeah. When you ask 'em like, well,how'd you hear about us? Oh, well,
we saw you online. Okay, great. What'dyou see online? Well, some reviews. Oh,
is that important to you?Yeah, we really want,
we got screwed by the last guy andwe don't want that type of, oh,
(15:45):
what happened? And thensuddenly everything about them,
exactly what their pain pointsare, exactly why they called you,
what their timeframesare. If their deadline,
if there's daughters gettingmarried this weekend,
they're having big parties Fridaynight, it's got to be cut by Thursday.
You have to know all that stuff.
And those are things that we just reallytook for granted a couple of years ago
that we really need to drill down becausethe better we understand the client,
then the better we understand their pain,and the better we understand the pain,
(16:08):
the better we can solve their problem anddo it in the way that they like and it
really matters.
Yeah, I mean that's like sales1 0 1, and when you do that,
it doesn't feel like sales atall. Those customers are thrilled.
And then when your technician shows upand they have all that in the notes like,
Hey, Adam, I heard youare kind of in a bind,
but we're going to get you taken care of.
I know we got the big party this weekendfor your daughter, dah. They're like,
wow, these guys actually care.
(16:29):
Is there anything else we need toknow? Well, as a matter of fact,
we're having a party tonight. Canwe do it today? It's like, okay,
I'm glad I asked.
Yeah, hundred percent.
And that really goes to getting moreout of lead is now your average ticket's
probably going up becausethen you're recommending them.
Things that they mightnot thought about. Hey,
a lot of clients when they havethis, they also get this done.
Is that something you'reinterested in? Oh yeah.
I never even thought about that. I'vebeen so focused on the yard. But yeah,
(16:52):
we definitely need that done as well.
So average ticket's really important.Let's talk about average ticket,
because average ticket,just average job size,
how much is your average job price tag?
Some businesses might be like$600, some of might be 2,500,
but how do you get that up?
Because a lot of times people callfor the cheapest service you provide,
but then it's your job to make surethat they end up going with the most
expensive service that youprovide most of the time.
(17:14):
Yeah. I mean, and the goal is toequate it to going to a doctor.
If you go to the doctorand you say, my knee hurts,
they're still going to take yourvitals. They're still going to ask you,
do you drink and smoke? They're stillgoing to ask you all these questions,
even though you're like,
can you just fix my knee?And we need to treat our customers.
And the problem theycalled for the same way.
Are you experiencing anything else?I know that you had this issue,
(17:35):
but have you seen anything else recently?
We start asking these questions and nowyou're the solution to those questions.
Like, oh my gosh, yes. Thank you so much.
The other thing that does is itallows you to be the expert to present
solutions, so that waywhen you leave there,
they at least what other options are,
what other problems they have withtheir home. If you don't bring those up,
you don't ask those questions.
If I went to the doctor andthey didn't take my pulse,
(17:56):
they didn't ask me any of those questions,
they didn't take my temperature and I gohave a heart attack, and they're like,
well, he just came in for his knee. Ididn't need to check his heart. Right?
Home service is the same thing.
We're going in and we'reexperts in whatever trade it is,
and it's our job to bethose experts. So yeah,
so getting that averageticket up, in my opinion,
the more the customer spends,
it's just as simply a measurableof how well you serve them.
(18:17):
I think people call us with tunnelvision, their gutter's leaking,
and so they call my gutter's leaking.How fast can you come fix it? Sure,
we can definitely fix your leak. Noproblem. Dripping gutters is terrible.
It's annoying. It's so much louderat nighttime. It's annoying.
It keeps you awake. When we get therethough, and we talk to the client,
what else?
And it's your job to expand theirtunnel vision because all they've been
(18:40):
thinking about is that drip.
Even though last week they forgot that atree branch fell on their gutter in the
back and smashed it.Got to get that fixed,
but they weren't thinking aboutthat. I had this happen one time.
I had to get my HVAC fixed or something,
and the guy walked me throughthese questions and I was like,
as a matter of fact, yeah,the thermostat's broken. And as a matter of fact,
yeah, I do want to rewire this thing.
(19:00):
And he came up with four or five thingsthat I had pushed aside for months
in the back of my mind, but it took alot of questions to plumb that out of me.
And I was like, wow. It's funny.If you'd asked me, Hey, Adam,
what's wrong with your hvac?
I probably would've been able toregurgitate three or four things,
but in the moment on the spot, Ididn't think about that kind stuff.
And our clients were the same way.
(19:21):
And so when you start asking themquestions about what about this?
What about that? They're like,oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
And that's your job as the doctorto diagnose not just a knee problem.
Yeah, and I think that going back to theoriginal question of how do we get that
average ticket up, it's exactly that.We need to have a sales process.
We need to take advantage of everytouch point leading up to that price
(19:41):
presentation from the time theycalled to the time you showed up,
to the questions you asked to how youacted in the home to all the respect you
gave them. We need tohave a process to follow,
and then we need to have somethingto hold the technicians accountable,
whoever's doing the sales,depending on your industry,
we need to have ride-alongs. We needthem to know what does success look like?
And when we don't get that, what do weneed to work on in order to get there?
(20:01):
So when we can have thatsales process to, again,
people hate the word sales.
Everyone listening to this probablystarted their business as the founder
technician. They're turning thewrench. I don't sell anything.
I just solve problems. Iequate it back to that doctor.
If you're an HVAC technicianand they say, well,
just take a look at the thermostat. It'sthe only thing not working. Okay, cool.
(20:22):
Go fix the thermostat. 79 bucks, ahundred bucks, whatever. It's adios.
If that person's air goes out thenext day and it's a hundred degrees,
they're going to be reallymad at the HVAC tech.
You.
Were here. How did you not catch that?Well, you didn't tell me to look at it.
It's not the customer's job to drivethat conversation. It's the expert's job.
Just like the doctor of, Hey, howlong do you plan to live in here?
How old is the system? Have you hadany issues when it gets really hot,
(20:45):
asking all those questions,and while I'm here totally,
I'll do a safety check just to make sureto give you the peace of mind and give
me the peace of mindbecause when I leave here,
I'm the last HVAC technician in your home,
and I want you and me to be confident andcomfortable that this thing's going to
run all summer. So it's not sales,it's simply solving problems,
but we need a process to follow so wecan practice it and we can get better.
(21:07):
Yeah,
I love that because when you take yourcar into the mechanic and you need oil
change and they say, well, yourbattery's four and a half years old,
should we replace it? Yeah. I mean,I don't want to die tomorrow. Sure,
let's replace it now. Go ahead. Okay,great. Well, the back tires ball,
do you want to replace that? I mean, itdoes pass inspection, but just barely.
Yeah, let's replace it. Okay.Well, usually when you replace one,
(21:27):
you replace the other one.Should we do the other one too?
Yeah.
Let's do the other one too. Okay.Should we do all four? Yeah,
let's just do 'em all.
And suddenly it was a $19 oilchange and now it's a $1,000,
but that's a good thing. We wantour car to be in good shape.
We want our wives to be driving safe vans.
If the battery dies tomorrowbecause the guy didn't mention it,
(21:49):
we're mad at the mechanic.
We're.
Mad at 'em.
We are. And for the mechanic, they'rejust doing their job. If they say, no,
I'm good, I'll, right. If you say no,it's fine. At least we informed them,
we educated them. If it diestomorrow, they're like, man,
I really surely should have listened.Mechanic those batteries the day it hits,
whatever the warranties, it'slike those things die right away.
It's like magic how those dates work,
but that's really the job ofany expert in any industry.
(22:13):
If you go to a restaurant really goodwaiters, they recommend things, Hey,
what are you here for? Hey,I know you ordered that.
That takes a really long time.
My personal recommendation wouldbe just check out the appetizers.
I really like whatever it is,
that type of dip because you orderedthat dish and it takes about an hour,
so I don't want you guys to be starving.Oh, cool. Great idea. Thank you. Done.
(22:33):
So it's just making recommendationswhere people go a little bit sideways.
We've all had bad experiencesin the mechanic shop.
Where.
They don't have evidence to backit up. Hey, you need this fluid,
you need this fluid this. Well, how do I,
we don't know that and we're notexperts. And same thing for home service.
If you can show them, you cantake pictures and say, Hey,
this is what a good one looks like.This is what yours looks like.
(22:53):
You probably got six months left on this,
but if you want to take care of all I'mhere, I would definitely recommend that,
so you don't have to worry about it.
Yeah, I love that, Paul. So we've talkedabout a lot of different metrics here.
I want to clarify booking ratesare listeners who don't really know
what a healthy booking rate is. What isa healthy booking rate? Is it 10%, 90%?
What is it?
Yeah, I mean, 90% would be ideal.
I say for most of my clients we lookaround 85% and really me even just being
(23:18):
a fractional CFO,
why I look at that is because that's thefirst touch point of possible revenue
coming in the door. So 85% is great.
For those of you that don'tunderstand what booking rate is,
basically how many leads, sohow many phone calls, web forms,
text messages came into your company, andthen how many actually got booked? So.
Booked for work or an assessment or just.
Booked for an estimate,
(23:38):
just the opportunity to knock on thedoor and have that conversation with.
Got it. Okay. So for our listeners whoare doing higher volume, like lawn care,
you're not going to go out to everysingle person's house for a $50 lawn cut,
right? So you're going toquote that over the phone.
Would that be if you book that job forthe recurring mowing that's booking?
Yeah, I mean really, in my opinion,
(23:59):
if you're quoting over the phonethat that's kind of a tricky one.
You're really not bookinganything unless they buy,
but there is that step before they buy.So if you wanted to just simplify it,
I'd say if they called and you sentthem a quote, that thing was booked,
even if they don't say yes. Now,
going back to the salesprocess for a quick 30 seconds,
if you're just giving prices over thephone, it's going to be tough to do,
(24:21):
but you can have overthe phone sales process,
you can pull up their house on GISand measure it and do all that.
You could still close that over the phone.
Yeah,
guess from our listeners are getting50 calls a day for that kind of stuff.
So booking rate,
and so you're saying 85% is apretty good number For sure. Okay,
awesome.
And most companies that I see that Iwork with, a lot of them don't track it.
(24:44):
The ones that do their 65 to70%, it goes back to, well,
during Covid, that was fine. Wedon't need to book everybody.
But then six months later they'relike, man, where'd all the money go?
And that leftover 15% or so arepeople who are outside of our service.
Radios just simply said, no callingfor the wrong service, right?
Yeah. I mean, if you can'tphysically serve them,
(25:06):
they're out of your service area. Iwouldn't even call that as a lead.
They called the wrong Carrie.They wanted Carrie, Illinois,
and they called Carrie North Carolinaor something like that. But if you could
serve them, then yes,
that is a potential lead whereit goes to your booking rate.
A lot of times people aren't bookingbecause maybe they're not ready.
You might have a goodprocess of like, Hey,
(25:27):
we're not going to come out andquote your house until you own it,
because get those, you get all those,oh, I'm just thinking about buying it.
We're about to buy thishouse, we're about to buy it,
and they really just want that quote sothey can go back to the seller and use
that as leverage. They have zerointerest in using you. But then again,
going back to that, hey,once you close in the house,
when are you going toclose? Oh, July 15th. Cool.
I'll give you a call on July15th and we can come out.
(25:47):
Great. How do we give our clients.
A world-class customer experience? Sothere's a couple of good books, Adam,
that I love for any business,
especially in the trades becausenot a lot of companies do this.
So there is a book by Joey Coleman calledHow to Never Lose a Customer, And it's
really about taking advantage of everysingle touch point that you have with
your customer and just making it an outof the world experience from the time
(26:08):
they call to after. So a lot oftimes we do okay and a lot of things,
but we're not graded a lot where weusually really fails once they say yes.
Once someone says yes, it's likejob's done onto the next one.
Whereas once they say yes, if youdon't do something right away,
buyers are more starts to setin. It's like when we bought,
if we buy a car and we don't get todrive it home right away you're like,
(26:31):
you're sitting there that night, Imade a mistake. Did I make a mistake?
Can I afford that payment?Do I really need that car?
Same thing goes with thetrades. If they're like, yep,
we just agreed $50,000 to replaceall our windows. Cool, awesome.
And then we'll see you in sixweeks or three months. Adios.
If they don't hear fromyou time in between there,
the first thing they're going to dois like, is that the right price?
What was I thinking?
(26:51):
What was I thinking? ShouldI get another quotes?
So how to never lose a customer is great.
And then Giftology by John Rollin isanother great book, great strategy too.
Really look at how do youspend your marketing dollars?
So a lot of times we'realways looking to buy leads,
but if we can use Giftology to turnour customers into our salespeople,
it's going to lower our costs.
So the basic 32nd rundown of Giftologyis send them something that's not
(27:16):
consumable. So it's not a giftcard, it's not food, it's not wine,
something that they'll use every timeso it doesn't have your logo on it.
It has something personalized to themthat they're actually going to use.
So if you go into someone's house andyou realize they're a Green Bay Packers
fan and you do business with them afteryou're going to send them a Green Bay
Packers jersey with their last name on it,
or you're going to send them a GreenBay Packers mug and just say, Adam,
(27:36):
thank you so much for choosingus. We have a lot of options.
Super grateful for the opportunity.Every time they use that mug,
they're going to be like,
I remember that guy that cut mygrass or that did my landscaping,
or whatever it might be.
I love that. Okay, Paul,
I want to talk about acquiring otherbusinesses because this is in your
wheelhouse and it's commonwhen the economy takes a turn,
(27:57):
the small guys tend tohurt the most cash low.
And so what are some steps on potentiallyacquiring a small business in this
process?
So I see this a lot, Adam, and a lotof times it's one or two people. One,
it might be the guy that juststarted out six months ago,
he's in over his head and he's like,you know what? Economy is getting tough.
I think I need that guaranteedpaycheck. I need that benefits.
(28:17):
Make my wife sleep better at night. I'mgoing to go back to where I came from.
Or it's the baby boomerwho's like, this is it.
This gives me a good reason to stop.
I'm just sick and tired of dealingwith this. Phone's not ringing,
and I'd rather just play golf. So whenyou're looking to acquire a really,
really micro business,
where I see a lot of people go wrongis they give that person a lot of money
upfront, and what you're reallybuying is just the phone number.
(28:40):
They don't have systems and processes,
they don't have a team. They don't reallyhave a lot of things that are valuable
other than their phone number.
So a really good strategy that Isee implemented a lot is, Adam,
I'm going to buy your phonenumber and for the next 12 months,
every time one of your customerscalls and we book them and they do
work with us,
we're going to give you X percentageof that ticket for the next 12 months.
(29:00):
So that way it puts some skin in thegame for the person who's selling it of
like they're going to go reach outto all their customers and say, Hey,
Adam's great. Still do business withhim. He's taking over and love his team.
And then it also allows you to be in acash position where that person was just
going to close up the door anyway, sothey're getting a little bit of money,
but you're not outlaying a lot of cashand you're only putting out cash when
cash comes back in.
(29:21):
Paul, this is great.
I'm going to break our conversationdown to three actionable items here.
Number one is you needto call every lead back.
Even the ones that are a no, they askfor the wrong service or something.
You're just buildinggoodwill in your community.
You need to make sure thatyou call every lead back,
and hopefully they might call you anothertime when they actually need to use
your service.
Number two is you should extend thetime that you're on the phones longer.
(29:44):
So instead of eight to five, youmight want to make it seven to seven.
You can do that a lot of differentways. One way is jobbers,
AI receptionists to cover yourphones longer, to capture more leads.
Number three is ask questionsto increase your average job
size.
We've talked about the mechanic exampleand we've talked about other examples.
You want to make sure that you're askingquestions to increase the services you
(30:06):
provide to your clients because it'sbetter for them and it's better for you.
Paul, thanks for being here.
Thanks, Adam. Appreciate the opportunity.
That was great. How do peoplefind out more about you?
Yeah, so if they want tolearn more, reach out to me.
Just go to the blue collar advisors.com,go there. You can schedule a call,
you can download a free pricingcalculator and reach out to me via email.
Bingo. Well, thanks for beinghere. I really appreciate it.
(30:26):
Thank you, sir.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something todaythat'll help you get through the economic
downturn and get more out of yourleads. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.
You can find me@adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients deserveyour very best, so go give it to 'em.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com