¶ Intro
Hey, welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secret Revealed with Thaddeus and Evan where we have good with good people. And any good conversation worth having is worth having drunk we're in this case really hungover because we are still down in Phoenix, Arizona for the women in H V A C R event. And today we had on, Erica Leonor, actually I had on Erica Leonor, that's this Thaddeus. Evan, had to catch an earlier flight.
so I was flying solo for this episode and Erica's actually, she's a board member of. the women in H V A C R, she's also a business development specialist or director of business development, rather, at GoodLeap. And so we talked a lot about, I guess the women in H V A C or endowment fund, for women in the trades, how to get more females in there.
And really just finding your tribe, to be able to, and this whole women in H V A C are aspect and event is just phenomenal to be able to find and see a completely different side of the, the industry, because everybody's here.
Not to say that these other events don't support everyone, they do, but it's just a different unique aspect to see, a bunch of females together into a room in America's leading the charge in that, Specifically what we got into, or, some of the customer service successes that you can have, with financing, right? And, diving into that. But here's the other part is combating the dark side of financing. Right. Interest rates and dealer rates.
We all don't know that's a real thing, but how do you handle that as a business owner? How do you handle that as a comfort advisor when presenting those options to somebody to be able to not be seen as, oh, it's just greasy, I gotta have these fees. No, we talked really deep about that. one other one that we really got into is that customer experience is the new battlefront. That was a deep one and I enjoyed it and I wish we could have had more time to go. In it, but it really is, it really is.
The new, battlefront friend. So you're gonna, like today's episode, grab you notepad, if you're driving, obviously don't take notes. that would be bad, but be sure to re-listen to this episode. Cheers. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Live from the women in H V A C R event in cold Phoenix today, it's cold. It's cold for Phoenix. Join our last episode of the event with Erica Leonor from a variety of places. GoodLeap.
You are the Director of Business Development at GoodLeap. You have been a three year board member with the women in H V A C R, and also a consultant for all things customer service and sales for CSRs, technicians and installers. Awesome. Welcome.
Thank you. Yes. Love it.
Top takeaway from the event.
Oh my goodness. So yeah, we had over 400 people here and it was so fun to just see everyone connecting and just everyone to have that like you could just feel energy. Can you feel that? Just people happy and excited and so many hugs and new friends and everything, and I think that was just my biggest thing is just to seeing everybody just light up and just be so excited to be here. We had amazing speakers. We had amazing podcasters.
Great hotel staff and so many things, but it was just that facilitation of people. And I just love
¶ Finding Your Tribe
seeing people happy.
You're, exactly right. And I've been to two events in the space and, talk with a lot of people online, and you see what happens online. And then coming here, it's an entirely different world than a lot of in the Facebook groups in, that, especially on the h v side, at least the ones that I'm in. And do, it's just it's, great. The energy was, authentic and just a lot of connections made within the space and it's, absolutely exciting.
Yeah. It's so fun and people that are here for the first time go away with a tribe now. And it is different. So some people feel like there's a stigma, like of women's events, and you're like, no, it's not like a fashion show or anything. Although we did have a pretty good party last night but,
There was a lot of, there was a lot of nice red dresses.
We had a good party, that's for sure. But it's, more than just oh, this weird women's event. It's not like that at all. This is professional, this is educational, this is like, Helping people grow in their careers.
You mentioned tribe, and this is something that has been this, notion of a tribe in having a group of people that can really support one another in all different things. Successfully is clues. And, in just raw, real conversations with others can help others grow. It's fantastic to see.
Yeah, there was definitely some of that facilitated today even and, just people. Knowing that it's okay to talk about things like, for instance, we had a lot of people say it's okay to talk about pay and how much you make and what the range is for different positions, because for some reason, men and women alike, it's like you don't tell people how much money you make.
And you don't have to say how much money you make, but it's so helpful to teach other people what is the salary range that this position could be? Or if I'm looking for a new position, I just wanna make sure that it's I'm gonna be able to facilitate my life and take care of my family and all of those things. And so that's one of the things that I hope people really took away from this, is like helping each other and, realizing that, talk about that. And don't be scared.
when people have come to me and Hey, I need help. I'm looking for a new job, or Hey, where can I go to make more money? I wanna be a resource for them to help them because I've had people help me. And I'm so grateful.
No and, like a thousand percent, when you have that help, when you have that network to be able to. Have that
¶ The Women in HVACR Endowment Fund for Women in the Trades
right. And Eric Thomas don't need to drink anymore, but also don't need to drink any less. Another great podcaster had a great time with him this, concept of money right? In not talking about it, it's almost this taboo subject that nobody really wants to talk about it. If you don't talk about it, how can you learn about it, how can you, have honest dialogue about it? How can you help others if nobody ever talks about it it's a great thing to be able to, take that out, right?
And, actually have those real raw, honest conversations about it. Cool. Women in H V A C R obviously. So we'll, touch on the endowment a little bit and then we'll transition over to some of the stuff that you're doing with GoodLeap and your independent consulting. So we've, had Ruth King on, it was one of her missions earlier to have this endowment fund for women in the trades. How has the ability to give scholarships out to women in the space impacted you as a person?
Wow, that's so cool. I love it. I, had the privilege of helping to facilitate some of the material gifts. So we had so many people contributing to the endowment fund. Thank you. Shout out to all of them and for Ruth King for starting that. And it's gonna be amazing. We're never gonna run outta scholarships with this, so donate and help us out. But I was very privileged to work with a lot of our sponsors to ask them like, Hey, you know what?
These girls are starting their journey and or women, and we want them to not just be excited about getting in the industry, but retain them and help them know we're all here. And seeing our sponsors just give gifts. Like I had boxes full of tools and tool bags and gift cards and swag and uniforms, Carhartt, like all these different things. And I was able to put these boxes together and we gifted them to the scholarship winners.
And for me that was so exciting because we have such great organizations out there that wanna contribute, wanna help and, want these women to know that. This is home, right? This, you've got a family everywhere in this industry. And so for me that big impact is. To know better never leave or I'm coming to hunt you down. But it's cool.
Yeah, in hearing the stories at the gala last night what they want to do with it, what they want to, there's one lady and the one that, I remember at least from the. Amounts of booze that were in our system last night. Whiskeys all day long cuz we're podcasting all day long. No, I kind of digress on that a little bit. But her, husband and her kid, right? And they wanted to start a business and they needed to go get the resources and the schooling in order to be able to, do it.
And that's something that's cool that they wanna build this business not to sell it. But to build it together as a family to hand down to their kids and like the endowment fund and scholarships to be able to do that can impact lives. So if you're listening, you're like, oh shit, this sounds like something that could be fun. I should probably do it. Guess what? Here's a link. www.womeninhvacr.org/endowment We'll put that in the show notes for after too. So go on any amount.
$10, $20, $50, a thousand dollars shade. If you got a million dollars and you wanna hit their goal of a million dollars raise, then drop a million dollars into it, right?
And we'll drop your name everywhere, right?
You will get, you'll get notoriety and publication everywhere. But, seriously I kind of tongue in cheek a little bit on that. Whatever you think that as a business or an individual you can put forward to this, every little bit matters and helps.
It really does. All of the board, we were the privileged ones to be the first ones to donate. Like it was so fun, like when we got the website set up, we got all of it. We're like, okay, all of us are gonna put money in cuz we all believe in it. So we all donate and then. First of all, we had to make sure it worked right. All the technology. But it did. And then we had so many other people donate.
And so it's just fun to see like we were the first ones and I, just feel very grateful that I gotta be that kind of pioneer with it. And for forever we're gonna be able to give those to, to women. So it's really fun.
Yeah. No, it's super cool. And then if your business on the top right at this screen, when you. When you go endowment you'll scroll down and in a, I can't remember the name of the button, donate now. Something like that or, provide something along. When you go onto that screen on the top right, there's a button that says Company. Yes. And you can select company and do that, because we did that last night when we put some dollars towards.
Oh my gosh.
So transitioning now to goodly less director of business development. I know you said you wanna talk three things. Women in H V
¶ Erica's Role in GoodLeap
A C R, customer service and financing. I guess what's your role within GoodLeap?
I'm a director of business development at GoodLeap, and I just gotta say I love Good Leap. This is like the most amazing financing company ever. And it was one of the things where I decided to join with GoodLeap. I had to make sure it align perfectly and it does like the mission, the values, the culture, the people I work with, the program the product that we're doing and, my role in, in working with contractors. And I come from the customer service and sales training arena.
And I've, for years and years, even before I joined the industry I've worked a lot with people and I've done classes on substance abuse and anger management. And I've done a lot of training and self-development for people. And I bring a lot of those skills in and then apply it to the the trades. And I absolutely love H V A C and all things home improvement.
And GoodLeap is just one of those ways where it connected a lot of the pieces of CSR training, sales training, technician training, all those trainings that I've done. And adding that financing piece is here's another amazing conversation that you can have with people. To close that deal to help them realize you don't have to fork out 15 grand in cash. I'll take a hundred dollars bills, but a lot of people can't do that.
And so Good Leap has an amazing program to help people with making things affordable. And that's what we're seeing a lot in the economy right now. We talk about all the time, price increases, labor shortage. All of it's going up, so I love it.
So supply prices are going up. But wages are staying stagnant. So now it becomes an affordability gap and the cost of living and I know that GoodLeap also does, I know at least when we had set you on, he was with now with GoodLeap. He's under that part of things. Under the umbrella. You guys
¶ GoodLeap Training for Contractors
do a lot of additional training. With your contractors.
Yeah. We're not just gonna throw a financing program out and say good luck. So we are hardcore ongoing training with people. So we, make sure every quarter, every six months we're working with our contractors and we actually give our cell phones to every salesperson, to every contract. You say, you ha need help with a loan, here's the person you call.
So I get people calling me, help me with this, and we're able to go on and just help them with loans and help them close deals and just help 'em with those things that. Some other financing companies might not give that customer support, and that's what I love. And so ongoing training, having that support for people, because when you're in the home with a customer and you're trying to like close this, if somebody gets denied because you happen to type the address in wrong. You've lost that sale.
And then they're gonna feel super crappy that their credit is dinged now, and then they have to go somewhere else and then you just lost it. And that's one of the big things is we don't ding people's credit. It's a soft pull, so you don't have to have your clients worry about that, but we'll also help them right there in the home on the spot. So that half of those jobs that might get declined somewhere else We get up through, so we have a 90% approval rate. At Good Leap with all our loans.
Oh, nice. And it just helps out, right? There's I heard a stat the other day. Somebody's telling me that 40% of the lower socioeconomic status homes in Dallas don't have AC. Isn't that crazy? I don't know. The source was pretty reliable. Yeah. For the person that, that told it to me. But if it is in fact true that's, crazy. Now, if you can do things in a way that checks off your, good side of the box, right? Not just trying to close the deal.
And adding a bunch of prices on there, but actually help somebody out. Yeah. It's a big thing. So that also flips into the, that other part the customer service, yeah. How does financing and doing it this way and helping the contractor and train them and doing what's right by the client what are some of the successes that you've seen on the customer service side of things?
Some people think that you just offer financing, but it and then that's it. But it plays such a big role in that customer experience, that journey. It can start anywhere on the phone with your, customer service reps. And you get
¶ What are some customer service successes you see with GoodLeap's easy-to-use approvals for financing?
a call and someone says, Hey, I need to get an estimate. And you'll say, okay, great. What's your address? There's a lot of things we're gonna work on to develop that aspect of it, but it's also adding on to the whole experience on the phone is, hey, We also have financing. We can plug it onto people's websites. You can apply online. It's not gonna ding your credits, see how much you're approved for. Now, there's no partial approvals either. It's a max approval.
So you don't have to worry about, oh, I'm only approved for $7,000, but I really want this $12,000 job. It's like the max approval for people, the lowest somebody gets is like $25,000. it's awesome. So contractors have a lot of money to work with, and when people have more money, they. Spend more money. And so it's really, nice. And, so we have it plugged in into people's websites and then we can help hey tell your CSR to offer this on the phone and then in the home as well. Of course.
Like you're not just gonna say, here, let's apply for financing. It's. Using some of the perks that Good Leap offers is we don't ding the credit, and we also accept the ITIN numbers. So you guys are from Canada, right? But we have a lot of international people in the United States. That maybe don't have a social security number. And so they have an ITIN number, which is a tax ID number. Yeah. And so if people don't have their social, but they.
Wanna get a loan in the United States for H V A C, the LEAP is the only one that offers that. So you're talking about those, that statistic in Dallas? Yep. Who knows what demographic those people are, but if they're those that have an iTune. That's a demographic that people aren't looking at that could get financed.
And yeah, like I didn't realize the whole part of the I 10 until obviously I'm, not in the financing world on that side of things, but that can go a long way to be able to just help people get heating and cooling into their house if they do not have it. And especially in Canada, if you don't have a furnace, what do you do? What do you do? It's supposed to be a high of minus 18 Celsius on Monday. That's fucking cold. Like you're speaking Celsius on Fahrenheit, so Yeah, I know.
The rest of the world's Celsius, so I know what's fine with that. I think so I can do all the conversions. Like up to 32 degrees, or I guess above 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Once it goes below 32, I get lost in the conversions. I mean it, but because it, changes so much, right? Yeah. And so I don't remember, I think it's like minus, minus 18 is like minus 18 Fahrenheit. It's somewhere around there.
Where it's actually the same number which is, and then just continues as the same number down as weird.
But we just gotta get something like on your phone, you don't know military time until you put it on your phone. Yeah. And then you start seeing it all the time. So I do a military time on my phone, and then I just used to it now. Yep. But I need like a weather widget or something on there to gimme Fahrenheit and selfie use next to each other. Yeah. So I can learn it.
So I actually have I have two weather apps on my phone. And one of them, one of 'em is just like the, native Google on because I have a, Google pixel phone. And so it's always on the home screen. And that's programmed Celsius for me. But my home my other one for my area, I actually have a program to Fahrenheit. Oh. And I have my laptop programmed. Fahrenheit so you can learn it. So I can learn it. And that's why I said above th above 32 degrees, I'm pretty good.
Yeah. In terms of letting you know what it is. But once it goes below that freezing point, it kinda gets a little confusing. One thing that I think of sometimes with, financing, we hear this every now and again, it co it crops up the, perhaps maybe a dark side of financing and the interest rates that one might charge to a consumer. So some people might be like, okay, I have this person, I'm gonna give them $25,000 loan, but their rates are 12% or 10%.
They're a higher rate because they're a higher risk. How do you combat that when you're having a conversation with a contractor?
So once again there's, the interest rates for your customer, and then you have your dealer costs for the loan, right? And so the interest rates, those are mostly com pr, are controlled by the Federal Reserve. So when they go up, we have to go up on interest for customer, right? Yep. But us, for the dealer costs those have to fluctuate as well so that we can cover the cost of the loan.
What I love is that there are still some very, awesome and reasonable loans for customers that have zero cost to the dealer to use.
¶ Combatting the Dark Side of Financing (Interest Rates & Dealer Rates)
And if anyone's interested in seeing what our rates are or anything like that, we'd be happy to talk to you because it could be a very, profitable business for you to offer financing cuz you're gonna close more jobs, obviously, because more people can afford it. Yep. But you don't have to worry about being charged up the wazoo. To offer people certain loans, right?
And so we just help you pick the loans that you feel like you wanna have covered in your overhead and what are the interest rates that you wanna offer? And depending on that, we just match 'em to you and, then you have just this beautiful configuration of. You're only allowed to do what you can do and you don't have to worry about your sales guys offering stuff that you're like, wow, that loan cost me 20% and Right. You don't have to worry about that.
We have very awesome rates, very awesome dealer costs. And we work with you on, making sure it's perfect for your company.
It's a customized plan. Exactly. So you wanna get in touch with GoodLeap, goodleap.com Yes. Would be their. Actually we've been working on getting our ref our, link, so I'll have to find that and adjust that for the show notes for later. Customer service I heard something, we had some guests on our podcast the other day and they, were that customer experience is gonna be the new battleground. And I can't agree more. What do you think?
100%? I'll tell you a story. My refrigerator broke a couple weeks ago. Yep. We woke up in the morning, super dead water leaked out everywhere. Food was rotten, right? And so I had to be a customer for once, going on Google, trying to find an appliance company. Everyone that I called, they're like, oh, we're booked till next week. Okay, thanks. Bye. Hung up the phone. Second one. We're booked till next week. Okay, thanks.
Bye. And I needed someone quick cause I was heading to Service World and so we needed somebody like within two days. But I was like, I don't want all my freezer food. I want this to go bad. Like we tried to salvage as much as we could, but it just was one of those things where I had to be a customer for one. I've been a customer before, but it's been a while. But to have something break, if it's your fridge
¶ Customer Experience is the New Battlefront
or your AC, or your water heater or whatever it is, To have that break and then have to go through the process of Googling and calling and then just getting crappy treatment. I just was like, man, I'll just go buy a new fridge. It doesn't matter if I could just repair this for 200 bucks, like I'd just rather buy a new fridge and have to spend hours trying to find someone that's actually decent. I even had somebody like hang up on me. They're like, okay, thanks.
Bye. Click and just would hang up on me. I was stunned. Wow. And I, maybe it's because I'm in customer service and I. Have a higher expectation, but I'm still amazed that people don't understand that. But I I don't wanna blame the CSRs necessarily because they show up. They probably just were handed a phone as they answer it. How hard can it be? And I don't wanna blame them, although sometimes they're just awful. And I'm like, oh my gosh, what's going on? Just decent, a human, being.
it's, training them and it's helping you as an owner or a manager. Help them believe in their jobs. These are entry level people, but yet everyone says they're, most important people in your company. But you pay them the least. And then you never help them. And you say, here's a phone. Technicians, they get a lot of training, but they still lack in some areas. You get people out, they're like, I'm just here to fix it. Don't make me sell anything. And I'm like don't you wanna do a good job?
Don't you wanna care about what you do? Yeah. And so it's just giving people that training and that understanding and opening their minds to here's a different way of doing things. Different communication techniques, different ways of talking. And one of my things that I like to do is, I grew up in in high school I went to a really small high school. And I was in theater. We did drama and so I did a lot of like school plays and stuff and I liked that.
My and my mom's like the biggest theater nerd ever. But when you think about it, if you're on stage doing theater, can you walk like this?
No. You have to have, you have to have the passion behind it.
Exactly. Yeah. Or people are gonna watch you and they're gonna this sucks and they're gonna walk out. So think about that in, in customer service. And that's one of the things that I've started to do, is it's acting. Training and it's not trying to be fake. But it's teaching you how to project, how to present yourself, how to, as if you were going to deliver a monologue on stage. Yep. That's what it would be.
And when you teach people how to have that language and that articulation and practicing those things as if they were on stage, you find your customer experience completely changes.
There you go. Phenomenal tips. Phenomenal tips. Thanks. So as we wrap up, we're a little bit over the 20 minute mark, but hey, that's okay. Yeah. One final question here for you, Erica. Coming. What is one question that you wish people would ask you more but don't.
Oh my gosh. Don't throw that at me. That's our patented last question. Okay. One question people should ask me that they don't Why do I love the Lord of the Rings so much?
Okay. Why do you love the Lord of the Rings so much?
Because it's freaking awesome and I feel like it has something for everybody. Yep. It's a story about heroism. It's beautiful, it's pure. The music is stunning and the books and somebody J. R. R. Tolkien created a World is like the pave the Way for fantasy and it's just beautiful. So if you haven't watched it or read it,
There you go. There you go. It took me, I think, five different times to get through the first episode of Lord of the Rings. I kept falling asleep and it's not because the it was a boring show. It just, whenever I started watching, I was like, oh yeah, I'll watch it. And I and I would just happen to be hungover back in university and I just fell asleep all the time. But I have made my way through all of them It took a little while, but I have so very good shows.
I definitely enjoyed them, so yeah.
That's awesome. That's my go-to.
Yeah. Thank you Erica for taking some time to sit and chat with us today.
You guys are awesome. Thank you. We appreciate your support for women in H V A C and GoodLeap and all things. Thanks for having me.
Awesome. Thank you for having us down at the women in H V A C R event. We cannot wait to be here again next year. All right, and until next time, cheers. That's a wrap on another episode of HVAC Success Secrets Revealed. Before you go, two quick things. First off, join our Facebook group, facebook.com/groups/hvacrevealed.
¶ What is one question you wish people would ask you more but don't?
The other thing, if you took one tiny bit of information outta this show, no matter how big, no matter how small, all we ask is for you to introduce this to one person in your contacts list. That's it. That's all one person, so they too can unleash the ultimate HVAC business. Until next time, cheers.