Master Sales. Simplify Pricing. Premium Service
Nov. 20, 2024

Ep 15 - Code Red: How Guillermo Uses Metrics to Power Service Performance to $3M+/yr

Ep 15 - Code Red: How Guillermo Uses Metrics to Power Service Performance to $3M+/yr
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Million Dollar Electrician - Sale to Scale For Home Service Pros
Ep 15 - Code Red: How Guillermo Uses Metrics to Power Service Performance to $3M+/yr
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Master the art of transforming your electrical business into a thriving enterprise as we uncover the secrets to professionalism, profitability, and ethical standards in the industry. Discover why adopting a professional image with black uniforms can be both cost-effective and appealing, and learn how to overcome pricing objections by educating clients on the value of skilled work and fair profit margins. We also share personal anecdotes about breaking away from traditional expectations and the journey toward confidently offering higher-priced services, proving that the right mindset can make all the difference.

Join us for an enlightening conversation with Guillermo, nearly two years after our first encounter, as he reflects on his company's remarkable achievements and the power of data-driven strategies. Explore how systemizing marketing, optimizing call centers, and utilizing dispatchers as strategic field generals can enhance operational efficiency.  Guillermo's insights into ranking technicians and viewing dispatchers as field generals offer a unique perspective on growth strategies that are vital in today’s competitive landscape. This episode is packed with actionable strategies that blend personal growth and business acumen to help you succeed.

Efficiency isn't just a buzzword; it's a game-changer in the electrical service industry. Learn how reducing restock times and innovating with storage solutions can save your business time and money while improving team dynamics. We highlight how strategic customer retention efforts, like enhancing membership programs and implementing targeted marketing, can significantly boost profitability and customer retention. We end with a strong message of resilience and personal growth, encouraging listeners to embrace challenges as stepping stones to greater opportunities, and build a community dedicated to success by subscribing and sharing the podcast.

Chapters

00:00 - Business Growth Strategies for Electricians

10:27 - Growing and Strategizing With Electricians

20:14 - Efficiency in Electrician Operations

27:36 - Improving Efficiency and Bonusing Strategies

37:31 - Strategies for Maximizing Customer Value

47:47 - Strategies for Maximizing Lead Conversion

58:44 - Leadership and Team Building Strategies

01:09:28 - Overcoming Struggles and Growth Journeys

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:00.719 --> 00:00:12.313
Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast, where we help home service pros like you supercharge your business and spark up those sales.

00:00:13.140 --> 00:00:30.862
I'm Joseph Lucani and, together with my co-host, Clay Neumeier, we're here to share the secrets that have helped electricians to become a million dollar electrician.

00:00:34.012 --> 00:00:37.420
Tell me something, though, because we were just in the middle of having a laugh about this.

00:00:37.420 --> 00:00:41.978
So you choose to wear black because of law enforcement during your ride alongs?

00:00:41.978 --> 00:00:42.963
Is that the truth?

00:00:43.003 --> 00:00:44.917
so I mean not necessarily I.

00:00:44.917 --> 00:01:05.146
Actually there's another company that I saw them I saw like a group picture of them and they were all wearing black and it just looks so sharp because we used to wear the white shirt, khaki pants and one thing is, our cleaning of the uniform bill went through the roof, but now, with all black, it hides things a lot better too.

00:01:06.322 --> 00:01:07.447
So yeah, cause I'm actually.

00:01:07.447 --> 00:01:15.051
I'm on your website and I'm seeing almost like an off-white little bit of a khaki shirt and I'm in the about us and this is a picture of you and your wife, is it?

00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:15.700
Yes.

00:01:16.100 --> 00:01:18.063
Yeah, beautiful family you have.

00:01:18.063 --> 00:01:19.865
Men, I love your website.

00:01:19.865 --> 00:01:21.147
You know what else I love about this.

00:01:21.147 --> 00:01:23.171
Can I just say this quick yeah, please.

00:01:23.171 --> 00:01:25.274
Code of ethics right there and about us.

00:01:25.274 --> 00:01:29.668
Yeah, this is like corporate social responsibility right here.

00:01:29.668 --> 00:01:35.731
Earnings, we will agree with our customers independently and in advance on the basis for our fees.

00:01:35.731 --> 00:01:38.468
I love that you just put it out there.

00:01:38.468 --> 00:01:39.965
Code of ethics strong.

00:01:39.965 --> 00:01:41.185
I always knew that about you.

00:01:41.185 --> 00:01:42.965
The website only confirms it.

00:01:42.965 --> 00:01:44.585
Thank you for your service.

00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:45.721
Yeah, absolutely.

00:01:45.721 --> 00:01:49.951
I mean that's part of what we have to do as business owners.

00:01:49.951 --> 00:01:55.856
We have to be profitable for us to be able to provide that service to our customers.

00:01:55.856 --> 00:02:04.566
If we're not profitable, we can't hire right, we can't have good, nice vans, we can't buy high quality material and parts to put in people's homes.

00:02:04.566 --> 00:02:06.281
We have to be profitable.

00:02:07.084 --> 00:02:11.622
You know, one of the best ways that I found describing it is even using, as an objection, handle skill.

00:02:11.622 --> 00:02:29.754
So some of the things that we like to offer is we offer a lifetime craftsmanship guarantee, meaning that, like if I've made a connection, like from one electrician to another, if you make a splice, three number 12s, you strip it and you have a full helix and you have the nut on it and you've got your tape around it and it's counterclockwise and you lock that down.

00:02:29.754 --> 00:02:32.800
Is that not coming apart Absolutely?

00:02:32.860 --> 00:02:37.491
No like, unless someone actively comes in and goes in there and just pull yeah.

00:02:37.491 --> 00:02:39.125
Then you know it's for life.

00:02:39.125 --> 00:02:40.260
So offering a lifetime guarantee is good.

00:02:40.260 --> 00:02:45.485
Offering a lifetime guarantee is good, but I've used that as a justification for the profit margin, which is.

00:02:45.485 --> 00:02:50.210
Hey, I understand that you can consider this more of an investment than what you originally expected it to be.

00:02:50.210 --> 00:02:51.431
Can I explain why?

00:02:51.431 --> 00:02:57.676
What we do is we provide a lifetime crash guarantee to ensure that you're getting the best product before, during and after.

00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:07.211
But at the same time, if we're not making a fair profit, how could we realistically stay in business enough to provide?

00:03:07.230 --> 00:03:08.216
you that lifetime guarantee, absolutely, absolutely.

00:03:08.216 --> 00:03:09.039
And just watching it click, it's amazing.

00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:14.633
Yeah, yeah, and it I mean, and I'm not, and we shouldn't be afraid to put it out there.

00:03:14.633 --> 00:03:16.445
Why should we be afraid to put it out there?

00:03:16.445 --> 00:03:17.550
So?

00:03:18.212 --> 00:03:34.713
well, I think a lot of times it's because people are in a scarcity mindset where, like and I remember it as well, I'm sure you've gone to calls I remember there was one call where, like, a little old lady could have been like 85 years old, was really upset that we weren't $50 an hour like was like visibly upset.

00:03:35.841 --> 00:03:43.710
And as a result, people have gotten this stigma where they're like oh well, if you're not in the customer's expected range, you're taking advantage of them without realizing.

00:03:43.710 --> 00:03:50.425
Well, who would know the pricing in the industry better?

00:03:50.425 --> 00:03:53.120
The person who has to do it every single day and actually make a living off of it, or the person who hires one every seven years?

00:03:53.939 --> 00:03:55.723
Yeah, that you're a hundred percent right.

00:03:55.723 --> 00:04:05.310
And it's those guys that it's our, our fellow, uh, sparky brothers that, um, like you said, have that scarcity mindset.

00:04:05.310 --> 00:04:07.114
I used to be like that.

00:04:07.114 --> 00:04:21.151
I still remember the first time I presented my first flat rate price option and my dad was telling me Guillermo, there's no way anybody's ever, ever, ever going to pay.

00:04:21.151 --> 00:04:22.380
That You're out of your mind.

00:04:22.380 --> 00:04:25.790
I'm like, dad, I'm trying it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to see what happens.

00:04:25.790 --> 00:04:26.591
I was.

00:04:26.591 --> 00:04:32.365
I remember I built my options out, I slid it over to her and I'm in internally.

00:04:32.365 --> 00:04:35.451
I'm like, and then she goes.

00:04:35.451 --> 00:04:36.091
You know what?

00:04:36.091 --> 00:04:37.014
I think I'm going to do.

00:04:37.014 --> 00:04:41.769
Option one I was just it's like a fireworks went off inside me.

00:04:41.769 --> 00:04:43.293
I'm like I knew this would work.

00:04:43.653 --> 00:04:47.141
You know, I love that, I love that.

00:04:47.141 --> 00:04:48.548
Can I share something that's similar?

00:04:48.548 --> 00:04:52.543
Okay, so you know how you're talking about your mother and you're doing like the same thing, like here.

00:04:52.543 --> 00:04:55.882
I remember like a lot of my family is white collar, right.

00:04:55.882 --> 00:05:00.901
You know pharmacists, nurses, engineers, doctors, and they're all used to making a certain kind of income.

00:05:00.901 --> 00:05:05.608
Obviously, you work as a lawyer, as an engineer, you should make a certain income right, yeah, I'm a blue collar.

00:05:05.649 --> 00:05:07.973
I'm the only blue collar person in my entire family.

00:05:07.973 --> 00:05:14.362
That's really the whole line.

00:05:14.362 --> 00:05:16.509
So when I created the service business and started using service rate, it had to be over the one 65.

00:05:16.509 --> 00:05:18.016
Like we eventually were at like three, 89.

00:05:18.016 --> 00:05:27.016
And I remember one of my cousins asking me to come over and give him a quote for a pool and I was like hey, before I do, just for the sake of transparency, we focus on services.

00:05:27.016 --> 00:05:28.721
As a result, this is what we're going to be charging.

00:05:28.721 --> 00:05:31.410
And he was like you guys are going to go out of business about the case.

00:05:31.410 --> 00:05:38.964
You know, if you're not doing it for this little and literally just reversing and being like well, what about you, man?

00:05:38.964 --> 00:05:39.466
You're an engineer.

00:05:39.466 --> 00:05:45.413
So when you do time material, do you charge by the minutes in AutoCAD, or do you charge for the experience that you have in order to design this?

00:05:45.413 --> 00:05:47.536
And?

00:05:47.536 --> 00:05:48.903
But people don't say it's a hundred percent.

00:05:48.944 --> 00:05:50.870
It's a hundred percent true, a hundred percent true.

00:05:50.870 --> 00:05:58.766
I mean, the most valuable thing that we have as electricians is our, is our knowledge and our skills.

00:05:58.766 --> 00:06:06.505
That is the most valuable thing that we carry with us every single day, not the wire, not the devices, not the.

00:06:06.505 --> 00:06:11.932
That is the most valuable thing that we have I agree with you 100 100 comes with you.

00:06:12.956 --> 00:06:16.644
Yeah, begs a big question, and it's how do we expand our impact?

00:06:18.288 --> 00:06:23.704
it depends on what you want to make the impact in like for all, focused in service, focused on this.

00:06:23.786 --> 00:06:36.440
If your set of skills are to be able to serve at that highest level, but you've only got 24 hours in a day, then the big question I mean this is why we get on this show really every week that we're trying to answer is how do we expand that impact then?

00:06:37.523 --> 00:06:45.142
well, if you only have the 12 hours and you only have the 24 coins and you know you got to put it into health, family business first.

00:06:45.142 --> 00:06:47.487
The remaining coins can only be put into service.

00:06:47.487 --> 00:06:49.492
You have to expand your team.

00:06:49.492 --> 00:06:53.807
Like if I want to serve at a high level, I need to grow.

00:06:53.807 --> 00:06:57.790
And in order to grow I need to expand the people who can serve adequately and ethically.

00:06:58.819 --> 00:06:59.783
I think it begins.

00:06:59.783 --> 00:07:05.490
I agree with what you just said, joseph, but you got to look at it almost like a micro and macro level.

00:07:05.490 --> 00:07:14.274
So, number one, I think you, as the individual, you have to be able to go out there and make it work.

00:07:14.274 --> 00:07:18.802
Make this thing work because it does work, find success in it.

00:07:18.802 --> 00:07:24.031
And once you find success in it, start bringing and assembling a team around you in it.

00:07:24.031 --> 00:07:25.874
Start bringing and assembling a team around you.

00:07:25.874 --> 00:07:31.560
Once you start assembling a team around you, then you can.

00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:35.127
Then other people will definitely start to look look at you a little bit and want to be like hey, why is that guy always have a nice van?

00:07:35.127 --> 00:07:37.552
Why is his guys always uniformed up?

00:07:37.552 --> 00:07:56.201
And another thing too is you start getting involved in or connected in groups like the, like the resident, like the, the, the, a revs group or yep, or you know the circuit connected with, like service loop and all that sort of stuff, and you start to make those connections and those lead to people coming to your shop.

00:07:56.201 --> 00:07:59.350
You start to lead to little subgroups being created.

00:07:59.370 --> 00:08:06.211
We have something here in our Maryland area is called the Maryland mastermind and we do individual shop.

00:08:06.211 --> 00:08:18.528
We meet at each other's shop on a monthly or maybe on a quarterly basis, and I see what another guy's doing and I take that and I apply it to my business and vice versa.

00:08:18.528 --> 00:08:24.245
We just we should have that open door to each other's organizations.

00:08:24.245 --> 00:08:33.980
But it begins, I think, by being successful at a micro level and then being able to show everyone else how you're doing and they can apply that to their business.

00:08:35.361 --> 00:08:42.154
We just had a warehouse mastermind a couple of weeks, a couple like a month ago, and guess what?

00:08:42.154 --> 00:08:48.710
I got it down because of because of another member in that group to to restock our vans.

00:08:48.710 --> 00:08:50.777
We got it down to about an hour and 30 minutes.

00:08:50.777 --> 00:08:58.961
I'm trying to get it down to an hour and we're trying to get it to have 11 vans restocked, counted once a month from here on out.

00:08:58.961 --> 00:09:03.167
And I wouldn't have been able to do that if I wasn't opening my doors.

00:09:03.167 --> 00:09:03.988
It helped me.

00:09:03.988 --> 00:09:06.130
I thought I was helping others, but it helped me.

00:09:06.912 --> 00:09:09.115
You know, I guess that comes down First off.

00:09:09.115 --> 00:09:34.645
So proud of you, man, for having the ability of acting fearlessly, because I think the fear of of that is really going to keep a lot of people from being willing to open-handed, where it's like oh, if I educate someone else, they will take from me, instead of well, if you're charging a premium rate and everyone is not, wouldn't it make your life easier if they all became better and started raising their rates too?

00:09:35.307 --> 00:09:38.525
Yeah, and they're not going to be able to they don't have the infrastructure to do so.

00:09:39.028 --> 00:09:45.191
So you're actually reducing your own competition and bringing them onto a better service game, making your life any job.

00:09:45.640 --> 00:09:46.062
You make.

00:09:46.062 --> 00:09:48.488
Your whole market is getting better in your area.

00:09:48.488 --> 00:09:50.273
The whole market Exactly.

00:09:50.720 --> 00:09:52.046
And that's the segue here.

00:09:52.046 --> 00:09:56.884
A mentor once told me Clay, there is no competition, there is only creation.

00:09:57.547 --> 00:09:57.788
Yes.

00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:00.107
And today we're here to create again.

00:10:00.107 --> 00:10:04.063
This is actually a two year anniversary episode, oh yeah.

00:10:04.063 --> 00:10:07.660
And this is actually a two-year anniversary episode with Guillermo Castillo from Electrical Connections.

00:10:07.660 --> 00:10:12.520
You guys, electrical Connections started back in 2003 with your dad, bill, is that right?

00:10:12.760 --> 00:10:13.523
Yeah, yep.

00:10:13.844 --> 00:10:14.625
I'm on your website.

00:10:14.625 --> 00:10:21.019
Like I said, 985 Google reviews, 4.9 over 21 years.

00:10:21.019 --> 00:10:23.888
You're almost at a thousand brother.

00:10:23.967 --> 00:10:26.481
I'm going to get it, we're going to get it, our team's going to get it.

00:10:27.124 --> 00:10:30.900
So two years ago, Guillermo reached out to me from the reps group you mentioned.

00:10:30.900 --> 00:10:33.447
He said, Clay, I want to do an interview with you.

00:10:33.447 --> 00:10:35.620
And hey, why don't you do a podcast?

00:10:35.620 --> 00:10:36.783
Like you ever thought about that?

00:10:36.783 --> 00:10:39.768
And I was like, yes, I've been thinking about this.

00:10:39.768 --> 00:10:42.714
Actually, you're my first interview, let's do this.

00:10:42.714 --> 00:10:47.201
And so we named this thing kind of a nerdy technical term.

00:10:47.221 --> 00:11:30.370
but I went rise to rise thinking of sine waves and electrical technical talk that lasted for a little bit, but you were the first interview man and it's always been true that our chats have gone deep and they've been valuable and they're from the heart, and our first episode was really focused around where we're taking off from right here, which is growth, community faith, how to, at that micro level, develop a company that works and then how to expand that to the macro level and spread that impact, and so I just couldn't think of a better way to officially kick this one off, and I I just couldn't think of a better way to officially kick this one off, and I want to thank you for joining us almost two years later on the dot.

00:11:31.513 --> 00:11:32.114
So thank you.

00:11:33.201 --> 00:11:39.640
Guillermo, it's an honor to be here and I just want to say thank you both to you guys of what you're doing in our industry.

00:11:39.640 --> 00:11:54.375
You guys have got a huge megaphone and you guys are helping so many shops, so many owners, so many team members in their shops and families across this country and your country too, clay.

00:11:54.375 --> 00:11:57.721
So kudos to you guys, thank you for what you're doing, doing our best.

00:11:58.322 --> 00:11:58.943
Doing our best.

00:11:58.943 --> 00:12:00.989
And that country he mentioned is Canada.

00:12:00.989 --> 00:12:04.825
North of the border, we're getting a shout out today, canada.

00:12:04.865 --> 00:12:05.647
North of the border.

00:12:05.647 --> 00:12:07.091
We're getting a shout out today.

00:12:12.460 --> 00:12:14.067
Speaking of shout outs, our last two interview guests have been bald.

00:12:14.067 --> 00:12:14.571
So, guillermo, I've got a.

00:12:14.571 --> 00:12:15.596
I've got a haired brother here with me on this one.

00:12:15.596 --> 00:12:16.299
I'm pumped to have some good.

00:12:16.860 --> 00:12:19.028
Technically, technically, mine's growing out ever so slightly.

00:12:20.860 --> 00:12:27.296
Joseph, I am going to be joining you soon in that baldness, so it's it's coming, it's happening.

00:12:28.761 --> 00:12:29.443
You know what, though?

00:12:29.443 --> 00:12:34.504
I literally was having a conversation with my wife this morning and the best thing is, I find there's two kinds of people.

00:12:34.504 --> 00:12:48.000
There's those who accept aging and love it and there's those who are part of the the comor club, and the thing is that I love being my age and I love looking it, and you know what?

00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:49.466
I don't care if the wrinkles come.

00:12:49.485 --> 00:12:56.808
I'm gonna be happy in the skin that I have I'm just trying to hold silver first I just don't want to do this before I go full.

00:12:56.808 --> 00:12:59.601
Gray man, you won't be able to tell I'm silver, it's gonna be nothing.

00:13:02.886 --> 00:13:07.373
Oh my gosh, 21 years, that's a long time, would you tell us.

00:13:07.373 --> 00:13:09.982
Just kind of, lay the land, guillermo, where are you guys at today?

00:13:09.982 --> 00:13:19.964
Shop size, average revenue for for the year, that kind of thing so shop size, we have, um, let's see, nine service techs.

00:13:20.484 --> 00:13:23.707
Uh, we have four, uh helpers, slash apprentices.

00:13:23.707 --> 00:13:33.616
This year right now, our budget was $3.1 million, but we're pacing $3.4 million this year.

00:13:34.278 --> 00:13:38.938
Yeah, so would you say budget like a projected revenue amount $3.1 million?

00:13:38.938 --> 00:13:41.432
Correct, so you're blowing yourself out of the water there.

00:13:41.432 --> 00:13:42.035
That's awesome.

00:13:42.337 --> 00:13:44.527
Congratulations, absolutely yeah, thank you very much.

00:13:44.740 --> 00:13:45.985
What's going better than you thought.

00:13:45.985 --> 00:13:53.788
I would say that's maybe contributing to that 0.3.

00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:57.311
Yeah, I would say our average ticket is higher.

00:13:57.311 --> 00:14:04.721
Our average ticket is higher Repeat business is through the roof right now.

00:14:04.721 --> 00:14:17.548
It's it's still strong for us, um, and I would say efficiency has also gotten better for us, um, and our warehouse, uh, has gotten much better.

00:14:17.548 --> 00:14:24.932
Where we've kept our material costs this year, um, it's it's gotten up a little bit higher than normal, but we're at around 11% this year.

00:14:24.932 --> 00:14:33.278
So we've been doing a good job about that and I'm really systemizing marketing a little bit more.

00:14:39.620 --> 00:14:40.802
I've been really laser beam focused on it more.

00:14:40.802 --> 00:14:51.392
I used to not be so laser beam focused, but I'm really putting some processes and systems in place right now and our separation of our call center and our dispatch department is huge.

00:14:51.392 --> 00:15:02.750
I feel like one of the most important positions in the company is to have just a kick-ass dispatcher that really knows how to do it right.

00:15:02.750 --> 00:15:05.534
And we do it through data.

00:15:05.534 --> 00:15:11.304
We do it on a weekly basis, so we follow our KPIs on a monthly basis.

00:15:11.304 --> 00:15:12.467
I break it down per week.

00:15:12.467 --> 00:15:14.793
I give it to her what we did last week.

00:15:14.793 --> 00:15:25.467
She does a formula based on conversion rate, average ticket and revenue brought in and that ranks the technicians for this week.

00:15:25.467 --> 00:15:29.047
Who's going to be the who's, the guy we're sending to the best jobs.

00:15:29.047 --> 00:15:30.451
Not, I don't.

00:15:30.451 --> 00:15:34.469
I don't want to say I tell my guys every job is the best job.

00:15:34.469 --> 00:15:37.399
But you know what I mean yeah, no, I understand completely.

00:15:37.660 --> 00:15:46.548
And you know what, if I can jump in on that, I love what you're trying to do, because having a good dispatcher is like having a good field general.

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:50.792
They're the ones who are behind the lines looking and saying where are we moving the troops properly?

00:15:50.792 --> 00:15:55.491
Because obviously you want to have a CSR who can intake and get them on the calendar.

00:15:55.491 --> 00:16:00.852
But once they're on the calendar, how can I make sure that the maximum impact is going to happen?

00:16:00.852 --> 00:16:13.003
So if I know that Rory has a religious background and the church down the street wants to get a quote for something, wouldn't it make best to line the two people up that way they can connect organically?

00:16:13.563 --> 00:16:20.302
Yeah, absolutely, and we got to run our business data Like before.

00:16:20.302 --> 00:16:22.967
We used to be like Pete's, our best technician.

00:16:22.967 --> 00:16:25.361
Okay, maybe he is for the year, but how about last week?

00:16:25.361 --> 00:16:26.424
Who's the hot guy?

00:16:26.424 --> 00:16:26.905
Right now?

00:16:26.905 --> 00:16:29.572
It's like in a basketball game.

00:16:29.572 --> 00:16:34.898
You're going to feed the guy who's hitting the most shots at that very minute.

00:16:34.898 --> 00:16:38.589
Maybe the first quarter he was hot, but now the second quarter he cooled down a little bit.

00:16:38.589 --> 00:16:41.725
Let's feed it to the other guy and it's all data-driven.

00:16:42.547 --> 00:16:44.070
Timing of that answer is great.

00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:52.663
We had a guy ask this morning in our program hey, should I be tracking my KPI more periodically or really stay on it day to day?

00:16:52.663 --> 00:16:53.546
There's your answer.

00:16:53.546 --> 00:16:56.932
The more recent you are, the faster you can make decisions.

00:16:56.932 --> 00:17:00.730
Yeah, Speaking of decisions, can I ask you a personal question?

00:17:01.340 --> 00:17:01.541
Yes.

00:17:01.942 --> 00:17:04.048
You are the owner of electrical connections, right.

00:17:04.509 --> 00:17:04.971
That is correct.

00:17:09.859 --> 00:17:10.420
My wife and I.

00:17:10.420 --> 00:17:11.441
What's your position there?

00:17:11.441 --> 00:17:13.422
What would you say is your position?

00:17:13.442 --> 00:17:13.962
Do you call yourself a CEO?

00:17:13.982 --> 00:17:14.202
a manager?

00:17:14.202 --> 00:17:15.644
I don't know.

00:17:16.084 --> 00:17:22.887
No, I, I, I do, I do it all, but um, I see you got a book back there that I got here.

00:17:23.429 --> 00:17:23.808
Gino.

00:17:25.930 --> 00:17:29.692
So I would say I oh yeah.

00:17:29.712 --> 00:17:31.273
Trifecta over here.

00:17:31.273 --> 00:17:33.295
We've all got it so yeah.

00:17:33.335 --> 00:17:37.017
So I would say I'm the visionary, um, I, I.

00:17:37.017 --> 00:17:41.006
I'm the visionary, I bring the energy into the building.

00:17:41.006 --> 00:17:43.332
Um, I'm the cheerleader.

00:17:43.332 --> 00:17:45.056
Um, I am the.

00:17:45.056 --> 00:17:45.317
The.

00:17:45.317 --> 00:17:50.343
The I'm the brand ambassador is what I am to the organization.

00:17:51.284 --> 00:17:54.807
I love to train, even though I know that's not in my wheelhouse anymore.

00:17:54.807 --> 00:18:01.093
But when my service manager tells me hey, man, I got to go take my son to whatever, can you train Tuesday?

00:18:01.093 --> 00:18:03.055
I'm like absolutely I'm on it.

00:18:03.055 --> 00:18:04.115
You know, because I love.

00:18:04.115 --> 00:18:19.189
I love training and, to be honest with you, I love your business is like an electrical system, so I love electrical and to be able to go inside of different little departments and make some tweaks and adjustments.

00:18:19.189 --> 00:18:22.560
I love doing that and it's just fun, like right now.

00:18:22.560 --> 00:18:31.700
One of the things that I'm working on right now, on top of the other millions of things I'm working on, is how do I systemize my recruiting now, how do I make that into a process in a system?

00:18:31.700 --> 00:18:36.691
I'm working on like, like all some crazy stuff.

00:18:36.691 --> 00:18:46.190
I don't even want to talk about it yet because I don't have it put together yet, but maybe that'll be on the next podcast how to really recruit with a process in a system, and I'm working on that right now but I love you.

00:18:46.210 --> 00:18:52.270
You're like a mad scientist over the table like I'm not gonna tell you what's under the but let me just tell you, it's fire under there.

00:18:52.611 --> 00:18:55.943
You sound like talking to this guy, joe, yeah, are you kidding me?

00:18:56.003 --> 00:18:57.186
No, I'm really having a blast.

00:18:57.186 --> 00:18:57.868
Really I am.

00:18:57.868 --> 00:18:58.391
This is awesome.

00:18:59.039 --> 00:19:00.749
Strategic, strategic, strategic.

00:19:00.749 --> 00:19:02.376
Yeah, because I'm hearing a couple of things.

00:19:02.376 --> 00:19:05.923
When we started this conversation today, you talked about just coming off a ride alone.

00:19:06.544 --> 00:19:06.724
Yes.

00:19:07.285 --> 00:19:08.185
You were out there today.

00:19:08.707 --> 00:19:08.906
Yeah.

00:19:09.428 --> 00:19:14.073
So even the brand ambassador, you're still having sales touches, personal field level touches.

00:19:14.814 --> 00:19:16.736
Yes, yeah, you have to.

00:19:16.736 --> 00:19:25.852
I mean, you got to be out there once, necessarily that I do them all the time, but you have to be out there.

00:19:25.852 --> 00:19:32.270
You got to see what you guys are doing and we are actually implementing AI in our ride ride-alongs.

00:19:32.310 --> 00:19:51.325
I'm sure you guys have heard about it yeah rilla rilla is in the building now and it's been a huge tool for us, but it's good to be out there meeting customers and and just jumping in a truck with your guys too yeah, yeah, we've gotten the uh, the chance to play with that a little bit.

00:19:51.365 --> 00:19:53.188
It's pretty cool what tech's doing man.

00:19:53.188 --> 00:20:04.202
Our largest client currently is is, uh, signed up with Rilla and we could log on right now and and see what the call looked like, and that's using our process too, which is remarkable.

00:20:04.202 --> 00:20:13.733
I don't want to go too deep on Rilla for various reasons that we'll all learn in the future, I'm sure, but ultimately, it's wild what AI is doing.

00:20:13.733 --> 00:20:15.717
Can I redirect?

00:20:15.717 --> 00:20:23.210
I want to ask, because I'm still I love that you just have these different channels brand ambassador, but hey, there's a few things I'm focused on.

00:20:23.210 --> 00:20:34.363
I want to know why it's important to you and your data and your strategy to get that restock down to 60 minutes your data and your strategy to get that restock down to 60 minutes.

00:20:34.383 --> 00:20:54.170
The importance for me is a lot of like, for example, a lot of people, a lot of our, what we do now, this whole flat rate, this whole service system and everything it's.

00:20:54.170 --> 00:20:56.700
When I first started this, it was just me and maybe one other guy.

00:20:56.700 --> 00:20:57.701
It's now a lot of companies that are doing this.

00:20:57.701 --> 00:21:03.580
You got guys that are 800-pound gorillas in a market, that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars, that are doing HVAC, plumbing and electrical.

00:21:03.580 --> 00:21:13.901
You got other guys, smaller shops like me, that are doing just a few million and you got every gambit in between there and majority of these people are like on service tight.

00:21:13.901 --> 00:21:16.184
Even our estimates look the same.

00:21:16.184 --> 00:21:23.336
So how am I going to have an edge on my competitors?

00:21:23.819 --> 00:21:24.240
even though.

00:21:24.320 --> 00:21:30.326
I don't mind bringing them in and everything, but an area that I can have an edge on them is efficiency.

00:21:30.326 --> 00:21:40.237
Efficiency is one thing that if we can do it faster, cheaper and better, it's going to have an impact on the bottom line.

00:21:40.237 --> 00:21:46.016
That's why it's super important to me to be able to have that warehouse out there.

00:21:46.016 --> 00:21:51.813
If you think about it, let's say you got one guy and I did this.

00:21:51.813 --> 00:21:56.790
I got in a truck and I said why are the guys going to the supply houses so much?

00:21:56.790 --> 00:21:57.673
What is going on?

00:21:57.673 --> 00:21:58.743
This was a few years ago.

00:21:58.743 --> 00:22:00.088
I got in the truck.

00:22:00.088 --> 00:22:04.066
I was like, don't do anything different in the truck, let me just ride in it.

00:22:04.066 --> 00:22:05.309
I got in it.

00:22:05.309 --> 00:22:10.943
First day went to the supply house to get some wire nuts missing wire nuts in an electrical truck.

00:22:10.943 --> 00:22:13.987
Second day had to go get some toggle bolts.

00:22:13.987 --> 00:22:15.387
Third day missing crips.

00:22:15.387 --> 00:22:18.890
I track how many hours I spent.

00:22:18.890 --> 00:22:24.255
I spent close to six hours in five days going to the supply house.

00:22:24.255 --> 00:22:37.643
Multiply that by 11 trucks, multiply that by a week, by a month, by a year.

00:22:37.643 --> 00:22:39.729
Do you know how much money was being wasted on time going to the supply house?

00:22:39.729 --> 00:22:44.039
You're talking about thousands upon thousands of dollars.

00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:44.721
What did I do.

00:22:45.521 --> 00:22:48.307
We created something called variation boxes.

00:22:48.307 --> 00:22:50.730
We use the Milwaukee packout systems.

00:22:50.730 --> 00:23:02.683
It's a it's a three box kit that has every single thing under the sun that an electrician will use in a five day period, every little part, everything.

00:23:02.683 --> 00:23:04.027
It has it in that kit.

00:23:04.027 --> 00:23:05.770
Each van has two sets.

00:23:05.770 --> 00:23:11.728
One sits on the van, one sits in my warehouse and we put green, green.

00:23:11.728 --> 00:23:23.843
We put really weird color zip ties on them because we know if that zip tie is cut, we know that that was already used and we do a swap out every tuesday morning and guess what?

00:23:23.843 --> 00:23:24.663
What that did?

00:23:24.663 --> 00:23:31.991
That has reduced windshield time to the supply house by almost, I think, 85%.

00:23:31.991 --> 00:23:44.672
And in addition to that we now use the larger Milwaukee packout systems to do entire installs.

00:23:44.672 --> 00:23:47.262
So we have a re-device install kit.

00:23:47.262 --> 00:23:51.296
We have a service upgrade, a panel replacement, an EV charger.

00:23:51.296 --> 00:23:52.962
It's all already pre-done.

00:23:52.962 --> 00:23:54.873
The technicians go out there with the kits.

00:23:54.873 --> 00:23:55.435
They come back.

00:23:55.435 --> 00:23:58.186
Our warehouse coordinator counts what they used Done.

00:23:59.150 --> 00:24:04.125
You know, a thing that's really, really awesome here is I'm also looking at this through the mind of an employee.

00:24:04.125 --> 00:24:11.021
The boss was in the van and it took an hour, but what would happen if you weren't in the van at the time?

00:24:11.021 --> 00:24:13.942
Do they stop at the gas station to fuel up?

00:24:13.942 --> 00:24:17.925
Are they after at the gas station, what technician's not getting gas station food?

00:24:17.925 --> 00:24:20.987
And then, if the boss isn't there, are they having conversation?

00:24:20.987 --> 00:24:30.333
So by reducing the opportunity for them to be at a place that's not the job, you're also reducing all the additional logistics that come attached to it.

00:24:30.333 --> 00:24:38.557
So instead of you're now saving the hour and the travel, but you're also saying all the wasted time that would have been nonproductive regardless.

00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:41.643
And how about?

00:24:41.643 --> 00:24:42.306
How about the hoarding?

00:24:42.326 --> 00:24:42.486
How many?

00:24:42.506 --> 00:24:49.063
technicians, hoard parts, I mean, I remember before we started doing this it was insanity, insanity.

00:24:49.063 --> 00:24:50.964
I remember before we started doing this it was insanity, insanity.

00:24:50.964 --> 00:24:56.289
And that's the difference between you and the shop next door.

00:24:56.289 --> 00:25:00.493
That, that, that, that that organization, that efficiency, that's.

00:25:00.493 --> 00:25:02.076
That's why it's important to me.

00:25:02.655 --> 00:25:07.728
Guilty, I still have parts in my tool pouch.

00:25:07.768 --> 00:25:14.436
But you and I are a little different there, like if you can go to, if you went to my workshop in my house, like I've got walls of tools but every one of them is labeled and identified.

00:25:14.436 --> 00:25:18.085
Cause I know I'm not going to mess with that but it's so cool.

00:25:18.867 --> 00:25:21.087
Yeah, and the next generation of what we're doing.

00:25:21.087 --> 00:25:23.346
We just bought two new pro masters.

00:25:23.346 --> 00:25:24.529
I told the.

00:25:24.529 --> 00:25:26.323
I told them I don't want any bins in here.

00:25:26.323 --> 00:25:29.587
I don't want no bins in here Interesting.

00:25:29.587 --> 00:25:32.993
So we ended up putting these wood inside the walls.

00:25:32.993 --> 00:25:42.473
We put the entire Milwaukee kit system, all of these Milwaukee packouts, inside of there, so we don't have any metal bins anymore.

00:25:42.473 --> 00:25:45.008
The weight of the van is so much lighter.

00:25:45.269 --> 00:25:45.449
Yep.

00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:49.351
And now we're going to be able to literally just take an entire bin system.

00:25:49.351 --> 00:25:55.093
It's going to be plug and play, snap in, snap out, and we're going to be able to get it down to probably 30 minutes.

00:25:56.361 --> 00:26:08.643
I love the fact that you said that, because when I was running our vans we had a fleet of sprinters and we had the all metal shelving and when you're running them in, the gas prices right around like it started getting really, really high, like $5, $6 a gallon.

00:26:08.643 --> 00:26:09.383
It was insane.

00:26:09.383 --> 00:26:20.931
So we ripped out all the metal shelves and we put in three quarter inch plywood and the weight difference actually increased the efficiency of the fuel use and we could also customize specifically what we're going to do.

00:26:20.931 --> 00:26:26.795
So I like the DeWalt pack outs but at the same time, nothing wrong with Milwaukee they're phenomenal product.

00:26:27.015 --> 00:26:29.876
Yeah, so I love the fact that we're operating on similar mindsets.

00:26:31.701 --> 00:26:38.632
Yeah, are you familiar with uh, toyota manufacturing and their growth kaizen, that whole model you ever heard of that?

00:26:38.632 --> 00:26:51.710
No, no, oh well, no no so so kaizen is japanese, that means constant, never-ending improvement, and a big term that they use is called muda, which means waste.

00:26:52.491 --> 00:27:00.846
Okay, it's just funner to say yeah and so everything that I'm hearing is just totally in line with what they do and a lot of in the health care industry.

00:27:00.846 --> 00:27:01.748
They've done this a lot.

00:27:01.748 --> 00:27:04.703
You go to hospitals that are literally losing people.

00:27:04.703 --> 00:27:18.980
You've got two ers and they're 500 yards apart, with different doctors, room on different ends and different tools in the wrong places, and you start to realize things like oh, the bins in the van, well, they're stuck right there.

00:27:18.980 --> 00:27:35.234
So even recognizing okay, a pack out, I can move into the house with us, or at least just outside the house, and reduce 150 footsteps out to the van times 24 today and all those footsteps add up.

00:27:35.234 --> 00:27:44.185
The challenge is many people listening to this aren't quite at the level of maybe counting footsteps, but you will get there.

00:27:44.185 --> 00:27:50.823
It's not that you count, that's not what changes, it's not like one day you start counting, it's what you're counting.

00:27:50.823 --> 00:27:53.705
Still following this line of data.

00:27:54.186 --> 00:27:55.048
Yeah, absolutely.

00:27:55.048 --> 00:28:02.115
I mean, and it all led to is why are the guys going to the supply houses so much?

00:28:02.115 --> 00:28:04.611
And it just led to so many?

00:28:04.611 --> 00:28:09.665
It's a chain of events that I'm glad we had that problem, because if we didn't have that problem, I wouldn't have been able to solve it.

00:28:09.665 --> 00:28:12.500
And the wiser.

00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:13.582
Yeah, problems are good.

00:28:13.582 --> 00:28:14.722
Problems are really good.

00:28:14.722 --> 00:28:16.365
It's a matter of what you do with them.

00:28:16.365 --> 00:28:17.626
What are you going to do with your problems?

00:28:18.327 --> 00:28:19.068
I'm glad you said that.

00:28:19.068 --> 00:28:20.529
Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

00:28:20.529 --> 00:28:25.096
What I was going to say is I thought something you said really cool earlier was about the part hoarding.

00:28:25.096 --> 00:28:41.455
That also is a symptom, it seems like, because if you don't have the right parts, let's say you're a technician and you consistently don't have the right parts and you drive out an hour off site and then you don't have the caterpillars you need because the box is now out of space.

00:28:41.455 --> 00:28:48.403
Now you're gonna have to go all the way over plastic bushings or you're gonna be taking washers and stacking them to make them fit like it's not right.

00:28:48.403 --> 00:28:53.923
So I can imagine technician say let me take extra so that I don't get screwed over.

00:28:53.923 --> 00:29:00.443
But then now they have three surge protectors and you've got $900 in product just sitting on one van and you're overstocking.

00:29:00.443 --> 00:29:01.046
We don't need to.

00:29:02.308 --> 00:29:09.373
And then multiply that by three, four, five, six, seven, plus vans, you're talking about tens of thousands of dollars.

00:29:09.980 --> 00:29:20.535
Plus, it's also the team mindset, because what does it say when someone says I'm going to take a part so that I don't have to be, when really it's, I want the team as a whole to not have to do this?

00:29:20.535 --> 00:29:24.651
If this is a consistent problem, you've solved the whole team problem.

00:29:24.651 --> 00:29:27.930
So now, instead of fighting each other, they're fighting the problem.

00:29:27.930 --> 00:29:32.087
And the problem is direct and it's the inefficiency, not each other.

00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:34.804
Right, that's well said.

00:29:34.804 --> 00:29:36.367
Well said, man yes.

00:29:36.689 --> 00:29:38.613
That's why these podcasts are so important.

00:29:38.613 --> 00:29:47.509
People think that mentorship and coaching is about getting the silver bullet, having the immediate success, just being able to flip a switch and just be there.

00:29:47.509 --> 00:29:53.288
But I love that you said I'm glad I had these problems, because that's where all the learning happens.

00:29:53.288 --> 00:29:56.346
Mentorship and coaching is actually the opposite.

00:29:56.346 --> 00:30:10.026
It's understanding why the things we tend to do, our tendencies and our autopilot isn't serving us and how we could adapt and change that trajectory a bit to see a different way that could serve us.

00:30:10.026 --> 00:30:15.332
And even there it's always a little different for every single person.

00:30:15.332 --> 00:30:47.122
Some people just blow up with just the littlest change and some people it takes a little more, a little bit longer, and those subtle little differences are so personal and interpersonal and about your environment and about the people at your shop and and all of this I mean someone could try this packout system tomorrow and their staff rejects it, for example it's not an overnight thing no but it's something you've worked towards, incredible, incredible.

00:30:48.202 --> 00:30:49.983
you, my friend, are a CEO.

00:30:49.983 --> 00:30:58.230
No one likes the letters, right, it's not worth it, but you can see your brain just spinning on all of this.

00:30:58.230 --> 00:31:01.374
Tell me this, then I'm sure you have this number.

00:31:01.374 --> 00:31:05.817
What's been the impact on your gross profit margin from doing all this?

00:31:07.439 --> 00:31:20.854
Well, I mean, before all of this, we used to run 15% in materials and we got it down to high tens 11%.

00:31:20.854 --> 00:31:23.156
So I can quantify it right now for you.

00:31:23.156 --> 00:31:30.471
So let's see here, so we have 5% on 3.5.

00:31:31.051 --> 00:31:31.773
Yeah, that'll add up.

00:31:33.304 --> 00:31:34.186
Yeah, that's what it is.

00:31:34.809 --> 00:31:35.713
Did you hit the calculator?

00:31:35.713 --> 00:31:36.396
I don't want to guess.

00:31:36.416 --> 00:31:36.980
No, I was just doing the math.

00:31:36.980 --> 00:31:41.727
I don't want to guess and get it wrong here, 3, 5, 0, 0, 0.

00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:48.753
And editing will shorten this time and just make us look smarter, don't worry, yes $175,000.

00:31:49.740 --> 00:31:53.854
That's $175,000.

00:31:53.854 --> 00:31:55.539
That's $175,000 in inefficiency.

00:31:55.539 --> 00:32:01.053
So, like the thing that really blows my mind, there is, let's say, sake of argument.

00:32:01.053 --> 00:32:05.652
You took that and you said I'm going to input all of that in bonuses.

00:32:05.652 --> 00:32:13.622
I'm going to input all of that in hiring new infrastructure and new teams, new developments, new trainings, or screw it.

00:32:13.622 --> 00:32:17.511
I'm going to hire an executive level person to come in to manage the team.

00:32:17.511 --> 00:32:20.684
Now you can do so because you have the means.

00:32:20.684 --> 00:32:23.011
Otherwise, that money was just being pissed away.

00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:25.546
I want to highlight this for a sec too, can I?

00:32:25.546 --> 00:32:26.409
Just jump in quick.

00:32:26.409 --> 00:32:40.635
Okay, because this also is a major deciding factor for whether or not you feel that it's an investment now for your business to bring in a material management team or person individual.

00:32:40.635 --> 00:32:46.012
So for the growing electrician listening to this, this is how you quantify, or begin to quantify, these things.

00:32:46.012 --> 00:32:47.665
I know what can be done.

00:32:47.665 --> 00:32:48.844
I know what we're doing.

00:32:48.844 --> 00:32:53.898
Here's the gap $175, $150, $ 175, whatever.

00:32:53.898 --> 00:32:55.041
I mean, that's one year.

00:32:56.344 --> 00:32:57.185
What could you do with that?

00:32:57.185 --> 00:33:07.279
You could do so much, and that's what I mean by focusing on efficiency, because my estimates and the other guy next to our estimates all look the same.

00:33:07.279 --> 00:33:13.250
We're all uniformed up and lettered up and everything, but we're doing something on the backend that is bringing us.

00:33:13.250 --> 00:33:19.289
We're doing the same work, but it's bringing us 175, 150 more on the bottom line at the end of the year.

00:33:19.289 --> 00:33:20.913
That's different.

00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:36.884
And the best thing about that is, I look at it almost like a game of attrition, because if you imagine everyone having, let's say, you had a really hard season, you know, let's take an argument, let's put this in real court, for 2021, 2020 was hard for a lot of people, right, you know, and like as an example.

00:33:36.884 --> 00:33:56.910
Some either thrived or some struggled, but having the ability of going through hard times and being able to still grind out a win out of it is a difference between people leaving one organization and joining yours or staying in your organization and moving up the ladder, because if you're constantly looking at the little things and saying, you know what?

00:33:56.910 --> 00:34:12.733
This was a hard year, but I took the lessons of this hard year and I made positive improvements, and now those positive improvements are yielding legacy returns for not only me, my employees and every customer I come in contact with.

00:34:12.733 --> 00:34:14.755
That is Kaizen.

00:34:17.340 --> 00:34:17.862
Love it.

00:34:17.862 --> 00:34:24.144
Are you bonusing some of these behaviors, guillermo, to get those numbers down, or is it just an organic effort.

00:34:24.346 --> 00:34:25.951
Our warehouse coordinator is bonused.

00:34:25.951 --> 00:34:35.132
My wife handles all the bonuses and everything, but if he keeps our costs at a certain percentage, he is given a bonus on a quarterly basis.

00:34:35.733 --> 00:34:37.054
How about the guys in the field?

00:34:38.300 --> 00:34:45.744
Yeah, they're all bonus, but they're more bonus on revenue conversion rate, those kind of things, yeah.

00:34:45.744 --> 00:34:55.230
But now, once we start doing this whole monthly van restock, the guys will be held accountable for it.

00:34:55.230 --> 00:35:02.974
Because we got to think about it like this Our material that we put on these vans, we're like the bank You're responsible for this amount of money.

00:35:02.974 --> 00:35:04.856
Make sure you treat it well.

00:35:04.856 --> 00:35:06.237
It's a bank.

00:35:06.237 --> 00:35:12.905
Here's their money and when you come return it back, you have to be accountable for it.

00:35:12.905 --> 00:35:16.135
And that's going to on a negative for them, but a positive for the warehouse coordinator.

00:35:16.155 --> 00:35:38.605
Yeah, but at the same time, like it may be seeming as a negative, but it can also be spun into a positive, where you're giving the autonomy and control over someone's personal livelihood in their own hands, like the kind of person that says I have another baby coming, I'm going to work the overtime.

00:35:38.605 --> 00:35:39.126
That benefits him.

00:35:39.126 --> 00:35:42.621
But the kind of person that says I have a baby coming, how can I make this business more money, that makes everyone better.

00:35:42.621 --> 00:35:53.422
So the fact that you have them all bonus yeah, they may improve their own metrics from maybe less than altruistic means, but they still produce a positive result through those efforts.

00:35:53.902 --> 00:35:55.688
Right, yeah, and you know what?

00:35:55.688 --> 00:35:58.282
Now you're making me think about this Like, why not bonus?

00:35:58.282 --> 00:36:10.070
It took maybe not some huge, large, massive, you know crazy bonus or anything, but why not reward them for having an accuracy of their material on a monthly basis?

00:36:10.070 --> 00:36:12.746
You guys, you're doing your job great.

00:36:12.746 --> 00:36:19.905
You guys are accounting for everything that we're giving you, being good stewards of the responsibility of what we're giving you when you give it back to us.

00:36:19.905 --> 00:36:23.929
If it falls within this range, here's a little something for being responsible, why not?

00:36:24.561 --> 00:36:25.664
Part of the ride-along checks.

00:36:26.708 --> 00:36:27.028
Why not?

00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:28.603
You pass the material audit.

00:36:28.603 --> 00:36:29.909
There's a little bonus in it for you.

00:36:29.909 --> 00:36:30.550
Yeah, why?

00:36:30.550 --> 00:36:30.829
Why not?

00:36:30.829 --> 00:36:31.590
You pass the material audit?

00:36:31.590 --> 00:36:32.652
There's a little bonus in it for you.

00:36:32.652 --> 00:36:32.931
Yeah, why?

00:36:32.931 --> 00:36:33.753
Because we believe in this so much.

00:36:33.753 --> 00:36:34.233
It's pavlov's dog, right.

00:36:34.233 --> 00:36:35.815
Yep, yeah, I can imagine what that checklist looks like.

00:36:36.255 --> 00:36:37.695
Do you have too many surge protectors?

00:36:37.695 --> 00:36:39.217
Are there piss bottles in the back of your van?

00:36:39.217 --> 00:36:48.427
It's like I have to put a big x next to that on your bonus clean the van floor.

00:36:49.068 --> 00:37:06.838
yeah, boy, we could talk materials and efficiencies forever, but you said some really important stuff on on the marketing and I'm super curious, and one of the biggest things that I took away from our our pre interview chat was this code red that we talked about.

00:37:06.838 --> 00:37:08.963
So I'd love to go down this marketing channel a bit.

00:37:08.963 --> 00:37:09.264
Man.

00:37:09.264 --> 00:37:14.333
What's recently opened up for you in the marketing world that you're just seeing and wanting more of?

00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:22.630
So not looking so much outward but looking so much inward.

00:37:22.630 --> 00:37:30.909
So this again this all came out of a problem I think a lot of us around the country have probably.

00:37:30.909 --> 00:37:31.972
This year has been rough.

00:37:31.972 --> 00:37:35.003
This has not been an easy year.

00:37:35.003 --> 00:37:49.864
This has been a year of being efficient and maximizing what you got and we were looking at where a lot of our revenue has been coming from and it's previous customers.

00:37:49.864 --> 00:38:02.692
Hands down, 60% of our revenue a month has been previous customers and guess how much money I have spent to new customers?

00:38:02.692 --> 00:38:09.675
Why not spend a little bit more money on existing customers?

00:38:09.675 --> 00:38:20.992
So this year has been a year of really digging deep in our membership program.

00:38:20.992 --> 00:38:25.791
We've been really doing annual maintenances hard.

00:38:25.791 --> 00:38:33.293
I mean the years before, when it was just raining phone calls, we looked at maintenance as more of a oh, we got to go run a maintenance.

00:38:33.293 --> 00:38:45.315
But this year we're generating anywhere between $20,000 to $40,000 extra on customers that are just sitting there.

00:38:45.315 --> 00:38:46.405
They're just sitting there.

00:38:47.199 --> 00:38:54.164
Another thing that we've done too as well is we've done we're using a company called Customer Lobby.

00:38:54.164 --> 00:39:01.188
Customer Lobby grabs your database, does a whole AI analysis of it.

00:39:01.188 --> 00:39:05.211
It pulls out is $2,026, which is amazing.

00:39:05.211 --> 00:39:16.766
I was like, yeah, and then he goes.

00:39:16.766 --> 00:39:18.130
But let me tell you something, guillermo.

00:39:18.130 --> 00:39:19.762
This is when I was speaking to them.

00:39:19.762 --> 00:39:26.563
You know, when a customer does two transactions with you, you know how much they spend with you Over $6,000.

00:39:26.563 --> 00:39:39.077
I was like what Any customer on average that spends two transactions with us or more, their value goes up from $2,000 to $6,000.

00:39:39.077 --> 00:39:47.653
And what Customer Lobby does is it goes into our thousands and thousands of customers that we have and it'll pull out this month.

00:39:47.653 --> 00:39:55.184
You have these 1,800 customers that are about to become customers that you will no longer see anymore.

00:39:55.184 --> 00:40:00.648
They're going to be customers that their life cycle is going to leave you guys, you need to bring them back.

00:40:00.648 --> 00:40:03.070
Bring them back Per month.

00:40:03.070 --> 00:40:34.746
We send out postcards, we put them on a text message drip campaign, we do outbound calling and now we're going to start to do email marketing directly to those specific customers and we're leaning in on what we got and we're going hard and now that we have this separation of dispatch and call center, that is their only job Call our customers.

00:40:34.746 --> 00:40:37.829
This is what you're going to be doing from here on out.

00:40:37.829 --> 00:40:44.072
So that's what we've been doing as well and it's been working great for us.

00:40:45.561 --> 00:40:48.425
Another thing with this code, green code, yellow code, red.

00:40:48.425 --> 00:40:52.532
There's been days where, like holy moly, we have no calls on board.

00:40:52.532 --> 00:40:53.393
What are we going to do?

00:40:53.393 --> 00:41:05.552
So we've identified that each department, we have a level 10 meeting every single week and we said to them you, as a call center manager, what is going to happen to you if we have no calls on the board?

00:41:05.552 --> 00:41:07.889
What are you going to do as a manager in your department?

00:41:07.889 --> 00:41:09.561
Service manager what are you going to do?

00:41:09.561 --> 00:41:10.403
Hr what are you going to do?

00:41:10.403 --> 00:41:10.463
Hr?

00:41:10.463 --> 00:41:11.085
What are you going to do?

00:41:11.085 --> 00:41:12.648
Dispatcher what are you going to do?

00:41:12.648 --> 00:41:14.351
Warehouse what are you going to do?

00:41:15.612 --> 00:41:23.063
Two weeks, we had these, every single person in each part of the department.

00:41:23.063 --> 00:41:25.668
Come up with their list and when things are bad, things are actually being done.

00:41:25.668 --> 00:41:27.572
Let's discard with HR.

00:41:27.572 --> 00:41:28.634
Hr guess what?

00:41:28.634 --> 00:41:37.353
Technicians and team members and everybody are going to get caught up on all the training videos, any type of HR documents that we're missing.

00:41:37.353 --> 00:41:38.175
You're going to get caught up.

00:41:38.175 --> 00:41:41.809
Warehouse we're going to be inventorying more vans than usual.

00:41:43.179 --> 00:41:49.793
Call center we are going to start to turn on all this marketing things on and we're going to start to do a massive amount of outbounds.

00:41:49.793 --> 00:41:53.389
Service manager we already got three trainings lined up.

00:41:53.389 --> 00:41:56.438
You're going to be doing trainings Me myself.

00:41:56.438 --> 00:42:01.440
I got all these technical stuff that I'm going to be training on code and all that stuff for installers and stuff.

00:42:01.440 --> 00:42:11.532
So every single person in the department has got something pre-built already that the company, instead of everyone going home like, oh, there's no calls, guess what?

00:42:11.532 --> 00:42:12.846
We grow internally.

00:42:12.846 --> 00:42:15.565
That's code red.

00:42:15.565 --> 00:42:19.728
Code yellow is like option one is your, this is your.

00:42:19.728 --> 00:42:21.472
Code yellow is like option two.

00:42:21.472 --> 00:42:23.224
That gets dwindled down a little bit.

00:42:23.224 --> 00:42:25.610
And code green is we're good to go.

00:42:25.610 --> 00:42:30.793
There's a couple of things we do but we look at a problem as not having enough calls on the board.

00:42:30.793 --> 00:42:35.331
Let's turn internally and let's get better internally and fix some things internally.

00:42:36.521 --> 00:42:37.121
Really love that.

00:42:37.121 --> 00:42:39.027
How does your team see the lights?

00:42:39.027 --> 00:42:40.510
How do they know what code it is?

00:42:41.721 --> 00:42:46.670
Uh based on the call board, so our, our, our call center at the.

00:42:46.670 --> 00:43:05.710
So we also have what's called a uh, a daily huddle in the morning and every department has to spit out numbers and one of the things that he's one of the first persons to speak and he says we are now in code green, we are now in code yellow, we are now in code red, so automatically everyone knows what we got to do for the day.

00:43:05.710 --> 00:43:08.025
It begins in the morning.

00:43:10.242 --> 00:43:14.273
So everyone recognizes the thresholds based on the numbers they're providing.

00:43:14.273 --> 00:43:15.885
Where do their numbers go?

00:43:15.885 --> 00:43:18.268
Where do they put that information to be seen?

00:43:22.423 --> 00:43:26.949
So it's funny because we could do it on Trello or all that stuff.

00:43:26.949 --> 00:43:29.012
But let me show you right now.

00:43:30.474 --> 00:43:31.016
He's digging deep.

00:43:31.036 --> 00:43:31.255
I love it.

00:43:31.255 --> 00:43:32.411
The man of action.

00:43:32.411 --> 00:43:32.998
No secret right here.

00:43:32.998 --> 00:43:34.485
No secret daily huddle.

00:43:34.865 --> 00:43:36.090
Right here is our daily huddle.

00:43:36.590 --> 00:43:40.001
So our, my daily, our daily huddle is written in paper.

00:43:40.001 --> 00:43:41.244
This is what the actual it's.

00:43:41.244 --> 00:43:46.344
It's pretty straightforward like let me, let me pull I get the inside too.

00:43:47.626 --> 00:43:48.387
This is it right here?

00:43:48.387 --> 00:43:49.929
This, this is our daily, every department.

00:43:49.929 --> 00:43:51.052
What happened yesterday?

00:43:51.052 --> 00:43:52.554
What's happening today?

00:43:52.554 --> 00:43:55.708
What blockers are they had yesterday?

00:43:55.708 --> 00:43:58.487
What are you going to do this today to reach the goal?

00:43:58.487 --> 00:44:03.681
You know it's, it's just, it happens daily, daily, every morning.

00:44:03.681 --> 00:44:05.065
That we went yesterday.

00:44:05.065 --> 00:44:08.909
And if we did it, what are we going to do to win the day to day and make up for yesterday?

00:44:09.661 --> 00:44:16.565
You know it looks like and what it really feels like is almost like you're on a sports team, but this time the team actually can see the scoreboard.

00:44:16.565 --> 00:44:25.403
Because I love playing competitively, like it doesn't matter what you do, whether you're a nerding or whether you're an athlete, but the active competition is the thing that drives everyone.

00:44:25.403 --> 00:44:29.750
So you can't step up your game If you don't even know how you're playing.

00:44:29.750 --> 00:44:32.875
If I don't see the guy ahead of me on the race, I don't know how to pick it up.

00:44:32.875 --> 00:44:34.978
I might be ahead of him by three laps.

00:44:34.978 --> 00:44:36.161
I don't know.

00:44:36.161 --> 00:44:40.713
At least if I see the board, like you're doing with your team, what blocked you yesterday?

00:44:40.713 --> 00:44:43.791
What are you going to do to overcome that particular block?

00:44:43.791 --> 00:44:46.342
What particular actions are you going to take today?

00:44:46.342 --> 00:44:48.588
So it's like that's what happened yesterday.

00:44:48.588 --> 00:44:50.052
Here's what stopped you.

00:44:50.052 --> 00:44:51.596
What are you going to do about it this time?

00:44:52.097 --> 00:44:53.119
Exactly, exactly.

00:44:53.119 --> 00:45:01.255
And it's crazy how, if we are not in sync, how it impacts everybody.

00:45:01.255 --> 00:45:19.880
For example, if I'm going to go back to the warehouse, what if a job was scheduled to do a finishing tomorrow, but the warehouse and he even has the thing that he has to spit out it's called job planning how many do you have done today and how many do you have pending?

00:45:19.880 --> 00:45:22.606
And 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours.

00:45:22.606 --> 00:45:26.061
So right now I know that we have four job installs that need to get done.

00:45:26.061 --> 00:45:34.744
He has one more to fulfill before the end of today for tomorrow's installs to happen, and if it's not fulfilled, it'll affect everything, it'll mess everything up.

00:45:36.842 --> 00:45:39.329
I love that because you've gotten it down to almost like.

00:45:39.329 --> 00:45:44.693
I see you almost like on the track with the old fashioned stopwatch and you're like all right, take a note.

00:45:44.693 --> 00:45:45.903
Where can this be improved?

00:45:45.903 --> 00:45:47.121
Next lap, let's go.

00:45:47.121 --> 00:45:48.659
Next lap, let's go.

00:45:48.659 --> 00:45:57.789
So I love the tenacity and I've just, if nothing else, just by hearing you and learning a little bit more about you, I've developed an immense amount of respect for who you are and what you do.

00:45:57.789 --> 00:46:00.152
I'm very impressed with you as a person.

00:46:00.152 --> 00:46:03.637
Like as a person, you are a amazing individual.

00:46:08.139 --> 00:46:09.581
But I'm going to be honest with you.

00:46:09.581 --> 00:46:10.903
This did not happen overnight.

00:46:10.903 --> 00:46:16.614
So if there's guys out here that are listening to this, I didn't just wake up one day and poof, all this was here.

00:46:16.614 --> 00:46:23.934
This happened over problem over problem over problem, like I said before in the beginning.

00:46:23.934 --> 00:46:28.099
So it's, the problem is there, but what are you going to do about that problem?

00:46:28.099 --> 00:46:30.483
That's how this all develops.

00:46:30.483 --> 00:46:36.630
Is you, as the owner, the team leader, the visionary, the guy who wanted to start an organization?

00:46:36.630 --> 00:46:39.318
How are you going to solve the problems?

00:46:39.318 --> 00:46:40.300
Because you know what.

00:46:40.300 --> 00:46:42.824
You asked me what is my, what is my?

00:46:42.824 --> 00:46:44.226
At the beginning.

00:46:44.226 --> 00:46:45.987
You asked me what is my?

00:46:45.987 --> 00:46:47.190
What's my role in all this?

00:46:47.190 --> 00:46:50.896
Definitely the visionary, but I'm a problem solver.

00:46:50.896 --> 00:46:54.603
I just solve problems, but I don't do it myself.

00:46:54.603 --> 00:47:00.931
I have a team around me that helps and we tackle it together, and problems are good, problems are awesome.

00:47:00.931 --> 00:47:04.201
I love problems because now we got an ability, a challenge to overcome.

00:47:04.702 --> 00:47:07.588
Yeah, I agree A hundred percent.

00:47:07.588 --> 00:47:12.298
I love what you said about this separation between dispatch and this call center.

00:47:12.298 --> 00:47:21.364
Often when we're helping people who are six figures stuck is kind of one way to look at a lot of people, right, they see the seven figure mark.

00:47:21.364 --> 00:47:23.356
They want it so bad Innately.

00:47:23.356 --> 00:47:24.018
It's a drive.

00:47:24.018 --> 00:47:25.161
They're not even sure why.

00:47:25.161 --> 00:47:32.420
They're not even sure at this point if they'd be happy at seven figures, but it's still a drive that many of us face, right, you probably remember it yourself.

00:47:32.420 --> 00:47:35.541
If I could just get to a million, everything would be better.

00:47:36.824 --> 00:47:42.806
Yeah, careful what we say, but a lot of those same people feeling that, looking up or doing too much.

00:47:42.806 --> 00:47:46.481
So I love what you're saying about the delegation and the shed of responsibility.

00:47:46.481 --> 00:47:56.623
One of the first things we tend to help people do is recognize that your CSR, that office management position, someone's got to be there and start helping you.

00:47:56.623 --> 00:48:13.914
Like yesterday and I've never had a single person, we've never had a single person regret that move to just get someone there who can be on the phone every time, who will make those outbound calls for you, who can begin to help with dispatch, who can begin to help with material management.

00:48:13.914 --> 00:48:17.005
And just, they wear too many hats too in the beginning.

00:48:17.005 --> 00:48:24.139
But it always leads to this next question to tie this all together From our point of view.

00:48:24.139 --> 00:48:39.561
We actually call it an appointment center and I just ask guys, they start to feel like, well, I could almost use a second in the office and you have the same ebb and flow problems that we're kind of discussing with the code red, code yellow, code green.

00:48:40.123 --> 00:48:40.483
And.

00:48:40.543 --> 00:49:12.844
I always ask this question what would happen if you had one full-time individual and their only job was to put one full-time individual and their only job was to put appointments on your calendar, to set calls for your text to run, and they did nothing else, and you gave them a priority list based on current clients, prospective repeat clients and then new clients and even the channels to prioritize, so that they knew exactly what to drop, when for what call, and start to put that together.

00:49:12.844 --> 00:49:16.621
So to me, this is very much what you're doing with this call center.

00:49:16.621 --> 00:49:17.858
Is that fair to say?

00:49:18.219 --> 00:49:18.963
Yeah, yeah.

00:49:19.315 --> 00:49:20.501
Could you give us an example?

00:49:20.501 --> 00:49:23.559
Just because I always want to be a student in this position.

00:49:23.559 --> 00:49:25.922
I want to learn, I want to help people see a bigger picture.

00:49:25.922 --> 00:49:33.059
What's an example of a call you might make to a prospective repeat buyer that maybe you're losing touch with?

00:49:36.505 --> 00:49:37.106
I got some ideas.

00:49:37.106 --> 00:49:37.987
Go ahead, Joe.

00:49:38.007 --> 00:49:42.364
Let me hear yours, and then I want to add to that.

00:49:42.965 --> 00:49:45.335
I got excited because the first thing go figure, clay.

00:49:45.335 --> 00:49:46.237
What am I usually thinking about?

00:49:47.461 --> 00:49:54.306
Well, sales Generators I was going to say generators, Because the first thing that comes to mind is you have a customer that you're currently getting out of.

00:49:54.306 --> 00:49:57.664
How many of them are people who don't have a maintenance agreement with you?

00:49:57.664 --> 00:50:02.405
How many people are first class members who haven't gotten it renewed?

00:50:02.405 --> 00:50:07.599
What additional services were offered on previous generator options that you could offer for enhancements?

00:50:07.599 --> 00:50:10.161
Because if they're irrelevant, then why aren't they relevant now?

00:50:10.161 --> 00:50:13.603
So the best thing is hey, just wanted to check in.

00:50:13.603 --> 00:50:16.065
I know that currently we have you protected for the next year.

00:50:16.065 --> 00:50:19.967
I just wanted to double check because currently it's going to expire by this year.

00:50:19.967 --> 00:50:22.570
I wanted to make sure that you don't lapse in any coverage.

00:50:22.570 --> 00:50:24.612
When would be the best time we could get a technician out there to make sure?

00:50:24.632 --> 00:50:28.240
you're serviced I love that you don't even have to worry about giving us a call.

00:50:28.240 --> 00:50:29.865
Let's schedule it, so you don't even have to pick up the phone.

00:50:31.094 --> 00:50:32.963
Yeah, no, I love that.

00:50:32.963 --> 00:50:37.125
I mean, I would say for me, I do love that.

00:50:37.125 --> 00:50:37.907
That's awesome.

00:50:37.907 --> 00:50:41.740
So it's really so.

00:50:41.740 --> 00:50:48.565
For dispatchers, for example, they definitely dispatch, but they also do inside sales.

00:50:48.565 --> 00:50:51.400
Yeah, they do inside sales.

00:50:51.400 --> 00:50:54.862
So their job is to try to call customers.

00:50:54.862 --> 00:51:03.398
That we just didn't decide to move forward with work, but we automated that and we break it down per quarters.

00:51:03.398 --> 00:51:14.211
So what we're doing is we're taking, we pull a spreadsheet out of Titan of all the customers who did not buy from us in Q1 of 2024.

00:51:14.211 --> 00:51:42.746
We take that spreadsheet, we put it inside of Chirp that's another great tool that we use and once we put that data in there, we have these pre-made text drip campaigns and we mass blast it, and then those text messages that come back.

00:51:42.746 --> 00:51:56.057
Our inside salespeople are able to see that, and we do that for Q1, Q2, q3, and so forth, and that's able to.

00:51:56.057 --> 00:51:57.882
Now, is the conversion rate high?

00:51:57.882 --> 00:52:07.650
If it was a new customer, no, but if we're able to salvage 1%, just 1%, holy moly.

00:52:07.650 --> 00:52:10.983
And that's one thing that we're doing right now.

00:52:12.496 --> 00:52:13.561
It feels aligned.

00:52:13.561 --> 00:52:15.661
Can I drop?

00:52:15.661 --> 00:52:18.061
I've never said this on the podcast before.

00:52:18.061 --> 00:52:21.097
Uh-oh, this is like guys.

00:52:21.097 --> 00:52:27.746
I try to remain modest, but this is actually my favorite guerrilla marketing strategy that I've ever designed.

00:52:27.746 --> 00:52:34.894
If this is already out there and you're listening, apologies, I'm not trying to steal it, but I didn't see your content first.

00:52:34.894 --> 00:52:35.956
This is just yet.

00:52:37.159 --> 00:52:48.864
If you do either a service quarter or a service annual retrospective, deep dive on your numbers and you look at your majority sold job.

00:52:48.864 --> 00:53:01.579
So perhaps it's generators like Joe said, for some that don't do generators, it might be LED retrofits and you find that that made up 60% of your service revenue for the year.

00:53:01.579 --> 00:53:05.367
It makes sense to go deeper and target that more.

00:53:05.367 --> 00:53:05.675
Right.

00:53:05.675 --> 00:53:07.918
Why work against what your brand is already doing?

00:53:07.918 --> 00:53:25.123
So you take that and then every time you complete one of those jobs and you get your review and you run your little good neighbor program and you make sure that that, because frame is intact, you do an EDDM campaign automatically, like your code.

00:53:25.123 --> 00:53:25.885
We just did.

00:53:25.885 --> 00:53:30.516
Let's say it was a code gold, cold gold.

00:53:30.516 --> 00:53:33.826
We just sold our favorite job, our best providing fruit.

00:53:33.826 --> 00:53:43.246
Eddm email campaign blast good neighbor every door, calling other clients in that square mile radius.

00:53:43.246 --> 00:53:51.047
We're going to try to become the local hero, the hyper local hero, and do the most LED retrofit.

00:53:51.047 --> 00:53:58.894
So basically, my objective is to never see another electrician in that area installing our favorite install.

00:53:58.956 --> 00:53:59.873
Geofencing it yeah.

00:54:00.376 --> 00:54:08.385
And every time you do another generator in that area, you get another review, another because another social lift.

00:54:08.385 --> 00:54:12.094
Yes, it's just a matter of time before you've got a dozen, you get another review, another because another social lift.

00:54:12.094 --> 00:54:14.097
It's just a matter of time before you've got a dozen.

00:54:14.097 --> 00:54:18.802
Now your maintenance is more centralized, your maintenance packages are more centralized.

00:54:18.802 --> 00:54:25.469
Cost of goods go down, profit goes up and they just keep seeing your van with the darn generator logos.

00:54:25.469 --> 00:54:27.070
You know what I mean.

00:54:27.070 --> 00:54:34.646
It's a hyper, the hyper local strategy, and I just don't think people go deep enough on that kind of stuff.

00:54:34.646 --> 00:54:40.722
But you don't see it if you don't pay attention to the data and the numbers and how valuable those kinds of shifts can be.

00:54:42.005 --> 00:54:55.684
I mean, and and just to kind of uh add to that, like one thing that we're we're playing with right now, it's, it's so in here, in, in, in my area I don't know in your area, joe if, if this happens.

00:54:55.724 --> 00:55:02.045
New York, brother, new York we have a lot of aluminum wiring and a lot of federal Pacific stuff.

00:55:02.045 --> 00:55:14.925
So one of the things that we do is, if we have, when the technicians debrief with the, with the, with the dispatchers, one of the things they ask them was there a federal pacific panel or aluminum wiring in that home?

00:55:14.925 --> 00:55:17.820
They check they, they tag it.

00:55:17.820 --> 00:55:20.945
Yes, I do a every friday.

00:55:20.945 --> 00:55:35.876
I'll do a, a a a look at the calls that went happened last week, this past week, and I look for that tag aluminum wiring, federal pacific, and if there's one panel or one aluminum wire house in that in that area, guess what else is in that area?

00:55:35.876 --> 00:55:38.943
A whole lot of more, absolutely.

00:55:38.943 --> 00:55:43.418
So we we use a company that we we tell them this is the address that we found it.

00:55:43.418 --> 00:55:54.384
Yeah, I want you to send 50 to 100 postcards to that neighborhood of attention, homeowner, aluminum wirings have been found in your neighborhood.

00:55:54.384 --> 00:56:01.788
We are now doing a $69 electrical safety checkup to make sure that you and your home and your family are safe.

00:56:01.788 --> 00:56:02.568
Call today.

00:56:03.056 --> 00:56:04.623
It sounds like you're calling in an airstrike.

00:56:05.277 --> 00:56:06.835
You've got a targeted location.

00:56:06.934 --> 00:56:12.686
It's like I found within these coordinates there is aluminum wiring, carpet bomb the whole area with postcards.

00:56:12.686 --> 00:56:19.306
We got to get in those doors but it works and the cool thing is is that the customer is going to thank you for it.

00:56:19.635 --> 00:56:21.262
It's almost like how did they know?

00:56:21.262 --> 00:56:33.137
So, like when we were going into homes and working in certain developments we were finding that the kitchen and dining room lights were flickering because they were all ge style panels that were all installed the same time and we're literally arcing out those circuits.

00:56:33.137 --> 00:56:37.768
So we'd send eddms like wonder why your kitchen lights keep flickering?

00:56:37.768 --> 00:56:39.179
Call state to find out.

00:56:39.179 --> 00:56:42.166
And we'd get calls like how do you know my lights were flickering?

00:56:42.166 --> 00:56:43.559
Like well, we're the provider.

00:56:43.559 --> 00:56:45.291
We're actually the preferred provider for your area.

00:56:45.291 --> 00:56:46.076
I'd be happy to come in.

00:56:46.115 --> 00:56:49.481
We specialize in your home come on in love it, man.

00:56:49.862 --> 00:56:55.090
That is awesome russell brunson said uh, famous marketer, throw rocks at your enemies.

00:56:55.090 --> 00:57:05.257
It's difficult to talk about safety without people's sales defenses going up yeah just meet it head on.

00:57:05.257 --> 00:57:06.701
I love that about this strategy.

00:57:06.701 --> 00:57:11.545
Like you can tell that when you're sending it out with that level of messaging, aluminum wirings are enemy.

00:57:11.545 --> 00:57:14.344
Here's why the facts are it's unsafe.

00:57:14.344 --> 00:57:18.967
Let us make sure that it's safe for you so that there's no casualties in this war.

00:57:20.635 --> 00:57:21.858
Yeah, absolutely.

00:57:21.958 --> 00:57:22.760
It's the right thing to do.

00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:26.456
Holy moly, we could talk to you forever, guillermo.

00:57:26.456 --> 00:57:31.802
I got one more thing and I want to respect your time, but I know we're already at the hour here.

00:57:31.802 --> 00:57:32.884
Do you have a few minutes more?

00:57:33.463 --> 00:57:34.224
Yeah, absolutely.

00:57:34.545 --> 00:57:35.387
Okay, very cool.

00:57:35.387 --> 00:57:39.331
When we chatted last, you talked about employee net promoter score.

00:57:53.994 --> 00:57:55.438
Yes, understand this, so would you help us in this episode.

00:57:55.438 --> 00:57:58.405
It's never been talked about on here on the Million Dollar Electrician, so could you tell us a bit about what is that and why it's important?

00:57:58.405 --> 00:57:58.907
So we have somebody here.

00:57:58.907 --> 00:57:59.268
Her name is Heidi.

00:57:59.268 --> 00:58:14.242
My wife and I have actually known her for many, many years and I've always wanted her to work at the company because she's just such a she's just a warm person, and we created a position for her called our care coordinator.

00:58:14.242 --> 00:58:27.480
What that is is her job is to make sure that everyone's happy, that our people are being taken care of, and we started to implement with her stay interviews.

00:58:27.480 --> 00:58:40.322
And at first, when we say stay interviews, they didn't understand, kind of what it is, and we started to collect all this information like how you're doing and how they're feeling and all that sort of stuff.

00:58:40.322 --> 00:58:42.987
But now we want to quantify it.

00:58:44.375 --> 00:58:50.974
So what we're going to do is we're going to begin in 2025 doing this is that these state interviews are going to happen.

00:58:50.974 --> 00:59:07.550
We don't know if we're going to do it on a quarterly basis or on a bi-quarterly basis, an annual we're still kind of playing with it but we're going to ask some very simple questions and we're going to quantify these questions like on a scale of 1 to 5 or on a scale of 1 to 10.

00:59:07.550 --> 00:59:09.027
How do you enjoy working here On a scale one to five?

00:59:09.027 --> 00:59:10.612
Or on a scale of one to 10, how do you enjoy working here On a scale?

00:59:10.612 --> 00:59:14.623
Just put quantifying everything in there and I'm looking at some.

00:59:14.623 --> 00:59:19.503
There's net performance scores in some websites and everything on how we're actually going to do it.

00:59:20.065 --> 00:59:47.009
But it's great to hit revenue goals, it's great to hit review goals and service agreement goals, but why not start focusing on making sure that your people are happy and you're putting a quantified, a number that you can measure, to it, and that should be something that we are really going to focus on in 2025.

00:59:47.009 --> 00:59:48.858
Let's get the net promoter score.

00:59:48.858 --> 00:59:55.442
What is the standard and how do we get above that standard with our people?

00:59:55.442 --> 00:59:59.742
If we have a happy team member, guess what they're going to do.

00:59:59.742 --> 01:00:01.434
They're going to serve.

01:00:01.795 --> 01:00:02.981
They're going to serve.

01:00:04.416 --> 01:00:07.364
Yeah, so that's something that I'm really hyper-focused on for next year.

01:00:23.068 --> 01:00:30.581
You know I want to give-focused on for next year is I've actually worked at places before where they would do the weekly announcements and the weekly how do you like working here?

01:00:30.581 --> 01:00:34.824
But when I would talk to the managers they'd say well, we actually don't look at them because all we get is negative feedback.

01:00:34.824 --> 01:00:40.885
We just do it because we know we want the employees to think that we care, and that's the thing is that I know you actually care.

01:00:40.885 --> 01:00:53.556
So the fact that the team and the employees will recognize you're doing it for the right reason means that they're more likely to actually give honest feedback, because if you don't actually care, why would they do the thing other than just check the box 10?

01:00:54.177 --> 01:01:04.746
Right, right, and, and and, and us as as business owners in our company, and there's 99.9% of business owners they want to take.

01:01:04.746 --> 01:01:08.021
I mean that's what I feel, cause that's just the way I, that's just the way that I've seen.

01:01:08.021 --> 01:01:08.583
Success is you want to take.

01:01:08.583 --> 01:01:10.188
I mean that's what I feel because that's just the way that I've seen.

01:01:10.188 --> 01:01:11.731
Success is you want to take care of your people.

01:01:11.731 --> 01:01:13.994
You've got to take care of your people.

01:01:13.994 --> 01:01:19.204
I mean being a business owner in the electrical industry.

01:01:19.204 --> 01:01:37.878
I mean we're truly in the people business and, yes, it's great to have customers, absolutely but we are stewards over people that we're leading and they have to be taken care of because if they're taken care of, they're going to take care of the customer and they're going to be happy here.

01:01:37.878 --> 01:01:43.909
They're going to recruit for you, they're going to be brand ambassadors for you.

01:01:45.657 --> 01:01:52.195
We just got an installer because one of my technicians went to a customer's house and he was helping the customer.

01:01:52.195 --> 01:02:05.117
His cousin was an electrician and he overheard my technician talking to the customer about how amazing it is to work at the company and the guy was like where do you work Electrical connections, can I come and apply there?

01:02:05.117 --> 01:02:09.891
Sorry, can I come and apply there, and Can I come and apply there?

01:02:09.891 --> 01:02:12.900
And we got a great installer because of that.

01:02:14.804 --> 01:02:15.166
I love that.

01:02:15.166 --> 01:02:16.208
I believe it, man.

01:02:16.208 --> 01:02:25.802
Earlier, I didn't want to say anything, but I was tempted to ask if you were hiring, and I'm a little rusty on the tools, man, but it sounds like a great place to work.

01:02:26.443 --> 01:02:30.460
Yeah, oh, boy Clay, we could always make room for you, brother.

01:02:30.780 --> 01:02:35.159
Oh, thanks, man, Thanks, two years it's been.

01:02:36.003 --> 01:02:36.264
Yeah.

01:02:37.175 --> 01:02:40.585
What's the greatest strength that you have now that you didn't have two years ago?

01:02:40.585 --> 01:02:43.581
You didn't see this one coming.

01:02:43.581 --> 01:02:46.682
I got hard questions to finish this up.

01:02:47.806 --> 01:02:51.315
Yeah, trust those around me.

01:02:51.315 --> 01:03:05.780
That's my greatest strength now is I'm letting go more and I'm allowing people to try to figure things out, like, for example, my father, my stepmother.

01:03:05.780 --> 01:03:26.146
She had triple bypass surgery last November and we almost lost her and she's like a mother to me and my dad's got Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and I literally had to drop everything that I was doing to take care of my dad for two and a half months while the company was.

01:03:26.146 --> 01:03:27.766
I was in here for two and a half months.

01:03:27.766 --> 01:03:29.507
What came out of it?

01:03:29.507 --> 01:03:33.889
I learned that I have the most amazing team members here.

01:03:33.889 --> 01:03:36.250
They took care of this place like if it was theirs.

01:03:36.909 --> 01:03:40.951
When I came back, I felt so out of place I didn't know if.

01:03:40.951 --> 01:03:44.532
I almost felt like I thought I wasn't needed anymore because they broke records.

01:03:44.532 --> 01:03:46.592
When I was gone, they broke records.

01:03:46.592 --> 01:03:49.514
My wife manned the ship and they broke records.

01:03:49.514 --> 01:03:51.034
When I was gone, they broke records.

01:03:51.034 --> 01:03:52.954
My wife manned the ship and they broke records.

01:03:52.954 --> 01:04:02.347
But what I learned from that and what has changed me, I think, is that I trust more and allow people to fail, because through failure they're getting better.

01:04:02.347 --> 01:04:03.431
That's what's changed, I think.

01:04:04.655 --> 01:04:06.061
That's a backdrop moment, that is-.

01:04:06.454 --> 01:04:06.797
For sure.

01:04:06.797 --> 01:04:13.001
It begs the rhetorical question of why do leaders need to break or break down before they let their team step up?

01:04:13.001 --> 01:04:19.719
Yeah, yeah, yeah crazy yeah I asked this before.

01:04:19.719 --> 01:04:21.402
I'll ask it again to finish us off.

01:04:21.402 --> 01:04:23.628
You got three electricians in a room.

01:04:23.628 --> 01:04:26.237
You can give them each a different message.

01:04:26.237 --> 01:04:35.442
One's's just starting out, One's looking to get to that first seven-figure year and one's just a little ways behind you already done over a million.

01:04:35.442 --> 01:04:39.864
But looking to get to where you're at and looking forward, what's your advice to each of?

01:04:39.905 --> 01:04:43.507
them.

01:04:43.507 --> 01:05:03.605
Focus on the process of becoming the best selling tech that you can possibly be, because if you become good at the process of running a service call, you're going to be able to train the next guy and the next guy and the next guy.

01:05:03.605 --> 01:05:04.867
That's going to get you out of that truck.

01:05:04.867 --> 01:05:07.219
Focus on the process.

01:05:07.219 --> 01:05:11.393
Don't think about revenue.

01:05:11.393 --> 01:05:16.525
Revenue is nothing more than a byproduct of the process and providing good service.

01:05:16.525 --> 01:05:17.547
So that's that guy.

01:05:17.547 --> 01:05:27.047
Um, the guy that is uh, uh, it's is is about a million, a little over a million maybe.

01:05:28.588 --> 01:05:35.759
I would say start creating processes and systems in your business.

01:05:35.759 --> 01:05:41.650
What could you do in your business to make things easier around you?

01:05:41.650 --> 01:05:47.266
Systemize it, make it a machine, for example, your call center.

01:05:47.266 --> 01:05:50.954
How can you plug and play it for somebody?

01:05:50.954 --> 01:05:54.021
Manage the process and not the person.

01:05:54.021 --> 01:06:02.344
So create processes, systems that you can put people in and they're going to be able to have success in it and manage that process.

01:06:02.344 --> 01:06:05.056
And if something goes wrong, it's not because of that person.

01:06:05.056 --> 01:06:08.338
It's because the process is broken and now you can fix it.

01:06:08.338 --> 01:06:09.679
It's not because of that person.

01:06:09.679 --> 01:06:15.123
It's because the process is broken and now you can fix it, as the person that has multiple trucks doing multiple millions of dollars.

01:06:15.123 --> 01:06:19.887
You have layers of management in your team.

01:06:20.047 --> 01:06:27.992
At that point, I would say, at that point, you are now managing leaders in your organization.

01:06:27.992 --> 01:06:54.936
That's what you're doing now.

01:06:54.936 --> 01:06:55.878
You now need to step up your game.

01:06:55.878 --> 01:06:56.840
You now need to become, you do to inspire.

01:06:56.840 --> 01:06:58.244
What can you do to instill energy in the organization?

01:06:58.244 --> 01:07:07.117
Because you, as the leader, you're the visionary, you see 10 miles ahead of everybody else and you're looking back at them and you're saying and inspiring people come, follow me.

01:07:07.117 --> 01:07:10.675
This is where we're going, this is what we're going to do.

01:07:10.675 --> 01:07:17.652
You become an inspirer and you just implement that energy into people around you.

01:07:17.652 --> 01:07:19.938
So those are the three things that I would say.

01:07:21.340 --> 01:07:21.760
Amazing.

01:07:23.003 --> 01:07:26.458
The thing that came up to mind was the difference is you're a leader, not a boss.

01:07:26.458 --> 01:07:29.867
A boss sits behind the desks and says this is where we need to go.

01:07:29.867 --> 01:07:32.784
A leader says, follow me, this is where we need to go.

01:07:34.197 --> 01:07:36.460
And funny, you say that so I got something right over here.

01:07:36.460 --> 01:07:42.125
I mean, I don't know if you guys can see it or not, but you see that right there there's a boss sitting at the top.

01:07:51.094 --> 01:07:53.161
And then the other one at the bottom says there's a leader just going ahead of everybody come follow me.

01:07:53.161 --> 01:07:54.184
Yep, perfect man, and I love that strong finish.

01:07:54.184 --> 01:07:55.811
Guillermo, you make me wonder why we don't have you on every week.

01:07:55.811 --> 01:07:58.097
You're a busy man, you're doing a heck of a job.

01:07:58.097 --> 01:08:09.976
We're so, so proud of you and so happy to have you here and just share your experiences, your knowledge, your wisdom to other electricians I mean, it means the world, and I know that, uh, that's not it for you.

01:08:09.976 --> 01:08:12.342
I know that you aim to continue to give back.

01:08:12.342 --> 01:08:16.902
What's the best way for someone to reach out to you, whether it's someone listening who decides?

01:08:16.902 --> 01:08:17.363
You know what.

01:08:17.363 --> 01:08:20.243
I just want to work for a company that's already doing things right.

01:08:20.243 --> 01:08:26.801
Or, if it's, I want to connect with someone and maybe get to be a part of one of these shop tours, et cetera.

01:08:26.841 --> 01:08:28.043
Yeah, absolutely.

01:08:28.043 --> 01:08:31.036
So there is a Facebook group called um.

01:08:31.036 --> 01:08:34.023
Uh, oh my gosh, I just, I just said it earlier.

01:08:34.224 --> 01:08:35.065
Maryland masterminds.

01:08:35.447 --> 01:08:39.063
Maryland, maryland masterminds, maryland masterminds.

01:08:39.063 --> 01:08:42.516
So you can definitely join that Facebook group and and just be a part of it.

01:08:42.516 --> 01:08:44.820
Um, we, we do shop tours with each other.

01:08:44.820 --> 01:08:59.402
Um, cell number if anyone ever wants to talk to me or text me or anything 240-426-7946.

01:08:59.402 --> 01:09:06.963
And if you want to just send me an email, I would be more than happy to get on a Zoom with anybody and talk about the issues you're going through and I could just tell you how the problems I went through and how I got through, got through it.

01:09:06.963 --> 01:09:09.007
Um, it's the world's longest email.

01:09:09.007 --> 01:09:22.216
It's a G Castillo C A S T I L L O at electrical connections LLCcom, and I'm here to help, just like you guys.

01:09:22.978 --> 01:09:27.597
Wonderful Thanks so much Is there anything else you wanted to part with on this episode before we let you go?

01:09:28.360 --> 01:09:29.042
Yeah, Uh.

01:09:29.042 --> 01:09:39.217
One last thing I want to say to everybody is I've said it before whatever you're going through right now, if you're struggling, if you're going through issues and everything right now, you're going to get through it.

01:09:39.217 --> 01:09:41.702
It's part of your growth.

01:09:41.702 --> 01:09:50.127
Growing hurts and problems are good, because now you have the ability to solve it and move on to something bigger.

01:09:51.574 --> 01:09:55.204
Incredible Thank you so much, truly a pleasure.

01:09:55.225 --> 01:09:55.827
Take care guys.

01:09:56.194 --> 01:10:00.627
And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Million Dollar Electrician Podcast.

01:10:00.774 --> 01:10:09.859
We hope you're buzzing with new ideas that charged up to take your business to the next level, so don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share the show with fellow electricians Together.

01:10:10.284 --> 01:10:11.479
we'll keep the current flowing.